Posts by Isabel Hitchings
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Feed: A scientist researches restaurants, in reply to Gareth,
My partner took me to Roots for my birthday last year and it was wonderful. They were able to vegetarianise their degustation menu for us and every one of the eight courses was a revelation.
I tend to avoid high-end restaurants as I find most do vegetarian food quite poorly and I've several times left feeling quite unsatisfied due to the, apparently quite commonly held, belief that a microscopically thin slice of cheese sandwiched between grilled vegetables counts as a substantial meal.
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Up Front: Dropping the A-Bomb, in reply to Danielle,
If you're a bad person then I am too. It's not that I would value such a child less as that, at a given time, I might not have the resources care for the child in the way it needs.
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I often find it helpful to draw a thick line between someone's right to choose and my obligation to like their choice. I may be uncomfortable with some reasons for choosing abortion but I'm even more uncomfortable with imposing my ideals onto another woman's choice about how she uses her body.
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I am lucky (and it truly is luck as much as anything else) not to have needed an abortion so far but I have supported several friends through deciding what to do with an unplanned pregnancy. I was horrified to discover that some doctors will outright lie to their patients , for example, telling them abortion is far more risky for them than carrying to term (because pregnancy complications, difficult births and post natal depression don't ever harm women obvs). I really hope that if the law changes it spells an end to GPs being able to be gatekeepers.
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What is blowing my mind at the moment, is how many things I have not recognised as problematic because, at the time, I saw them as normal and unremarkable.
Like, as a teen, engaging in intense, romantic, hand-holding because that was the best way to stop my date touching where I didn't want him to and a verbal "no" would lead to belittling and persuasion.
Like, having agreed, in principle, that (PIV) sex might be a thing I wanted at some stage meaning that consent was, henceforth, assumed.
Like knowing that, when the skinhead in the cafe where I was waiting for a bus invited me out back for a fuck, the only safe refusal strategy was to invoke my large, possessive, boyfriend.
These things, and more, happened at a time when I would have cheerfully told you that, apart from that one intermediate school art teacher who liked to wind me up, I had never encountered sexism. I'm rather more aware these days but still rarely call anyone out as to do so often feels, socially if not physically, unsafe.
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The last time I regularly dined alone it was on a student's budget and I was rather more carnivorous than I am now. I seem to recall a lot of sausages.
My partner is allergic to eggs so that's what we eat any time he's not around - mostly either fried eggs and chips or a quiche.
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Sex drive is a thing. And sex between some people at some times can lead to reproduction. But I think it’s quite a leap to tie all sexual behaviour to a reproductive purpose.
Oh absolutely, we have sex for pleasure and social bonding purposes far more than for reproduction and we mostly choose our sexual behaviours based on anything but an increased chance of conception but that reproductive urge is in the mix..
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Welllll...but also the sudden horniness just before menstruation, when conception is impossible?
That I'm not so sure of. Bonus time?
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It's not so much that (female) humans are fertile all the time, as that the few days a month we are fertile are hidden such that it's often safest to treat every day as a fertile day. I find it interesting that many women find our libidos match up neatly with our fertility - As if nature was quite invested in getting us knocked up.
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I've just had the most intense memory/craving for the curry my Dad used to make when I was small and we were hippies. Hard boiled eggs and a mildish tomato and onion curry sauce atop a pile of brown rice.