Veggie Stew

I got an e-mail the other day from a very angry reader, Jeff Silver. He wasn't mad at me, for a pleasant change. Instead, he was sore at Ray "Pete" Peterman, the owner of The Sour Octopus Restaurant (11129 North Oak). Silver is a vegetarian, and he had called Peterman to see if the owner-chef -- who only prepares and serves a 9- or 10-course, $28 prix fixe dinner each night -- would do a veg-only meal for him.

"The proprietor explained to me quite brusquely that he doesn't serve a vegetarian menu," wrote Silver, "because too many vegetarians came in wearing leather shoes and jackets."

Actually, that's just one of the reasons that the no-nonsense Peterman won't change his menu for the veg set. "Too many of them are what I call flexitarians," Peterman tells me. "They call me and say they are vegetarians, but some of them will eat seafood, and some will eat dairy and some will consider chicken. In the two years I've been open, I've only had three requests for a vegetarian-only menu, and with that tiny percentage, it's cost-prohibitive for me to do it unless I charge $75 for a meal instead of $28."

Silver, a vegetarian who eats eggs and dairy and even admits to wearing leather shoes (a more stringent vegan would indulge in none of those things), had a list of questions he wanted me to ask Peterman for him, including "Why does this man not have enough tact to hide such inflammatory reasons that serve no purpose other than pissing people off?"

Oh, come on! Peterman has pissed off plenty of nonvegetarians, too. But mostly he's a pussycat (maybe not a tactful one), which is why most of his customers happily drive all the way north to his where-the-hell-am-I location on a regular basis.

At least Peterman is honest about his prejudices. I once had dinner with a vegan who was brazen enough to order a "vegetable plate" at a crappy, third-rate Indianapolis restaurant. What came out of the kitchen was a plate scattered with black olives and raw green onions, carrot curls, celery sticks and radishes. That's right, a plate of garnishes. My friend was furious, but she was wearing leather, too, come to think of it.

Silver's e-mail had a caveat aimed at me. "I know you're often just as intolerant of vegetarians." Me, intolerant? Actually, some of my best friends are vegetarians. But at the risk of being completely untactful and pissing off somebody, I never, you know, want to actually eat with them.