Dear Tamar:
I became a pescatarian (primarily vegetarian, but I’d happily eat fish when it was the only option available) in 2017, but started reintroducing meat into my diet mid-2025. When I was a vegetarian I never felt like a picky eater. I would try anything and everything, so long as it just didn’t contain meat.
Well, now I eat meat, but only meat I buy from a local butcher, and only when I’m in the mood for it. Also, for whatever reason, I cannot stand chicken (eggs are okay).
Beforehand, all my friends and family were super accommodating to my diet, but now that I’m no longer “vegetarian,” the accommodations have become scarce. My problem is that I’m not always in the mood to eat meat, (especially chicken, which seems to be the only meat my in-laws eat!), but I love sharing meals with friends and family. Sometimes I’m happy to eat whatever is served, but often I’m just the picky eater, picking meat off of a friend’s homemade pizza, eating half of a meal then suddenly getting the “ick,” etc.
What do I do?!
Dear Recovering Vegetarian,
Do you know how I met my husband? It was a summer day in 2011(?). I had plans to toss a frisbee with a friend, Quinn, in Prospect Park. He arrived with a colleague in tow. The first thing I noticed about the colleague—Pete—was that he was very handsome. The second was that he had a prosthetic leg.
We fanned out into the park, and I made two further observations: Peter was great at frisbee, and we seemed to share a sense of humor. Then, obviating further deductions, Pete shouted that the lock on his prosthetic leg was broken, and instructed Quinn to “go long.” Quinn obeyed, sprinting half the length of the field before Pete kicked his prosthesis off, and Quinn, with the grace of a land-borne sea lion, caught it, shouted, and did a touchdown celebration.
And I, looking on, fell irrevocably in love. I couldn’t have articulated it then, but I think I felt that if this handsome, one-legged, funny athlete dealt with a broken prosthesis by sending a friend running down a field and kicking it to him, he would likely deal with the rest of life’s vicissitudes with similar humor and equanimity. I’d been offered a rare opportunity to observe Pete dealing with adversity. And I loved what I observed.
I’ve since seen Pete deal with a debilitating mold allergy by sleeping on a pool lounge outside a rental house—while everyone else slumbered comfortably inside—and with an undiagnosed stomach problem by eating nothing but sweet potatoes. (This diet has broadened to include anything except wheat.) The lock on his prosthetic leg continues to periodically break. What I observed in Prospect Park holds: he remains adamantly opposed to suffering from any of it. He allows annoyance—at the mold allergy, and the wheat intolerance. He allows—even invites—ridiculousness. He’s invented bizarre meals of canned sardines, potato chips, and Indian chana snack mixes. But he will not entertain the idea that his situation is lacking, or that life would be better if the world would compensate him, or adjust in some way.
As you’ve probably gleaned by now, my first piece of advice is for you to follow in Pete’s footsteps—to “share meals with friends and family” without expecting those meals to provide everything you need. Eat something at home before going out, or seize the opportunity of a meal at a meaty restaurant to order something fun and silly—like a salad and an ice cream sunday. I don’t see a problem with removing the meat from homemade pizza, as long as you do it without making it the focus of attention. I think it’s fine to make adjustments to what you’re served, provided that you do it with humor and grace. It’s also fine to bring a bag of potato chips and explain to your hosts that you have temporarily developed the palate of a nine-year old, and will, accordingly, eat a meal of chips while enjoying the conversation.
I have advice beyond the above euphemistic version of “suck it up.” There is no certifying board for dietary preference—not for vegetarianism and not for omnivorism. If you’re not enjoying the experience of being identified as someone who prefers meat if it’s available, change how you identify yourself. You can sample meat dishes that appeal, but won’t feel pressured to eat food you don’t want. I have two “vegetarian” friends who occasionally eat meat at my house because they trust my sourcing. Choose a label that sets you up for the happiest eating.
Dear cook, at the heart of this question is the old chestnut about to seem and to be. You can act like Pete, and seem adaptable to whatever dietary circumstances you confront. Or you can be like Pete, unbothered by dishes you don’t find appetizing, trusting that you’ll find something you like at the table,] or fill up on dessert. Or, you can seem a vegetarian, and bend that identity when a ribeye beckons. Whichever path you choose, it seems to me that the only recovery necessary is from expectations, which are more in the way than any unwanted pizza topping.
My comment relates not to the meaty question, but to your lovely story about meeting your husband, which reminds me of my own...
It was also 2011, and I was at a tailgate (the only one I've ever been too, since they don't exist in Europe). A friend introduced me to Mike, and my first impression was that he was gorgeous. My second was that his right hand had only three digits, and his left forearm was half missing. But far from hiding his hands in pockets or arms by his sides, there he was holding court to a bunch of people, wildly gesticulating with his funny looking hands.
Reader, I married him.
Gosh, may we all be more like Pete.