Fresh from Brooklyn is an attempt to be more mindful about where my food comes from for a multitude of reasons, including better health and a cleaner environment. I’ll document my own kitchen adventures including: elevating the status of the salad, eating more ethically, and experiments in food preservation. I welcome suggestions and questions (although I may not have answers!)

After almost 20 years of eating a strictly vegetarian diet, I started to incorporate small amounts of meat into my diet in early 2011. This was shocking news to certain family members and friends. Some equated this process to coming out of the closet…and one friend even commented that this was more surprising to her than when her brother told her he was gay. Some happy carnivores gloated when I told them, as if I was admitting defeat after all their years of telling me what I was missing out on. Not exactly.

After almost two decades, I did not suddenly wake up one day and decide that I want to torture animals and then eat them just because they are tasty.  I am still firmly opposed to factory farming and all its inherent cruelty. In fact, if the happy carnivores thought they could now go out to dinner with me and I would not ask the waiter embarrassing questions (“Is that soup made with chicken stock?”) they are mistaken. I have simply replaced my questions with even more obscure ones (“Can you tell me where these chickens lived? Were they happy?”)

So, in this blog about salads, I will sometimes include meat as an ingredient. I will also include where the meat came from, and I encourage any information you have about specific farms who treat their animals with the respect living things deserve.