There are many reasons I’ve decided to embark on this meat-endeavor, but one main one is that I love food and I want to be able to enjoy more of it.

This is not to say in any way that I feel I’ve lived a life of deprivation or feel, as people often ask me, that I am “missing out on meat” — I’ve never eaten meat, so I really don’t know what I’m missing, and on a day-to-day basis, there is more than enough choice in the fruit, vegetable, fish, and fowl categories that is delicious and nutrious. 

But as I’ve grown older and become more interested in food: both growing it (I have kept a garden in my backyard for 2 years now), cooking it (I received not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 cookbooks for gifts recently every one of which I am super psyched for), and eating out, I have found myself more open to the idea of occasionally meeting meat at the table.

Case in point: Today for the first time I tried (and failed) to get a reservation at Momofuku Ko, a 12-seat restaurant famous in New York City both for its food and its “baffling” online-only reservation system. I actually didn’t find it baffling — I kind of dig the egalitarian, first-click, first-serve method of getting in —  but it is true that when the available seats go up at 10 am each day, they are indeed gone in under a minute. This prix-fixe only, tiny restaurant is a place that makes no substitutions of any sort, but all who go there lavish praise upon it and the “wacky and wonderful blizzard” of food in a way rare even for the most-hyped restaurant in NYC.  I’ve wanted to try it since I first heard about it, but even the most cursory glance at their FAQ or menu makes it clear that those who do not eat meat should probably not bother.

So while I’ll say I haven’t felt I’ve missed out on meat in and of itself, I am very much excited to be able to eat at any damn restaurant I please this year without having to research online if there are acceptable menu options for me, your formerly meat-impaired “oh I’m not sure I can eat there, can we choose another place?” friend.