I don’t eat anything cookable.

For the past twenty-two years, visiting my family has been a challenge.

It’s been a social challenge, because for my whole life I’ve never felt they really understood me. And since I’ve broadened my interests to include Krishna consciousness and exploring the practical applications of the Bhagavad-Gita, my feeble and infrequent attempts to communicate such things to them have resulted in no end of misunderstandings and silent time on the sofa watching TV — and I have zero to say about televised college sports.

It’s also been a nutritional challenge. I’ve become accustomed to the finest vegetarian cooking on the face of this Earth, thanks to having a wife who’s a faithful Acharya of Gourmet Vedic Cuisine. My family’s idea of exotic, international food is Stouffer’s Frozen French Bread Pizza. It’s usually a “kill and grill” situation there.

I’ve tried to bridge the gap by volunteering to cook for them every time we visit (which usually means volunteering my wife to cook), but then they complain that every time we come we turn their kitchen upside down. And cooking in their kitchen, with implements that have been used to boil, fry, bake and fricassee every species of sentient life on the planet, always leaves us feeling creeped out and exhausted.

Plus, after twenty-two years, my dad still doesn’t quite get it that I’m vegetarian.

I visited him last month. He was planning to cook some barbecued chicken on the grill, the kind he used to barbecue on the grill when I was a kid. I had planned ahead and brought the fixings for cheese sandwiches, not wanting to throw his home into upheaval. But dinner being a bonding experience, he wanted to share his with me.

“What can I cook for you? Anything? Do you eat chicken?”

“No, Dad.”

“Fish?”

“No. We don’t eat any meat, fish, or eggs.”

“What the hell can I cook? You guys don’t eat anything that’s cookable!”