The Reluctant Vegan, day 4

This day was a tricky one: I'm having a friend over for lunch.  I am fine with making exceptions for going out to lunch, but this friend comes weekly, and we eat leftovers from the night before for lunch.  I love planning meals for the night before her visit that will create yummy leftovers - it's a fun challenge.  And I don't want to be a poor hostess and eat something different than my guest.  So I wanted to plan a meal for last night's dinner that would make for vegan leftovers today.  Thus, the pumpkin pancakes.  Instead of the sausage I bought vegan sausages at the fancy grocery store yesterday.

Lunch was good except that the soy sausages were...in a word...gross.  So gross that my friend and I dumped them into the compost bin with relish.  We agreed that if we truly couldn't eat any meat, and hadn't for a while, maybe they'd be good, but since we're still basically meat-eaters, there was no comparison.  Maybe there isn't supposed to be.  Either way, pass.

I also make cookies most of the time when my friend is here, so I attempted vegan cookies.  They were actually very good except that the carob tasted more unlike chocolate than ever before.  Maybe the eggs and butter mask its tepid flavor when I use it elsewhere.  Note to self: hunt for dairy-free chocolate.  Like shangri-la, I believe it exists but eludes me.

This brings up all kinds of issues of being a good host or friend by day, while sticking to a new regime.  Food is such a social, central part of our lives.  How do you walk this line?