My mother credits her preference for chicken to the fact she had to collect eggs from some really obnoxious hens. They used to attack her. She was happy to see them turned into dinner.

My mother is the sweetest, most mild-mannered, non-grudgy person ever. So this cracks me up.

In retrospect, perhaps I just resented the cows because I had to do chores every day starting at age 7-ish.

I was hoping chickens would stop being evil now that I don't eat them. No such luck. And if I kill one in self defense I just might eat it.

My mother credits her preference for chicken to the fact she had to collect eggs from some really obnoxious hens. They used to attack her.

I've always suspected this about chickens.

I remember reading about a Jewish food and ethics conference a few years ago where a speaker asked the crowd, "Who here eats meat, but would not kill an animal yourself?" and "Who here is a vegetarian, but would eat meat if you'd killed the animal yourself?" and a good number of people stood up for each.

I also know several people with vegan kids who have had to deal with "Your kid told my kid where meat comes from, and now my kid won't eat dinner!" phone calls from the parents of kindergarten and first grade classmates.

Heh.

He's also getting kind of obsessive about people and dying. Not sure where all this is coming from or how to handle it.

Ellie went through a phase like this a few months ago. She's 4.5. I have no dea what started it but both my mom (a teacher) and her teacher told me that it's age appropriate. She still will ask me out of the blue about where she will lve when I die, if we can get a cat when our dogs die, and so on.

Watching 4 Man Bobsled.

Some of those dudes should not be wearing skin suits. And since they're outside their sled running for about two seconds, I'm not entirely sure why they are.

My mother credits her preference for chicken to the fact she had to collect eggs from some really obnoxious hens. They used to attack her. She was happy to see them turned into dinner.

Yeah, Mom has always been GLEEFUL about eating lamb. She really, really, really hates sheep. Too many early mornings in sub-zero weather having to bottle feed the things, I think.

Emeril has a show on the Green Channel where he helps people who are having various sorts of food problem. One episode was a family where the parents were not vegetarian, but the two oldest kids had both, around age five, announced that they would not eat dead animals anymore, and so the parents talked to their pediatrician about nutrition and let them be vegetarian. They had a third kid, about age three when the show was filmed, who they just never bothered feeding meat to -- when you're already making a meat meal for the adults and a vegetarian meal for the kids, you're not going to also make chicken nuggets for the toddler. The mother went on Emeril's show for advice on how to get out of serving them grilled cheese every day for lunch. He showed her how to make some kid-friendly vegetarian soup and pasta dishes that had actual vegetables in them.