Mmm...beef

Having lived in the San Francisco a good two-thirds of my life, I've known the gamut of vegetarians, from those who claim to eat fish "every once in a while" to militant vegans. Yes, I have received an earful from the latter group many times. In the middle of one of my "information sessions" from one of my militant friends, I argued that I would go vegetarian if sausage didn't taste so darn good. Lifestyle jokes aside, I admittedly do like my share of meat but, in Japan, once considered going veg just because meat was so damn expensive. You see, there was the US beef embargo which, for several years, gave us nipponsters Aussie and Kiwi beef as the only relatively inexpensive alternative. Chicken, pork, and fish, too, were all kind of pricey so I made by on lots of tofu, vegetables, and rice for a good chunk of 2003.

Now back home in San Francisco, I can generally eat US beef to my heart's (ironic, no?) content. Just today, I was sitting around thinking that I'd like to snack on some beef jerky so I decided to search the interwebs and see what I could find and I ended up with the snappily named beefjerky.com who have their product shot into space--for good reasons nonetheless! They also have this sort of endearingly kitschy site that reminds me of where web design was at about a decade ago so I decided to put part (OK, half) of my refund check toward a pound of beef jerky. That's right, a whole pound! Since I do enough urban hiking, I figure I can add a little dried cow flesh to my rations. Stay tuned and I'll let you all know how it is when it comes later this week.