Missed connection: Seeking burrito food cart from Portland in the '90s

Usually when I go get fast food in home city, I go down the street to Fred Meyer and get sushi (with brown rice, avocado, carrot, cucumber). I also get the tofu salad wraps with peanut sauce if they have made them (they have a dedicated sushi bar). That store has a delicious selection of organic and health-type foods. But sometimes my "fast food" includes black bean chips and vegetarian refried bean dip. Sometimes it entails a quinoa or pasta salad. So usually when I talk about eating fast food, that's what I go grab. I also used to go out for "fast food" lunch at work and get Wagners, a local bakery and cafe, which makes an amazing vegetarian sandwich with avocado on a whole grain roll. I had so many of those sandwiches!!

I just wanted to share a sample of what I consider most of the time to be my "fast food", because I consider any time I go to the store specifically to pick up a meal to be "fast food". I just went to New Seasons and got this for lunch and dinner. I also like the concept that the food revolution has brought about. When I began my vegetarian path in the '90s, I remember being viewed as an extremist by my parents just because I demanded that my parents buy free-range chicken if they wanted me to eat meat. That was a big thing back then, free-range chicken and gardenburgers. I still remember the pains I went through as a young teenager to get my parents to support my diet. They claimed it was too expensive to buy me turkey bacon and properly-raised chicken (hint: they were unwilling to buy their child good food and support her healthy and "alternative" habits, yet they were perfectly willing to take her shopping to buy new clothes or to drive an SUV around). Although I do admit that as a result of living on our massive hill (the road is impassable when it ices or snows so you really have to get home before anything serious happens), the SUV saved us numerous times. This is just one reason why I'm so different from my family. Just one of hundreds. :)

Here's my fast food of the day:

My Fast Food Dinner

Salad wraps with tofu, carrots, peanut sauce and;

Asian soba noodle salad with tofu, whole grain organic buckwheat, peanuts, pickled carrots, cabbage, parsley, peanut sauce

Fruit tart and;

Spicy roasted eggplant with tofu, red bell pepper, Spicy Sweet Thai Sauce(which I'm going to have with my own couscous)

My Fast Food Lunch

Orzo pasta with kalamata olives, oregano, arugula, lemon juice, parsley, red peppers, feta and;

Sushi with avocado and cucumber (no brown rice today, sadly!)

(I just finished enjoying this!)

When I'm forced to eat from a chain restaurant I choose Taco Bell and substitute beans for beef, but usually I get "fast food" at the grocery store so typically that's what I'm referring to when I go get something to eat. Haha! I just had a flashback to what I used to eat at Taco Bell as a kid (there was only 1 fast food restaurant where we lived in my hometown, and the next closest fast food chains was a 15-minute drive away). I remember always getting a "soft taco with no meat". Man, why couldn't I have thought of the bean substitution back in the '90s? I was probably a malnourished eater because living with my parents, I didn't have the option or the money to go buy the things I wanted. Another reason I wish I had different parents (yes, I know I reference this a lot, but it's a consistent theme of my childhood so I can't apologize for it -- we are dealt the cards we're dealt!). Soft taco with no meat. How boring and unfulfilling. I can remember doing that any time we made the drive to Taco Bell back as a teenager -- I wonder when I started my no-meat kick? I can remember being 13 and doing so, but perhaps earlier. I don't have a particular defining moment when I had an "on switch", so it's hard to identify a specific age and time frame. I may be able to find out my age from reading through my original (offline) journals. I know I was older than 10 and probably less than 13. Split the difference and round up and let's say I started my vegetarian path around 1995 (age 12). I think I started heading down my raw food path around 2005, and my vegan path became much stronger around 2010.

Unfortunately I've had more Taco Bell than usual this year (no more than a handful of times, but it's still too much for me to accept) due to moving in November 2012, January 2013, and again in September 2013, because moving typically makes it harder to cook. I still eat a lot of "good" fast food during the moving periods, but typically I do eat more Taco Bell. It's an identified trend that I've noticed. It's my comfort food because it never makes me sick. In many ways, it's easier to not eat fast food as a vegetarian/vegan because you pretty much can't eat at most chain restaurants. I try not to go to big chains like that when I can, but it happens.

Oh, and of course this is my dessert (I'm highly addicted to this, and apparently so is every cashier I've talked to so far -- one girl today told me she was going to try to make her own):

Speaking of all this, I had recently been thinking about high school and I remember our favorite food cart vendor that we would always visit for lunch. He made these HUGE burritos with an amazing taste. They were about 9" in length. I miss that cart so much. I wonder if I could track him down...I could visit all burrito carts and see if he's still around, but I wouldn't recognize him. Hmm. "Missed connection with burrito food cart from the '90s"? I could try it!