I’ve been partaking of a lot of cooking shows recently. Well, mostly just Good Eats. I skip most of the meat-heavy episodes, and then spend the rest automatically making substitutions and thinking of ways to veganize, designing my kitchen and making a list of cooking supplies (did you know a burr-style coffee grinder can also mill flour? How exciting!). Along with Vegetarian Food for Thought and the badly-written but well-researched Real Food: What to Eat and Why, plus the frustration of not actually having my own kitchen, this has fermented into several wacky ideas.

The first is to do my own cooking show someday (podcast-style), in which I copy the illustrious Alton Brown (explaining the science, history, and health of ingredients and methods with the help of humorous props and skits), except vegan (I can honestly live without cheese and bacon — I know, it seems so wrong).

The second is to do a cooking vacation, in which I hire a chef in an exotic locale to teach me and some friends how to cook. Or maybe not even a big-time professional chef, but just a farmer, or a cafe-owner, or a baker. The lessons could even be in trade for helping out around the kitchen.

The third thing I might actually do, especially once I have full access to academic resources again: write about the philosophy and science of vegetarianism. I know I said to ignore health studies, but I think doing some solid research could really help get to the bottom of food myths and health propaganda (without the meat-and-dairy-biased Nina Planck). Plus there is basic information about the role of various nutrients. What is the role of cholesterol in the body? What are the differences between various kinds of fats? Does protein source matter?

And most importantly: will I find time to write an extra Thesis? Answer: only if no one gets me Spore. That game will suck up all the cognative surplus I have, and then some.

In the meantime, reap for yourself the harvest of my initial research:

• Vegan Action FAQ’s, for some quick vegan basics
• The Animal Rights Library, with some well-known names like Dawkins and Shelley (I’ve a lot of reading to do here)
• A response to criticism of The China Study, a book clearly on my reading list
• The Practical Ethicist, an interview with Peter Singer