ok, all together now!

Beware the ides of August.

2011-08-15T11:15:00.002-04:00

Hiya.

So. Who remembers my kidneys? They look like other kidneys, I suppose. Except for the little rocks in them. I think of them as little white rocks, but that's not accurate. They're more... clay colored.

When last I checked, in February mind you, I had two such interlopers in my right kidney (which, incidentally I've named Jeckle). Jeckle has been feeling quite tender lately - for close to two weeks, actually. So last Thursday I went and peed in a cup like a good girl should, and this morning I had a few years' worth of ambient radiation in one big dose to the torso (also known as a CT scan).

Now I sit and wait for results, and try not to think about their implications. Hospital? Lithotripsy? Stent? Worse? Right. These are precisely the things I'm not supposed to be thinking about. Meanwhile, Mr. Kidney Left (a.k.a. Heckle, the instigator of all this madness) has been relatively quiet. But kidneys are a bit like conjoined twins: when one feels pain, the other shares it.

I do not relish these medically dominated times in my life. But I'm hoping that I learned enough from last year's experiences to make any future events a bit more bearable. Fingers crossed, eh?

All Apologies.

2011-07-06T13:31:00.003-04:00

Hi y'all. I've been, you know, busy. What's that? Did I find a job? Mmm yeah no. I'm just doing what I'm good at: running myself ragged with my projects. These days I'm essentially being a professional vegan. I'm starting Vegan Drinks New Orleans, writing about restaurants that have vegan offerings, writing about other vegan events happening around town, writing posts for the Vegan Etsy Team blog, writing, writing, writing. Writing everywhere but here, apparently.

Sorry guys. I miss you too.

Clocks.

2011-05-22T16:16:00.000-04:00

The clock on my computer is an hour fast. This irritates me. I feel that my computer should be psychic. It's connected to THE INTERNET - which is to say, god. Rationally I know this is because I have not told it that I am in a new time zone. It's still living in New York. So. This display catches my eye and for a moment my whole body freezes. The air catches in my throat as my mind screams into my ear, THATCAN'TBERIGHT.

Conversely:

The clock in my car is an hour slow. It catches me off guard sometimes and my mind works like molasses. Mostly in confusion and with the slightest twinge of hope, it says aside to me... t h a t c a n ' t b e r i g h t n o w... c a n i t ?

There are four (1, 2, 3, 4) clocks in my kitchen. They are all set within thirty seconds of each other. I like to imagine that they are in a tag team race. (Because in my world, all objects have personalities and talk to each other.) As of yet, there is not a single other clock in the house - save the alarm clock by my bed, of course.

Shortly after Christmas, I bought a watch. I loved wearing it in New York; it's a real pain in the ass to be pulling your phone out on the subway all the time, digging through your bag or into your pocket, elbowing standing or sitting neighbors all the while. And course you always need to know what time it is. New York City is nothing if not a study in time used vs. time lost.

Three days after I arrived in New Orleans, I took the watch off to go to Jazz Fest. It just didn't seem like a good idea. It didn't fit, didn't work. I haven't put it on since. I'm not actually completely sure where it is right now.

It's a pretty little thing, my watch. Stainless steel, with nice clean lines and a shimmery blue face with two sparkly crystals set in. It's not exactly "me," but it goes. It went in the law firm, anyway. On the subway, and in midtown. It all worked. Even on the weekend, in Queens, getting bagels from Hot Bagel on a Sunday morning. It slid right in.

Not here though, where everything is green, and time matters but just not so much. Somehow a need that's been with me since childhood is fading. Not gone, no. I'll still get there on time. I'm just not so worried about it. It's as if I've slipped into a side stream, one that runs right alongside the old space-time continuum, looks the same mostly but feels slightly, importantly, different. I'm running on Gulf Coast time now. Oh, tell me New Orleans isn't the Gulf all you want, but believe me. I've been everywhere else.

When Jonathan comes, he'll be living on east Coast Time; he'll be working in it all day and trying to pull away from it all night. I wonder: Can we force it to be merely what it is - simply numbers on a clock?

Full disclosure: I like whoa did not take that amazing photo. Click on it to be brought to the artist's site.

New Orleans: A Lovesong.

2011-05-15T17:28:00.000-04:00

I am living in the chaos of an unpacked house. My clothes are still in suitcases; my food is still in boxes. My books, while not unpacked, are of course easily accessible. Heaven forbid I should have a craving for my Hemingway short stories at 1am and not be able to find them.

It seems like a lot of this putting away should be done already. But it's just not. For this I can make many excuses, and even give some reasons, and a good part of it can be explained by sheer exhaustion. After all, I've been living like this, on one end or the other now, for over a month - it takes its toll.

But at the core of all the excuses and reasons and explanations there is something, some ephemeral thing, some object or concept that I have not yet been able to grasp. This thing called New Orleans.

Yes, New Orleans, I'm blaming you. You are in my heart and head and soul, and yet I don't fully understand you. Like a lover, I don't know that it's possible to know you completely. Just when I think I've got you figured out, you surprise me, thrill me, break my heart, and then turn around and stitch it back together again. Bordering on obsession, I never stop wanting more from you - even when you frustrate me to tears, even when I want to wring your neck. It is impossible not to forgive you, and our scrapes never last long. You are too beautiful not to love, too complex and mysterious not to investigate.

So I will breathe you in, smell you, taste you, listen closely to your every sigh and exclamation. Make you my own and become part of you again. Maybe in the process add something to your rainbow mosaic. And you, in turn, will continue to distract me from unpacking.

Homecoming.

2011-05-01T15:51:00.001-04:00

I can see the streetcar from my kitchen. I can see my kitchen from the streetcar.

The rabbits don't know what to think. They're just glad to be out of the car.

Everything here is lush and green and ALIVE. Rich green carpets of trees drape over streets, providing much needed shade. The live oaks shelter us all. I've missed the camellias and azaleas, but not the gardenias. And who needs dogwoods when you can have giant magnolia trees, with their dark and glossy emerald leaves?

It's hard to believe I'm home. Or rather I know I'm home, but I don't fully know that I'm not leaving again. For years it's been easy to fully embrace being present here, and leaving has been excruciating. I'm overwhelmed with everything that has yet to be accomplished, but I need to embrace a time-honored New Orleans tradition: worry about that tomorrow. After all, it'll come whether you like it or not.

Another Friday Morning in Queens

2011-04-15T14:05:00.001-04:00

I had to stand on the subway today, my last day at the office. A little farewell gift from the MTA. And yet, as I stood there staring out through the train's safety glass window, there it was spilled out in front of me. Queens, my Queens, bathed in the morning sun.

This neighborhood has changed so much just in the five or so years I've been in it. Turn-of- and mid-century buildings demolished, hotels and condos erected in their place. Views of the city's famous skyscrapers blocked a little more each day. Subway lines re-routed, re-named. And through it all this hundred year old El rumbles up its center, stalwart , even if it does get shiny new cars every few decades.

I have loved this place, and I have hated it. The time has come for me to leave and a new phase of my life is waiting to begin, some 1300 miles away. But this place was here for me when I needed a home, and for that I will be forever grateful.

Officially Official.

2011-03-09T08:30:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I gave notice at work. Because the decision has been made - mother I'm coming home. As of May first, New Orleans will once again be my home. At work, they are sad to see me go. But I'm not sad. In fact, I can't remember the last time I smiled so much. :)

The Jerk. (A retraction / correction / confusion.)

2011-02-03T19:58:00.003-05:00

Alright then. So maybe I'm not going in for lithotripsy. Which is good news I think, at least for now.

I do, in fact, have two stones in my right kidney. But when I had the tests done on Friday, they looked ginormous on the sonogram and didn't show up at all on the x-ray.

Dude, what's up with that?

Naturally my doctor didn't call me back on Friday. When I finally got to speak to him on Monday, he explained that basically - why mince words? - I was full of shit. Essentially, the kidney stones were invisible on the x-ray because the colon sits on top of the kidneys and... well... yeah. So we decided that I would fast, et cetera, and re-take the x-ray on Tuesday.

Which I did. Lo and behold, the stones miraculously appeared! The radiologist that day said sort of offhandedly that yeah, it was somewhat pointless to do a KUB x-ray without fasting first. Good to know, since this is at least the fifth or sixth time I've had it done.

Anyway. OK, so the stones showed up. And they look to be about 3mm each. Not 9+mm, as I'd originally been told. Why would a sonogram make a stone appear three times its actual size? I have no fucking idea. Frustrating, no? But the plain fact is that given my current state of relatively good health, a 3mm stone does not warrant the trauma of lithotripsy.

So the good news is that I don't have to have two surgeries in the month of February (I'm still having my wisdom teeth out). The somewhat bad news is that I *do* have two stones hanging out in my kidney, and they could get bigger. Super Big Gulp OF WATER anyone? Why I do believe I will, thanks...

Once again, I'm keeping my hospital bag by the door.

2011-01-30T16:25:00.006-05:00

You don't have to spend long in a hospital to realize that you'll be happier there if you come prepared. For example:

No matter what the temperature outside, it will be freezing inside. (Bring a sweatshirt.)
If your back is killing you - from an obstructed ureter, say - you think you'd be able to get something as simple as an ice pack. It will never happen. (Icy Hot adhesive patches are a lifesaver.)
It can take hours - literally HOURS - for an ER doctor to come assess you, no matter how much pain you're in. (Can you say percocet?)
And if you believe that hospitals serve anything even approaching "food", ho boy do you have another thing coming. (Hello trail mix!)

And this is why, when on Friday a sonogram revealed a new stone in my right kidney almost a centimeter in diameter, I knew I'd be pulling out The Bag. After my first trip to the ER (which incidentally was caused by a stone of only 6mm), I won't get anywhere near the hospital without it. It contains all of my incidental medications, a very soft hoodie, the aforementioned IcyHot patches, an ankle brace, a knee brace, and a pad of paper and pen, among other items.

These last two are crucial - if I could give one piece of advice to anyone who ever sets foot into a hospital, it would be this: write down every single thing that happens. Every doctor you talk to, medication you take, test and procedure you have. As much as they may try, hospitals are just too big these days, and for the most part cannot:

a) determine if you (or they) are coming or going,
b) get the left hand to talk to the right hand,
c) decipher their asses from their elbows,

et cetera. If I could give a second piece of advice, it would be this: if you'd like to take a shower during your stay, mention it while you're checking in. Seriously.

So, soon I'll be scheduling another lithotripsy, a noninvasive "surgery" that uses soundwaves to break up the stones. I am not happy about this. But if we get me in soon enough, I'll be able to avoid the hospital entirely, and I'd like that. As you may be able to tell, it's not my favorite place. The lithotripsy is vastly preferable to waiting until the stone moves into the ureter and causes an obstruction - simultaneously causing the worst pain known to man. I'll take a little kidney bruising over doing that again any day.

No one thus far has been able to do anything crazy like, oh say, tell me *why* I'm making the stones. My diet is perfect, I'm taking special supplements, and I'm drinking so much water that I'm surprised I don't float down the street. It appears to just be one of my many special talents. That's the ticket - I should look at the bright side. Think I should start putting it on my resume? Maybe I'll start a small business...

***Calcium Oxalate Stones, Made to Order!!***

A winter morning commute...

2011-01-27T17:26:00.000-05:00

Here comes the sun.

2010-12-17T09:07:00.003-05:00

For the past few days, it's been in the twenties in NYC, and it's been so cold in my apartment that I want to cry.

In the mornings, I sit at my work table to check my emails and my twitters and eat breakfast. And if it's sunny out, the sun comes through the window next to me. And it is warming - so much more warming than anything else I encounter all day long lately.

It's like that this morning. I know it is freezing outside - much less than freezing, actually. But the sun, so warm; I want to curl up in it like a cat. I do not, at all, want to walk away from it, to take off these warm clothes and put on something less comfortable and soft than pajamas, or - ohdeargod - to go out into the unforgiving cold.

And that is why I'm going to be late for work today.

Sustainable fish sticks? I think not.

2010-12-08T23:24:00.000-05:00

Earlier this week I received a truly perplexing email. Rather than describe it to you, I think I really just need to give it to you whole:

Hi Melissa,

I would like to invite you to join a group of food writers, bloggers and chefs for a Food Revolution Roundtable next Tuesday, 12/14. With your passion for food and your influential talent for writing/blogging about food, you would be the perfect addition to this group!

The details are listed below. Please say yes!

An invitation to a Food Revolution Roundtable

Bird’s Eye, in partnership with their Ad Agency Chiat/Day, is hosting a 2-hour Food Revolution Roundtable in NYC on Tuesday, 12/14. They want explore the edges of the Food Revolution among people who are really passionate about food -- chefs and/or writers like you. Bird’s Eye wants to bring revolutionary thinking to their brand at every step, from sourcing to prep to recipes to packaging. The roundtable will be approximately 10-12 influential people (including you, we hope) and will be really energizing and fun… full of projective exercises and invigorating chat.

For your time, you will be paid $350.

Also, if you would like to recommend a friend or two who fits this description, and would enjoy participating, let us know!

WHERE: Wine Shop, NYC, NY
WHEN: Tuesday 12/14, from 11 a.m. - 1 p.m.
WHAT: 2 hours of ideation, and yummy food!

If this sounds like something you’d like to do, please email me back, or call me at 555-555-5555.

I look forward to hearing from you soon!

Best,
Sarah

I swear to you, I have only changed this to take out identifying details. "explore the edges of the Food Revolution", "ideation", and "yummy food" are all straight from the horse's mouth. When I first skimmed the email, I assumed that I'd just gotten stuck on some mailing list, and that it was a workshop that I'd have to pay through the nose to attend. Upon more thorough reading, I realized that they were actually offering to pay me. That's when I got really suspicious.

So I turned to tha internets. I know who Bird's Eye is - who doesn't? Frozen corn, right? Ah yes, but also major players in many frozen meats - particularly in the fish stick market, apparently. Who knew. What about Chiat\Day? A positively ENORMOUS advertising agency. We'll call that strike two - anyone know why I don't own a television?

And then, exactly what I'd been suspecting: I started finding articles like this one. Since July, Bird's Eye has been working on an initiative it is calling "Forever Food". Supposedly the company's effort to make its food production more "sustainable", this push is pretty much entirely focused on reducing energy usage during production. They're quite proud of figuring out how to use less energy while flash freezing their fish sticks, for instance.

Uh huh.

So, after a day or so of careful consideration, I sent the following reply:

Dear Sarah,

Your offer is both flattering and intriguing. However, I must decline for two reasons. The first is logistical: I work a 9 to 5 and am not available mid day on a Tuesday. The second, though, outweighs the first: I do not feel comfortable contributing to "ideation" with a company that sells a proliferation of animal products.

Honestly, it strikes me that this "Food Revolution Roundtable" is part of the company's ongoing effort to engage in greenwashing - via the so called "Forever Food" initiative. While cutting resource use is of course necessary for all, from my perspective the project is essentially wrong-minded. Personally I'm far more interested in supporting the small, independently owned vegan businesses already in existence than helping to create more fake "natural" brands or products. Encouraging "sustainable fish sticks" is simply not something I will do.

If Bird's Eye truly wants to bring "revolutionary thinking to their brand at every step", it should take this revolutionary step: Consider the number of animals it currently kills; the environmental destruction caused by raising (or "harvesting") those animals; the conditions of the workers who raise, harvest, and slaughter them; and the dozens of other ramifications easily avoided by simply not selling meat. And please note, fish and marine invertebrates are animals too.

Sincerely,
Melissa Bastian

I hope you're not wondering why I'm referring to "Forever Food" as greenwashing. But in case you are, I will briefly explain my problem(s) with it. First of all, there's the name. Forever Food? Really? We'll have food forever and ever because you're putting your damn fish sticks in a smaller box, and meanwhile still pillaging the oceans dry to produce overprocessed junk? Second, there is no such thing as good aquaculture. Even putting animal ethics aside, the environmental ramifications of even the best run captive fish operations are just obscene. Wild harvesting poses completely different problems that are just as awful. Third, why would we put animal ethics aside? And all of that is really just the tip of the iceberg.

Before sending my response and ever since, I've been plagued with the feeling that I'm passing up an opportunity to be heard. But I have a strong sense that Bird's Eye and Chiat\Day do not want to hear me. Or rather, they do want to hear me, but only just enough so that they can figure out how to defeat or defend against the arguments of me and those like me, and/or to exploit the lot of us. (By exploit, I of course mean more effectively market to.)

If they were interested in genuine change, they would be consulting with environmental engineers - not bloggers and chefs. They would be rethinking their factories and processes from the ground up - not asking me what I think about their packaging. They know damn well what they need to do to make genuine change. It's just that that's not what they're interested in. What they want is what all the big food companies want: to appeal to the growing market of people on the "edge of the food revolution" - or those who think they are. The pescatarians, the locavores, the "happy meat" people. Well they can go right ahead and try, but I sure as hell am not going to help them.

And so, while it is my nature to doubt myself, I do believe that I made the right decision by turning the offer down. (Incidentally, I make WAY less than $350 a day at my job! So it would have been a nice little monetary gain 'round x-mas time. But so it goes.)

Surprisingly, Sarah did write back:

Hi Melissa,

Thank you for your thoughtful response. I am sorry you won't be able to weigh in on the panel discussion this Tuesday. Believe it or not, I believe your arguments are points that the Bird's Eye folks would be interested to hear during this session. Feel free to send us any references of vegan bloggers or chefs you know who might be interested in participating in Tuesday's group.

Thank you,
Sarah

I'm sure they would be interested too, but for all the wrong reasons. And that's pretty much the point.

P.S. - If any of my vegan friends also received this offer and have chosen to go, I respect that - and I hope they hear you.

Drumroll Please: The Full Thanksgiving Menu

2010-11-26T12:25:00.001-05:00

This year, we didn't know exactly what we were serving until it came down to actually cooking yesterday morning. But the good news is that this turned out to be our best Thanksgiving yet! All told I believe we prepared I think 12 individual items, for a total of 9 dishes. I'm most proud of the fact that several of the best dishes were on-the-fly inventions out of my head. These are recipes that I now have to try to write down, lest the be lost forever! And trust me, these gems should *not* be lost. Rather, they should be cherished in perpetuity.

The menu, in whole, when we finally did sit down 'round 4:30 or so, looked like this:

Spinach Dip with Herbed Crosstini*
Field Roast cranberry and hazelnut roast
Roasted root vegetables with apples and chikn*
Roasted sliced potatoes with savory herbs*
Whipped potatoes with onions and corn
Green Bean Casserole (amazing as always - thank you Liz!)
Macaroni and Cheeze with quinoa pasta*
Classic bread stuffing with mushrooms and onions
Spiced sauteed apples
Fresh Cranberry Sauce with orange rind and warm spices*
Crimini Mushroom Brown Gravy
Chocolate Creme Pie with chocolate graham crust*

Those items marked with asterisks are the foodstuffs that sprung fully formed from my head, like Athena from the skull of Zeus. (Except, you know, that I still had to cook them and everything.)

Are there pictures, you ask? Yes! There are pictures! That are still sitting in my camera. Good things come to those who wait. Like pictures... and recipes. ;)

A-tisket, A-tasket, a Mexican restaurant that actually has good vegan food!

2010-11-21T17:43:00.000-05:00

Just a word on Papacitos in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. If you happen to pass by this "Mexican street food joint" on a Thursday or Saturday evening in the near future, there is just ever so small a chance that you will see me there - dining on an enormous plate of nachos (smothered in vegan Diaya cheese and sour cream and SoyRizo), and alternately getting up to sing Karaoke Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday songs. And who knows? Maybe a little Etta James... and the occasional 80's hit.

Just sayin'.

Treasured!

2010-11-02T19:38:00.002-04:00

OK, wow, I suddenly got crazy popular. Well, maybe that's an overstatement. But I've been on Etsy for like two and a half years and have maybe been included in four treasuries. And now suddenly, today I'm in two! Check it out!

My "gravity" letterpress print is in this cool space-themed treasury by jewelry designer LewisCooper - it's called Somewhere on the Next Planet. And then my Raingirl painting was included in Chapter One - We Met in the Rain by CicaleTDesigns... another jewelry designer. Wacky.

What does it mean??? They like me! They really like me!!! Yeah, maybe. :)

OMG ART

2010-11-01T19:28:00.001-04:00

I'm just gonna say right here and now that I'm pretty sure I would risk getting arrested to see this. (As long as I really got to see it - spend some time there, take some pictures.) I would to to jail for a night for that. Yes, really. So... you know... if I call you up for bail...

I want to show you pictures, but I can find nothing in the public domain. You'll just have to check out the link.

Detox.

2010-09-06T17:34:00.003-04:00

So a couple weeks ago I decided I needed to go through a(nother) cleanse - doing it for real this time, doing it right. I was not feeling well at all, and in fact felt somewhat poisoned.

I always say "I need to do a cleanse", but I don't feel like I've ever done it in a way that really suits my needs or my life. Which means that I've pretty much always immediately and spectacularly failed. This is in truth part of a larger problem of mine. I have spent years, and I mean years, doing research on nutrition and the food industry. But I seem to have some sort of disconnect with actually applying my collected knowledge to what I eat. Perhaps this is a vestige of the ability I had when I was younger: to recognize animals as individuals capable of suffering and yet continue to eat them, to know how wildly unhealthy our processed "foods" are but keep putting them into my sick body.

Clearly I made it far enough to become vegan, and sheesh did that take long enough. I still have difficulty with individual meals on a frequent basis, which has to do with my troubled relationship with food. (How could it not be troubled? Have you walked into a supermarket lately?) And somehow even though I know what nutrients the body needs, what alkalizes and what acidifies, what stagnates and what purifies, and so on, and so on, when it comes to "doing a cleanse" I allow myself to become befuddled.

So I've been searching los internets for guidance, and separating the wheat from the chaff is a big job. There is so much nonsense, so many fad diets. Oprah did this, Hollywood is doing that - oh just eat nothing but coconuts! And by the way, buy my miracle product!!!!!! Bla, bla, bla. In my heart of hearts I believe I know what to do. But to accomplish it I need to lay out a reasonable plan, pace it feasibly, and then actually do it.

Here's some of the useful advice I have found. I like to share!

How do you know if you need a detox?
You know you're suffering from toxic overload if you are experiencing fatigue, memory decline, difficulty focusing, allergies and infections, irritability, anxiety and depression, difficulty with weight gain and weight loss, muscle and joint pain or weakness, skin rashes and outbreaks, recurrent yeast and fungal infections, constipation, diarrhea, abdominal bloating, and indigestion.

Your Detox Meals
These meals are designed to jump-start your body into becoming healthier.

• Breakfast: Eat oat bran cereal, brown rice, or any other whole grain cereal as long as it is unbleached and does not contain any added sugar or chemicals. Pair with unflavored soy milk.

• Lunch and Dinner: Eat any combination of beans, brown rice, oat bran, vegetables, and organic chicken, turkey, or soy-products. When you eat, notice how your food affects you. You should feel satisfied and energized. If you feel tired and sluggish, try eating smaller meals so that you don't overwhelm your digestion and interfere with the detoxification process.

