Those of you who have been following this blog (thank you, by the way, you’re very much appreciated) may have noticed that I haven’t added any new food drawings for, well, pretty much the whole summer. So, where I have been channeling my creative energy, you ask? Rest assured, I haven’t started making balsa wood birdhouses or taken up miming or anything, I spent pretty much all summer on the very enjoyable Mask Task.

The Mask Task was assigned to me and my two roommates/sisters The Sistaster and the L’il Sis by our older sister, let’s call her Miss Mousey. Miss Mousey got married last weekend to my new brother-in-law, Froggie. They decided to get married to the lovely little ditty “Froggie Went A Courtin’ ” (check out the Bob Dylan lyrics and music here) and tasked us Brooklyn sisters with creating a dozen (that’s 10 + 2, people) papier-mâché masks for their young friends to walk down the aisle in. I suppose this story is better illustrated than written, so behold below the cutest children ever wearing the strangest wedding attire ever:

^{Froggie
Miss Mousey
Uncle Rat
Flyin’ Moth
Juney Bug
Bumbley Bee
Broken Black Flea
Mrs. Cow
Little Black Tick
Big Black Snake
Old Grey Cat
Lily White Duck}So what does this have to do with food? Vegetarianism? Nothing. Everything. Being surrounded by family and the people you love, celebrating life and family cycles, honoring love and vows - what’s a wedding if not a corporeal event to commemorate some of life’s finest ideals? I didn’t plan on starting my 3rd official month of vanesscipes by getting all philosophical on you, but how better to honor your own corpus than by taking the time to create, enjoy, and appreciate every morsel of food that enters your body? Bonus points if it’s fresh, healthy, vegetarian, and delicious. I’ll spare you the symbolism of the wedding feast and the toast to the happy couple (you know… fertility, abundance, renewal… yada yada), but seriously, it’s not a special occasion unless you’re scarfing something yummy and washing it down with something yummier. And, let’s not forget everyone’s favorite part of the celebration: mmmm, cake!

I don’t know if anyone else caught this article in the NY Times today, but being a Chicagoan for most of my life and a healthy-eating vegetarian non-Chicagoan for the last few years, it caught my eye.

Basically, Chicago’s City Council is pushing for a ban on restaurants using oil that contains trans fats. Sound great, right? But this is Chicago we’re talking about… home of deep dish pizza and the Chicago-style hot dog. In fact, the article points out that Men’s Fitness magazine named Chicago as the fattest city in the nation. And let me tell you they are proud, PROUD, to let their heinies hang out of their Bear’s zubaz pants.

On the menu at Taste of Chicago, a week-long food-sun-and-music fest in Chicago’s beautiful Grant park:

“catfish beignets, curly fries smothered in cheese, pirogies with sour cream, beer-battered artichoke hearts, and fried dough buried in berry sauce and whipped cream.”

Now, I’m as anti-trans-fats as the next but I’m just not sure banning it from restaurants is the first step. I think those beer-battered artichokes sound pretty awesome - but, because I know better I’d shallow-fry them in olive oil. Everyone needs to make his own educated choices about living more healthily and banning trans fat oils in restaurants is just eliminating a choice, not educating folks how to make healthier choices. For the City Council to prohibit restaurants from using trans fat oils is sorta like your mom telling you that you gotta stop eating glue – you shouldn’t be eating it, but you’re going to stop because it’s totally disgusting, not because your mom told you so. In other words, I’m looking forward to the day when the public forces restaurants to stop using trans fats oils because they’re demanding better, healthier meals, not because they have no choice.
I want my olive-oil-fried-artichokes!
…

In a similar vein/organ, Chicago aldermen voted in April to ban restaurants from selling foie gras. Most people don’t even know what foie gras is, let alone why they shouldn’t eat it. Regardless of one’s sensitivities to the ethical treatment of barnyard animals, I think quite a few people would think twice if they knew they were eating ground-up duck’s liver. I mean, duck’s liver? Eww, gross.