Ten years ago I became a Vegetarian. 

To many that statement is straightforward enough to not invoke a raised brow or ponder for longer than it takes to read it. But for me, my family and interestingly enough my friends it was, { and sometimes still is } a HUGE deal.

The thing is, I'd always been a proud carnivore. I didn't just love meat, for me it was a love affair whose passion always raged at the highest level.  I can only reason that it was something I was born with. As a child I would happily down a second or third helping of liver with onions. Reveled in that gently popping sensation in ones mouth when teeth penetrated a just sauteed kidney. And longed for stringy curried goat flesh between my teeth. Eating meat, was a multi-sensory experience and each meal a psychedelic trip that left me in a gastronomically euphoric state.

I kid you not. 

Then one day everything changed. Despite what one friend claims, it wasn't <strong>one </strong>specific event that 'turned me'. Rather, over the years tiny cracks in my meat loving fortress were ever so slowly compromised until my resolve caved and vegetarianism was the only and most important thing before me. 

There are many ironies in my becoming vegetarian. Not least, the fact that I always used to mock vegetarians. I just didn't 'get it'. "No meat? Whyever would you choose to do that?! Something surely must be WRONG with you." It was like trying to explain Shakespeare in Lithuanian to a class full of Japanese students. 