My Vegetarian Venezuelan: Days 7 to 9 - Being Vegetarian with my Chinese Family!

As I mentioned, my sister, dad, and I flew to Montreal, Canada for a Tam family reunion. I was trying to figure out how this vegetarian thing was going to work out with my meat eating family. Chinese food has such great meat and seafood dishes... Luckily, they were amazing and made it work!

Once I explained what my goal was, they were incredibly supportive. This was such a nice gesture because our family really appreciates good food, like REALLY appreciates it, like my aunt was taking pictures of every dish so she could look back on them for fond memories. Food is one of the ways in which we show love. When my dad cooks dinners for me and encourages me to eat more and more, I know in those moments he's actually saying "I love you Stephanie!" And I can still remember when my grandpa used to give me the cheek of the fish because it's supposedly the most tender part.

So, I was absolutely touched when everyone kept taking extra care to pick vegetarian options out for me even my grandma made sure to order dishes that I could eat. They ordered some dishes that were purely vegetarian and others just without the meat.

I also had a perfect partner in crime sitting next to me the whole time. My sister is big on eating protein and vegetables with as little unnecessary carbs as possible. So whenever there was a dish I just couldn't pass up, all I had to do was pick out the meat and put it on her plate -- like with this delicious sticky rice or lomi guy mmmmmmm lomi guy...

We had Dim Sum 2 days in a row which I will never complain about, with many different options both days. We also had Chinese food for dinner and two other lunches. What can I say? We're Chinese. What I have discovered from this great experience is that you can eat Chinese food as a vegetarian! Such a relief!