I'm vegan....ish ?

After seeing an Oprah episode about the studio going vegan for a week, I discovered a new term which I felt at home in! "Being veganish".

My last post here was about how I couldn't allow myself to be called a vegan, since I from time to time would have to be vegetarian. At home I live mainly vegan, but when on tour I need to be vegetarian from time to time and cannot live strictly vegan. I felt it was wrong to use a term I couldn't live up to, but now I have found a term I feel at home in, and can "defend".

Being veganish

My dinner today!

At the moment I am singing away from home for a month and lives in an hotel. I don't have any kitchen facilities so what I can make myself is limited. Another thing that is limited is the vegetarian alternatives in this little town. (If you eat out). Vegan is impossible, and feels rude to ask for. So I have ended up with making some food at home. It is also MUCH cheaper. At the moment is is just salads and bread and cereal-kind-of-food. I have a little fridge (it is BAD that hotels have the tendency to drop the fridges in their rooms now!)

What is good, is that the shop here have a pretty well stocked "gluten- dairy-free section". So I have rice milk for my cereal and some spreads for my bread. I usually go down to the dining room when breakfast is served, get some slices of bread and eat them with the spreads I have in my tiny fridge. 

But when I was on a tour of northern Norway earlier this year I changed hotel (city) every day. And I didn't have the time or possibility to get my vegan alternatives. And from time to time I had to eat some cheese on my bread. 

One "fun" story though was when I was in Hammerfest and ordered a quesedilla without meat. It went something like this:


Me: 
I would like a quesedilla without the meat. 

Waiter: 
No, that is not a meal. It wouldn't be quesedilla.

Me: 
I have made it at home several times. Just put more of the other stuff in there? Like onions, mushrooms and so on?

Waiter: (laughing) 
but that is not dinner.

(At this point another waiter says: "just let her get it")

Waiter: 
I will get the chef! (leaves)

(The chef arrives)

Chef: 
You want without meat? No (laughs) No, you need your protein!


(imagine my "you are kidding me" -face here....)


Ok, I was extremely surprised that the chef cared so much for my well-being that he had to come out from the kitchen to tell me to eat protein. I was close to thinking it was all a big joke. But no, this was serious. I ended up getting a meal, but not without "fighting" for it ;)

So this is one of the reasons I have to be veganish when on tour and other "strange" small places. It is hard enough to be vegetarian and I before I stopped eating meat I never noticed how Norwegians put meat in EVERYTHING! Several kinds of meat preferably. 

My gosh, I envy people in countries with whole foods, and awesome cities like Berlin. They seem to be vegan heaven compared to Norway!

Touring & trying to be Vegan

As it says in my presentation (right side), I am a singer, an Opera Singer to be precise. A lot of the time this means that I am touring or singing in productions at different opera houses around the world. 

(Below)
This is me. And this is how I felt when I was on my first tour after going vegan. As a totally new vegan with little experience and no help (besides internet after a while) it was pretty scary and "impossible" to be fully vegan in those 14 days I was away from home.

I'm hungry! Give me vegan food or I will sing a high C in your ear!

So, being a singer means that I am travelling a lot. I stay at many different hotels and have to find new restaurants close by the opera house (or hotel). This is much harder if you have decided to be vegan. Obviously. At least in countries where vegans are not so common, so I guess some have to be pioneers of sort, for restaurants to take notice. 

My first "vegan-tour" was in Northern Norway. My experience here was that it was really hard to even find places with much vegetarian dishes to choose from. Several place didn't have one single meal I could eat. I had to ask for some fries and a salad, which turned out to be extremely boring and everything I have heard (and feared) about being a vegan. 
In an Asian restaurant I got vegetarian sushi which was good, I also saw a vegetable wok (I don't know if it was vegan though). In my experience in Norway; the best way to make sure you at least get a vegetarian meal is by visiting an Indian restaurant. But then again, not all is vegan. 

I could have eaten vegan if I was only in my hotel room, but I couldn't have cooked anything. It was also limited in what kind of vegan products I could buy in the store (and it is very expensive in Norway). + Not very social. In an opera production you work with an ensemble and it is normal that we eat many meals together. It is not funny to be "the difficult one", and a bit embarrassing when the places we go to have nothing or very limited (and often repeated) dishes available. Or worse, being weird and not joining your colleagues for a meal at all, ever. I don't want to be that "crazy vegan". 

Vegan hotel breakfast is also really boring (at least the places I have been as a vegan till now). They often have alternatives for gluten and lactose intolerance, but not vegan. Yet. I eat lots of fruit, but when you are allergic to much of it, it kind of makes it even harder. 

At this point, this is the result =
I will continue being a vegan, but if I have no other possibilities than being vegetarian or starve, I would obviously eat things with some egg and milk. But only if there is no other way. I hope that I will be better and get experience in how to be fully vegan when on tour. Perhaps you could give me some advice? Have you been away from home in long period of times without kitchen? or do you know the secret password in restaurants to get awesome vegan food. Please share! ;)