I’ve always liked my vegetables. Salads are great. Roasted Brussels sprouts rock. Nothing says summer like a cool gazpacho. But, let’s be honest, veggies were never my first love. That would be meat—beef in particular. Meat always had its place for me: the center of the plate. I am not now, never was and never will be a vegan. Fogo de Chão is clearly a place for me.
Fogo (668 Sixth Ave., Downtown) is one of two churrascarias in town; Rei do Gado, the other, is also excellent. A churrascaria is a restaurant that cooks and serves meat in the Brazilian barbecue style known as “churrasco,” which traces its origins to Brazilian cowboys known as gauchos who tended the herds of cattle that roamed thepampas. The gauchos roasted their meats on long spits over pits containing an open fire or charcoal embers.
A modern churrascaria meal is defined by continuous service in which wait staff, poetically called “gauchos” (though few have likely spent much time on horseback), circulate throughout the dining room with skewers of a wide variety of cuts of different meats. Smaller pieces—such as sausages, lamb chops or chicken legs—are lowered onto your plate whole while larger cuts of beef or lamb are sliced off the skewers.
A meal at Fogo is a study in the sensual qualities of meat. It may seem counterintuitive given the burly gaucho back-story—not to mention the sheer size and weight of a meal consisting of wave upon wave of meat—but Fogo is really all about subtlety. That’s right: subtlety. The real action lies in the little but important differentiations in the flavors of the various cuts.
The beef ancho is the heart of the rib eye and is all about the brilliant marbling of the cut; it speaks to the flavor that comes from the fat. In contrast, the faldinha, a cut from the bottom sirloin, is all about the interplay between sweet and savory as the caramelized surface of the meat interacts with the rosy interior. Fogo also plays with different seasonings and bacon-wraps the filet mignon (tantamount to cheating).
Perhaps the best offerings at Fogo are the cordeiro (lamb). The chops are excellent: a cut that’s luxurious in flavor as well as texture. The great glory, though, might be the leg of lamb. The first flavor to greet your tongue is the beautiful caramelization, but that gives way to a profound, meaty lamb flavor with just the slightest hint of gaminess. Chicken legs, linguiçasausage, pork loin and ribs are also offered, but they’re mere sideshows. It’s the interplay of the beef cuts and the leg of lamb that justify the not-inconsiderable price of admission ($46.50 for dinner, $29.50 for lunch).
It may also be worth noting that Fogo has a salad and sides bar with more than 30 brilliant gourmet items. But let’s face it: You’re not going to Fogo de Chão for the salad bar. It may be great, but for Fogo—just like me as a kid—it’s all about the meat.
There is no such thing as a vegan or vegetarian
I have lived this way over 30 years. Blazing trails everywhere.
Your comment that implied a person could be a vegan is incorrect.
We are not doctors. We practice medicine. John is not a bad boy. He did a bad thing.
People are not their actions. Nor are our actions an accurate representation of who we are. Our actions are only an indication of our capacity of a certain behavior. That’s it.
People are, per The Most Important Truth in Life; Life is Most Important in Life, Most Important, Life, and Equal.
The fastest and surest way to turn someone away from real veganism (a lifestyle) is call anyone a vegan and impart the lie of inequality.
Those people looking to make large scale environmental change have a greater responsibility to have their thoughts and actions better rooted in Truthful reality.
This cause is for Life itself, directly. The value of any cause is the Truth of that cause because it’s the Truth that encourage and protects that which is Most Important in Life: Life.
Life itself is a Truth.
Don’t play stupid that you don’t understand. We are Truthfully Equal. We are all, already, Most Important in Life.
When we lie and call ourselves something we are not it provides a subject matter that is not Truthful. If we are not speaking for the Truth, then why should anyone listen to anything we have to say?
The clock runs short. This is not a game. Even if everyone chooses veganism, but then also attempts to place themselves above the Truth one of the nine ways to Sunday that we face mutually assured destruction on will still come to pass.
We only got this far because some of us blazed the path. Many of us have been killed, beaten, raped, arrested, gone insane, lived homeless, etc. to push this Truth out. This isn’t some fad, click, trend, ego inflating fun time.
Where is the compassion in calling ourselves superior to another? When people call people vegans, they see the other people as those actions. When I say someone has lied when they call themselves a vegan, they usually hear that I am calling them a liar. Everything I just said makes sense. Compassion is Truth manifest. Please try and understand that for a bit. The people killing the animals need the Truth to stop their killing. By lying to these people that we are vegans, etc., we give them something that they should despise, and properly so, the lie of inequality.
If you want to use semantics that’s one thing. If you can’t understand where that line is drawn for real then don’t use semantics when discussing that which is Truthfully Most Important.
Was that hard to follow? Certainly a few of you got that what I said was spot on. Others might just have a finger scratching their head about now.
There is more…
Whether you got the lesson to get learned in what I said or not, the fact remains:
There are lessons in Life more painful than getting tortured to death. The count of such lessons is more than a human can count in a Lifetime, let alone remember each lesson to be learned.