The long list of symptoms in the first paragraph could of course be caused by any number of things, including an acute illness. If you do actually have something like a bacterial infection, a trip to the doc really is in order. But in any case doing some cleansing will never hurt. (I am not suggesting anything like the "master cleanse" - I don't think it's a good idea for anyone to try to live off of spicy lemonade for any period of time.)

From the "Detox Meals" paragraph, I must note that the idea of eating any animal products during a cleanse strikes me as pretty silly, even for someone who hasn't adopted a vegan lifestyle. If the goal is cleansing or "detoxifying", at the very least organic meats should be chosen. "Conventional" meat is toxic city. Also, there is a reason there is no dairy listed in the suggestions - dairy is inflammatory to many people who don't realize it, even in the absence of lactose intolerance.

I found this recipe, which I don't think I'll use but may substitute with green gumbo instead:

Detox Broth: Add as many of these ingredients as you can into a large pot of filtered water: collards, Swiss chard, kale, mustard greens, cabbage, dandelion, Brussels sprouts, daikon radish,watercress, seaweed, shitake mushrooms, cilantro, garlic, leeks, fresh fennel, anise, fresh ginger, and turmeric. Boil until all ingredients are soft. You can make in a large batch and refrigerate for up to three days.

Depending on what school you're in on onions (I think they're just fine), I'd say caramelize one in two tablespoons of really good olive oil in your big pot before following the above directions, and you'll come out with much more pleasing results. Also, unless you are having blood pressure issues, a little bit of salt really isn't so terrible.

I have now formulated a plan, which will be fully revealed to you in future blog posts. I know, you can't wait.

You're kidding.

2010-09-06T17:25:00.002-04:00

I had NO idea it had been so long since I'd posted here. Wowza.

Well, that sort of relates to what I want to tell you today. I know this will come as a shock but... I have too many blogs. I know, I know. Crazytalk! But it's true. Really.

Well, this here blog is sticking around. But it's going to have a lot more direct blogging happening on it, and therefore fewer transferred-over posts. You're OK with that, right? Good, I thought you would be. School starts this week, so I'm anticipating my world becoming a good bit more cerebral. It always happens when I get busy. Plus it'll be cold soon.

So OK then. Blogging. That thing I do sporadically and in too many (but now somewhat fewer) places. Here we go.

EtsyCrazy.

2010-07-18T14:09:00.003-04:00

Update: OK. I have now established four shops, but they're all empty except for one. They won't stay empty! It goes like this:

bright. - brightdesign.etsy.com - for the paper things: envelopes, journals, probably paperweights, not sure what else.

blank the plague. publications - blanktheplague.etsy.com - for the zines and possibly short stories and other writing. I've been using the name blank the plague. publications for a long time now. Yeah, like you don't know that.

Melissa Bastian - melissabastian.etsy.com - for the arts. Paintings definitely, also mixed media stuff, prints, maybe some photography. Haven't decided definitely whether I'll sell that yet. I am not nearly as skilled as several others even just on the Vegan Etsy Team, much less all of the amazing artists on Etsy, so it's intimidating. I'm about capturing images... anyway. We'll see.

Libellule! - libellulebybright.etsy.com - for the nonsense! My fun jewelery, pins, stickers, I might start making silly crocheted things, maybe some wedding destash, I don't even know what all else.

I know four shops seems excessive, but I feel a need to compartmentalize and I'm sort of all over the place right now. Fingers crossed that a) I get my act together and get these shops really going, and b) anyone buys anything from them! Wahoo.

And not just my underwear either.

2010-07-11T15:47:00.004-04:00

Sometimes I wake up to find that everything in my life has suddenly jumped a foot to the left, unexpectedly, but I've been left in the same spot. I wander around, and everything looks the same, but off somehow, and I can get around well enough, but I keep banging my shins on the coffee tables because they're just not quite where I expect them to be. And really, when did that vase break? Why hasn't anyone swept up all those tiny shards of glass that cover the floor? Oh, right, that's my job. But the broom isn't where I left it; in fact, all the closets have been reorganized. Must have been while I was sleeping.

I was sleeping, and one morning I woke up and found that my whole life felt different. Again.

Apparently not everyone experiences major events this way, but I always have. I go into a special state of functioning during a crisis, and I'm really, really good at it. I'm fucking professional. And then then, once everything starts to settle down and get a little quiet, the feelings and thoughts begin to culminate. Little pieces that I've stored separately, each in its own container being so careful that they never ever touch - they pool. Like beads of mercury rolling together to become a puddle. And suddenly I find that I can't navigate my mind, that my life seems like someone else's, because I have no real idea of how I got to where I am. I remember the sequence of events, but only in the most mechanical of ways. It then takes days or weeks for me to readjust to what it has become, to re-fit myself into my skin.

Ahh, crisis management. One of the many skills developed early in life that has left me a functioning but very oddly functioning person.

* * *

P.S. - Three points if you get the reference in the title.

Well I'll be damned - an all office work email told me something potentially useful.

2010-06-30T13:26:00.003-04:00

Check this out. It is one of those crazy email rumor-type things that according to Snopes actually has some validity, though it doesn't happen too often...

Microwaving Water!

A 26-year old man decided to have a cup of coffee. He took a cup of water and put it in the microwave to heat it up (something that he had done numerous times before). I am not sure how long he set the timer for, but he wanted to bring the water to a boil. When the timer shut the oven off, he removed the cup from the oven. As he looked into the cup, he noted that the water was not boiling, but suddenly the water in the cup 'blew up' into his face. The cup remained intact until he threw it out of his hand, but all the water had flown out into his face due to the buildup of energy. His whole face is blistered and he has 1st and 2nd degree burns to his face which may leave scarring.

He also may have lost partial sight in his left eye. While at the hospital, the doctor who was attending to him stated that this is a fairly common occurrence and water (alone) should never be heated in a microwave oven. If water is heated in this manner, something should be placed in the cup to diffuse the energy such as a wooden stir stick, tea bag, etc.., (nothing metal).

General Electric's Response when questioned:

Thanks for contacting us, I will be happy to assist you. The e-mail that you received is correct. Microwaved water and other liquids do not always bubble when they reach the boiling point. They can actually get superheated and not bubble at all. The superheated liquid will bubble up out of the cup when it is moved or when something like a spoon or tea bag is put into it.

To prevent this from happening and causing injury, do not heat any liquid for more than two minutes per cup. After heating, let the cup stand in the microwave for thirty seconds! Before moving it or adding anything into it.

Here is what our local science teacher had to say on the matter:

Thanks for the microwave warning. I have seen this happen before. It is caused by a phenomenon known as super heating. It can occur anytime water is heated and will particularly occur if the vessel that the water is heated in is new, or when heating a small amount of water (less than half a cup).

What happens is that the water heats faster than the vapor bubbles can form. If the cup is very new then it is unlikely to have small surface scratches inside it that provide a place for the bubbles to form. As the bubbles cannot form and release some of the heat has built up, the liquid does not boil, an d the liquid continues to heat up well past its boiling point.

What then usually happens is that the liquid is bumped or jarred, which is just enough of a shock to cause the bubbles to rapidly form and expel the hot liquid. The rapid formation of bubbles is also why a carbonated beverage spews when opened after having been shaken.

If you pass this on you could very well save someone from a lot of pain and suffering...

Got that people?

RIP, W... RIP, V...

2010-06-26T19:02:00.001-04:00

Yes, it's true. Yesterday was your last chance ever to ride the W train, or the V. And things they are a-changin' - beginning Monday, the M will be an orange train and start its upward swing through midtown and into Queens, and the Q will move past 57th street and all the way on up to Astoria. We've seen Q trains up here before of course, mostly when 7 train service is disturbed. But for keeps, now that's just something else entirely.

There is, of course, a certain justice in the Q train finally serving Queens.

These things happen. Train lines come and go, get renamed, get new routes. And I guess I've just been in New York long enough now that I'm seeing it happen with my own eyes, on my own lines. What's worse that the rerouting, though, is that service is being cut. What is that delusional claim they make? From zero passengers standing to 10 - 12? (I hope they mean per 20 square feet of car space, because that's how it already is during rush hour.) I fear for my evening commute. But only time will tell.

It seems that few will mourn the loss of the V train - except for me, that is. I liked that train, mainly for its *not* being the E train, which is always packed to the gills with people in too much of a hurry to realize that, uh, they could just take the V, which was always half empty. Which was of course why I always liked the V train so much. Will the rerouted M be the same? I'm sure I'll have occasion to find out.

The WFP has struggled valiantly to at least get the MTA to back off of eliminating student metro cards. (Come on folks - are you gonna push them down and take their lunch money too?) And it looks like they're making some headway on that front. But it doesn't seem that any amount of pleading (or demonstrating, or petitioning...) could save these lines, a number of bus slashes, and the service cuts that are now under way.

Thanks much Bloomie, our independently (extraordinarily) wealthy third term mayor! Just a little food for thought: you know this town completely falls apart without usable public service, right? Kay. Just makin' sure.

And yeah, I am so totally getting the t-shirt.

four years and then some.

2010-06-12T11:20:00.003-04:00

I wrote this poem almost exactly a year ago. I don't really ever write poetry, but sometimes one just infects my brain and demands to be spit onto paper. This one was like that. And today it seems particularly relevant. So here you go.

Forget me not
When you grow tired of me;
When dappled cheery sunlight falls to shadow,
And I am mixed instead among the ferns and stones.
Forget me not
When I grow weak and weary,
When bones groan more plaintively
Than Grandmother's rocking chair.
Forget me not
When my blue wedding dress has turned a
Faded yellow-gray,
When words stop pouring for pain of pointing pen.
Because "till death do us"
Means till the sweet, or bitter,
End.

Is it ever that simple?

2010-05-31T10:39:00.000-04:00

Well, OK. I have seven kidney stones. And instead of just having them blowed up and getting on with my life, I had to go get all scary ill and spend a bunch of time in the hospital. Come on, this is me we're talking about here. Like I could just do something normal and easy? So of course I'm going to tell you all about it, but because I like to pretend I'm a writer and/or because I like to try to pull something productive out of the ridiculous situations that get created in my life, I'm going to do so in a series of installments entitled: Dear The Hospital, This Is Not a Love Song. You'll love it, I promise.

Kidney Stones!

2010-05-23T14:32:00.000-04:00

Spent all day yesterday in the most gutwrenching, agonizing pain I have ever experienced. And kids, I have been in some pain. When the nurses at the ER finally heard about the 6mm stone obstructing my left ureter, they actually couldn't believe how well I was taking it.

Yes, it's true: I've found a new and different way to be completely and utterly miserable. It seems that my organs have been quietly making pointy little rocks behind my back! And now the little rocks want to move around, which is not so quiet. Pure, pure evil, but not at all quiet.

I'm supposed to go do some crazy thing next week to blow up the little stone with the big pain, and then hopefully this will all be over...

How much fun is my place of work?

2010-04-06T12:25:00.004-04:00

Here is a collection of the emails we've received in the past three business days.

One:

"New Policy: all special occasions, birthday cakes, showers etc. must be celebrated during the lunch hour, 12:30 to 1:30."

Two:

"The firm recently expanded its internet capability at a significant expense in order to accommodate the sending and receiving of firm emails and their attachments as well as the use of the internet for firm business.

Recently, however, we have experienced unacceptable slow downs due to non-business uses of our bandwidth, including movies and various forms of streaming video and audio.

We will shortly restrict these non-business activities to a minimum."

Three:

"It has come to my attention that some of you are wearing jeans (or slacks that look like jeans or knit sweat type pants) and wearing sneakers during the work day.

Please adhere to our NO JEANS AND NO SNEAKER policy."

Are you filled with warm fuzzies or what? Personally, I'm waiting for the "no personal items on the desk" and/or "no brightly colored items of clothing may be worn" email, just to round out the set. Or maybe they'll just throw my lunch out from the shared staff kitchen... AGAIN.

Ahh, office life. It's a blast.

Bee is for Breedlove. (What?)

2010-03-30T15:50:00.003-04:00

So it seems that when you get married, there are a few questions that EVERYONE IN THE WORLD simply must ask. There are two in particular that no one can resist.

1) Are you having kids? This is sometimes phrased as, "When are you having kids?" As if reproduction is not only something that everyone wants to do but is also something everyone is able to do. Trust me when I tell you that you don't want to get me started on this one. Jonathan and I have a variety of ways to rebuff this inquiry, more or less gently depending on the inquirer.

2) Are you changing your name? This one's just for me of course, and is significantly more fun - particularly because the answer is yes! In this instance I am doing the "normal" thing and taking my new husband's name. In my creative pursuits I will continue with my chosen nom de plume, but how was I ever going to turn down Breedlove? Please. Best name ever. Half of why I married him. (Kidding. It's only a quarter.)

Names... have always been an issue for me. For a long time I didn't even really identify with my first name. I went through a stint in middle school where I dabbled in having people call me by my middle name, Michelle. Apparently I look more like a Michelle anyway - people have accidentally called me Michelle my whole life, not even knowing the validity of the misnomer. Then in high school there was my brief obsession with the name Zoe, Greek for life. Why? Who knows. Everybody knows all cool names start with Z, I guess.

At some point in my late teens the world decided I would be called Mel, and though I never particularly liked it I embraced it. I wore it like armor: a name for the personality that walked around out there in the world for me while I hid inside of my head. It came with a bonus, in that many people assumed my name was Melanie. A cloak of anonymity, even as I dyed my hair pink and purple and walked the streets in giant boots and wifebeaters.

In the past couple of years, though, something new has happened. I've stopped being a persona and began to just be a person, and as such I no longer need that false name. Slowly but surely, even to me, I became Melissa. Which, though quite common among women my age, is actually a pretty interesting name. Mel means honey, and Melissa means little honey bee. I have a thing with bees these days; they're a fairly good symbol for my life, now that I've started to get over the phoenix thing.

Bees are the symbol of fertility and sexuality.
Its honeycomb, a hexagon, is the symbol of the heart and
represents the sweetness of life found within our own hearts.
It is also the symbol of the sun and all its energies.

The bee reminds us to extract the honey of life and to make our
lives fertile (productive) while the sun shines.
No matter how great the dream is, there is the promise of fulfillment
if we pursue our dreams.

If a Bee has shown up in your life, examine your own productivity.
Are you doing all you can to make your life more productive?
Are you busy enough?
Are you making time to savor the honey of life and not becoming
a workaholic?

The Bee is the symbol of accomplishing the impossible.
Aerodynamically, its body is too large for its wings and should not be able
to fly. Although now we understand how it does fly (high rate of wing
movement), the Bee remains a symbol of accomplishing anything you put your
mind to.

So there you go. To pursue, and sometimes accomplish, the impossible; to stay busy, almost too busy; to appreciate what is sweet in life (what I call the little things) - for better or worse, it's sort of me in a nutshell.

Wrong. (But it's alright.)

2010-03-28T18:34:00.000-04:00

It is wrong of me to have kept y'all waiting for so long - after all, the wedding was a week ago. Trouble is, honestly, I haven't really wanted to talk about it.

See... for a person of my given neuroses, it is a very dangerous thing to spend two years focusing on the potential events of one day. It is essentially impossible for something not to go wrong, and it is then equally as impossible for my crazed little mind not to fixate upon what was not perfect. This kind of tendency is one of the many, many reasons for my weekly psychotherapy sessions.

You've all been hearing about the laundry list of near catastrophes that has accrued in these many months of preparation. The week leading up to the wedding, and the wedding day, was sort of that in great concentration. I seem to have this incredible luck in life - things that never ever happen just, well, happen. To me. But before you go thinking I'm doing nothing but feeling sorry for myself, let me throw in that my luck goes both ways: I get the bad, but I also get the good.

I already spent too many days of my honeymoon obsessing over what went wrong, and especially because some of it isn't fully resolved yet I'm not even going to get into that crap. Instead I'm going to present you with the laundry list of what was simply wonderful. These are the things I want to remember, and the things that matter anyway.

The rehearsal dinner. It was amazing. Several of my friends were able to be there, three month old darling Mackenzie stole the show, the vegan entree was divine, Jonathan's parents loved the restaurant we'd chosen, the room they put us in was perfect, the service was flawless, the weather was awesome, the view of City Park from the balcony was stunning... it really couldn't have gone better.
The rain. Yes, it rained on our wedding day. All afternoon and all evening. It's good luck, right? And at times I got to have a polka dotted wedding dress. ;)
The shoes. I positively loved the shoes I ended up wearing. I will be happy with that choice forever.
My hair. Man, do I have some gorgeous hair, if I do say so myself. I grew it for a long time so that it would be at such a length for the wedding, and I felt that it looked lovely. We put these amazing white ranunculus clips in it that were just right. Fear not, pictures forthcoming, eventually. I was so happy with it that day that I've decided not to chop it all off... for the time being at least.
My bouquet. As I've already declared, the flowers were the single thing that I only had to do once, for which I will be eternally indebted to Fleur Rouge. My bouquet is so beautiful, I want to look at it every day for the rest of my life. And I just might.
Our limo and its driver. The limo was so gorgeous! A 1963 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud - a car to die for. And the driver, George. In so many ways he made everything OK. He brought us champagne after the ceremony, held an umbrella over our photographer as we took pictures around the park, drove us around when we didn't feel like going home, and provided a source of cheerful respite throughout the evening. We love you George.
Our friends. So many of our friends joined us from distant locales, and though many could not do so we know that they wanted to be with us and were sending us their love.
The food. It looked great, it was delicious, contrary to what everyone claims I had plenty of time to eat it, and everyone at the party said it was marvelous. Any skepticism of the all vegan reception was quickly put to rest - after all, it's hard to cast dispersions with your mouth full of Mushrooms Rockefeller.
The cupcakes and the cakes. They were gorgeous! They were delicious! I will FOREVER be grateful and indebted to KC and her fab shop, KC's Babycakes on the Northshore, for making that aspect of our wedding happen. Everyone raved, and all 50 of the gift boxes we'd assembled went home with happy, cupcake loving partygoers.
Him. Jonathan. My husband. He approached the "altar" with the most beautiful grin; he delivered his vows with his voice clear and calm and steady and strong (even as I cried and choked through mine); and on our wedding night he made me feel like the most beautiful, most loved woman to ever walk the earth. Plus he looked totally hot in his suit.

So there you have it - some highlights of happiness from the big day. There was more - like the jewelery that I made for myself that I'm now in love with. I'll probably have a few final posts of the details to make here once I sort out some things with the photographs... but let's not get into that, shall we? ;)

Eight.

2010-03-12T14:02:00.000-05:00

OK. We're eight days out. And yes, there was the party at work, which was lovely. Last Saturday I'm pretty sure I was relaxed and happy - I hardly even remember what I did. (Oh right, we got our taxes done {I owe $2k} and then went out to dinner. Thank you date book!)

Sunday I had a VERY successful and productive shopping day with my maid-of-witness Monica. We went to mega-Macy's and got undergarment thingies - weird but apparently necessary. And then we went to Moo Shoes where I got two GORGEOUS new pairs of shoes, both brown. Go figure. My rehearsal dinner dress is brown, see.

And then, on Monday, the panic returned.

I woke up pretty anxious. And by lunchtime it had swollen to I-have-to-go-out-to-lunch proportions. I in fact ended up at Le Pain Quotidian, because they always have vegan pastry, and it's a pastry kind of week, and they always have vegan soup and soup sounded nice too. By Tuesday I was a full blown wreck; I got exactly zilch accomplished at work all day. I'm sure things would have been much better if I'd stopped thinking about the wedding and focused on work instead, but the nature of panic is to perpetuate itself, not to look for solutions.

It may have hit its peak Tuesday night - I couldn't sleep at all. There was wailing, gnashing of teeth, rending of clothes... OK, not quite rending of clothes, but damn close. Poor Jonathan. I can't say it was really tapering on Wednesday. In fact I couldn't actually leave the house Wednesday morning. If I'd tried to go get on the subway I would have had an actual panic attack. So I gave myself the morning off. I did actually put the time to some use, and then I went to work and got some work done. And then I went to therapy.

So finally, by Thursday, it got a little better. I did work, I took myself out to lunch, I did some more work, I got some things done in the evening, and I don't think I cried once all day. I only ate half a pint of ice cream, and I ate three real meals.

Today, I'm actually... kinda excited! There's a bit of a damper being put on it by the crazy amounts of pain that I'm in - I really shouldn't be at work, in fact. But it's my last day before I'm out for two weeks, so I figure I'll just suck it up. Swallow a couple of pills and hope that they help, keep the wrist brace on for whatever the hell is going on with my right side, and do what I can.

I'm getting married in eight days! That Jonathan guy? I like him! A lot! You should see him playing with the bunny rabbit. Cutest thing you ever saw. He's going to be my husband. I'm going to be his wife. We get to have a party about it. I get to wear a pretty dress. Now: pray that it doesn't rain. ;)

Why blogs are living in my head.

2010-03-11T17:07:00.002-05:00

I am getting married in 9 days! I am living in a state of perpetual panic. Here are things that I will write posts about if I ever compose myself enough to do so:

-criticism and praise of "Gumbo Tales" by Sarah Rhoan
-my weekend of four legumes in four days
-changes I noticed in New Orleans - those that make sense and those that don't...
-how a quiet little gray bunny rabbit can change your life
-the nature of panic
-what a cold, clear morning in New York City truly means
-my name: why I keep what I keep; why I'm letting go what doesn't feel like mine
-the various medical tests and medication changes I'm currently avoiding because I have too many other things to think about right now

There are probably others

The words are living in my head. At this point they're bombarding the inside of my skull, trying to smash themselves right through. But there are still thank you cards to make, there's still packing to do, oh my stars and garters where does the time go.

Hope springs eternal, in the form of cupcakes.

2010-02-26T11:00:00.002-05:00

I know this has been keeping you up nights. But I want you to know that you can rest easy now. It's going to be alright.

Remember all those issues I was having with trying to get someone to bake me a vegan wedding cake? I had practically resolved myself to baking my own when I got an email from a vegan-network-friend of mine who lives on the Northshore. One of her friends opened up a bakery in Mandeville a few months ago, she wrote, and baked vegan cupcakes pretty regularly.

To which I said, YES PLEASE THANK YOU.

My parents are not so into the idea of a cupcake tower for the wedding, but they'll suck it up. I admit, I did have my heart set on a "real" cake for a while, but a delicious, gorgeous, vegan presentation is what it comes down to.

And after my meeting with KC of KC's Babycakes, I am absolutely convinced that it's exactly what I'll have. She came highly recommended from a trusted source, which is always good. But you just never know, particularly with vegan baked goods I think, until you sit down and sink your teeth in. This is precisely what I did last Monday. KC spent two full hours with me, and as those of you who know me are well aware, that is a LONG time to spend with me when I'm really excited about something. I sampled six (count them, six) different flavors of her vegan cupcakes. Somehow, each was more extraordinary than the last. You want to hear about them, don't you?

Cookies n cream: a crazy moist rich chocolate cupcake with just a hint of almond, topped with an intensely sweet vanilla buttercream speckled with crumbled oreo-style cookies, crowned with a whole cookie nestled in the middle for good measure. This is an excellent showcase for just how good a simple (but extremely well-baked) chocolate cupcake can be.

