'You're one of those?'

"This has kind of a weird texture to it, huh?" Dad and I were having dinner at the lake on Friday, eating leftovers from Mom's birthday dinner at some fancy Italian restaurant the night before.

"Yeah," he replied. "It's veal and eggplant Parmesan."

I stopped forking food into my mouth and gave him a blank stare. I thought it was pasta with meatballs.

"What? You fed me veal?"

"Yeah, what's wrong with that?"

"Dad, I don't eat veal."

"Why not? What are you, one of those?" He asked incredulously.

"No, I eat meat, but I don't eat veal," I retorted.

"Well you do now, what do you think?"

I went on to say I couldn't believe he gave me veal, and thanks a lot for telling me BEFORE I ate it, to which he replied with something along the lines of he wasn't holding a gun to my head and I didn't have to eat it.

The next day, Saturday, I went to a birthday party that featured a large seafood spread, including lobsters and steamers. I'm not opposed to eating lobster (or any other kind of seafood) but I don't feel the need to see my food alive and kicking before I eat it. The same goes for any kind of meat products. If I can look into its eyes I can't proceed to eat it, that's just how it is with me.

A few years ago, I went to a farm in Chichester, N.H. with a friend of mine a few days before a scheduled pig roast. There, I encountered a large pen filled with a litter of pigs just like Wilbur from Charlotte's Web. They were so cute, I gushed to Chris on the ride home. Two days later, when we returned to that tiny hamlet in New Hampshire for the roast, there was Wilbur, on the spit. I couldn't bring myself to eat him.

When Dad inquired as to why I wouldn't eat veal when I'd eat steak, I quickly responded with: "There's no reason to birth a cow to immediately kill it, that's just mean."

His response? "They don't kill it that soon, you know."

Oh wow, really? They give it a day or two to enjoy life in a cramped pen before butchering it? Isn't that nice? Wow...thanks for that.

The only reason I'm not a full-fledged vegetarian is that I'm not personally bludgeoning the cows to death in order to eat them. I'm usually not even the one cooking, so I really don't have to think too much about it. I do feel enormous guilt for being a carnivore whenever I encounter a chicken, however. One of my ex-boyfriends had a chicken for a period of time and I couldn't bring myself to eat any kind of poultry the entire time I knew her...the chicken, that is.

In order to suppress the guilt, I have made the argument that by the time these animals arrive at the supermarket, they're already dead and if I don't eat them, they'll have died in vain. We can't have that now, can we? Right, so that's my logic.

In retrospect, I vaguely remember telling my father I'll eat anything as long as I don't know what it is that I'm eating. I guess he took my words to heart. Next time I schedule a dinner date with Dad, I'm going to have to approve the menu in advance.