Well Now Maybe Roy Choi Isn't Going Vegetarian

A couple of weeks ago, Los Angeles-based chef Roy Choi mused on his blog about how he's stopped eating meat and was thinking about quitting cooking. As Choi put it, "Animals be talking to me." But now in an incredibly long interview, Choi tells LA Weekly that the fact that he's stopped eating meat doesn't mean he's a vegetarian:

Animals have been talking to me. And any shaman will say that that's not that weird. So they've been telling me to stop. One of my best friends told me: If animals are talking to you, you better fucking listen dude. So I wrote that, and then I was thinking, well, if I can't cook with meat, then I gotta explore how I can cook. And I was just going to stop eating meat for a while. But I don't know how becoming a vegetarian and a vegan came from that.

But he goes on to talk about the warm reception he's gotten from the vegetarian community, so maybe being associated with them isn't so bad after all: "I kind of feel for the vegetable world — the vegetarian world. It's almost as if people look at them like aliens or foreigners. They're just like us."

· Q&A With Roy Choi [LA Weekly]
· Roy Choi Quits Meat & Maybe Cooking; Wants Jamie Oliver on the Phone [-E-]
· All Roy Choi Coverage on Eater [-E-]

[Photo: Riding Shotgun LA]