Coconut and Coffee: a subtly flavored caramel brown coconut cupcake, slathered in rich coffee buttercream then rimmed with a ring of toasted coconut shavings. Gourmet, doubtless; this cupcake is somehow simultaneously exotic and extravagant while also being comforting and homey. It may be KC's favorite of her vegan creations; me, I am having a very difficult time choosing a favorite.

Vanilla Chocolate Swirl: a basic made fancy, two moist and delicious cakes marbled in the cup and topped with a generous helping of vanilla buttercream, finished with miniature chocolate chips. It's hard to describe how decadent this cakelet is as it sounds so simple, so you'll just have to believe me.

Lemon Macadamia: a lightly lemon cupcake punctuated with chunks of real macadamia nuts, topped with a pungent, bright frosting made with real fresh lemon juice, and finally rimmed with colored sugar for a look that is both sophisticated and fun. (This one happens to be modeling the cupcake wrapper I've chosen - "Aloha" from Paper Orchid. Many thanks to KC for cluing me in on this new cupcake trend!)

Banana Split: here's where we really start getting crazy! A cupcake with a banana bread like consistency - because it's made with real banana, making it ultra dense and moist with true banana flavor - but sweeter and with mini chocolate chips in it. Then topped in a lush twirl of delicately banana flavored buttercream frosting. The cupcakes I tasted were sprinkled with pecans and then topped with a cherry, which was a great finish. However, to be more friendly to my nut-allergic guest(s), for the wedding they'll be drizzled in chocolate ganache before being cherried. Too divine!

Wedding Cake: a flavor that I *believe* was developed just for me! In case you don't know, in New Orleans there is a flavor actually known as "wedding cake flavor" - you can order it at any good snowball stand. It's generally a creamy almond flavor, and it's been a tradition at Nola nuptials since anyone can remember. This cupcake did not disappoint. A perfectly dense, moist, rich, creamy lightly almond and vanilla white cupcake, topped with wonderfully rich almond buttercream, and finished with the most darling candy pearls you'd ever wish to see. Simple and elegant, this is the flavor that really made the set for me. We'll also have a 6" cake atop the tower that will be baked from this batter. I really couldn't be more pleased with how this one came out.

I'll stop killing you with cupcake descriptions now - except to say that we actually haven't decided between doing the cookies n cream described above, or a classic red velvet. I didn't get to sample KC's red velvet, but based on what I've seen and tasted, I have zero doubt that it is exquisite. And I can't help thinking of some kind of chocolate-and-strawberry concoction... Maybe a small groom's cake? What can I say? Life is full of so many difficult decisions.

Some day soon I'll tell you what happens when you take a dozen of the fabulous cupcakes described above over to the only vegetarian restaurant in town (Cafe Bamboo), have a couple of Abitas, and start getting generous. But that, loves, is a story for another day.

The Sickling.

2010-02-25T11:15:00.001-05:00

It makes me angry and sad and frustrated that I had to come into the office today. Getting here was excruciating, a trial for the body and the soul. Now, just sitting here my pain is at a 4 or a 5, and god forbid I try to do anything crazy like walk - it just spikes right up to a 7 or 8. The weather, I think, is at least partly to blame: it's very cold and very damp, with a precipitation combination of rain and fat wet snowdrops. Enough snow has accumulated on the ground that it's like walking on a slushie just spilled, making my already unsure steps that much more wobbly. It hurt like hell to do so, what with the very inflamed tendon in my left foot, but how was I to go out in this without putting on boots?

The answer that comes raging to the forefront of my mind is, of course, "Well, your back is killing you, and your sciatica has been getting progressively worse for several days in a row, and it's inflaming your foot so much that it's somewhat difficult for you to walk... why would you even consider going out in this?!" It seems simple enough. If I'm not in good enough shape to go to work, I shouldn't. If only it worked that way.

See, the real trouble is that I have the audacity to think that I get to be like other people and go off and have a wedding. I really do have some nerve don't I? The wedding is eating up 10 of my days for the year, plus three more for the weekend I just took to make preparations (and see my neurologist). That's 13 down. I've already missed two days this year because I had headaches so bad that getting on the subway was absolutely out of the question - that's 15. So even with the fairly generous number of vacation/sick days afforded me by this employer, I only have 7 days left to last me the next 10 months. Not even one day per. This is bad math.

What I really and truly wish is that they would let me take unpaid days, but for some reason that is out of the question. I would understand it being a problem if I just wanted to take one vacation after another, but I have some fairly exceptional circumstances here.

Or do I? After all, who am I to deserve time off in the days leading up to my wedding? Who am I to think I can just blow a week on the frivolity of a honeymoon? I know full well that I'm sickly. I should be more practical. I should be keeping those days so that I can call out when I'm ill. After all, it's not as if I'm human. I'm just the sick thing they stuck in the basement when I became too much trouble upstairs.

And I wonder: how much longer can I live like this?

Just sayin' that my office needs, to close, aright?

2010-02-09T14:53:00.000-05:00

... WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM MIDNIGHT TONIGHT TO 6 AM EST THURSDAY...

A WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM MIDNIGHT TONIGHT TO 6 AM EST THURSDAY.

SNOW IS EXPECTED TO DEVELOP LATER TONIGHT. THE SNOW MAY BECOME HEAVY AT TIMES ON WEDNESDAY... BEFORE SLOWLY TAPERING OFF WEDNESDAY NIGHT. SNOW ACCUMULATIONS OF 8 TO 13 INCHES ARE EXPECTED. AT THIS TIME THE HIGHER AMOUNTS ARE EXPECTED ACROSS THE NEW YORK CITY METROPOLITAN AREA AND LONG ISLAND.

AS THE STORM INTENSIFIES... EAST TO NORTHEAST WINDS WILL BECOME STRONG AND GUSTY DURING THE DAY ON WEDNESDAY... AND THESE WINDS CONTINUE WEDNESDAY NIGHT. GUSTS OF 35 TO 45 MPH ARE POSSIBLE... ESPECIALLY ACROSS COASTAL SECTIONS. THIS WILL CAUSE BLOWING AND DRIFTING OF SNOW... WITH NEAR BLIZZARD CONDITIONS AT TIMES ALONG WITH POSSIBLE POWER OUTAGES.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

A WINTER STORM WARNING FOR HEAVY SNOW MEANS SEVERE WINTER WEATHER CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED OR OCCURRING. SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS OF SNOW ARE FORECAST THAT WILL MAKE TRAVEL DANGEROUS. ONLY TRAVEL IN AN EMERGENCY. IF YOU MUST TRAVEL... KEEP AN EXTRA FLASHLIGHT... FOOD... AND WATER IN YOUR VEHICLE IN CASE OF AN EMERGENCY.

Gotta love the NWS with its all caps style and grace.

Going once, going twice, going three times... SOLD to the compassionate landowner instead of the slaughterhouse!! (If we'll give a hand, that is...)

2010-02-03T08:54:00.001-05:00

Animal lovers everywhere, here is a story you won't want to miss.

Jodi of the amazing VET shop This Is It! Creations made a terrible discovery over the weekend: that these three bulls who graze on her property were to be sold for slaughter in short order. Being a person of high ideals, naturally Jodi immediately started looking for an answer - that is, a way to keep these three gorgeous animals from such a brutal and unnecessary death. The solution? Buy them! But cows don't come cheap; their freedom can indeed be purchased, but it will come to the tune of about $3600. Not only that, but the payment must be made by the end of next week!

And so, friends, we ask for your help. Chip in to save Pooka Cow, Spotty Friend, and Less Spotty Friend!

Several VET member shops including 3 AM Art Productions, Veganosaurus, Holistically Heather, and Cards and Jewelry by Michele as well as Etsy for Animals' Lola Lynn are donating portions of sales through the zero hour, and Jodi's own shop will be putting 100% of all sales from today, Wednesday February 3, towards saving the boys. So get shopping already!

Just a few dollars from each of us can make a big difference. These lives matter! Help Jodi to help her friends. What's their alternative to a terrifying slaughterhouse? Says Jodi:

"We've been asked where the cows will go if we do raise enough money to save them - they will stay here, at least for the short term. We have 11 acres of land, a barn, and a stream. We are planning to create a line of products where all of the profits will go toward their care (hay, vet bills, fence mending, etc.) If we can find a loving family with enough land to adopt them, we are definitely open to that as well."

Country idyll or the abattoir - three lives are on the line. So, wanna buy a journal? :)

The best bake sale ever.

2010-02-01T11:25:00.000-05:00

This will just be a brief post, to be followed by a much more substantial one later in the week (with pics!).

Yesterday was the NYC Vegan Bake Sale for Haiti. The main organizers were the Vegan Etsy Team's Lisa of Panda with Cookie and our good friend Dayna of the awesome blog Seitan Said Dance; I played a distant third fiddle and MANY others contributed very significant help, like the amazing Janice who designed our flier.

Well, to put it lightly the event was a raging success! A completely astounding number of wonderful people baked a ridiculously delightful array (and quantity) of baked goodies. People came out en masse to volunteer, buy, eat, purchase raffle tickets, donate, and generally support the cause.

Thanks to this outpouring of awesomeness, we were able to raise approximately $4600 in a single day, every penny of which will be sent directly to Doctors Without Borders to help fund their current work in Haiti.

To everyone who was involved in this and all of the other Vegan Bake Sales for Haiti that have been happening and continue to happen all over the world - collecting over TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS FOR HAITI to date!! - thank you, thank you, thank you.

Apparently the vegan community is good in a crisis.

2010-01-16T20:17:00.001-05:00

**First posted on New York in Green**

I can't believe it's been over two weeks since I made a post on this blog! Well, happy belated New Year. And now to the news: we've already had a really horrible natural disaster for the year 2010.

Well that's just great. Crap!

Being a person who had my own city destroyed in a semi-natural very-disaster not so many years ago, I have to say that sitting here watching this happen is really, really anxiety provoking. I have absolutely zero connection to Haiti, other than the facts that it's also populated by humans and cool animals and is on the planet earth. Nevertheless, the mere thought of the magnitude of human suffering that is happening there right now makes me start to freak out and cry a little bit. So honestly I'm trying not to think about it, and but by the grace of dog there go I, to have the happy privilege of not being one of the hundreds of thousands of people whose lives are directly affected by this earthquake.

What's giving me some consolation, though, is that it seems the whole world has jumped to action. Everywhere I look, everyone is trying to send help to Haiti or to groups that are helping Haiti. And by help I mean money, because let's face it - when a whole slew of people are in need of medical care and a significant portion of your infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, what you need is money and plenty of it.

Even my stupid FaceBook games are getting in on the action! (And so help me, they had better be on the level about it.) Zynga's top three games as well as FishVille (and maybe others?) have all instituted features that promote donating to their Hatian fund, and their blog also has links for direct donations to the nonprofit they're partnering with, the World Food Programme. They're claiming that 100% of profits are being donated!

So... why am I writing about this on the vegan blog? Because! The response that the vegan community has had to this egregious event is quite astounding. We're all having bake sales!

OK. Now, on its face that sounds really stupid. But hear me out. When done right, a good bake sale can bring in some dough. (Ha ha! Pun enjoyed but not intended.) And believe me when I tell you we're doing it right. You get some vegans together who are really into baking, and the delicacies that come forth are out of this world. And then there's the matter of quantity. So check it: so far, that I know of, there are 14 vegan bake sales already organized across the U.S.! And counting! Of course Isa Chandra Moskowitz of Post Punk Kitchen fame has been a major catalyst in making this bake sale thing happen and for this, Isa, NYiG applauds you.

I'll be participating in the bake sale here in NYC - it's going on all day long at Moo Shoes on Sunday, January 31st. Yeah, I'm making cupcakes. You know it. We're donating the proceeds to Doctors Without Borders - those docs do pretty amazing work, and amazing doctors are definitely needed over there right now. I'll also be stopping by this month's Vegan Drinks on Thursday the 28th, which will be featuring its own mini vegan bake sale for Haiti! Like that event needed to get any awesomer. They will be supporting Sodopreca, a group of veterinarians heading across the border from DR to help out.

[Geography Lesson] Hispaniola = the island on which are the countries of Dominican Republic and Haiti.[/Geography Lesson]

But guess what? Bake sales aren't it! There's also the amazing Josh Hooten and his partner Michelle of Herbivore Clothing Company: they teamed up with Ink Brigade to create this fab t-shirt. Naturally proceeds are going straight to the epicenter. I've already ordered mine... you're waiting for what, exactly?

Below you will find a list of all the vegan action happening for Haiti thus far, lifted directly from Animal Rights & AntiOppression (thanks, you're totally awesome!). When something this drastic happens, it's crucial that we all realize it could happen to any of us. Really. And please, please, PLEASE remember that this is not going to be over in a week or a month or even a year. These people are going to be suffering and rebuilding for a long, long time. Just because it's not the top news story, that doesn't mean it's done with. Keep these people in your hearts and minds (and prayers, if you're so inclined), and do whatever it is you can do to help... with or without chocolate chips. :)

California
1/23 (Sat) Sacramento
Sugar Plum Vegan Cafe
2315 K Street
11:00 – 3:00 pm
Benefits Food for Life Global
1/23 (Sat) Sacramento
R5 Records
2500 16th Street
10:00 – 3:00 pm
Benefits the American Red Cross
1/23 (Sat) San Francisco
Patricia’s Green
Hayes St. at Octavia
11:00 – 4:00 pm
1/31 (Sun) Los Angeles
Locali
5825 Franklin Ave
11:00-4:00 pm
Benefits Doctors without Borders

Minnesota
1/30 (Sat) Minneapolis
Ethique Nouveau
317 West 48th St
12:00-5:00 pm

Nebrasaka
1/24 (Sun) Omaha
McFoster’s Natural Kind Cafe
302 S. 38th St
12:00-2:00 pm
Benefits Mercy Corps

New York
1/28 (Th) New York City
Angels and Kings
500 East 11th St.
7:00-9:00 pm
Benefits Sodoprec (Dominican veterinarians, site in Spanish)
1/31 (Sun) New York City
MooShoes
78 Orchard St.
11:30 – 6:00 pm
Benefits Doctors without Borders

Ohio
1/23 (Sat) Akron
Vegiterranean
21 Furnace St.
11:00-5:00 pm
Benefits Doctors without Borders

Oregon
1/31 (Sun) Portland
People’s Coop
3029 Southeast 21st Ave.
2:00-5:00 pm
Benefits Mercy Corps

Washington
1/31 (Sun) Seattle
Neptune Coffee
8415 Greenwood Ave North
2:00-5:00 pm
Benefits Partners in Health
Facebook invite page here.

Washington D.C.
DC Vegans
1/24 (Sun) DC
Takoma Park Farmer’s Market
Carroll Ave & Laurel Ave
10:00-2:00 pmFacebook Event Page
Benefits Mercy Corps

So what the hell is going on with this wedding?

2010-01-01T15:05:00.000-05:00

Well I'll tell you. Not much. The truth of it is you haven't really been hearing from me because I've had little to no energy to put into the wedding in the past few months - my crap health and ridiculous job have been taking pretty much all I've got, and you throw the holidays on top of that and, well... there you go, two months of no blogging.

So let me think. What haven't you heard about? Well I think I need to fill you in on the dress saga. I believe you know that I ordered the dress. Great! Hooray! There was that silly freakout when I discovered it was going to arrive in October instead of December and I was all, but I'm not ready for it yet! Well, thank god I opened the box instead of letting it sit around, because when I did open it I found a perfectly lovely dress... with a three inch pen mark on the skirt. Mmm hmm.

OK. So the dress went back. And a couple of weeks later I got it back, supposedly "fixed." What did I find? ZOMG, complete nightmare. To "fix" the dress, they had cut out a panel from the front of the skirt, leaving the skirt with two new seams running down the front that weren't there before. But the big issue was the box pleats.

One of the main features of the dress is a row of inverted box pleats running beneath the sewn in waist band. They're quite prominent. These had to be taken out and sewn back in to replace the panel of fabric. Well, they were sewn back in badly. And I mean BADLY. Each one was a different size, measurable in half inches! The one on the right was nearly a full inch narrower than the one on the left, and the whole series was totally off center. Now, had this been some secondhand dress off of Ebay, that'd be one thing. It wasn't. Feel me?

OK. So needless to say, that dress too went back. So there I was, pretty much exactly four months out from the wedding, with no dress. This is ungood. Many dressmakers won't even take an order with less than four months' lead time. So - and you're going to think I'm crazy - I reordered the dress from the same company, in a different color so that it would be impossible for any part of the original dress to be used in the new one. I did so on the guarantee that it would be personally inspected by the sales woman I'd been corresponding with.

The dress shipped out on December 30; it's scheduled to arrive on January 7. Let's just say that if it arrives effed up, I may fly to California just to bitch slap somebody.

Hmm. Other stuff. The shoes I ordered in October finally arrived. I wasn't thrilled with the fabric, but so it goes. Well, I wore them around the house for an hour and the fabric has already begun to separate from the sole and shred. So much for handmade quality. I haven't contacted the Etsy seller I got them from yet because, lord help me, I haven't got the strength.

Invitations will be going out sometime in the next two weeks... though before that can happen I still need to figure out how to get return addresses on the envelopes.

I'm still just so thankful to the woman who made my flower stuff - that remains the ONE THING that I haven't had to do at least twice! Fleur Rouge, I will love you for ever and ever. Now everyone put your collective energies together and pray for me that nothing bad happens to them when I ship them down to NO! I will be in a slight panic from the moment they leave my possession until my mom calls me to say she received an un-crushed box.

So that's all for now folks. Soon I hope to talk with my caterer about using some recipes I have to, say, bake us a vegan wedding cake and/or cupcakes, and maybe some more exciting menu options... I'll let you know how that goes.

Hearts.

A time for reflection - ooh, goody! Reviewing this year, looking forward to next.

2009-12-31T13:13:00.001-05:00

Here we are, then, on the eve. I'm home from work with a migraine, and while the head pain waxes and wanes the nausea is a constant, punctuated by the sharp shots of a sciatica flare-up. Snow is falling outside - the second real fall this December - and I won't go out for fear of falling. Ah, life.

I am sad to say that this year has been one largely defined by my health, or really, the problems therewith. Perhaps my body knows it's actually in its thirties now; maybe that's why my condition has taken such a dramatic nosedive. I cannot do what I could do a year ago. That's an odd thing to have to say - in my mind I still feel young.

Even so, I want to say that good things have happened this year. I just have to dig them out is all. They're not big and flashy. They're more the kind of thing you learn to appreciate because it's foolish to take them for granted.

For one, Jonathan and I moved. And while the move itself was difficult, overall it's been a good thing. It strengthened our relationship and gave us a more comfortable living space. It let me have a christmas tree! It's much more quiet here, which makes it easier for me to rest when I need to. And since we're now on the second floor, and in a house instead of an apartment building, I feel much safer. These things have a real impact on quality of life.

For another, I managed to get through another year at the office. It's killing me, but it's important to our survival. Is that contradictory? We need the income, and heaven knows I need the health insurance. And the fact is that the longer I'm there and the more senior and indispensable I am, the more power I'll have to negotiate if I need to, say, work part time or go on medical leave.

Then there are the dozens of micro-achievements that make daily life worth living: the blog posts that people enjoyed, my work with the Vegan Etsy team, the couple of zines I've managed to write, the Etsy sales I've made and positive feedback I've received, the train rides I've taken and blogged about. There was some pure enjoyment as well: reconnecting and spending of time with cherished friends, visiting my former homes and actually taking a real vacation for once, and just exploring the city with my baby like we do. And, you know, the eating.

It's been a hard year for many people in my life, but always there are spots of hope. One of my dearest friends became a mother this year; at this very moment she is doubtless curled in the warm glowing love of her new baby girl, just two weeks old. It's good to know that such happiness still exists in the world. Another friend has gained an ever growing acknowledgment of her craft and design skills, each day getting a little closer to fulfilling her dream. Yet others will be a rock star, a professional photographer, and a famous author any minute now, despite it all. Maybe this is what my wildly diverse group of friends and I have in common: no matter what life throws at us we just continue to strive for... whatever the hell it is that we can't live without.

So, next year? 2010, the year sci-fi movies are made of? (Where is my jet pack? Where is my hovercraft? Where is my homicidal supercomputer?) It's hard to say. As of my doctor's appointment yesterday, I am coming off of the Savella. That will be a somewhat slow and possibly sickening process, but I'm trying not to psych myself out over it. Once I'm off of it... Well, I have some real fears. I began the medication because I was rapidly approaching real disability. Unfortunately, while it helped the fibro somewhat, the side effects have made it hurt more than help. So off of it, I really just don't know where I'll stand. (Or hell, if I'll be able to stand at all, ha.)

Once I'm weaned, we may try Cymbalta, another medication in the same class. It may help, it may not, it may make things worse. There's a lot of guesswork and wait-and-see in this process. It, um, sucks. But there's nothing for it but to keep trying, because I'm not just going to go, oh, OK, well I guess I just don't function anymore. That's not really my gig, you know?

Of course I'll keep up with the chiropractic and all of the other things I do as well. I've never once believed that medication is the complete answer.

2009 was the year I got worse; maybe 2010 is the year I get better.

And I'll keep writing. There is so much that I want to write. Maybe 2010 is when I get another short story published - hopefully somewhere where someone might actually read it this time. It's almost a sure thing that I'll be having some blurb-ey, short expositive writing bits published in the Zinester's Guide to NYC, scheduled to be put out by Microcosm this coming summer. Don't want to say it's definite, because who ever knows what'll happen, but let's say it's supposed to happen, and at least for that I'm excited.

Will I make visual art? Probably. I can't help it. I just comes sometimes, though not as often as I'd like. Meh.

And, oh yes, I'll get married. I'll be Mrs. Breedlove. I'll spend a day dashing around in a big blue dress, and at the end of it I'll have a husband; I'll be a wife. It's really an intriguing concept. I'm quite interested to see how it turns out.

It will be a year, composed of 365 individual days. I intend to do my best to make the most of each one - whatever my "best" might be on each of them. Because honestly, what the hell else would I do?

Vegans Drink! Erm, that is, Vegan Drinks!

2009-12-19T11:38:00.000-05:00

It has been far, far too long since I've posted. But here I am! You can all rest easy now.

I'm here to tell you that I finally, finally made it out to Vegan Drinks! You see, for ages now I've believed that they held a not-too-secret vendetta against me. Vegan Drinks is held on Thursday evenings - the last Thursday of the month, generally, to be preciseish - and see I have a longstanding appointment every Thursday evening. What conclusion is there to come to, other than, they did this on purpose so that I can't come? It seemed clear enough to me.

Well this week I thwarted their maniacal little plan and showed up anyway! And what do you know - they were just tickled pink to see me. It seems that they actually schedule the event as it's most convenient for the organizers and the location - Angels and Kings in the East Village - and has nothing to do with me at all. What are the chances? Anyway, as it happened, this Thursday was one of the biggest NYC Vegan Drinks events yet - more drink specials (rum nog!), more food (empanadas from V Spot served up by Danny himself, chocolate from Compassionate Confections), a whole ton of giveaways (including books from the Post Punk Kitchen dynamic duo and jewelery from Evolve Accessories)... It was quite an evening!

