I pretty much agree with you Dan on the things I missed in the 11 months I flirted with vegetarianism for. I wish I had the willpower to be full time veggie but since most of the time I am cooking for a veggie, I don’t eat that much meat anyway.

I have spent the last 10 years with someone who doesn’t eat meat OR cheese, now that makes life difficult! Almost all veggie alternatives seem to be cheese based when you eat out and a lot seem to forget that parmesan is rarely vegetarian. For a long time Lee wouldn’t eat egg either (in it’s eggy form that is) so he has spent a lot of time eating carrots and cake and carrot cake!

Sian – I found vegetarian food quite difficult to come by in Japan. I went with Lee who won’t eat meat or cheese but is happy with fish/meat stocks, another friend who eats fish but not meat or gelatin and another friend who won’t eat any meat or fish/meat stocks or gelatin etc. Finding places that cater for ‘proper’ vegetarians was a nightmare! One ryokan we looked at stopping in, the owner point blank refused to cater for vegetarians because he felt it was offensive to his cooking not to include meat or fish! Our other two friends also have nut allergies…

IMO quorn fish fingers aren’t that nice, stick with the quorn chicken if I were you. I hate Linda McCartney veggie food, tastes like cardboard.