Nonetheless, we signed up for a vegan cooking class through our new yoga studio. Last week’s post-yoga class vegan brownie morsels were too good not to throw down $50 and see what the fuss was all about.

We learned a lot today. Vegans love to make the cooking experience sensual. Our instructor kicked off the class shimmying to some cheesy violin music, encouraging us to imagine eggplants, avocados, and pears for they not only look like the cervix and womb of the female but apparently also target the function and health of the female reproductive organs. Steve was not the only male in the class. There were three others. So our instructor made sure not to leave them out. She reminded us that bananas, cucumbers, and zucchini target the size and strength of the male sexual organ and that peanuts are the original Viagra. In fact, peanuts were actually banned by the church in the middle ages for their profound effect on the libido.

We also learned that in some cooking classes you don’t cook. Or leave with recipes. At least more than a couple of them. While we showed up for the brownie recipe and spent quite a bit of time chowing down on some AMAZING sweet potato chilli, we only learned how to make capellini with rosemary and vegan spaghetti sauce. Fortunately, the participants in our vegan cooking class sans the cooking asked heaps of questions about the amazing tastes they were encountering, helping us to figure out many of the ingredients in the mystery dishes. Like our instructor, you’ll have to pay for us to reveal what we surmised (or just leave us a nice comment and we can work something out). We did, however, walk away recognizing we want to incorporate the following ingredients into more of our meals-

1. Nutritional yeast
2. Smoked paprika
3. Strawberry Creek Vinegar (If you are in Vegas, you can pick it up at Whole Foods)
4. Vegan Wine (BEWARE of the Red-40 and Yellow-5 dyes in wines and in an assortment of other products. We make sure Plato has animal byproduct free food, but we haven’t been extending the same courtesy to ourselves. Eeks!)
5. Avocados (Our instructor said that food allergies and counting calories are self-imposed limitations to enjoying our food). So apparently Lex just believes she’s going to upchuck when she eats them and therefore she does.

We drive a Prius. We recycle. But we need to be more vigilant about the social, economic, and environmental impact of our eating. We look forward to finding many of our new ingredients at our favorite local supermarket, Sunflower, rocking out while we cook, and sharing many future meals with friends and family.

We made it to Las Vegas safely after just a few minor setbacks while on the road. Steve got gnawed on by 150 fire ants. And a fly by bat attack, a lost duel with a carport, and a motel power outage followed.

Fortunately, our first two weeks unfold with minimal excitement. This is all a good thing. We hook-up with some old friends. Alexia treks up to her old Pacific Northwest stomping grounds for a keynote. And Plato, our cat, who has been baptized Cheetoh by his cousin Patience, a human, is adjusting well to his new windowsill.

Alexia had been eager to find a quintessentially Vegas restaurant- something a little bit earthy, a little bit retro, and a lotta bit sinful. So “Lead Pelvet” Cafe, a locally owned, inexpensive, organic sandwich and salad shop that also boasted about a one-of-a-kind “lead pelvet” cake seemed like a sure bet. At least to Alexia. Steve defines quintessential Vegas as ElvismeetsLiberacemeetsTupac. So he was skeptical from the start, but willing to show up and give it a try.

When we walked in, nothing seemed rotten in Denmark, nay, on West Sahara. The owner showed us to our seats, took interest in our relocation story, and said, “I wanted to give people with a healthy lifestyle a choice. They could go to the gym,” he pointed across the street to a 24-Hour Fitness. “Then they could go home and cook at the end of a long day or they could come to a place where they could trust that they were receiving fresh, organic food.” Cheesy, yes? But in the moment, strangely endearing.

So we ordered.

Two other people ordered. A third person ordered. Some dancers came in. Another couple ordered. The dancers finally ordered. Another couple ordered. And we wait……………and wait…………and wait………….. While we get a kick out of pronouncing the dozen or so ways to say “love” that are printed on the table, we soon run out of languages to play with just around the same time we notice forty-five minutes have passed, and everyone in the restaurant sans the last couple is eating.

When our dinners finally come, did we mention they are both sandwich wraps, the owner makes no apology. He offers no explanation of the delay and sits down and launches into a conversation with one of the regulars.

Even though the food is pretty darn good, sans the chips that taste frighteningly too much like Pringles, the meal continues to go downhill. Two people have their dishes cleared. The third person has his dishes cleared. The dancers have their dishes cleared. Even the couple who got served after us has had their dishes cleared. And again, we wait……..

Not too surprisingly, neither the owner nor his staff ever come over to give us our check despite some pretty intense attempts at eye contact with all of the above. We’ve had crappy service. There’s no denying it. Forget dessert. We just want to cruise over to CVS, pick up a six-pack of Hawaiian Sun (and a replacement eyebrow brush), and call it a night.

Steve walks over to the owner, asks him for the check, and accompanies him to the register where he does the thing he’s never done before. He leaves a $2 tip on a $23 bill. Less than 10% for you kids who struggle with math. (You know who you are.) But instead of having the desired effect of embarrassing the owner, he actually calls out after us, “Thank you so much. Come back soon,” the slight leaves us feeling like we have egg on our respective faces.

Regardless of whether you define tip as “To Insure Prompt Service” or “To Insure Proper Service,” “Lead Pelvet” failed. So why do we feel like we did something wrong? When we got in the car, Steve suggested we return the next day to sample the supposedly spectacular “lead pelvet” cake. Alexia was horrified. “If you don’t tip, you CAN’T come back. Period.” Steve ultimately agreed.

But are we crazy? Should you tip 15-20% no matter what? Should a proper tip be a universal right like water? Shelter? Health care? Listening to your President give a motivational speech? Is tipping political? And if so, what do our actions say about our politics? Kindly, share your musings.

On Saturday, we spent a good part of the early evening on the G-train, trying to get to our friends’ Nancy and Franz’s roofdeck for a bbq. As we went one way on the G, then the other, somehow not getting to Smith/9th Street, we found ourselves musing on who we would eat and why.

We first considered our hostess Nancy. She’s a vegetarian, enjoys tropical rum drinks. Could be a nice mix.

Then we thought about our friend Jon. He only cooks certified humane meat, belongs to a CSA. But after remembering the deep-fried pork belly and stew he ate in front of Lex at Elvie’s Turo-Turo the week before, she thought the better of that.

Then, we decided we really shouldn’t eat anyone in the NY or NJ area given all of the environmental toxins they consume. We thought about some of Steve’s family back in Hawaii, and then remembered their high rates of heart disease and stroke and nixed that.

While we ultimately settled on Lex’s old middle school friend Katie, she and her husband run an organic farm and CSA in Oregon (this is before we learned she’s pregnant!), it made us think a lot about the questions we ask (and sometimes don’t ask) about what we eat and how we eat it.

So here’s our question for you. If you had to eat someone, who would it be? Would you ask the same questions you normally ask when choosing your food? Or would you approach the challenge differently? Why? We hope you’ll take our quiz organized around some different archetypes of food. And if you’ve got another category to add to the list, please leave a comment and let us know.

2. Be heteronormative.

3. Kvetch about the other (w/o permission and a lesson to be learned!)

4. Plug our really cool band.

5.  Diss other couples…. such as…. nah, we said we wouldn’t do it.

6. Promote anyone or anything unless it has a positive social, economic, and environmental impact.

7. Reveal anything we wouldn’t want our future children to read. No talk about piercings, fantasies, or deviant behavior here. Uh-uh. Not going to do it.

8. Wax on about our love for one another. We’ve got our respective journals for that.

9. Curse. It’s uncreative, not cathartic.