Hug a Vegetarian Day

I hug you all vegetarians and vegans!!!!! I hugged Perry! Vegan hugging a lovable vegetarian.

Today I'm alone because Perry is in the studio all day producing a band so I give myself to some slurpzzz-recipes, since today is a special day for two reasons: hug a veg* day and my parents' 30th Wedding Anniversary... best wishes to you! Thank you for marrying and 'making me' and my brother! ah ah!!!!! So I'm preparing a double choc-vanilla cake and tofu teriyaki w/rice. But first of all, my first rule is: never cook when you're hungry - so I prepare a toast with hummus..

Now I can start:

Veggolato mix Sponge Cake.. why choosing when you can have both?

Tofu Teriyaki w/rice with addition of Taehee's super-spicy sauce.. delicious! (Tetsuro told me how to do it).

Something that Tetsuro told me is that it isn't true that in Japan people eat mainly meat and fish. In fact this happens maybe in Tokyo but in the small towns and villages ('the true Japan', as he said) people eat mainly vegetables.. this made me feel very good because I have in mind to study for an internship or something like that in Japan, in the future.. maybe Perry and I will go there together, who knows. It'd be wonderful..

Leaving the Marine Ecology Center..

It's been a very busy week, first we had a music festival here and some friends came to visit us. One of these was Taehee, it's been nice to go with her and Perry to see the concerts. This girl in the picture with me is Sophie and we met in Portugal two years ago when I was studying there. So she dropped a couple of lines telling me she was going to visit her boyfriend who's now in Holland so she came to visit me one day! It's been nice to see her again.. it's been a long time since the last time.. at San Joao Party in Lisbon..

Well, and today it has been my last day at the Ecology center, now I need to do the analysis of the data at home. Also today Tetsuro, a guy working at the center, prepared vegan Japanese food for me, some rice with veggie, very good and a delicious miso soup. It was really sweet and I hope we'll keep in touch and eventually meet up anytime soon! Taehee gave me two bottles of korean sauce.. one spicy and the other not to complete my vegan dishes! :-) She also wrote very nice things and I believe I've found a friend in her.

No Use For Vivisection

Oh yeah.. late 2006 and we're still talking about vivisection.. Today I've found this post by Beppe Grillo an Italian stand-up comedian.. he's really great.. During his shows he always talks about the messed up things in this world.. so going to his show is better than watching the news..
he wrote about vivisection too, if you want to take a look at his blog (in English): http://www.beppegrillo.it/eng/

I copied and pasted his post:

Vivisection is No Use


I admit that when I think of the vivisection of animals I am ashamed of the human specie and I feel solidarity with agent Smith of Matrix when he says that humans are not mammals but viruses. I would like to abolish animal vivisection by law. The objection offered is that “vivisection is useful, better them than us.” I would like to see if someone were to vivisection your cat or your dog how you would react to these words. Anyway, vivisection is not useful and it’s not said by a comic but by the journal Nature, a reference point for the scientific world, which on 10/11/2005 published an article with the declarations of some scientists:“ - Tests for toxicity that we have used for decades are simply bad science. Today we have the opportunity to start from zero and to develop tests based on evident proofs that give us a real opportunity for toxicology to at last become a respectable science.- The bad quality of most of the tests on animals has been recognised. These have never undergone the rigours of validation today imposed on alternative methods “in vitro”. Most of the tests on animals over-estimate or under-estimate the toxicity, or simply are not capable of providing precise data about toxicity in relation to humans. (75% of tests on animals are done for toxicology tests – editor’s note)- Embryo toxicology tests done on animals cannot be trusted to be extended to humans: when we discover that cortisone is toxic for the embryos of all the species tested except for humans, what should we do?"

The REACH proposal is being discussed in Brussels. It’s concerned with the evaluation and regulation of chemicals sent into the environment. It has been established that these have caused a million premature deaths in the EU (cancer, degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis).I have decided to support the Scientific Campaign group Equivita (previously called Comitato Scientifico Antivivisezionista), which is asking for a clause to be included in the REACH proposal forbidding the use of experimentation on animals to evaluate the toxicity of substances.Experimentation on animals allows industries to get whatever result they like (by changing the species of animal used) and to avoid civil responsibility by maintaining that the animal model does not allow for “ the certainty of the test”.There are predictive investigation methods for humans such as toxicgenomics, already in the text of the REACH proposal as a possible choice. Toxicgenomics studies the reaction of the genome of the human cell with results 100 times faster and more cost-effective.

I’m ending this long post with a thought from Albert Einstein: “Vivisection. Nothing is of such high importance as to justify such unethical methods”

PS In Lugano, I met Hans Ruesch, a really young 90-year-old founder of the antivivisection movement and author of the book: “Imperatrice Nuda” (Naked Empress or the Great Medical Fraud). I send him affectionate greetings from this Blog.
Posted by Beppe Grillo

Four Years Together..

Today Perry and I celebrate our 4th anniversary! We had a nice lunch in a Cafè and walked in the city. Now we're going to have a dinner at Tortillas -- the Mexican restaurant..