If we simply compare our thoughts, words, and actions to The Most Important Truth in Life we can easily avoid every single painful unnecessary lesson.
Those of us that have strong feelings for the animals and all Life in general hold the Truth (compassion) tightly. When we lie, knowingly or not, we throw down the Truth and we go down with it. It can hurt worse than death. Yet, we get back up and try again because we believe in something so strongly.
We don’t need to see every reason why calling ourselves vegan is wrong. We need only consult The Most Important Truth in Life to quickly see that such a comment is a lie. Now, if we don’t care about the Truth then we really shouldn’t attempt to make large scale environmental change for the better because we really don’t want things to get better. We chose the lie, the first manifestation of pure evil, instead.
Consider this comment a compliment. The Word written here is written in the blood of every Life that bled for Life to succeeded.
We have in our lap the greatest responsibility ever faced by any generation in the history of mankind. That’s how it really is. We must agree at the Most Important Truth or we gamble with the very lives of our children and grandchildren.
Now, look for the Truth.
I said, “The Most Important Truth in Life is that Life is Most Important in Life”.
Everything I said was based from that, undebatable, mutually observed, self-evident Truth.
If you want to attempt to debate that Life is Most Important in Life, then please do so without ever using Life and please change your past too for good measure. Any attempt debate Life is Most Important in Life is hypocrisy (a lie) and as silly as saying you can change your own past..
Think about that Most important Truth. That’s what you are fighting for in Truthful words. I reaffirm your choice as Truthful (complete 100% Truth) to not kill unnecessarily. The Most Important Truth in Life, as written, is the exact actual reason why, in human words, you have made the choice you made. Life and Truth are our Master. We are never above Truth and Life. We are who we are and we are Truth and Life. Who we really are is the Way.
With vegan choices or not, many of us have many lies to hide. Asking people to stick to the Truth is not such a politic request at this time on Earth. Yet, this can’t wait. I see how Most Important you really are. If my peers discard the Most Important Truth in Life then Life will suffer worse than ever and very possibly none will survive. When we question the Truth we question whether Mankind is Truthfully worth saving from destruction. Live with honor and respect.
Understand the Most Important Truth in Life is factually, 100%, Truthful reality. Anything that doesn’t agree with that Truth must be a lie.
No person on Earth has put forth a challenge to this Word. It’s the very foundation of everything. No fairytale. No Goldilocks zone. No opinion. No theory. No philosophy. 100% Truthful reality defined in human words exactly the same for each of us, eternal and never changing, with all differences put aside leaving only the mutually observed Most Important Truth between us as THE PERFECTLY DEFINED POINT OF ALL REALITY to measure all thoughts , words, and actions against to see if they are indeed, Truthful (completely True).
Here is your armor that is so hard nothing can penetrate it. Here is your sword so sharp that it cuts through all lies and so stiff that it never bends.
It’s yours if you choose take it. If you don’t choose the choice to take it then you don’t get it.
Why do you choose the Truth?
Why do you accept the Truth?
If you have not chosen and accepted the Truth then please explain your solution to all needless and preventable suffering on Earth forever.
The choosing and accepting of the Truth provides the only Truthfully perfect and Truthfully workable Truthfully solution to Truthfully solve all of our Truthfully preventable and Truthfully needless issues that Truthfully endanger Life.
If you want to gamble with all Life on Earth by not choosing and accepting the Truth that Life is Most Important in Life, and thus not having any sort of Truthfully reasonable and/or Truthfully possible way to stop the mess, that’s your choice. That choice is the spade digging our graves.
That wasn’t kind enough? Try and putting 2 and 2 together. I didn’t get to this understanding buried in kindness. Right? What do you expect. Now it’s your turn to improve delivery. Have a great talk with someone where you are both feeling the moment, then cut to the chase, “Hey, Life is Most Important in Life. Don’t you agree? Killing animals for taste is not as good at what we are feeling now.” Whatever! You figure it out. This is your choice. We survive as One. If mankind is wiped out who is going to honor all those that have given so much that we could survive?
What has been written here is rational, coherent mutually observed observations based in 100% Truthful reality looking at the seriousness of the actual situations Life faces.
Would you kindly say to Johnny, “Please Sweetie, stop standing in the center of the fast lane on the freeway.”? Is screaming for him to move his rear not kind enough? Each situation is different and so we must make the best choice possible based on The Most Important Truth and our honestly evaluated level of understanding of the situation.
Anyone pressing the, “I am a vegan”, “You’re are a vegan”, “…become a vegan”, etc., is going to have to face getting called out for actually lying. Those people would not be liars. They will have lied. People are not their actions.
The ego calling ourselves vegan is a trick to get us to lie and devalue the very root of our cause.
Our ego is there to remind us that we are Most Important. Our ego will stop attempting to take charge alone when we understand that others are also Most Important in Life. It’s the Truth that solves all of the needless and preventable issues in Life, whether outside us or inside us. First, seek and follow the Most Important Truth in Life. You and your choice do come first. Equal with everyone else.
Own your choices, David. You ARE your choices. That, at the very least, is my opinion.