There were so many to people to talk to, and the DJ rocked it out all night long. She kept playing songs that I thought only I remembered and loved - the mark of a truly good DJ, I must say. I will definitely be making it back for the next Vegan Drinks, January 28, 2010! OK, I'll definitely be trying to anyway. ;)

Cuter than a puppy, even.

2009-12-18T19:19:00.002-05:00

Crappy health + crazy work + many other obligations = my blogs suffer.

Anyway, a little treat for you.

There's a breed of omnivore which likes to "confront" me about my veganism by telling me that the only reason I don't eat animals is that they're cute. This is entirely untrue - there are many, many reasons not to eat animals without even breaching how amazing the animals themselves are. *However.* Animals are so freaking cute! Exhibit A: Kingsford The Pig.

Enjoy.

Eating Animals: Hiding / Seeking - the fourth chapter of the new book by Jonathan Safran Foer

2009-12-01T20:34:00.000-05:00

I'm wearing black in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. There are surgical booties around my disposable shoes and latex gloves on my shaking hands. I pat myself down, quintuple-checking that I have everything: red-filtered flashlight, picture ID, $40 cash, video camera, copy of California penal code 597e, bottle of water (not for me), silenced cell phone, blow horn. We kill the engine and roll the final thirty yards to the spot we scouted out earlier in the day on one of our half-dozen drive-bys. This isn't the scary part yet.

Thus begins the fourth chapter of Foer's book, the chapter entitled Hiding/Seeking. A lot happens in this chapter. As you may have gleaned, it begins with our hero pretty much breaking into a factory farming facility. He does so with a woman we call "C", who seems to do such things on a fairly regular basis. But she is not radical or extremist. We actually get to know how she feels about it, because it is in this chapter that Foer begins to use the device of personal narratives - that is, short segments actually written by various people he interacted with while writing the book (rather than just about them). Whereas his description of the event has the subheading, "I'm not the kind of person who finds himself on a stranger's farm in the middle of the night", her section, which immediately follows, is titled "I am the kind of person who finds herself on a stranger's farm in the middle of the night." {Emphasis added.} Get it?

Unlike the black bandanna-wearing members of the ALF that you sometimes see around NYC, chanting things like "We will drive the final nail!" (sorry guys, but what does that even mean?), C seems like a person you could comfortably take into your living room.

I am not a radical. In almost every way, I'm a middle-of-the-road person. I don't have any piercings. No weird haircut. I don't do drugs. Politically, I'm liberal on some issues and conservative on others. But see, factory farming is a middle-of-the-road issue - something most reasonable people would agree on if they had access to the truth...

It's crazy that the idea of animal rights seems crazy to anyone. We live in a world in which it's conventional to treat an animal like a hunk of wood and extreme to treat an animal like an animal.

Well said, C. (But, you know, it's so convenient to treat them like hunks of wood.)

Foer, somewhat needless to say, is moved by his experience of witnessing conditions at the factory of animals. But what disturbs him most is the difficulty they have finding a door to the animal sheds that isn't locked.

We spend several minutes like this, looking for an unlocked door. Another why: Why would a farmer lock the doors of his turkey farm? It can't be because he's afraid someone will steal his equipment or animals... A farmer doesn't lock his doors because he's afraid his animals will escape. (Turkeys can't turn doorknobs.)... So why? In the three years I will spend immersed in animal agriculture, nothing will unsettle me more than the locked doors. Nothing will better capture the whole sad business of factory farming. And nothing will more strongly convince me to write this book.

The next section, surprisingly enough, has the heading "I am a factory farmer." Reading this is sort of like talking to a rational republican. You think, Well, I see what you're saying, and clearly you've thought it through. But I think you may be missing some things... For example: "Sure, you could say that people should just eat less meat, but I've got news for you: people don't want to eat less meat." No, many people do not want to eat less meat. People also don't want to go to school, work eight hours a day, pay rent or a mortgage, follow driving laws, have their teeth cleaned, go visit grandma in the hospital, clean the house, take the trash out, or pay their taxes. There are plenty of things that people don't want to do. But in order for society to function, and for individuals to remain safe and healthy, they do them. It is part of being a responsible adult on the planet earth which has an ever-increasing population. What am I really saying here? Sorry folks, suck it up. Your 99 cent cheeseburger has just got to go.

The chapter goes on to say a good deal about chickens. Given that an estimated 99% of chickens come from factory farms, they become a good icon for this system of creating food animals. (I have seen this number cited in numerous places, but unfortunately I can't find you an unbiased reference for it.) "As described in industry journals from the 1960s onward, the egg-laying hen was to be considered 'only a very efficient converting machine', the pig was to be 'just like a machine in a factory', and the twenty-first century was to bring a new 'computer cookbook of recipes for custom-designed creatures.'" *shiver*

The last segment of this chapter is one called "I am the last poultry farmer." It is written by a man who raises turkeys, and loves them as if children. Except, of course, that he eventually kills them so that people can eat them, which most people will not do with their children. He is, however, the first of the contributors to give a name: Frank Reese. He doesn't support or want to have anything to do with factory farming methods.

Not a single turkey you can buy in a supermarket could walk normally, much less jump or fly. Did you know that? They can't even have sex. Not the antibiotic-free, or organic, or free-range, or anything. They all have the same foolish genetics, and their bodies won't allow for it anymore. Every turkey sold in every store and served in every restaurant was the product of artificial insemination. If it were only for efficiency, that would be one thing, but these animals literally can't reproduce naturally. Tell me what could be sustainable about that?... What the industry figured out - and this was the real revolution - is that you don't need healthy animals to make a profit.

As you may have guessed, he raises what are now referred to as "heritage birds", rather than the genetically adulterated birds generally raised for commercial uses these days (i.e. for the past maybe 50 years). His birds can fly, and jump... and have sex. Frank makes a statement in his diatribe that I strongly agree with: "If consumers don't want to pay the farmer to do it right, they shouldn't eat meat." There's that 99 cent cheeseburger again.

Just the other day, one of the local pediatricians was telling me he's seeing all kinds of illnesses that he never used to see... Everyone knows it's our food. We're messing with the genes of these animals and then feeding them growth hormones and all kinds of drugs that we really don't know enough about. And then we're eating them.

Couldn't have said it better myself, Frank.

And people still wonder why I'm vegan?

Eating Animals: Words/Meaning - the third chapter of the new book by Jonathan Safran Foer

2009-11-24T16:03:00.001-05:00

As an author, Foer likes to play. In his first novel, Everything is Illuminated, he played with time and the sharing (or not sharing) of space. In Extremely Close and Incredibly Loud, he played with images - specifically, visual and cognitive perceptions of the world from unusual viewpoints (such as those of a nine year old boy struggling with incomprehensible loss). In his latest book, Eating Animals, Foer plays with language: both in the meaning and sound of words, as well as the physical presence of letters, words, and shapes printed on a page. This is present throughout the book in the chapter headings - pick up a copy and you'll see what I mean. But nowhere is it more expressed than in the third chapter of the book, "Words/Meaning."

This chapter reads as a highly editorialized series of unusual encyclopedia entries, which are indeed listed in alphabetical order. The device allows Foer to address a wide range of issues without leaving his central exploration of the food industry. At times the "definitions" reference each other; many flow brilliantly from one to the next (Bullshit -> Bycatch, for instance), though each stands on its own.

Michael Pollan, an author who has become one of the best known food journalists at least in western culture, takes his knocks in this book. This is unsurprising - many in the vegetarian / vegan community feel that Pollan has all of the information directly in front of him, and yet draws all of the wrong conclusions from it. For example, Pollan has taken the position that becoming veg is the wrong way to go about combating factory farming, and that it is in fact much better to buy meat and animal products from real family farms instead. In 'Discomfort Food', Foer makes the following fabulous point, more or less in direct response to Pollan's argument that vegetarianism is a barrier to 'table fellowship':

Imagine an acquaintance invites you to dinner. You could say, "I'd love to come. And just so you know, I'm a vegetarian." You could also say, "I'd love to come. But I only eat meat that is produced by family farmers." Then what do you do? You'll probably have to send the host a web link or list of local shops to even make the request intelligible, let alone manageable. This effort might be well-placed, but it is certainly more invasive than asking for vegetarian food.

(Is he trying to imply that pasta with marinara is easier than chicken from Joel Salatin? Pish posh.)

Foer's definition of "Free-Range" is priceless:

Applied to meat, eggs, dairy, and every now and then even fish (tuna on the range?), the free-range label is bullshit. It should provde no more peace of mind than "all natural," "fresh," or "magical."

Followed by "Fresh":

According to the USDA, "fresh" poultry has never had an internal temperature below 26 degrees or above 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Fresh chicken can be frozen (thus the oxymoron "fresh frozen"), and there is no time component to food freshness.

Food labeling conundrums are really Marion Nestle's ball of wax, but they're always good for a (terrified) laugh. Other definitions of interest include "KFC" "PETA," "Sentimentality,"

In this chapter, Foer briefly addresses the problems that have arisen in the kosher food industry due to the industrialization of the slaughter process. He asks this difficult question of his own Jewish community: "Has the very concept of kosher meat become a contradiction in terms?"

Living in New York City, I have made many friends and acquaintances who keep kosher. One of the things we have in common is our "restrictive" diets - we tend to understand each other on that level in a way that people who aren't so conscious of food do not. I've had many conversations in which the "two sets of pots and dishes" situation comes up, particularly among people who are dealing with roommates who do not share the same habits. And admittedly, more than once, I've brought up the idea that by going vegan those kosher friends would only need one set, ha.

While less of a story is woven here than in other chapters, it is no less compelling - in fact, given the variety and content of information presented, quite the opposite.

Eating Animals: All or Nothing or Something Else - the second chapter of the new book by Jonathan Safran Foer

2009-11-18T08:40:00.001-05:00

In the second chapter of his book Eating Animals, Foer looks at a conundrum that was first brought to my attention in middle school French class. This was of course the revelation that the French eat horses. The room full of 13 and 14 year olds was naturally perfectly aghast. "Horses?! Surely you must be joking?!!!" To which our teacher, sensibly enough, responded, why is that so different than eating a cow? The best answer we could conjure up was that you can ride horses, and they're pretty. Of course we couldn't really come up with an answer, because there is no real answer.

We are talking, more broadly, about why different cultures choose different animals as OK or not OK to eat. Here in the US, for the most part, we accept cows, pigs, lambs, chickens and a few other birds, and a variety of sea life as perfectly normal food. But talk about eating goat or whale or monkey and we're kind of like, wha? And we pretty much freak out at the idea of eating horse, or, heaven forbid, dog or cat. Even just in the one country though, being the "melting pot" that it is, differences arise. Those of the Jewish culture who follow kosher dietary laws don't find pigs or shellfish to be acceptable food at all. I live in Queens, where many of my neighbors think nothing of eating goat - I know this because of the whole, skinned goats hanging up in butcher shop windows. Some people in some parts of some states are happy to eat wild animals like possums, pigeons, and snakes, or body parts such as cow tongues, chicken gizzards and necks, and pigs' feet and ears, that many so-called omnivorous city folk would lose their lunches over.

Go international, and things get much wilder. Plenty of countries do in fact eat dog. And really, why not? Because they're smart, and loyal, and know their names and do tricks? Any pig owner will tell you that this all holds true for The Other White Meat. And of course the Hindus think us downright blasphemous heathens for eating cows. Monkey brains are a delicacy in many parts of the world. Some find the meat of the orangutan to be quite tasty - so much so that poaching is a threat to the species. The birds that we choose to eat (chickens, turkeys, pheasants...) are no less intelligent or complex than the parrots and other birds we bring into our homes, name, love, and treat as family members - they just have a good amount more breast meat.

As Foer puts it,

The French, who love their dogs, sometimes eat their horses.
The Spanish, who love their horses, sometimes eat their cows.
The Indians, who love their cows, sometimes eat their dogs.

What does all of this tell us? That the decision of which animals we eat vs. which animals we love is essentially arbitrary.

Foer begins his second chapter by making an argument for eating stray dogs rather than letting them be euthanized, ground up, and fed to what we consider to be "proper" food animals. (Didn't know that's what happens? Well it is.) This is classic satire, a la "A Modest Proposal", except that it is infinitely more plausible as dogs, in many places, are eaten, whereas we've pretty much successfully killed off all of the human cultures that think it's alright to eat each other, even when it's just their way of mourning.

The inefficient use of dogs - conveniently already in areas of high human population (take note, local-food advocates) - should make any good ecologist blush.

Ha! Well if animals are here for our use, the man's got a point doesn't he? And if they're not... well you tell me.

Foer continues the chapter in comparing factory farming to war. The analogy is fairly apt, particularly when he draws it out with the example of fish. We could even use a much uglier, particular word: genocide. For the simpler term "war" indicates an enemy, someone fighting back. To an outside observer, it would indeed appear that we are doing our damnedest to simply rid the planet of, say, tuna. We go after these animals with a vicious, no-holds-barred methodology that leaves pure devastation in its wake. But they're just so darn tasty mixed up with some mayo and celery!

Many, many people want to believe that fish are somehow different, somehow special. (Or less special, maybe. For a very brief period I was one of them. Given my roots, I wanted to believe that the livelihood of so many from the place my family comes from could not have grown so tainted. Alas.) We often call these people pescatarians. Regarding this, I will quote two things.

First:

Industrial fishing is not exactly factory farming, but it belongs in the same category and needs to be part of the same discussion - it is part of the same agricultural coup. This is most obvious for aquaculture (farms on which fish are confined to pens and "harvested") but is every bit as true for wild fishing, which shares the same spirit and intensive use of modern technology... Once the picture of industrial fishing is filled in - the 1.4 billion hooks deployed annually on longlines; the 1,200 nets, each one 30 miles in length, used by only one fleet to catch only one species; the ability of a single vessel to haul in fifty tons of sea animals in a few minutes - it becomes easier to think of contemporary fishers as factory farmers rather than fishermen.

Second:

No reader of this book would tolerate someone swinging a pickax at a dog's face. Nothing could be more obvious or less in need of explanation. Is such concern morally out of place when applied to fish, or are we silly to have such unquestioning concern about dogs? Is the suffering of a drawn-out death something that is cruel to inflict on any animal that can experience it, or just some animals?

Food for thought, har har.

A lesson in viruses, part five (of five), and final thoughts.

2009-11-15T21:17:00.000-05:00

This video is maybe most pertinent to the few people I know who feed their dogs raw chicken. Even though as of when this video was made, in 2007, avian flu hadn't shown up in dogs, it seems perfectly plausible that it could.

Now, about this animals-to-people flu situation. It is really, really convenient how we got through this whole video sequence without actually addressing how the avian flu pandemics happened. Sure, maybe the virus is spread from birds to pigs, and then from pigs to humans. OK. Through what vectors? It isn't addressed. What is mentioned, though, is that the virus can be spread through infected birds' feces. Hmm. How would pigs come into contact with bird feces? I've seen some ludicrous mentions here and there about keeping feeding pens covered so forth - as if birds flying overhead and incidentally crapping into feeding pens could spread enough of a virus into the pig population to cause a pandemic? Sorry, I'm not buying it.

This is a very good article, which mentions that during the 1918 pandemic of bird flu pigs were simultaneously infected. But it doesn't draw any conclusions that the pigs then transmitted the disease to humans. On that front I'm not really getting any answers, as the research seems to be quite new.

What does seem to be quite clear, though, is that though the virus is found in wild birds, it isn't a problem until it's in domestic birds. Read: livestock. Reread: the meat industry, mass production of food animals, and good old factory farming - which has aptly been described as "an ideal system for pathogens."

To consider: do we really need to be creating 50 billion food birds a year? Is that really a good idea?

A lesson in viruses, part four (of five).

2009-11-14T21:15:00.000-05:00

This fourth video is almost entirely useless - unless, of course, you happen to live in the UK and come upon a pile of 10 or more dead birds. I do find it interesting, though, that wild birds seem to be unaffected by the virus while domesticated birds (i.e. those which have been bred down to a few genetically manipulated species and have no biodiversity within their populations) are devastated by it.

I think the answer is clear though. We just gotta kill all these damn birds.

A lesson in viruses, part three (of five).

2009-11-13T21:14:00.000-05:00

Part three... well. You'll see. Hmm, so slaughterhouses are "optimal" conditions in which the avian flu can be transmitted from birds to humans. Go fig. Of course the pandemic seems to be caused by the virus being transmitted from birds to pigs, and then from pigs to humans. Funny how we're not talking about how those transmissions occur...

A lesson in viruses, part two (of five).

2009-11-12T21:11:00.000-05:00

I just want to say up front that I disagree with a number of things in this second video, but I'm posting it anyway because it has some interesting information in it. Yearly flu vaccine? Worst idea ever. We're practically begging to create bigger badder flus... until we create a superflu that WILL be a pandemic. All this kind of treatment does is create a bottleneck in the population, so that only the most resistant individuals survive and reproduce... we've already seen it in antibiotics and in insects (in the case of pesticides)... apparently we never learn?

Don't believe me? It's antibiotics and staph all over again. Oh, and they can say MRSA is "community associated" all they want, but when I got a full body staph infection, due to which I had two lesions that had to be lanced and drained, I worked alone and sometimes went whole days without seeing another person. I certainly was not a football player. I mean, I know I'm not the healthiest person, but I was in my mid-20s and healthy enough to work 28 hours a week and be in college... Anyway.

Lest you become confused by the not-so-great explanation of antigenic shift in this video, here's a better description from this CDC article:

Influenza A viruses have eight separate gene segments. The segmented genome allows influenza A viruses from different species to mix and create a new influenza A virus if viruses from two different species infect the same person or animal. For example, if a pig were infected with a human influenza A virus and an avian influenza A virus at the same time, the new replicating viruses could mix existing genetic information (reassortment) and produce a new virus that had most of the genes from the human virus, but a hemagglutinin and/or neuraminidase from the avian virus. The resulting new virus might then be able to infect humans and spread from person to person, but it would have surface proteins (hemagglutinin and/or neuraminidase) not previously seen in influenza viruses that infect humans.

This type of major change in the influenza A viruses is known as antigenic shift. Antigenic shift results when a new influenza A subtype to which most people have little or no immune protection infects humans. If this new virus causes illness in people and can be transmitted easily from person to person, an influenza pandemic can occur.

Also, I can't find anything to really substantiate the idea that the viruses moved from birds to pigs to humans during all of the pandemics - that's really just a theory, and a recent one at that.

View and enjoy!

A lesson in viruses, part one (of five).

2009-11-11T21:09:00.001-05:00

With all they hype in the media, I wanted a better understanding of what the viruses which have "jumped" from animals to humans really are. I found a very informative series of videos, which focus on the Avian flu (H5N1), but also shed a bit of light on Swine flu (H1N1) - at least about where those crazy letter and number designations come from.

Just a note. To put the whole swine flu "pandemic" thing that's supposedly going on right now in perspective? The avian flu that hit in 1918 killed approximately 24 MILLION people inside of about four weeks, and in a year killed between 50 and 100 MILLION people. That, my friends, was a pandemic. Just sayin'. That kind of outbreak is of course why public health officials are so freaked, but the fact is we're certainly not there yet.

Eating Animals: Storytelling - the first chapter of Jonathan Safran Foer's new book.

2009-11-09T21:19:00.001-05:00

I started working in a bookstore in 2004, and immediately realized that not only do people almost always judge books by their covers, but that it's actually possible to do so with some accuracy. My fellow booksellers and I would run through the "New Releases" or "3 for 2 Paperbacks" tables playing this game, and then reading a few pages of given selections to determine the accuracies of our presuppositions. The plain fact is that publishing houses spend a good deal of time and effort creating book covers, and much can be gleaned by paying attention to the fonts, images, and colors used, as well as nuances such as the presence (or lack thereof) of review quotes on the front cover. While certainly not a perfect system, it can be a good beginning when you are faced with the millions of books to be found in the mega-books-r-us stores that now dot stripmalls across America and are simply looking for that bibliophile's holy grail: Something Good to Read.

It is in this way that I came across "Everything is Illuminated", the first novel by Jonathan Safran Foer. If you haven't seen the movie, or especially if you have, you should read the book. It is far more extraordinary. Don't read it if you're easily offended though, because things happen in it that you can't imagine. Anyway, neither here nor there. Next came "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close", a snapshot of the life of a nine year old (vegan) boy who has lost his father in one of the great tragedies of this decade. Very moving, brilliantly written, and not nearly as depressing as it sounds. You should read this one too.

If you can't tell yet, Foer pretty much immediately made it to my list of favorite authors and has not fallen from it - a long list though it may be. And now he's gone and done something that surprised me greatly: he's gone and written a book about eating animals.

It is, in fact, called "Eating Animals", and you've probably heard about it. It has gotten a lot of press lately. Why? For a few reasons I think. First, the obvious one is that an acclaimed fiction writier has now burst forth with this non-fiction work - not about his Jewish ancestry which would have seemed to be a logical progression, but about the fairly hot topic of the ethics of food. What with the likes of Time Magazine and Oprah talking about this stuff now, it's something that mainstream western culture is actually beginning to take notice of.

But for another thing, I think it's simply that a book on this kind of subject is coming from such an unexpected source overall. We expect Michael Pollan, investigative food journalist, to come out with one of his best-selling foodie diatribes every few years. We expect Peter Singer and similar thinkers to talk to us about animals as sentient beings. We expect Marion Nestle to educate us all with her wisdom of moderation and nutritional knowledge. We expect the new "miracle diet" and "magic curing foods for every disease" books - out just in time for the holiday season! What we do not expect, though, is a thoughtful and balanced examination of whether or not we should be eating what we, as a culture, are eating, from an author who has previously just been around to entertain us... which seems to be precisely what we have on our hands.

Is it a vegan book? No. Does it rail against eating meat, and try to convince its readers to become vegetarian at once? I don't believe so. What it does do, though, is attempt to get its audience to think about the food they are putting in their mouths, and why, and how.

Is it worth reading? Well I certainly hope so. I was so hot to read it that I actually shelled out for the hardcover - something I never, ever do. Normally I'll wait a year or more for the paperback, thank you. But this book just struck me as too important not to read immediately. I need to know what he is telling people: whether I agree and applaud, or whether I must start a letter-writing campaign to his NYU office the moment I'm done reading. I have a feeling that this book will be powerful, that people will read it who normally don't think about these things, specifically because while they would never read Peter Singer they will read Jonathan Safran Foer.

I haven't read much yet, but there are two short passages that I would like to share with you. In this first one, Foer tells us about the beginning and end of his initial bout of vegetarianism:

Her intention might or might not have been to convert us to vegetarianism - just because conversations about meat tend to make people feel cornered, not all vegetarians are proselytizers - but being a teenager, she lacked whatever restraint it is that so often prevents a full telling of this particular story. Without drama or rhetoric, she shared what she knew.