I'm so happy! I love him so much! *blink*

Update..

the food and the night were wonderful!

Gaia tagged me!

Hey Gaia.. I didn't forget that a couple of weeks ago you tagged me.. but with the project and the holidays I was really too busy to think about something good! :)

So: "create a list of top picks for things you've eaten and think that everyone should eat at least once before they die."

• Baked Ziti
• Vegan Mexican Zucchini
• Veggolato - Chocolate cake from heaven
• Dahl Soups
• Italian Ice-Cream (vegan of course!)
• Indian Curry with Tofu and veggie
• focaccia + farinata (directly from the area where I grew up)
• Salads (many of them..) and RAW RAW RAW FOOD!!
• Felafel w/hummus on pita bread
• all kind of vegan sweets!! So we better start trying everything now!! Included Home-made ''Bounty" -- there's no reason to add milk!!!!

(recipes + pictures soon on my blog!)

Did I write too many things??!

Back in Town

So--I'm back in town! And also back to my blog. I didn't miss Holland during my stay in Italy.. I missed a bit internet the first day because I'm addicted to it but I'm working on it.I've been visiting my family and spent some time on the beach trying to get a bit of a tan even if summer is almost gone :-(..

I took Perry to Portovenere and Cinque Terre (Five Lands) cuz I never did before and we had great time! There's not a lot to tell about holidays especially when you spend all the time on the beach and eating! yeah!! :-)

I also could keep my sweet lovely Susie in my arms and pet her. I cannot get why she dislikes Perry; my mom says that she must be jealous of him.. haha.. I don't know, but she's so sweet!

Ok I'm gonna post some pictures from my holidays and I'm gonna start reading your blogs!! I wanna see how you're doing!

On a holiday..

Hi everyone! SORRY SORRY!!!! Just a short note to let you know that I'm on vacation and I'll be for about 7 more days so I won't post anything until I come back home. Then, I'll post the pictures I've made!I hope you're all doing great and once back I'll check your blogs to see what you've been up to!I'm very happy to be finally with my sweetheart Susie, my family and I love going to the beach with Perry! In September the weather is always so nice, it's not too hot and on the beach it's very relaxing..
See you along the sea..

Veg* Quiz

You scored as vegan vixen.

You're a vegan vixen! You use your good looks and body to encourage people to go veg. You're probably a little perky and a little adventurous. You may have tofu-wrestled, worn a lettuce bra, or are about to do one of the two! If you're a guy, consider yourself a virile vegan (vixen generally refers to women...). Though you may have feminist beliefs, it's fine to use sexual attraction to get people to stop eating animals. More on www.goveg.com


What type of vegetarian are you?

Steve Irwin

2/22/1962-9/4/2006

News report-BRISBANE, Australia - Steve Irwin, the hugely popular Australian television personality and environmentalist known as the Crocodile Hunter, was killed Monday by a stingray during a diving expedition, police said. He was 44.Irwin was filming an underwater documentary on the Great Barrier Reef in northeastern Queensland state when the accident occurred, Sydneys The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported on its Web site.The Australian Broadcasting Corp. said Irwin was diving near Low Isles Reef near the resort town of Port Douglas, about 1,260 miles north of the state capital of Brisbane.

***

Steve has always been a model for me, he loved the animals so deeply and he showed such a commitment to the conservation of every of them, made everyone love the animals people usually fear.. He is a legend.. Conservationism and the entire world lost someone so important..

We'll all miss you Croc-Hunter...

***

Here some of his famous quotes:

_ "Crikey!" — his catch phrase, exclaimed repeatedly during his television show whenever something interesting happens.
_ "I get called an adrenaline junkie every other minute, and I'm just fine with that."
_ "I have no fear of losing my life — if I have to save a koala or a crocodile or a kangaroo or a snake, mate, I will save it."
_ "I've worked with more dangerous snakes than anyone in the world and I've never been bitten. It's a gift."
_ "I bled a lot. I got hit across the face. We couldn't film for seven days. I got hit, whacked, underwater, across the face. I finished the shot, got into the boat and blood started coming out." — on one particularly close shave.
_ "Crikey, mate. You're far safer dealing with crocodiles and western diamondback rattlesnakes than the executives and the producers and all those sharks in the big MGM building." — comparing dealing with deadly animals with show business.
_ "Crocodiles. I've been catching them since I was nine. No problem."

Goodbye Yerseke...

Soon I'll be finished with my project at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology and I'll go back to Italy for awhile.. When I drive my bike from the station to the center I always see these beautiful lamas walking around in the field and I've decided to make some pictures coz they're beyond beautiful. Their big funny eyes and the way they eat the grass.. I could watch them for hours! Even if the weather was pretty bad in the last month and this made me a bit depressed, passing by them made me smile.. they're just too cute to be true!! :) Look how the stare at me like they would tell me: 'what do you want?' Or they were just posing.. ahah.. I love them!

Next week I'll go back to Italy on a holiday with Perry.. I can't wait to see my family, my sweet Susie!!! And going to the beach, staying in the sun and enhancing my underwater photography skills! :)