[HEATHER'S TAKE ON THE VEGAN EXPERIENCE]

All sweaty, eyes darting all over the menu. Reading and re-reading. Tofu? Bean burger? Vegan cheese? The menu made me realize just how few vegetables we really eat. And just how many animal products are in EVERYTHING. Josh’s expression was quite pained. I could feel the anger he was sending my way with the sparse eye contact, but really, it wasn’t my fault. I was uncomfortable, too. I can do vegetarian. I don’t always eat loads of meat, anyway. But when all forms of meat are missing, I tend to load up on the cheese and cream. My eyes searched intently for “grilled cheese” or “alfredo.” Not this time.

Instead, it was pine nuts and pesto sauce, olives, broccoli and spinach on a bed of spaghetti with a quarter teaspoon of marinara sauce. This was called pasta primavera. The big Coca-Cola sign on the fountain machine teased us cruelly, but there were no Coke brands to be had. Only vegetarian soda and caffeine free teas. Oh, and filtered water.

The babies (friends of ours) ate apples with peanut butter that resembled a slightly hardened cement mixture. They also had peas and some kind of sweet potato mash. To be honest, their food looked better than ours.

Then there was the vegan burger. When it came out, I thought Josh might yack it up on the first bite. The thing actually looked like a movie prop, or at best, one of those fake hamburgers you play with as a kid. The ones with no definition – just an oblong brown shape with opaque red and yellow squirted on it. He took a deep breath, bit into it and chewed. I had to look away.

A few bites later, the burger was abandoned for the orange that came with it. Someone please tell me who has an orange as a side for a burger? But let me tell you, he ate that entire orange to the rind. I’ve never seen anything like it.

To finish off the experience, we topped everything off with a vegan brownie. I have no idea how in the world you can make an awesome brownie without milk or eggs, but those things were heavenly. Not heavenly enough, however, to prevent hours of pesto-broccoli-marinara burps. Yick.

[JOSH'S TAKE ON THE VEGAN EXPERIENCE]

Vegans can bite me.