My brother and I looked at each other, our mouths full of hurt chickens, and had simultaneous how in the world could I have never thought of that before and why on earth didn't someone tell me? moments. I put down my fork. Frank finished the meal and is probably eating a chicken as I type these words...

My vegetarianism, so bombastic and unyielding in the beginning, lasted a few years, sputtered, and quietly died. I never thought of a response to our babysitter's code [of not hurting things], but found ways to smudge, diminish, and forget it. Generally speaking, I didn't cause hurt. Generally speaking, I strove to do the right thing. Generally speaking, my conscience was clear enough. Pass the chicken, I'm starving.

In this second passage, Foer is discussing his life before he became a father, when his dedication to vegetarianism had still not quite firmed. It strikes me as so honest, so true, so much what so many of us struggled with on our journeys to becoming vegetarian and eventually vegan. I believe it's even more universally true than that, something that will be identified with in almost everyone who reads it, who is honest with himself:

"Of course our wedding wasn't vegetarian, because we persuaded ourselves that it was only fair to offer animal protein to our guests, some of whom had traveled great distances to share our joy. And we ate fish on our honeymoon, but we were in Japan, and when in Japan... And back in our new home, we did occasionally eat burgers and chicken soup and smoked salmon and tuna steaks. But only every now and then. Only whenever we felt like it.

And that, I thought, was that. And I thought that it was just fine. I assumed we'd maintained a diet of conscientious inconsistency. Why should eating be any different from any other ethical realms of our lives? We were honest people who occasionally told lies, careful friends who sometimes acted clumsily. We were vegetarians who from time to time ate meat."

Anything, or most anything, anyway, can be justified in our minds. Justified, and then ignored. Pushed to the corners, hidden in gray places. But those actions that we cannot look in the face when brought into the light of day deserve some re-analysis, don't they? Because left to their own devices, eventually they begin to gnaw - even from those far off, peripheral perches, whether we want to acknowledge them or not. What Foer seems to find is that his first son drags his lesser, hidden actions out into the bright sunlight, holds them up to his face, and asks, "why, daddy?" Daddy, in order to have better answers, wants to have better actions to begin with.

I've only read the first chapter. I'll post updates, let you know how it goes. Please have your pens ready for letters of protest... or of praise. It's entirely possible that I may tell you that you have to read this book too. Just think - that'd be three for three.

Memoirs of a pumpkin seed...

2009-11-04T23:01:00.000-05:00

If you read my other blogs, you may have gleaned that I grew up in a kind of effed up house. But one of the things that we did right was food. And especially for the holidays, we went all out.

When it came to fall, there was this one giant orange squash, The Pumpkin, that dominated all for about a month. Each year we would buy a huge ass pumpkin a few days before Halloween. I remember when I first saw how pumpkins grow, on vines, and suddenly the phrase "pumpkin patch" had meaning. I had trouble imagining how something so huge and round could have grown on such a weak wiggly little vine, and I was fascinated.

We'd get the gourd home and cut around the top, like you do. All the scooping and scraping and cleaning out of the interior of the pumpkin happened through that small orifice, so as to keep the shell intact. When I was in kindergarten I learned about toasting pumpkin seeds, so from then on we always did. I called up my mom, because kindergarten being 26 years ago and all, I don't actually remember quite what we were taught. I know that you had to clean off all of the pumpkin guts really really well right after you scooped everything out of the pumpkin, and that you spread them on a cookie sheet in a single layer to bake them. I can still distinctly remember the smell of pumpkingut. But as far as the particulars... well it turns out that ma doesn't remember either. But this recipe seems pretty much on the money. Maybe that's too long a bake time? We didn't get a pumpkin this year, so if you try it out let me know how it goes!

So anyway, once the business of gut scraping was done, my dad usually did the honors of making the pumpkin look like some scary Halloween thing. He was pretty good at it. Some years turned out better than others, of course. But he's quite the creative type, and there were definitely some masterpieces.

My mom kept whatever chunks he cut out to make the jack-o-lantern face, and then the day after Halloween she hacked the pumpkin up and froze the lot (minus whatever had gotten charred or waxed from candles or any bits that were getting funky). Then, about a month later, this is the pumpkin that became our Thanksgiving pumpkin pie. And if you want the truth, I've never liked any pumpkin pie but my mother's.

So that's my pumpkin story, the cycle of The Great Pumpkin in my childhood household. I think this year, beginning with this Thanksgiving, is when we - Jonathan and I - begin to claim these "family" holidays as our own. Holidays for the family that is me and him. And our friends of course: the built family. I'm excited about it, and hopeful. And excited and hopeful is a nice way to feel, when headed into this dark-and-dreary but chock full o' holidays season. ;)

I'm actually impressed by a local politician.

2009-11-02T13:29:00.003-05:00

I didn't blog yesterday. It was weird.

Anyway, this morning an interesting thing happened. As has happened so many mornings lately, as I was mounting the train platform today there was someone handing out political fliers for tomorrow's election. The unusual part, though, was that the person handing them out was the person on them - Lynne Serpe. There was no press around, no fanfare. It wasn't some sort of stunt. She was just out there with the constituents, putting her face out to the crowd. I know little of her other than she's been pushed pretty hard in my neighborhood, and that she's a green party candidate. But I must say, I have some respect for anyone who will go out there and do it for themselves.

I understand the importance of local government. I do not, however, educate myself as I should to actively participate in it. It's one of my failings. What excuse do I have? I'm busy? Yeah. Who isn't.

Maybe you're not a lazy bum like me, and you'll get out there and vote tomorrow (or whenever your local elections are), and even know some things about who you're voting for and why. I hope so - more intelligent and informed people need to take an interest. Local government is what actually makes a difference in what happens around you, far more so than national government almost ever will.

Yep, I know it. Nope, I still don't do anything about it. Depressing huh? Perhaps we can all learn from my shortcomings?

VeganMoFo Day Thirty-One: Parting is such sweet sorrow.

2009-10-31T09:23:00.000-04:00

So that's it folks. A full month of food blogging! Can you believe it? If you ask me, it went by really, really quickly. Crazy quick, like whoa. I enjoy the MoFo - it makes me cook, and eat out, and actually pay attention to what I'm eating and enjoy the food. My life being as hectic as it is, and my health being the challenge that it can be, sometimes eating becomes a mechanical chore rather than an enjoyable experience. MoFo has the ability to bring me where I want to be with food: a place where it is nourishment, enjoyment, comfort, and the sharing of an experience all rolled into one.

This is probably going to sound spooky-familiar to anyone who has followed me for long (more empty promises, Ms. Bastian?), but I really want to say that even past this crazy month of food blogging, I'm going to continue to post more regularly. Not every day, certainly - honestly it's too much of a strain and I have other things I need to attend to (like you know, that little wedding thing). But my goal is to post a few times a week on one or another of my way-too-many blogs, and then of course repost whatever I post anywhere on my combined blog. In case you don't know about it, it's called OK, all together now! (If you're reading this post on that blog and are really confused right now, well, don't think about it too hard. It'll just give you a headache.)

It's been a good month, a busy month. A month of awesome food, for me directly and also vicariously through so many other awesome, fantastic, ridiculous blogs written by people who possess cooking skills infinitely superior to my own. But hey - that's how we vegans are, when you get right down to it. Get us excited about food, and the craziest, most amazing recipes and meals and downright feasts will just start pouring out before your very eyes.

I first discovered this during the Christmas of... 2003? 2004? I was not to be vegan for a couple of years yet. Nevertheless, I was friends with many vegans and very interested in the food industry and such, and very careful about what I ate. I was lucky enough to be invited to a holiday feast at the home of Andy the Asian Cajun (semi-famous in certain circles) - an all vegan feast of course. Well, after leaving a day with the fam, this was such an amazing event to walk into! I ate foods I'd never even heard of before, and for the first time truly understood that vegan cuisine was anything but limited.

It was around this time that I had my first reuben sandwich - and it was a vegan reuben, made by and eaten with two friends in New Orleans (where I was of course still living at that time) at a community house called Nowe Miasto. I had good times at that house, and those were some effing good sandwiches. (Thanks Vanessa, wherever you are!)

Something about the spirit with which vegans tend to approach cooking and eating is just right. The joy of sharing a meal - a feeling which for so many people living in "western culture" has been supplanted by the efficiency of a mass-produced sandwich wrapped in paper, purchased from a drive-thru window, and eaten alone at 70mph - seems to be revived in our community. I, for one, am thrilled each and every time I get to take part in the experience. This year for Thanksgiving Jonathan and I will be having some vegan friends over for a small feast, and I can't wait.

But... what am I going to cook?!

Farewell MoFo. I'll see you next year. And until then, we'll all be keeping the spirit alive.

VeganMoFo Day Thirty!!!: She sells stuffed shells...

2009-10-30T09:40:00.001-04:00

So, people been askin 'bout my stuffed shells. It's kind of funny, actually. I got this recipe for vegan lasagna out of a magazine like three years ago, and I've been baking it ever since! The potluck escapade was my first trial for the shells format, but I think it worked out pretty darn well. It has met with many good reviews as lasagna, and I've contemplated making lasagna roll-ups and other nutty pasta items. Once you make your tofu ricotta and get ahold of some sauce, you are limited only by your imagination. (Sorry, couldn't help myself there.)

So first we'll talk about the sauce. Why first? Because if you're going to make your own, it's going to want to cook for hours. And I mean like four hours. You definitely don't have to make your own - you can get a couple of good jars of, say, a tasty Newman's Own flavor and cut down the work on your lasagna-or-shells significantly. You can also make your own and ignore my recipe completely. Totally up to you. For me it's usually governed by the time I have to spend in making a meal. Since I started cooking for Tuesday's potluck on Sunday, I had plenty of time.

I make red sauce based on how my mom has always made it: get everything that tastes good in a pot and let that thing simmer till the cows (or in my mom's case, kids) come home. For lasagna-or-shells, you need A LOT of sauce. So I started with two of those ginormous cans of crushed tomatoes (28 oz?), and one teeny tiny can of tomato paste. I'm careful about what canned tomatoes I'll buy - the ingredient list really can't name anything other than tomatoes and maybe ascorbic acid. What else do you need in there? Nuthin.

So I empty these two giant cans and one tiny can into my big pot on the stove and start the flame on low. And then gradually, as they become prepared (there's really no rush, since it will be cooking till I go to bed pretty much), I add the following: one large yellow or red onion, coarsely chopped (how coarsely actually depends on whether or not you want to find chunks of soft onion in your sauce); about a third of a cup of fresh parsley, minced; a quarter cup to a third of a cup of fresh basil, torn then minced; six nice fat fresh peeled cloves of garlic, cut lengthwise; a teaspoon-ish of dried oregano; a teaspoon of salt; and a teaspoon of sugar.

Once everything is in the pot, you just let it cook. Keep it on low, don't let it boil, and stir it pretty regularly to make sure it isn't sticking. You have to keep a continual eye on it, but you can do a lot of other things in the kitchen or in other rooms nearby. Just remember to stir and everything is alright. You'll know it's getting close to done when you can smash the garlic cloves against the side of the pot with the back of your mixing spoon and they just turn into a dissolving mush. You actually want to root them all out and do this to all of them. Like so many sauces and soups, this one is good the first night, and even better the next day.

So, that's sauce. What did I do for all those hours as the sauce cooked? Well, many things. I do have thirteen blogs you know. But the thing you care about is that I made my tofu ricotta! This is another one of those items that is good when you make it, but even better when it's allowed to marinate in its own juices overnight. This being the case, of course I made it on Sunday as well. As I began to cook my sauce, I also began pressing tofu - two blocks of it.

Here's the ingredient lowdown, as this one is a good bit more complex than a simple ol' red sauce:

two bricks of tofu: I default to Nasoya extra-firm
1/2 cup fresh basil, torn then chopped
1/3 cup fresh parsley, chopped
1/3 cup pine nuts, toasted
2 to 3 peeled cloves of garlic
juice of one lemon
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (very optional)
1/4 tsp sugar

I like to press the tofu for a long time for this recipe - a good hour or so. Is it necessary? Probably not. I'm just a touch compulsive. Also, in most recipes I have zero qualms for subbing dried herbs for fresh ones, but here I feel that the fresh herbs really carry the flavor in a way that dried just wouldn't.

Some tips: to toast pine nuts, let a dry skillet heat up over a medium-to-high flame for a couple of minutes, and then just dump those suckers on in. They have tons of natural oil, which is what allows them to toast. Keep them moving for about three minutes, until they begin to get toasty brown. Bingo: toasted pine nuts. And on juicing lemons: in case you don't know it yet, the best way to get the most out of your lemon is to squash the hell out of it before cutting. Rolling it along the counter while applying pressure with the length of your hand is generally the way to go; you'll be able to feel the skin softening and imagine the juice pockets inside getting burstey.

Why tear the basil first? Because it releases more flavor that way. I swear, it really does. As far as peeling garlic... if you can't peel garlic, I can't help you. Yes, your fingers will smell. It's part of cooking. Embrace it.

So once your pine nuts are toasty and your lemons are juicy, you're just going to dump every last one of these ingredients into your food processor. Hooray! (Don't have one? Not a problem. The first time I made this, I had my Cuisinart but I was still afraid of it, so I used a potato masher instead. It takes a lot of elbow grease but it works just fine.) I tend to break up the tofu into rough chunks and drop them in, because it makes sense to me to do it that way.

As for the red pepper flakes, they are really and truly optional. I've made the recipe several times both with and without, and I really can't tell what function they serve other than to occasionally get something reallyreally hot stuck in your teeth. You could also skip toasting the pine nuts - untoasted pine nuts have a fantastic flavor. Just make sure they're not stale, as that flavor is distinct enough to ruin the whole thing. Why do I know this? Umm... just trust me, kay?

It's kind of amazing what this mixture becomes after you pulse for a couple of minutes. Of course you'll want to scrape down the sides of your bowl a few times during the mixing to make sure that everything's getting in there. The end result is really quite tasty and creamy and divine. Jonathan, always "testing" what I'm whipping up, noted this time 'round that straight out of the processor the mix is plenty good enough to eat on crackers or use as a sandwich schmear. But this particular mix had a purpose. So I smacked him away and into the fridge it went for putting into shells the following night.

How you assemble your lasagna-or-shells-or-what-have-you is basically up to you. You'll want to either parboil your pasta of choice or make sure that it has plenty of liquid by its side during baking. For my lasagnas I just use tons of sauce but don't cook the noodles. No, I don't use special noodles - those things are a total sham! You can just use normal ones, I promise. The layers from the bottom of the dish will go something like: sauce, noodles, sauce, ricotta, zucchini (or sausage or mushrooms or whatever), sauce, noodles, sauce...

For the shells it was a good bit simpler. It was going to be baked for less time because it's much less dense, so I did boil the shells for about 10 minutes before putting them in the dish. This also made them pliable and therefore easier to fill. I of course had to rinse them in cold water before I could handle them - ouch! But the process went something like, sauce, fill shell with ricotta, put shell in dish, continue until dish is filled, cover everything with more sauce, bake at 350* for about 45 minutes covered with tin foil.

And the leftovers? Lots of em, and they're totally delish.

So try it out! Get creative. Lemme know how it goes. Send me pictures! I love pictures.

VeganMoFo Day Twenty-Nine: Gettin' (pot)lucky.

2009-10-29T09:49:00.002-04:00

I know it. I've been teasing you about this potluck thing for DAYS. You've almost lost patience with me. Make with the pictures already! Give up some recipes, damnit!

You want pictures? Oh, I got some pictures. I got your pictures right here.

For real though. Right here. You're looking at one. There's more as soon as you scroll down (while reading, of course). Ready? Here we go.

You've already gotten a brief introduction to the delectable delights upon which we dined on that very special (rainy) Tuesday eve. But oh, you really don't know the half of it. Not until you see! Behold.

We started off the night right thanks to Quarantined's friend J, who provided us with artisan quality almonds in oil and fancy olives - deluxe finger foods, to be sure. As various casserole dishes of deliciousness heated in the oven, we sampled these delicacies, and engaged in delightful smalltalk... and drank beer, as all civilized and cultured people do.

Quarantined brought this lovely creamy chickpea and tahini casserole. For those of us that love those funky little peas and live for all things that emerge from baking dishes, this was quite a lovely dish. It was actually my sister, a wacky and not at all vegan gal, who made me understand the glory of the chick pea. I later learned from my local Halal food cart that chickpeas and rice really do go together! Sources say that Miss Q was working from this recipe, just in case you feel like trying some out for yourself. (You probably should, don't you think?)

Seitan Said Dance brought this fabulous quinoa dish - a recipe from the upcoming Vegan Latina by Terry Hope Romero. I am a big, big fan of quinoa. I lived so much of my life not knowing there were other grains out there, and quinoa is so unique that it still totally blows my mind. Miss Seitan was talking about how it was much too spicy for her to eat, and as I too am a giant spice wuss I was a tad worried. But that of course didn't keep me from dropping a big ol' spoonful on my plate. And I'm totally happy that I did! The grain seemed to absorb a dose of the spice while it waited for us to dine, and by the time we were ready for it, it was ready for us and just right. And not just spicy - crazy flavorful!

Alf-redo showed up with two, count them TWO!, kinds of stuffed pepper. Apparently Food Not Bombs hit the bell pepper jackpot this week, and Miss Alf decided to get creative. Fine by me - I was raised on stuffed peppers! Of course, my mom stuffs them with ground beef - not exactly up my alley any more. (R.I.P., little cow friends. :{ )The breadcrumbs, seitan, and chickpea mix in these peppers were much more to my liking. Some of these got left behind... did I totally have some for dinner Wednesday night? Well yes, yes I did.

And then we come to Sashi's baked mac and cheeze. This just may have stolen the show - at least for me, a macaroni-and-noodle freak. Did I have seconds? Yes. Did I have thirds? Well, um... Hey! Look over there! Is that a penguin?! Oh, sorry, must have been a trick of the eyes. What were we talking about? Totally forgot, better move on. So, perhaps me and Jonathan really are soulmates; today he was lamenting the fact that we hadn't kept a little extra around for today's lunch... and dinner! Fortunately, Sashi too shared the recipe, so we can all recreate this noodley joy.

And what about my stuffed shells? Oh yes, those. Well, I'd never done shells before; this was actually a modification of the lasagna I've been making for a couple of years. It's pretty simple - an herbed tofu ricotta whipped up in the food processor, some good tomato sauce, and then what you do with the pasta part and the baking-ness is pretty much up to you. I've done mini-lasagnas before, in tiny five inch baking dishes - that was kind of awesome and fun. I did make my own tomato sauce this time - I do that sometimes - which came out pretty well. Anyway, I can't judge, but I thought it was pretty tasty, and my guests were kind enough to agree. :)

Was there dessert? Uh, yeah! If you know anything about my house you know that sugar is of primary concern. (More than it should be? Well, that's a different conversation.) I baked cupcakes - stared out with Terry and Isa's recipe for golden vanilla cupcakes (oil variation), and for the extracts used half a teaspoon of lemon (a.k.a. what was left in the bottle) and 1.5 teaspoons of orange extract, along with the one teaspoon of vanilla that I put in everything sweet that I bake. (Unless I'm using way more than one teaspoon of vanilla, that is.) Lo and behold, to my surprise, what happened? Creamsicle cupcake! Given the delicate flavor of these cakelets, I ditched my original plan of a full on chocolate icing and instead did my standard "butter"cream" flavored with chocolate and vanilla extracts. Was it absolutely everything I'd wished for? Well, no. But they got pretty good reviews.

Then along comes Alf-redo with these super amazing, texturally supreme "pepita pistachio cranberry oatmeal" cookies! Pepita, in case you didn't know, is the small seed of a pumpkin or other squash. (Yeah, I googled it. What of it?!) Good thing I was already stuffed on real dinner food, or I would have gone into total sugar overload. Good thing I snagged some of these cookies for today, because I would have been sad not to get a second taste!

So as you can see, if you weren't here you missed a totally awesome feast. Come out next time wouldja? The more the merrier, so long as we don't piss off my 80 year old landlady.

Recipes forthcoming for stuffed shells, I promise! Clearly, I make good on my promises... eventually. :)

VeganMoFo Day Twenty-Eight: Confessions of a potluck virgin.

2009-10-28T09:22:00.002-04:00

Today... did not go as smoothly as it could have. Observe:

1) I woke up with the headache from hell. This was probably in part because it was raining, and partly because I slept terribly.

2) Work was work. It's like that.

3) The headache from hell escalated to near-migraine proportions. To the point where I had to go home from work, actually. And I kind of think one of the attorneys that I work for thinks I went home to get ready for the potluck, which I totally didn't. I went home, dosed myself with NSAIDs and caffeine, drank lots of water, and laid in a darkened room for two hours praying for the evil pain in my face to go away. Well it didn't go away, but it dulled to the point where I could function again.

4) Mobile once more, I made frosting for the cupcakes I baked last night. And for some damn reason, it just wouldn't emulsify. I don't know if it was because I was using a different kind of powdered sugar than I normally do, or because the margarine was the wrong temperature, or because I used too much extract, or what, but it just wasn't happenin. I powered through it though, and I made them cupcakes work. And then I put sprinkles on them to cover up the crappy looking frosting.

5) At 6:55 Jonathan made it home, which was a relief, because I was afraid he wouldn't be home until 8 or later. (His work has been as bad as mine lately.) But at 7:10, none of the guests had arrived yet. So of course I began to have fanciful delusions that no one was showing up at all; that it had all been an elaborate rouse. (Because, you know, clearly I'm important enough to people who have never met me in person to pull such a prank.)

But then of course the doorbell rang. Four people came together, followed shortly by a fifth, plus the two of us already here made for seven total. Which is apparently just perfect, because as it turns out I own seven plates, seven chairs, and seven forks. Who knew? My dining room also holds seven guests sitting in the round quite well.

(I may or may not have mentioned that this was a PPK meetup kind of potluck, so you'll have to excuse the use of handles below.)

All of the food was delish. My stuffed shells were not overbaked as I had feared, SeitanSaidDance's quinoa was spicy perfection, Sashi's mac and cheeze made a second appearance on most plates, Alf-redo's stuffed peppers brought me back to my mother's kitchen, and Quarantined's chickpea casserole rounded out the plate. As for dessert, everyone loved my cupcakes! But that didn't stop me (or anyone else) from having one or two of Alf-redo's delectably chewy pistachio cranberry cookies as well. And thanks Joe-friend-of-Quarantined for the almonds, olives, and chocolate! He made us fancy, yo.

We sat around and chatted and ate for almost four hours, and all in all had a grand old time. So happily, I can call my first potluck a success. And the best part is, now my house is clean! Well maybe not the best part, but it sure doesn't hurt my feelings.

It's late, and I'm going to bed. But if you're good I'll post pictures of the food and festivities. Really I will. Any day now. Naw, srsly ppl, I will. Tomorrow probly even! I'm sure you await it with baited breath.

But for now, g'night!

VeganMoFo Day Twenty-Seven: Stuffed shells and creamsicle cupcakes!

