Other perfections I can’t achieve

Leaving one quest for an unachievable flawless, perfect state—say, being vegan—leaves a person absent of a goal—and in the case of food, leaves a person open to all types of new perfections that would never have been considered before, including the ideal hamburger. I ate meat for the first time in almost a decade in the summer of ‘06. It was some sort of chicken dish from a Moroccan-influenced restaurant, and it was terrible. A few days later, I had a grilled pork loin at a Milwaukee bistro. Despite the incredibly inexperienced wait staff, that piece of meat was good—and thus started two weeks of a Meat Search. I traveled from restaurant to grocery store to kitchen in search of chicken, turkey, beef, steak, and tuna.