2009-10-27T08:11:00.000-04:00

I'm gonna tell you right up front: this blog post is a total tease. You will neither see photographs, nor hear descriptions, of either of these dishes. Did I, in fact, bake both of these items on Monday night? Why yes, yes I did. So why am I not giving you all of the delicious/gory details?! Because I'm cruel and heartless.

Well no. Actually it's because as of 11pm, I still haven't managed to get in the shower much less get myself to bed, which I really have to do soon, because I must leave work on time tomorrow, because TOMORROW NIGHT IS THE POTLUCK! That's right people. Tomorrow night I am HOSTING a vegan potluck! Thus the baked pasta dish and fancy cupcakes.

Hoo. Ray!

Fear not. You'll be seeing lots of pictures. You'll hear aaaalllll about it. But right now I must must must must MUST get in the shower and then get to bed!

A hostess needs her rest, you know.

VeganMoFo Day Twenty-Six: Beer! That is, Vegan Beer!

2009-10-26T09:01:00.002-04:00

Beer: we love it. I don't remember not drinking beer - my parents were of the "let her have a sip" school, and I clearly remember being two years old and scamming for a second taste. But there comes a moment in the life of every young vegan when a slightly terrifying discovery is made: not all beer is vegan.

I was at a veg meetup when I found out. It was maybe a month after I went vegan. I was drinking a Guinness at the time. It was my last Guinness.

What? What the heck would they put in there?!

Well, it's not so much what they're putting in there, with the few exceptions of beer with honey in them (and those tend to be pretty obvious - they generally put the word "honey" right in the name of the beer). It's more that there are some really odd animal byproducts - "finings" - being used in the process of making some beers.

There are two main animal byproducts that pop up. The first is isinglass, which is obtained from the swimbladders of fish and used for clarification. This, I'm sorry to say, is why I will no longer drink Guinness or Murphy's Irish Stout. Not every batch of Guinness uses isinglass, which is annoying and infuriating. Every time I think about this stuff, my mind boggles. It's right up there with "how did we figure out how to eat artichokes," except with about a hundred levels of disgusting piled on top. Who figured out how to get the collagen out of swim bladders in the first place? Isn't there any other way to clarify beer? Oh, yeah, and GUINNESS ISN'T CLEAR ANYWAY. But whatever, I guess I'm splitting hairs, huh?

Then, oh, then there's gelatin. That's right - the same thing that ruins marshmallows and Altoids (which HELLO aren't even chewy) and so many amusingly shaped candies is now ruining your beer! What is the fixation with this stuff? Apparently it is also used for clarification. I think what's actually clear, though, is that using a product made from the skins, connective tissues, and other "leftovers" of "food animals" is ridiculous and unnecessary - particularly given all the great breweries that have no trouble making a wide range of beers without these substances.

The good news is that the majority of beers out there are, in fact, vegan. The ones you have to watch out for are usually odder ones: dark ones, cask ales, special brews, et cetera. And the Brits, well, they just seem to love to use this stuff for reasons unknown. But then, they put fish in all their sauces too, so go figure. (No offense loves - some of my favorite vegans are from the Isles!) The Germans, though, take a special pride in their beer making, and have actually had special laws on the books for centuries regrading what ingredients can be in them. Thank you Germans! (Not sure if this makes up for all the sausages, but it's a start.)

Plenty of great beers are vegan. Brooklyn Brewery, a fab brewery that I'm happy to call local, makes almost exclusively vegan beers, with the exception of one specialty cask ale. Abita, another beer I consider local (as I also consider New Orleans home) is an all-vegan brewery. Blue Moon, Harpoon, Sierra Nevada, and Magic Hat each make a variety of very tasty vegan beers that are widely available, and really this is just the tip of the iceberg (or should I say the bottom of my fridge).

Want to know if your favorite beer is vegan? Find out! Barnivore keeps the most extensive list that I've found, not only of beer but also of wine and liquors. This list of breweries is interesting as well, in that the list's author took the time to contact each one personally.

Do I totally want to make the oatmeal stout brownies from this article? Yes, yes I do. Maybe I will. Maybe you should!

Of course, you could also order these amazing-looking (and -sounding) "drunken cupcakes" from one of my favorite Etsy bakers, Sweet Fritsy. Chocolate cupcake + stout = I vote yes!

Now that you're fully armed with knowledge of vegan beer-ness... are you still sitting in front of your computer?! Utilize your town's public transportation system to get yourself over to the nearest beer hall, and put your newfound education to good (responsible) use!

Happy drinking!

VeganMoFo Day Twenty-Five: French Toast FAIL.

2009-10-25T09:37:00.001-04:00

Today I will tell you a sad story of a Sunday past. It all started out so innocently - a plan for a little bit of lighthearted brinner as a happier finish for what had not been the best weekend. The recipe (which I of course then doctored) was simple enough; it came out of How It All Vegan, a tried and true little book, and went like so:
1 1/2 cups soy milk (I used almond)
2 Tbsp flour
1 Tbst nutritional yeast
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp cinnamon (I put in two)
(I also added a dash of nutmeg and other pertinent spices, and a teaspoon of vanilla extract, because, I mean, come on, how can this not have vanilla extract?)

The batter/dip/wash/whatever came out looking pretty darn good. A solid start, I thought.

Well, I dipped in my first piece and tossed it in a heated up pan that had just a bit of oil in it. So far so good.

But when I went to flip it over...

It really just digressed from there.

Maybe I had soaked it in too much of the batter? It was in the bowl for a maximum of about two seconds, but I resolved to dip the second slice of bread much faster. After the first side fry and flip, eureka! Things were really looking up.

But then... structural failure.

Big time.

Kind of hurts, doesn't it?

Slice number three broke as I was putting it into the pan! Ended before it had even begun.

The big one kind of looks like Australia. (Use your imagination.)

Alright. So what the hell happened here? I considered many possibilities.

1) I suck at making French toast.
2) The structural integrity of my bread was somehow compromised throughout the loaf; it kept breaking in the same spot, after all.
3) I suck at making French toast.
4) Too much oil in the pan.
5) Not enough oil in the pan.
6) I suck at making French toast.
7) Pan too hot.
8) Pan not hot enough.
9) I suck at making French toast.

Did I eat the mangled wrecks of bread that I produced? Yes, yes I did. And they tasted pretty good; they tasted like French toast. They even had the proper consistency. But my oh my, there is no question that something was terribly amiss.

Well, an hour or two after I had finished making battered trainwrecks in the kitchen, Jonathan came home. There was still some batter left, so while I was back here in my studio blogging away, he busied himself in the kitchen using it up. And not that surprisingly, in he walked 20 or so minutes later with three gorgeous slices of French toast (drizzled with homemade fig syrup, obvs.).

Now, Jon is not necessarily a much better cook than I am, but he is much better at certain things. This, clearly, is one of them. Apparently, though, there is a secret here that I did not know about.

He staled his bread.

I mean, I know about pain perdu and all, but the recipe just didn't indicate that I needed to do anything to my bread. In fact, all it says about the consistency of the bread is "Soak 1 slice of bread in batter until bread is gooey." Does this indicate a stale and/or toasted slice of bread to you? To me, it does not. Nevertheless, if you're going to essentially soak your bread in milk, firmer bread does indeed seem the way to go. You can throw it in an oven for a couple of minutes, or lightly toast it, or ideally just let it sit out for a while and actually get stale. Fresh bread straight from the package? Apparenly not where it's at.

Thus is my story. Learn from my mistakes, and move forward, and be happy... and use stale bread.

VeganMoFo Day Twenty-Four: Stuff-I've-Used-Half-Of Stew!

2009-10-24T09:29:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I just... sort of... start... cooking. Without, like, a plan you know? I recently had such a night. I had a half a box of leftover something in the pantry, see, and I wanted to cook that. And I kind of just started finding what else was around the kitchen half used up, unloved, waiting to be put into some meal or other. This would be that meal!

Anybody wanna guess what I made? Was it some sort of weird jambalaya? Good guess but no. Rice-a-roni gone horribly awry? Close, but no cigar. It was a dish that has never been made before, will likely never be made again, was prepared using absurd methods, and yet somehow came out surprisingly tasty. You ready?

Orzo with okra and potatoes in a tomato based sauce! Didn't see that one coming, did you.

Well it happened like this. I decided I wanted to cook the half a box of orzo that had been hanging around the pantry. I like orzo veryvery much; it's a textural thing. But what to cook it with? Well I had to season it with something, and I spotted a red onion that had been languishing on our sideboard for ages. In another week it was sure to be a goner. So I sliced it up and set it to sautee... before I had any idea what else I was cooking. I figured I'd better do some quick searching.

First I came upon the half a bag of babynewred potatoes that I had left over from my corn chowder adventures at the beginning of the week. Sure, there's always something to do with potatoes. But since Jonathan loves a good starch on starch combo, why not? Orzo and potatoes would be weird on their own though, so my search continued. And there in the freezer, I found the perfect answer! A bag of okra that I'd bought a couple of months ago, and then forgot to put in the freezer when I got home with it, so that when I finally did freeze it it turned into one giant okracube. Great!

My onion being well sauteed, I tore open my bag of okra and just dumped it right on into the pan. I then looked over at my potatoes, which I had rinsed and cut up, and realized that they would take a while to cook. And so, I did something that I was glad Jon wasn't home to witness: I put the raw potatoes right in that pan at the same time with the giant frozen block of okra. People, this is the wrong way to cook. Please do not ever cook this way. Do as I say, not as I do. Do not try this at home. I added some stock from the omnipresent carton of it in our fridge, put the lid on, and hoped for the best. (Alright, by "hoped for the best" I do actually mean "checked on every two to three minutes, gently prying apart the pieces of okra, flipping over the okracube, and adding more stock as needed". Same diff.)

Well, eventually the huge cube-o-okra broke up and the pan was as it should be. I added a healthy dose of lemon pepper and "Italian Seasoning", and then I added the final ingredient - about a third of a carton of tomato soup! Whenever I eat orzo I want it to be kind of tomato-ey, see. Plus, I like okra and tomato, and I'm intrigued by the idea of combining tomato and potato. It all works! Round about this time I also put on a pot of water to boil (along with a cube of bullion) to go ahead and cook my orzo. Orzo takes a surprisingly long time to cook, what with it being as tiny as it is. Mine took a good 13 minutes or so. Which was fine, actually, because the potatoes needed more time to cook.

After approximately an hour from when I had begun my mad kitchen-raid adventure, all of the pieces were ready. I combined the orzo with the okra and potato mix in the pan and folded everything together. I thought the veggies were going to overwhelm the orzo, but I had it bass ackwards. Orzo apparently does a ton of expanding as it cooks. I turned the fire off, put the lid on, and let it set for a few minutes before serving. (By the bye, I think the color is pretty off in this pic. Apologies. Although, it wasn't exactly going to win any awards anyway, now was it?)

The biggest surprise of the night? The meal was kind of fantastic! You may have trouble believing this, and I don't really blame you. By all accounts it should have been terrible, or mediocre at best. I should have been punished for my evil ways. But no. The sauce and orzo were seasoned just perfectly, the potatoes were amazing with a buttery consistency and great flavor, and the okra was okra - we love okra. Jon and I agreed that it was delish, and we're both stoked that there are leftovers.

Sometimes strange things can happen in the kitchen.

VeganMoFo Day Twenty-Three: Chowda!

2009-10-23T10:29:00.000-04:00

Over the weekend it was rain rain rain and cold cold cold - blegh. But then around came Monday, and suddenly there was the beautiful fall weather I've been waiting for! I put on my new boots, wore my autmn-ey long skirt and a brown sweater, and took it easy at work (well, a little bit easy anyway). And when I finally got home and the day was still wonderful, I was inspired to cook. Cook what? What else! Corn chowder, of course.

Now, I say that having a) never made it before, and b) never had it other than from out of a carton. But I could just feel in my bones that it was a corn chowder kind of day. So instead of heading for my apartment from the subway, I headed for the grocery store. There was a recipe in my head just dying to get out.

That's not to say that this recipe is all my own - not by any stretch. I got a solid framework for it from the corn chowder recipe in Clean Food by Terry Walters. (This book was bequeathed to me by my adorable co-worker Alyza, who may or may not be fed some vegan corn chowder any day now.) As usual, though, I deviated pretty significantly from there... partly because I am terrible at following recipes, and partly because I don't fully agree with this book's school of un-seasoning. I heart my spice rack.

As so many good things do, it all begins with one medium onion, chopped, and then sauteed for a few minutes in some good olive oil on low to medium heat. (This is a one pot soup; sautee right in that pot!) Basically, I get the onion in the pan and then start chopping the other vegetables. As they're chopped, I dump them in as well. Chop chop chop, stir stir stir, kind of like that. (What's that you say? I make Jonathan do all of the chopping for me? Hush now, don't talk so. Just because it's the truth and everything, you don't have to go talking about it.)

What other vegetables? Well in this instance, a few stalks of celery (3 or 4?) and a couple of carrots - we ended up using three small ones because that's what was wilting away in our fridge. Also, potatoes! The original recipe called for two "medium" potatoes. What does that mean anyway? I don't really like regular icky thick skinned potatoes though; I much prefer little baby new potatoes. So naturally that's what I picked up at the store, red ones. I used eight of them, each approximately the diameter of a golf ball, but flatter. I left the skins on (such a pretty red color!) and cut them into about eighth pieces.

Once all of your veggies have been chopped and added to the pot, add about a half cup of white cooking wine, or just regular old white wine if you happen to have half a bottle of the cheap stuff sitting in your fridge. You can measure, or you can eyeball, depending on how much you trust yourself (and how much you want your veg sautee to taste like cooking wine). I also added some seasonings here: celery salt, lemon pepper, and dried parsley. Let the mix sautee for a good five or ten minutes this way so that the potatoes start to cook and the flavors start to mingle.

Next, add your corn. You can use fresh or frozen. The recipe I was working from called for 3 1/2 cups, but I was using frozen, and how do you not end up with that little fist of unused frozen corn sitting in your freezer? I ended up using two 10 oz. packages of Cascadian Farms frozen organic sweet corn, which was probably about 4 cups. I didn't measure; I just dumped both bags in. Corn heavy corn chowder? Fine by me. (And actually, if/when I make this again I'll probably up it to three bags, but maybe puree one of them...)

So once your corn is in, you want to fill the pot with your "milk" of choice. As always I was using almond milk, but I could not get my normal brand (unsweetened Almond Breeze by Blue Diamond, what's up) which I think would have made the soup even better than it turned out. Anyway, you want to add enough milk to "just cover" the ingredients already in the pot - in my case this was about four cups. That equals one of the smaller (quart sized) cartons that non-dairy milks often come in. Whatever you choose to use, I suggest that you get a plain flavor that is low in sugar for this kind of cooking.

Once the milk is in, you want to bring the pot up to just barely a boil, and then lower it down to a simmer. Cover and let simmer for about 20 minutes. Once your 20 minutes is up, you're going to do the exciting bit. The original recipe calls for a stick blender; I don't have one of those. What I do have, though, is a food processor. You do too, right? So grab your ridiculously oversized pyrex measuring thingy - you know you have one - and transfer 2.5 to three cups of the contents of your pot into it. A ladle works well for this kind of thing. Then pour this into your food processor. (You can let the remainder in the pot continue to simmer, but keep an eye on it.)

It will look something like this. Then... process! Pulse and process away till the contents of your food processor is smooth. It gets kind of spooky smooth, actually, kind of like creamed corn out of a can. If you've never had it, well, it borders on slimy. (Did I forget to take an "after" shot because I suck? Yes, yes I did.)

Pour your blendy-smooth mixture back into the main pot and stir well. It should hopefully look something like this. The chowder is now essentially finished, but you want to let its separated parts get to know each other again. Let it simmer for two or three minutes, and then turn the fire off and leave it covered for five to ten minutes before serving.

I served mine with a little sprinkle of dill on top, because every now and then I'm fancy like that. Was it just exactly perfectly the meal I was looking for? Yes, yes it was. Did Jonathan love it? Yes, yes he did. Should you make this chowder immediately? Yes, yes you should.

It will bring you joy. Joy... in the form of corn.

VeganMoFo Day Twenty-Two: Glenny's Marshmallow... Treats?

2009-10-22T08:46:00.000-04:00

The other night, Jonathan arrived home with a treat for us! (Ain't he a sugarpants?) I had never seen or even heard of Glenny's Marshmallow Treats before, so it was quite the surprise. As you can see, they're made of brown rice - well that's cool. And they're organic - alright, well I'm not really concerned about my marshmallow treats being healthy or anything, but I'm all for less square footage of farmland being sprayed down with pesticides, so rad.

At first I thought it must just be accidentally vegan, but even if that's the case Glenny's sure has caught on. (I hear it's not the easiest process to get that little v-in-heart emblem on your box!) The truth is that I haven't had a rice crispie treat since I went vegan. Sure, there are some great vegan marshmallows on the market now (THANK YOU Sweet & Sara and Chicago Soydairy!), so the only reason for this is my sheer laziness. The double truth is that pre-veganity I never made rice crispie treats - I only had them at other peoples' houses. It wasn't something we did 'round my place. Basically, I was really psyched to try these things out!

Well... they sure are made of a puffed rice cereal type stuff. And they sure do have A LOT of sugar in them. As for any marshmallow flavor or texture... well, um, if you strain the imagination real, real hard... maybe? Perhaps if I had never had a rice crispie treat before I'd think they were awesome. As it is though, all I can say is, nice try Glenny's. Good for you for making a vegan product. (If you could make it a little better though, that'd be fab.)

VeganMoFo Day Twenty-One: Very Very V-Spot!

2009-10-21T09:34:00.000-04:00

It amazes me that I have lived in NYC for four years, and have been vegan for three and a half of those years, and yet still have not been to every veg restaurant in the city. And we eat out! A lot! (Way more than we should, as a matter of fact.) I'd sort of heard of this place, but it wasn't until a fellow PPKer mentioned that a person could buy Daiya at V-Spot, a Latin vegan restaurant in Brooklyn, that I became determined to get on over to the Slope and try it out.

But holy empanada, am I glad we did! The V is simply amazing. To my knowledge there is nowhere else in the city serving vegan food anything like this. Sure you can get a great vegan burrito at Curly's, but people it is not the same thing. This restaurant has a wide range of various traditional Latin foods from different countries (though it does seem to focus on Colombian dishes), and it has some unexpected off-the-cuff offerings as well, such as quinoa spaghetti with marinara! Like whoa, right?

Their signature dish is their amazing empanadas, and OMG. There's a reason they're known for these things. If you made a dinner of nothing but these and the fried platanos, you would not be disappointed. Since it was our first visit, though, of course we wanted to try everything on the menu! Well it's a really extensive menu so we couldn't. But we did our best.

Well of course we started with said famous/infamous empanadas. As beautiful as they are delicious, as delicious as they are beautiful. It was almost a shame to cut into these perfect pockets. But then, it's a conundrum, because they're so tantalizing that it was almost impossible to wait long enough to photograph them before digging in.

For main courses, I ordered the spinach and mushroom soft tacos. A taste explosion! Spicy spicy. Certainly unlike any other taco I've ever had. And is that mashed potato in the bottom? Why yes, yes it is. Will the wonders never cease. Served with a hearty portion of fried platanos and a lovely side salad. And, of course, I also ordered the sake pina colada. How could I not? It was a strange experience - if I didn't already know what it was like to have sake instead of the proper liquor in a known mixed drink, I'd have thought something had gone funny with the coconut milk. But the cold, creamy, somewhat saltiness of it actually went quite nicely with the food. Once I got the drink, anyway. But we'll talk about that in a minute.

Jonathan got the cutlets, because it's fall now and that means it's time for dishes like cutlets. (Thus are the workings of the mind of Jonathan.) As he put it, he's had this kind of plate before at other restaurants around town, but V-Spot did a much better job with it. And the mashed potatoes and sauteed spinach that came with were quite divine.

There was one, and only one, downside to our first V-Spot experience, which was that there was a bit of a hitch in our service. Actually, all that really happened was that they totally forgot about our drinks. It got irritating, though, when we told the guy who brought our food and then we *still* didn't have them ten minutes later. To be fair, though, they were dealing with a birthday party or some such group that was at least a 12 top and involved toddlers, and compromised easily a third of their seating area. That kind of thing can really throw off a waitstaff, understandably. We had also arrived just at the beginning of the dinner rush. At any rate, we got everything in the end, and the meal came together and was pleasing, and everyone was friendly, and our head waiter guy apologized without us even making a fuss or anything - so really what more can you ask for? These things happen.

We would have loved to peruse dessert, but there was no room left! Total impossibility. Next time, next time...

Did we pick up some Daiya, that magicomystal substance that led us to the V-Spot in the first place? Oh yes, yes we did. But that, my loves, is a story for another day.

VeganMoFo Day Twenty!: Challenges accepted, risks taken, lessons learned.

2009-10-20T09:18:00.000-04:00

One evening not so long ago, I attempted a meal that was rather daring for me: Curried Barley with Lemon Ginger Tofu. Sounds good, right? I wasn't working from any kind of recipe; it's just something that occurred to me. A combination really of a craving I'd been having to try to curry some barley, and a bit of a challenge 'round the PPK boards to do a little lemon ginger something. Well, sometimes good ideas go wrong. It was after work, I was tired, and my methods and execution of the meal became questionable. Here, we dissect the meal's unfolding.

Things I already knew about yellow curry: the stuff what makes it yellow - that stuff being turmeric - will stain everything it touches an amazing golden color for round about forever. Your dinner, your silicone covered whisk, your skin, your pants, whatever. As seems obvious, this can be more or less acceptable depending on the object which it has touched.

Things I should have known about barley but decided to blissfully ignore when cooking this meal: barley must be cooked for a bare minimum of three hours if you haven't soaked it over night. Seriously. I don't care what the package or the internets or your friends or your mom says. This is between you and the grain. Cook that stuff for at least three hours. Trust me, it will NOT become too soft. When it comes to barley, this is a physical impossibility unless you are planning to can it for a year or more. And if you're going to cook for this long, make more than you want to eat that night.

What I did:

simmered 1 cup of barley in 2 cups of Rapunzel-bullion-cube broth plus a whole buncha spices that I just eyeballed for about two hours
once the barley had been cooking for about an hour, sliced a few small-to-medium shallots and browned them (this here was my first mistake - a compound mistake, actually)
in the same pan with the browned shallots (mistake number two), placed triangles of pressed tofu and braised them in some unchicken stock and lemon juice, covering them in too much ginger powder and lemon pepper (#3); let that cook off and then let one side brown
flipped the tofu over and let the other side brown
ended up leaving the tofu et cetera in the pan for far too long because I wanted it to brown more, which would have been fine except for the shallots and the way too much ginger powder
waited another hour after the tofu was totally cooked and turned off for the freakin barley to actually be edible, because as previously discussed you cannot cook barley in under three hours unless you've soaked it, even if the package says 1 to 1.5 hours (damn liars)
eventually had a serve-able meal, served it, ate it, and got mad because after more than three hours of cooking there were no leftovers

What I probably should have done:

started cooking an hour or so earlier
simmered the barley for 3 to 3.5 hours in broth and a measured amount of spices, because I went overboard like whoa
after the barley had been cooking for like 2 hours, started pressing my tofu
after the barley had been cooking for like 3 hours, sliced my shallots, browned them, taken them out of the skillet and set them aside, then put in my tofu triangles to braise and brown, coating them with an appropriate amount of lemon pepper and adding a small amount of fresh grated ginger later in the cooking process
added the shallots back in moments before the tofu was ready

Ah well. You live, you learn. We ended up with an edible meal, at least. The house did smell like curry for days afterward, and that's got to be worth something.

VeganMoFo Day Nineteen: Curly's Mexican Lunch!

2009-10-19T10:20:00.000-04:00

Curly's Vegetarian Lunch on 14th Street was actually the first veg restaurant I ate at in New York City. I wasn't dedicatedly vegan or even really vegetarian yet, but I had been researching the food industry for long enough that I leaned toward veg options pretty much all the time. So when I saw the word "vegetarian" right there on the sign of a restaurant, I was intrigued.

I was having an absolutely horrible day. I'd only been in the city for a couple of weeks. I was trying to do things like get a p.o. box set up and get my cell phone service established in NYC, and I was smacking into metaphorical brick walls every time I turned around. (This is rather tough on the nose of the soul, I must say.) I called up my then boyfriend, who was still back in Louisiana at what had been our evacuation hideout, and wailed my eyes out to him. And it was as I was stumbling down the street, making this spectacle of myself, that I found Curly's.

I went in, got myself some lunch, and discovered the pleasures both of dining alone in New York and of this particular little veg diner. A spot of comfort at that time in my life was truly something to cherish, and that's probably part of why it has remained one of my favorites. But there is no doubt in my mind that it holds its own regardless of any sentiment, as will be attested to by the numerous friends, both veg and omni, who I've brought to dine here.

This past weekend I was feeling a bit down - between work and weather, blegh. And so my heart and stomach wanted the comfort that only Curly's seems to be able to bring. Without further ado, we headed on over. We surprised ourselves when we got there, though, by ordering things we never really get rather than our old standards. For me, I started with the Mexican hot chocolate - a fabulous beverage. I have frequently gotten the milkshake version, but never just the nice warm mug. But the day's 45-and-raining demanded it, and it delivered.

I also had a bowl of the chili and grain. I've never had their chili before - it's really good! Maybe not as good as Jonathan's, but then what is? I wasn't sure if it could be ordered vegan, but when I inquired of our lovely waitress, she responded confidently, "we can do anything on the menu vegan." Love it. The chili is listed under small plates, but it's no such thing. When I was finished with it I couldn't have eaten another bite.

Jonathan ordered the quesadilla appetizer, thinking he just wanted something small. But he got four nice slices with a little salad in the middle! A really splendid presentation, and a good amount of food as well.

And as the icing on the cake? The whole meal came to about $18. For fabulous food and table service with a smile, I say you can't do much better than that.

Love ya Curly's! See you soon.

VeganMoFo Day Eighteen: NATIONAL CHOCOLATE CUPCAKE DAY!

2009-10-18T08:41:00.000-04:00

That's right people. It's the day you've all been waiting for. It's NATIONAL CHOCOLATE CUPCAKE DAY! The day upon which our forefathers for generations past in this great nation have celebrated life, liberty, and all things good in the world by baking, eating, and sharing awesome vegan chocolate cupcakes. You don't even have to put "vegan" in the name of the day, because everyone knows that the best cupcakes are vegan.

(What do you mean, this is a totally made up holiday invented by companies to sell more cupcakes? BLASPHEMY! Get out of my kitchen.)

Now that we've gotten rid of the hater naysayer biaches, we can get on with our celebration of NATIONAL CHOCOLATE CUPCAKE DAY. For this year's celebration of this very important and historic holiday, I decided to bake chocolate cupcakes. I know, right?! But to give it just a little more flair and festivity, I threw some fun flavor in there. I got downright wacky. I made... (***drumrollllllllll***) chocolate coconut cupcakes, with rum frosting! (Da daaaaa!) And they're frickin good too. How'd I do it? Well, I'm gonna tell ya.

I'm sure you won't be at all surprised to find out that it began with a recipe from that very fine resource, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. This was the first book I owned by the dynamic duo of Terry and Isa, and it is what led me to understand their sheer brilliance. Anyway, you want details right? You want to try this at home. If we can do it, you can too! And what better day to try than on NATIONAL CHOCOLATE CUPCAKE DAY?! Let's go.

As per usual here on NYiG, we'll be following Melissa Bastian's one bowl one sifter no counter space method of putting stuff together.

The first thing you want to do is line your cupcake pan with paper liners, and preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Then, in your bowl, combine 1 cup of your non-dairy milk of choice (I'm using unsweetened almond milk as always) and 1 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar. Don't worry - you can use white vinegar too if you must. Whisk these together and set aside to let it curdle. Yep, it's supposed to.

Into your sifter (with the plate under it, don't forget) dump the following: 1 cup all purpose flour, 1/3 cup of cocoa, 3/4 tsp of baking soda, 1/2 tsp of baking powder, and 1/4 tsp of salt.

Now go back to your bowl of wetness, that has the curdlingness in it. To this add 3/4 cup granulated sugar and 1/3 cup of canola or other neutrally flavored evenly cooking veg oil. Here's where these particular cupcakes become something flashy. Instead of doing what the recipe calls for and simply adding vanilla extract, we're gonna veer. We're going to add 2 tsp of coconut extract, and 1 tsp vanilla. (No matter what flavor I'm doing , I pretty much always add vanilla as well. It gives a nice warming balance, I find.) Whisk all of these wet ingredients together until the contents of the bowl becomes a bit foamy on top.

Now you're ready to combine your dry with your wet. Sift the drys into the wets in two batches, whisking in between. Once all of the dry is in the bowl (including what fell onto that plate!), whisk until there are only a few small lumps left in the batter. It should look nice and glossy and lovely and rich and wonderful, like you.

Spoon and/or pour your batter into your cupcake liners until each one is 2/3 to 3/4 full. It sucks when your cupcakes overtop the liners; it makes it very difficult to peel the paper off! You do not want this. Listen to me here, because while I bake very tasty cupcakes, I am notorious for filling each cup too much so that I only get 11 cupcakes out of a batch of batter instead of 12, and then having the whole lot overtop their cups... oy. Also, I am terrible at spooning out the batter. I make a huge mess! If anyone has any tips on how to get this accomplished without spattering batter everywhere, I'd love to hear them.

Anyway, once you've filled all 12 cups relatively evenly, you're ready to pop that tray into your pre-heated oven. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes and/or until a toothpick comes out clean. I checked at 18 and the centers were batter city; at 20 they were perfect. Now, listen here, because this is important. As much as you may want to, DO NOT PEEK. This will ruin your cupcakes. RUIN, I say. Do I know this from personal experience? Um... uh... no... no, see, this is the ancient wisdom that is passed down from your forefathers on NATIONAL CHOCOLATE CUPCAKE DAY. Don't disrespect your ancestors, a'right?

When they are good and ready, pull your now perfectly beautiful cupcakes out of the oven and let them cool. Do not frost them now. Do you hear me? Let. Them. Cool. Walk away. Unless of course you want to eat one, like I did. Because poppets, believe me when I tell you that these cupcakes need no frosting. They stand on their own. They are totally delish, and they are gorgeous. You don't have to take my word for it. You can see for yourself. I'll save my next thousand words and just give you this.

It's almost like it has a heavenly glow, isn't it?

OK. You've tasted, and you're a believer. But you still want to frost, because frosting cupcakes is fun! Back off poncho. Go mow the lawn. Call yer mom - it has been a while since you talked to her, hasn't it? Just leave the freakin cupcakes alone for a while, kay? Kay. I'm glad we had this little talk.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Alright! I hit the town, had lunch at Curly's, got some new boots at Moo Shoes, stopped by Sur la Table and Dean and DaLuca and picked up some new extracts. It's been a couple of hours. And you know what that means? Now it's ok for me to make some frosting and go ahead and doll up those pretty cakes. The icing that I make pretty much every time (OK, fine, every time) is a variation of my mom's "buttercream" - it's really nothing but "butter", sugar, flavor, and a little liquid to make it all mesh. And damn is it good.

The full recipe calls for 1/2 cup of "butter" - margarine for me, of course, and my stick of choice is Fleischman's unsalted. (The salted has whey in it. Why? I have no frickin idea.) Yeah, that's a whole stick. Plus three cups of powdered sugar. Now, as you may imagine, that makes what we technically call an assload of frosting. If I were making a birthday cake it might be necessary, but for 12 little cupcakes it hardly is. So as usual I'm doing the half recipe, and it looks like this:

1/4 cup (half a stick) of margarine
1 and 1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 tsp rum extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp almond milk (my liquid of choice, and this is just to start out with)

Remember that today we're making rum frosting, but you can use whatever extract you want in here - orange, lemon, peppermint, coconut, raspberry, cinnamon - sky's the limit. I generally keep the 2:1 ratio of other : vanilla; other than that, you can do what you want. It's not hard to add cocoa, berries, and other fun things either.

All you're going to do is dump all of these ingredients in a bowl together. (If you're extra good, maybe you already washed the bowl from your cupcake batter? Yeah, right.) Take your electric mixer and, on LOW POWER!, begin to mix. If it seems way too dry, add a tiny splash of your liquid of choice. Don't add more than a teaspoon at a time - the consistency changes very quickly. Tonight I only ended up needing to add one splash and it was perfect. Just for a little extra pizazz, I also added three controlled drops of yellow food coloring. It gave the icing a nice creamy yellow color, rather than just being sort of margarine colored. Food coloring is fun stuff, but use it sparingly, and remember that it will NOT come out of your clothes. Ever. Mix until what's in your bowl holds its shape and looks like beautiful glossy icing.

To spread icing on cupcakes, I use a small round metal spatula thing that I think is actually meant for putting spreads onto bagels. Whatev, it works. I start with a knuckle sized lump of frosting, and work in a sort of counter-clockwise circular motion around the cupcake top until there's an even coating. It's nothing fancy, but I think it has a nice, classic sort of look to it. I have an icing piper, but this icing would be a bit... much, for that much of a topping, really. It's got a kick.

Alright everyone. Happy NATIONAL CHOCOLATE CUPCAKE DAY! Enjoy your cupcakes, and I'll see you on the flipside.

VeganMoFo Day Seventeen: 300! (Part 3 - the exciting part.)

2009-10-17T20:51:00.001-04:00

Well darlings, this is what you've all been waiting for. We've run the gamut of Bittersweet's Vegan's 100 of 2008, and leapt the hurtle of HHL's Vegan Hundred of 2009. But now, people, now we're breaking new ground.

Now, I bring to you none other than...

the Melissa Bastian New York in Green Vegan 100!!

Like the other vegan lists, these are foods that you simply must try (whether or not you're vegan, really). This list actually also incorporates some eating experiences - settings and such. But the main difference? These are in New York! Get it? See? It's regional.

Should you feel the urge (and I hope you do), copy this list and just go ahead and tell us. Have you eaten it / been there / done that? Do you want to? Would you do it again? For my fellow New Yorkers, or those who live close enough to get into town reasonably often, answer away and please put a link to your answers in the comments! To those who just love to visit, answer as well, and maybe this list will be a good reference for the next time you get over this way. Even if you've never been here, tell us how it all sounds to you!

Alright then. Let's get to it, shall we?

1. cornbread at Angelica's Kitchen - oh yes, both kinds with several different spreads.
2. the Zen slice at Viva Herbal (2nd Ave) - my favorite. I crave it.
3. lemongrass seitan on rice vermicelli at Lan Cafe - I make everyone eat this.
4. cake batter soft serve ice cream at Lula's Sweet Apothecary - I keep meaning to get this when I go there, and then I'm always tempted by something else. I have to go in with tunnel vision one day and just do it.
5. Vegan Treats' Peanut Butter Bomb cake - so... much... sugar!
6. the "Penny Lick" at Penny Licks - so cute! But I always (foolishly) opt for something bigger.
7. oyster mushrooms and grilled asparagus at Gobo - if it says oyster mushroom, I've ordered it.
8. dosas from the vegan dosa cart man at the southwest corner of Washington Square Park - once! I'd never had dosas before so I had no idea what I was eating, but I know it was good. I have to get back down there!
9. coconut tofu soup at Pukk - mmm, the lemongrass...
10. camarones y coco at Vegetarian Paradise 2 - I am not much for veg "seafood". But these coconut covered deep fried "shrimp" are freakin delish.
11. crab rangoon at Red Bamboo - I had to try it, but it is not like the crab rangoon I remember.
12. medu vadi at Madras Cafe - man, does this place do some amazing things with lentils! Bad news though. I was there just last night, and they told us that they're closing! I may have to go light candles out front and mourn.
13. dinner at Hangawi - not yet. I've been here for four years and there are still vegan restaurants I haven't eaten at!
14. wings at Foodswings - every flavor! Possibly the best vegan junk food there is.
15. vegetarian combo at Awash - every couple of months I get an urge for that unique spongy bread that goes with Ethiopian food.
16. nutmeats from Bonobos - so amazing. You can make a "cheeseball" out of it for your holiday party. We did!
17. sunflower lentil pate at Sacred Chow - vegan tapas. It's brilliant.
18. white chocolate wonderful peanut butter from Peanut Butter & Co. - I was swayed by the dark chocolate, which is also vegan! I'll have to go back for the white.
19. Sweet & Sara marshmallows with toasted coconut - one of my fave treats. These are available in Whole Foods across the country now, but they still come from right here in Long Island City!
20. ginormous lollypop from Dylan's Candy Bar - I go in there, and I pick things, and then I see the line, and then I leave. Every time.
21. seitan scallopini at Blossom - Jonathan swears that this is divine. I haven't had it, but apparently I have to. But the west side is so far!
22. baked veg meat bun at Buddha Bodai - OK, so I'm addicted to all of the roasted veg meat at BB. But this one bun... OMG. And they like never have it. So it's like the unicorn of dim sum. (Not that I would eat unicorn. Because, you know, I'm vegan.)
23. Thanksgiving dinner (prix fix) at a vegan restaurant - this year, for the first time, we're cooking for/with friends. For the past four years though I've always partaken in what seems to be an NYC tradition - awesome TG meals at the vegan restaurants. I've done Candle Cafe twice, once Blossom, and last year Angelica.
24. fresh apple cider at the Union Square Greenmarket - it's getting to be that season again! Actually it feels like it's already December. We need hot apple cider like nobody's business.
25. "turkey" salad from Sunen Foods - oh, so many work lunches would never have been had were it not for this excellent little company and their tasty packaged-but-freshly-made foods.
26. red sonjas at Mundo (in Astoria) - pretty much the only reason to go to this restaurant if you're vegan. But oh, what a reason. Get the red lentil soup too. Total delicious lentil overload.
27. sausage roll from Vinnie's on Bedford - we love the fact that, while Vinnie's is really just an old school NYC pizza parlor, they also have great vegan offerings.
28. a dragon bowl at Bliss on Bedford - the 1970's version of vegan. I have this kind of meal every now and then, to cleanse some of the cookie-ness out of my system.
29. a Red Bamboo soul chik'n sandwich purchased at the Bamn Automat - I haven't but Jon has and I'm fascinated by the concept.
30. ravioli of the day at Caravan of Dreams - haven't been here either. This intrigues me though!
31. spaghetti squash spaghettini at Counter - I wrote this place off years ago (wow they serve a LOT of cheese), but I think I may go back to try THIS!
32. some teeny tiny ridiculously overpriced "entree" at Pure Food & Wine - can you tell that I was underwhelmed? Sure, the food tasted good. And after we dropped a bill and change on "dinner", we went and got some food. But it's part of the NYC vegan dining experience. Just don't think that they're all like that!
33. ramen at Souen on 6th - they let you put udon noodles in anything! I LOVE UDON. So I guess that no, I actually haven't had the ramen.
34. dumplings at Franchia - I went there once a really long time ago, when I barely even lived here and wasn't even vegan. Clearly I need to go back.
35. the vegan panini at 'sNice - there are many vegan offerings there, but this is my favorite.
36. chocolate hazelnut ice cream at Stogo - it's not a habit - it's cool - I feel alive...
37. a falafel pita with way too many crazy toppings at Maoz - I'm so happy they're opening more of these! Finally, European chains coming here instead of the other way around.
38. black sesame sweet tofu (soft serve) at Kyotofu - worth going to midtown for. Seriously.
40. an Ess-a-Bagel bagel with their tofu cream cheese - you can't call it cream cheese though. When you order it you can only call it tofu: "Can I get a whole wheat, toasted, with herb tofu, lettuce, and tomato please?" like so. They have like eight flavors!
41. brunch at Curly's Vegetarian Lunch - a great place to take omni friends who get upset about not having eggs at brunch. You get vegan food and don't have to look at/smell meat, at least. And the owners are superdeluxe people - there's a good chance one of them will be your waiter.
42. grits and a sake bloody mary at Old Devil Moon - this place is closed now, but we remember the good times.
43. peanut butter and banana sandwich at Think Coffee - Think is a good coffee establishment. They care where their foods and coffees come from and take part in the community... even if they are always all packed up with NYU students.
44. bad service with an attitude at Kate's Joint - tofu scramble in an hour or less (maybe); sneers and condesention from your server for free!
45. Melissa Bastian's veg lasagna and red velvet cupcakes - ha! Got you. But I've fed these to a pretty large number of people now, and both recipes did originate in NYC. So, will you be next?!
46. a fig and almond cake purchased at Dean & Deluca, the big one on Spring Street - this place is amazing. The flowers, the mushrooms, the breads... it's also the only place I've found the cakes of dried figs and almonds pressed together in this whole city.
47. pulled sugar candies from Papabubble - stick around in there for a little while and watch them make the candies. It is positively fascinating.
48. bean curd and broccoli from a Chinese takeout place that has lightup pictures on the wall of its main entrees - even if it's not on the menu, they'll make this for you.
49. a plate of goodness from Veggie Castle - I was lucky enough to go to the original Veggie Castle, the one housed in an old White Castle, two times before it closed. I haven't been to the second one yet.
50. beers at the Brooklyn Brewery - yes, Brooklyn Lager and the rest are still brewed in Brooklyn, and you can go there and drink! All of their beers are vegan except for one odd cask ale.
51. seitan satay sticks at Tien Garden - for all this restaurant's healthiness, these sure are doused with some mightyfine peanut sauce.
52. zucchini fries at the Organic Grill - I'm not a big fan of this place. The tables belong at a picnic spot or rest stop, not inside a restaurant. But these things almost make up for it.
53. Sake lemonade at Goodbye Blue Monday - they have some vegan food too, but... they have sake lemonade.
54. lhasa momos at Tsampa - it's a signature dish. Fo realz.
55. dinner with 4 course vegan - a special affair, always different. We went for our first month-a-versary. I could tell you where he is, but then I'd have to kill you.
56. a burrito from Benny's - nope, but Jon swears by them.
57. a vegan meal at one of Flushing Chinatown's veg restaurants - I think I've been to all of them.
58. a pleasing experience at House of Vegetarian - I haven't eaten here yet. The veg population of NYC seems to either love it or hate it; what do you think?
59. shark fin soup at Vegetarian Dim Sum House - aaaggghhh! Seeing this on the menu is why I haven't been back. I mean, yes it's vegan. But aagh! I was so traumatized by this that for awhile I called it The Soup that Shall Not be Named.
60. rice at Rice - yup. I like rice.
61. omusubi at Oms/b - I am so in love with this place! You have to be careful because they do use a lot of fish. The soups are all, uh, unclean. But there are so, so many amazing rice balls! I have introduced a few people from work to this type of food, and they are now all addicted. (This allows us to make many hilarious jokes about having balls in our mouths, which are clearly work-appropriate.)
62. pakora at Seva - Seva may be the first restaurant in all of Queens to use the v-word (vegan, that is) on the menu. For this, we love them. And their pakora rock the house!
63. bread from Balthazar bakery - oh Balthazar. This fancy French bistro doesn't have a whole lot on offer for the vegan crowd, though their fruit salad is the most delicious I have ever had. But they are known for their fresh breads.
64. Vegan Drinks at Angels & Kings - no! I have not been to this! Because it is always on Thursdays, as part of the conspiracy against me.
65. something accidentally vegan at Zen Burger - this all-vegetarian fast food joint aggravates me to no end, because almost nothing on the menu is vegan. I want to support them for being all veg... but! I had their ZenHarvest burger, and it was nothing special (except for where it came from). I wrote to them to ask wtf, but did not receive a reply. Do us all a favor and write to them too - maybe if we all do they'll start to think about it!
66. the vegetarian appetizer combo plate at Bread & Olive - I haven't been here yet, which is sad because I work in midtown. I'm dying to know if the Moudardara is vegan!
67. that funky triangle of tofu sitting in soy sauce from a bodega salad bar - you know the kind, sitting on end with a split in the top of the triangle, stuffed with green onions and bits of red stuff. What is that red stuff? Pimento?
68. Entenmann's individual apple pie (the kind in a little paper pouch) - Entenmann's sweet treats may not be sold out of a horse-drawn cart in Brooklyn anymore (thankfully, poor horse!) but it's still a New York classic. In New Orleans they have similar pies made by Hubig's - they're still made with animal lard! *shiver*
69. fresh fruit and/or vegetable juice from a juice cart on the street - my favorite cart is at 48th and 3rd Ave.
70. knishes at Yonah Schimmel - can't believe I haven't been there yet! Gotta go gotta go gotta go.
71. the "Elvis" (peanut butter and banana) at Papa's Empanadas - Steinway Street, I am coming for you.
72. a soft pretzel from a cart on the street, with mustard - do not pay more than one dollar.
73. nuts for nuts! - tastes like sugar on nuts. Smells like PURE HEAVEN.
74. sorbet from Caio Bella - this gelato chain can be found in a smattering of states now, but it actually began in Little Italy in the 1980s. The important thing, though, is that their amazing sorbets - including the dark rich chocolate - are vegan! I suggest the blood orange, chocolate, and champagne... possibly all at once.
75. cornmeal crusted tofu at Spring Street Natural - probably what I had ordered the day we told the parents we're engaged.
76. mango slices that have been arranged on a stick to look like a flower in bloom - I see these in Queens all the time, but the one time I ate one was in Coney.
77. zeppoli from a street fair - who doesn't love fried dough covered with sugar?
78. funnel cake in Coney Island that you watched them fry - coolest process ever. I have pictures.
79. pommes frites from a paper cone - yeah, but only from a bar. Not the real deal from that place off St. Mark's with the giant fry guy statue. The crowds in that neighborhood annoy me.
80. the Mexican chocolate milkshake at Curly's - sure, you can get a vegan chocolate milkshake in plenty of places in this town. But where else can you get a Mexican chocolate milkshake?
81. the Bandeja Paisa at The V-Spot - I am dying to try this Colombian dish.
82. an accidentally vegan falafel, rice, and chickpea platter from a Halal food cart - for lunch sometimes.
83. Thai iced tea at Pukk - it has soy milk in it, by default. Best. Thing. Ever.
84. ice cream cookie sandwich at Stogo - yeah, they'll take vegan cookies and sandwich some vegan ice cream in there for you. Are you ready to visit or what?
85. V-Spot empanadas purchased somewhere other than V-Spot - they have these at Sai Organics where we grocery shop. It's actually how I heard about the restaurant. I'd still prefer to get them fresh, but it's nice to know they're there!
86. pasta with marinara in Little Italy - it might take you some talking, but you can convince them to leave the cheese off. It'll be really, really good marinara, and the bread with olive oil is to die for.
87. Quinoa pasta at V-Spot - so curious to know what this is like! I had no idea you could make pasta from quinoa.
88. a slice of vegan cake while waiting for a band to start playing in the basement of Cake Shop - haven't been here yet either. I need to get out more, apparently.
89. your breakfast on the subway - breakfast, no. But when I left the law firm for six months and worked at a coffee shop instead, coming home at two in the morning, eating "dinner" of leftover pb and banana sandwiches that had sat in the case all day... yeah. Trains don't run too often that time of night, and food tastes good when you're real hungry.
90. a picnic in Central Park - not the idyllic in-a-basket kind, but in the strict "we brought food and sat in the grass and ate it" kind of way, yes.
91. dark chocolate bark from The Chocolate Room (Park Slope) - oh, my.
92. black coffee from the bodega - I opt for tea instead. Jonathan's done it. But a surprising amount of them now have soy milk.
93. a soy hot chocolate from Oren's Daily Roast - I was so happy when an Oren's popped up by my work; previous to that there were only about three hundred Starbuck's to choose from.
94.mango maki at Tanaka - the east 50's of New York is where the sushi craze began on the east coast. IMHO, this is where you'll still find the best sushi in NYC.
95. dim sum at Buddha Bodai - my favorite restaurant event ever; better than brunch anywhere. Did this for my birthday last year. Have missed it many times because we just can't get down to Chinatown early enough... you know, like by three.
96. pierogi in or from Greenpoint - two packs in my freezer right now.
97. a cheeseless pizza or Siciliana from Rizzo's - they were in a movie you know.
98. marzipan from a bakery in Astoria - the mousse mice are cute and all, but look at the delicate little marzipan fruit shapes! Amazing.
99. a soy latte from the Starbucks on Roosevelt Island - I'm fascinated by the fact that this former welfare island now has a large enough condo population to support it's own $-bucks. Haven't gone in though, just stood outside and stared.
100. lunch pieced together from the salad and hot food bars at the Food Emporium beneath the 59th Street Bridge - the grocery is actually sort of, like, inside the bridge. And it is the most beautiful grocery store I have ever seen. That sounds weird, right? But seriously. It's breathtaking.

So there you have it! 100 amazing tastes and experiences from the vegan wonderland that is NYC. Had them all? I'm jealous! Haven't had any? It's time for a visit. And the really funny part is that I'm sure I've missed like a billion. I only mentioned one or two things from so many restaurants, and I'm sure there are restaurants that I'm forgetting about entirely.

Friends, vegan New York is here for you. Come, indulge, and enjoy!

P.S. - Like this idea? I would love to see a Vegan 100 for Portland, or Chicago, or wherever you live!

VeganMoFo Day Sixteen: 300! (Part Two)

2009-10-16T12:07:00.002-04:00

Hello poppetts. It's Friday, everybody's working for the weekend (except me, because I have to work this weekend). So without further ado, it's time for...

The HHL Vegan Hundred of 2009!

(If you're totally confused, please refer to yesterday's post.)

1. Molasses - duh! There's a huge jar of it from the Amish market by Jon's parents' house sitting in my pantry right now. Couldn't make my famous chewy ginger cookies without it.
2. Cactus/Nopales - hey... this was in the last one! It was just called "prickly pear".
3. Scrambled Tofu - this was in the last one too. Come on now.
4. Grilled Portobella Caps - love them!
5. Fresh Ground Horseradish - had it. Not a fan. Is it my imagination or is this more of a man thing?
6. Sweet Potato Biscuits - sounds freaking awesome.
7. Arepa - would LOVE to find vegan arepas - all the street fairs of NYC have stands for the mozzarella filled kind.
8. Vegan Cole Slaw - yeah, but I'm not big on raw cabbage.
9. Ginger Carrot Soup - yummy!
10. Fiddlehead Ferns - I've had these on my plate, but I prefer them in flower arrangements.
11. Roasted Elephant Garlic - is this different than regular garlic?
12. Umeboshi - also on the last one. Grrr.
13. Almond Butter Toast - um. This strikes me as two different items. I've had almond butter. It's a bit too pasty for me usually. Which is sad - I love almonds. I've also had toast.
14. Aloe Vera - should be used as a salve, not as a food.
15. H and H Bagel NYC - nope. I stick with Ess-a-Bagel. Jonathan says this place is better, but he's wrong.
16. Slow Roasted Butternut Squash - I don't like winter squashes.
17. White truffle - still only truffle oil.
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes - is this intentionally the same as the other one?
19. Freshly ground wasabi - wasabi is not my friend. I go through every one of my Japanese meals without touching that green lump.
20. Coconut Milk Ice Cream (not store bought) - sadly no. But if we ever get off our lazy rumps and start making homemade ice cream again...
21. Heirloom tomatoes - I'm going to start answering all the repeats with an angry, toe-pinching crabie. His name is Giraldo, and he looks like this: V.v.V
22. Orchard-fresh pressed apple cider - not in a long, long time. Mmmmm, cider...
23. Organic California Mango (in season Sept-Oct only) - I've had mango plucked ripe from the trees that morning in July in the more rural areas of the Florida keys. You can try to tell me there's better mango in the world, but I'm not going to believe you.
24. Quinoa - love it. Coolest grain - maybe competing with barley for taste and bite. But quinoa looks cooler and has a better spelling.
25. Papaya Smoothie - sounds nifty.
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet (habanero) pepper (just a bite!...hot!) - V.v.V
27. Goji Berry Tea - tea? No. I think I've had other stuff though.
28. Fennel - shur. The seeds as a refresher after an Indian meal; the bulbs sliced in salad. And hopefully grilled at our wedding!
29. Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie - yeahduh.
30. Radishes and Vegan Buttery Spread - hmm, no. You can keep your radishes.
31. Starfruit - I remember the first time I had starfruit. My dad was traveling for work, so it was just me and my sis and my mom. I was probably seven or eight. Mom brought home a starfruit and sliced it across the axis to show the shape, and we sat there on our parents' bed, watching TV and eating slices of it. Sitting there then, we weren't sad or upset about anything; we were happy just the three of us with this fascinating new food.
32. Oven fresh Sourdough bread - any fresh baked bread is my buddy.
33. Sangria made with premium fruit and juices - Mundo in Astoria is good for this.
34. Sauerkraut - V.v.V
35. Acai Smoothie - I'm not that impressed with acai. Hype, mostly.
36. Blue Foot Mushrooms - mushroom I do not know! I want!
37. Vegan Cupcake from Babycakes nyc - nobody can help pulling the NYC stuff can they. Yeah I've had them. Is it blasphemy to admit that they look better than they taste?
38. Sweet Potatoes and Tempeh combo - that sounds gross, both texturally and because I don't like tempeh.
39. Falafel - loves me some falafel.
40. Spelt Crust Pizza - I think so, though I believe it was despite the spelt.
41. Salt and Pepper Oyster Mushrooms - I think they do these at Gobo; that is to say, I think I've had these at Gobo. I adore oyster mushrooms.
42. Jicama Slaw - I heart jicama, and Jon once made us a shredded salad type thing with it.
43. Pumpkin Edamame Ginger Dumplings - whoa. I'll take some. I'm big on the dumplings.
44. Hemp Milk - tried it for the sake of trying it. If it was the only vegan milk I could get, I'd get it, and it wouldn't be like torture or anything.
45. Rose Champagne - like pink? Fancee!
46. Fuyu - don't think so but it sounds fascinating.
47. Raw Avocado-Coconut Soup - make me some?
48. Tofu Pesto Sandwich - several versions. Delish when done right.
49. Apple-Lemon-Ginger-Cayenne fresh-pressed juice...with Extra Ginger - I prefer a simple carrot orange, or carrot ginger, or carrot orange celery is really good!
50. Grilled Seitan - it's not bad grilled, but I'm not a big seitan person.
51. Prickly pear - now you're repeating yourself! Or do you mean both the bulb and the pad? Giraldo demands clarification! V.v.V
52. Fresh Pressed Almond Milk - no, only the Blue Diamond Almond Breeze that I swear by. If someone wants to go through the trouble of making it, I'll drink the hell outta some.
53. Concord Grapes off the vine - sounds like some sort of Greek fantasy.
54. Ramps - apparently ramps are wild leeks. That's the kind of thing you want to point out, because no, I haven't been eating any bits of interstate.
55. Coconut Water fresh from a young coconut - yes! Part of why I love living in Queens. They'll just hack the top right off for you and stick a straw in.
56. Organic Arugula - out of my own back yard.
57. Vidalia Onion - my mom loves cooking with these.
58. Sampler of organic produce from Diamond Organics - my Christmas present? You shouldn't have!
59. Honeycrisp Apple - I usually get fujis. This name gives this apple a big promise to live up to.
60. Poi - Hawaiian, Samoan, or Tahitian? I haven't had any, but I'd try all three.
61. Vegan Campfire-toasted Smores - V.v.V
62. Grape seed Oil - it's in everything, but I don't think I've had it in isolation. Is there a reason to?
63. Farm fresh-picked Peach - no. Must drive through Georgia during picking season.
64. Freshly-made pita bread with freshly-made hummus - not freshly made; that would be so rad.
65. Chestnut Snack Packs - what?
66. Fresh Guava - I would need to travel for that. Maybe someday!
67. Mint Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies - in my mind that is at least three different cookies.
68. Raw Mallomar from One Lucky Duck, NYC - I do not support that establishment or its proprietor.
69. Fried plantains - V.v.V
70. Mache - lamb's lettuce eh? Probably. I'll eat most edible greens as long as they're not super bitter.
71. Golden Beets - I don't think I've had them, but I would. I looooove red beets - fresh, canned, pickled, whatever.
72. Barrel-Fresh Pickles - I'm a big fan of the dill pickle. The weirdo garlic pickle that you find in these parts I'm not so fond of.
73. Liquid Smoke - Jonathan is in love with this product.
74. Meyer Lemon - my parents have a meyer lemon tree growing in their front yard. When it's big enough to sprout fruit, I'll let you know.
75. Veggie Paella - I've seen this listed on websties, and it confuses me. Because in my former life I loved "real" paella, and... where do you go with that? Which I think means I have to go somewhere that gets good reviews for its veg paella and find out. Right?
76. Vegan Lasagna (raw optional) - I make a damn fine one.
77. Kombucha - unlimited refills at Spring Street Natural.
78. Homemade Soy Milk - V.v.V
79. Lapsang souchong - in my pantry.
80. Lychee Bellini - at the bar up the block.
81. Tempeh Bacon - before I was even vegan. (It sucks.)
82. Sprouted Grain Bread - the bagels from Sai Organics.
83. Lemon Pepper Tempeh - I'm beginning to think you have a tempeh obsession. I do use lemon pepper on everything though.
84. Vanilla Bean - the actual beans are so cool aren't they? And of course they're not really beans. They're the seed pod of an orchid. Exotic, no?
85. Watercress - can't have a watercress sandwich without it.
86. Carrot you pulled out of the ground yourself - I've never grown carrots - that would be so spiffy. I would want bunnyrabbits to come and steal them.
87. Vegan In-Season Fruit Pie - maybe I've had it? I would definitely eat it!
88. Flowers - V.v.V Giraldo is now enraged! Giraldo hopes that there are no more repeats, or there will be some serious toe-pinching happening for sure!
89. Corn Chowder - no but I want some! Well, I guess I have had some kind of thick corn soup that comes out of a carton, and it's alright for a quick work lunch, but I'd like something higher quality than that.
90. High Quality Vegan Raw Chocolate - supposedly yes. But I was very disappointed with the product I received. I love chocolate so much! So it was a real letdown.
91. Yellow fuzz-free Kiwi - I don't think I'd like it. I very much enjoy very ripe kiwi, but anything less is like eating a lemon.
92. White Flesh Grapefruit - yeah, but ruby red is so much better.
93. harissa - I probably could not do this.
94. Coconut Oil - it's in everything, and why would you eat it alone?
95. Jackfruit - the coolest looking fruit! I need to make it a mission to eat it in isolation and know what it tastes like.
96. Homemade Risotto - as in, boiled it from a box? Yes. As in, started with flour or a potato ricer or something? No. I love it though - it's a shape / texture / mouthfeel that I crave.
97. Spirulina - only in green shakes.
98. Seedless 'Pixie' Tangerine - I heart citrus. And naming fruits pixie!
99. Gourmet Sorbet, not store bought - stop by Angelo Brocato's next time you're in New Orleans and see if that's gourmet enough for you. Just because people say it's exactly like what they've got in gelaterias in Italy...
100. Fresh Plucked English Peas - hmm. Well I've helped Jon's mom pick various peas from their little plot of farmland, and prepared them on the front porch of the house, and eaten them that night. Does that count?

Two down, one to go. Tomorrow it's Saturday, and I present to you my very own Frankenstein monster of a Vegan 100... join me if you dare!

Post Script: Giraldo the crab V.v.V would like to mention that he doesn't believe the author of HHL was aware of the 2008 version of the Vegan's 100 when penning this list. He feels that potentially the repetitions came more from a faithfulness to the Omnivore's 100 than from any carelessness or lack of creativity. He compliments the author of HLL for her Vegan Hundred endeavor. He is a fair and evenhanded, though crabby, crabbie. He implores me to point out that only one toe was pinched during the answering of this list. (It was mine.)

VeganMoFo Day Fifteen: 300! (Part 1)

2009-10-15T11:46:00.001-04:00

Maybe you've seen this before - I never had though, not until a fellow PPKer posted it on MyFace. Apparently it all began with some self-proclaimed "omnivore" and his list of what "everyone" should eat in this lifetime. Well, not all of us want to eat snake, a'ight pal? But as we vegans do with all things, we take what we're not so happy with in the world and we make it better.

So what is it that I'm talking about? The Vegan 100! It entertains me, largely because it gives me an opportunity to talk about myself. And face it, isn't that why we all love surveys? OK, that's only half a joke - I really like it because it's such a great showing of the glorious variety of vegan foods! It becomes a somewhat interactive activity - you're to post the list, noting what foods you've tried, want to try, and would never try. The original instructions go something like so:

1) Copy this list into your blog or social networking site profile, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out or italicize any items that you would never consider eating.

Personally, though, I think the crossing out etc. makes it difficult for people to copy and paste, and doesn't it ruin the fun if it's hard to pass along? Plus I prefer to comment/annotate. And this is my damn blog, so that's how I'm gonna do it! Essentially, each food is a one word question, the invisible implication being "have you eaten it, and if you haven't would you?" For me that's almost never a simple yes/no reply. I'm too verbose. (Isn't that a lovely way to say I talk too much?)

So, why is this just Part 1? And why is the post called 300!? Well now comes the crazy part. I'm not just doing one set of the Vegan 100. I'm gonna do Bittersweet's 2008 version, HHL's 2009 version, and my very own New York in Green NYC version! But since there's no way in hell you're going to sit here and read all three at once, I decided to break it up into three posts.

You ready? Here we go.

We begin with Bittersweet's Vegan's Hundred of 2008:

1. Natto - wha? (Ah. Had to google it.) Yes, I've eaten them/it. It was an accidental order sort of. Won't be doing that again. Not much flavor, and texturally it was like eating something that was about to hatch.
2. Green Smoothie - yes. Can be awesome, depending on exact ingredients. Avocado = fabulous!
3. Tofu Scramble - yepper! My man makes some of the best. Well, him and Blossom.
4. Haggis - they make vegan haggis? Well of course they do, but whoa.
5. Mangosteen - have had mangosteen powder, nothing else I don't think.
6. Creme brulee - sadly no. Do you know where I can get some?!
7. Fondue - again, sadly no. I've considered getting a fondue pot just to make this happen. Then we could totally party like it's 1979!
8. Marmite/Vegemite - nope. I'd try it; just on the wrong side of the pond. I hear mixed reviews.
9. Borscht - nopers. I'd eat it, but I don't think I'd try to make it.
10. Baba ghanoush - often! One of my favorites.
11. Nachos - Jon has made some good ones, and we just discovered that V-Spot makes them! We'll be making a special trip to the Slope...
12. Authentic soba noodles - authentic vs. what? I've had plenty of buckwheat if that's what you mean.
13. PB&J sandwich - um, yes.
14. Aloo gobi - who doesn't love potatoes and cauliflower?
15. Taco from a street cart - no tacos. :( Can you get vegan tacos from street carts? Is this a Portland thing?
16. Boba Tea - oooh yes. Love me some chewy tapioca balls. And for the record people, the technical term is bubble, mmmkay?
17. Black truffle - truffle oil only I think. But I'll be happy to eat any edible fungus.
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes - I'm a big sucker for umeshu (Japanese plum wine) including the pickled plum inside.
19. Gyoza - please view blog.
20. Vanilla ice cream - oh I've had it. Could I name you all the brands I've tried? Probly not. I do recall Soy Cream being pretty good. I don't tend to go for plain vanilla though - I like stuff with stuff in it.
21. Heirloom tomatoes - these are so gorgeous and fabulous and amazing and taste the absolute best! I hope that eventually I'll have a little plot of dirt so I can grow my own.
22. Fresh wild berries - not since I was in single digits. But what an experience!
23. Ceviche - hmm. I would be fascinated to experience a vegan version of this. What, exactly, would be getting cooked with citrus?
24. Rice and beans - a staple in my household, forever and always.
25. Knish - how shall I put this... I've been in New York for four years! I think they might have deported me by now if I hadn't started eating knishes yet.
26. Raw scotch bonnet pepper - mmm... tabasco sauce is about as spicy as this girl gets.
27. Dulce de leche - I've had an ice cream version; they call it Dulce con Leche, ha ha.
28. Caviar - different people have different versions. I had something someone was calling "vegan caviar", but it was just black beans... anyway, even when I was a mostly undiscriminating omni I wouldn't eat caviar, so whatevs.
29. Baklava -love it love it love it!
30. Pate - can't decide which I like better, the one at Sacred Chow or the one at Angelica.
31. Wasabi peas - not a big fan of these. Jonathan likes them though.
32. Chowder in a sourdough bowl - haven't found a vegan version of this, but I'd love to!
33. Mango lassi - yes! Thank you Madras Cafe on 2nd Ave!
34. Sauerkraut - blegh. Pickled cabbage? You can keep it, thanks. Although, when you make a vegan reuben it is a necessary ingredient.
35. Root beer float - mmm hmm. This was a childhood fave, so it brings back good memories.
36. Mulled cider - not yet, but we just got a slow cooker and we're having company for Thanksgiving, so I feel that chances are good.
37. Scones with buttery spread and jam - have not yet had a vegan scone. Weird right?
38. Vodka jelly - never heard of such a thing! I might sample it, but I'm a lightweight (not literally but drinkwise) so if it has actual alcoholic content that would be the extent. (And if it just tastes like vodka... well, I don't think anyone drinks vodka for the taste.)
39. Gumbo - oh yeah. Used to get Andy's vegan gumbo at Z'otz on Oak. Haven't had any since I came to NYC though.
40. Fast food french fries - probably. Though the veganity of anything that comes out of a fast food chain is debatable. Had restaurant french fries twice last week.
41. Raw Brownies - in the couple of times that I've tried to bake brownies - well, let's just say I'm a taster.
42. Fresh Garbanzo Beans - no! But I'd sooo love to. I'm a big fan of the canned variety.
43. Dahl - love me some lentils.
44. Homemade Soymilk - supposedly Jonathan has made soymilk from scratch before, but that was before I was around. I'm not a big fan of soymilk, so I think I need it with plenty of sugar and artificial flavor if I'm going to be drinking it at all.
45. Wine from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more - I think my dad might have dropped two bills on the bottle he got during the lunch when we told the parents we were engaged.
46. Stroopwafle - no but I want it I want it I want it!!!
47. Samosas - on a semi-regular basis.
48. Vegetable Sushi - again, on a semi-regular basis. Last weekend in fact.
49. Glazed doughnut - yepper, but never a fresh one sadly. Only packaged.
50. Seaweed - sure. Hijiki, nori, probably some other stuff. Don't know all the kinds they use in seaweed salad.
51. Prickly pear - Jon says he prepared some for me, and that I was fascinated. I believe him but don't remember.
52. Umeboshi - love it on/in my omusubi!
53. Tofurkey - which kind? Tofurkey is a brand. We've got the Italian sausages and deli slices in the fridge right now. I have not, however, ever had the original Tofurkey loaf thing. I'd sure give it a try though - we may do so for this year's Thanksgiving.
54. Sheese - is this a brand? Had several others, but not that one.
55. Cotton candy - pure sugar! You know I'm on it.
56. Gnocchi - yes! We love gnocchi, and we're lucky enough to live in a place where we can buy packaged vegan gnocchi. It's one of my absolute favorite quick dinners.
57. Piña colada - had one on Sunday! Of course, it had sake in it instead of rum because of NYC's weird liquor license laws. A little different, but still good.
58. Birch beer - yum.
59. Scrapple - having trouble imagining how/why a vegan version of this would ever come to be.
60. Carob chips - why would I eat carob when I can have chocolate? Outside of a chocolate allergy, why would anyone?
61. S’mores - in the mail on the way from Sweet & Sara as we speak! As for the roasted over the fire variety, all in good time.
62. Soy curls - I hear a lot about these, and it seems that many of people like them... the name frightens me, but if it's tasty it's tasty and I'd give it a go.
63. Chickpea cutlets - cutlets? Sure. Chickpea? You lost me. You can make lots of cool stuff out of chickpeas though, so I guess I'm not that surprised...?
64. Curry - I'm going to call this vague. And say about a hundred times in the past three years.
65. Durian - flavored candy. Not the real thing. I hear rumors about taste vs. smell.
66. Homemade Sausages - haven't had any, but I'd certainly try some from a competent cook. What do you use for casing?
67. Churros, elephant ears, or funnel cake - a Coney Island classic, people.
68. Smoked tofu - love it! BBQ flavor please. Fabulous on a sandwich of good bread, veganaise, a little bit of high quality mustard, and a thinly sliced sweet-tart apple.
69. Fried plantain - had some of these on Sunday too.
70. Mochi - oh man, you start talking rice dough and I am so all over it.
71. Gazpacho - my mom makes AMAZING gazpacho. Probably the only thing she makes that's vegan without effort.
72. Warm chocolate chip cookies - last weekend - too many of them.
73. Absinthe - not in years and years. My wild days have passed!
74. Corn on the cob - one of nature's perfect foods.
75. Whipped cream, straight from the can - still haven't had any of the vegan whipped creams. Any suggestions on which brand is best?
76. Pomegranate - when I was a kid, dissecting a pomegranate and sucking on each individual juice-enveloped seed could keep me occupied for hours. Can't remember how recently I've had one though. Really fascinating structure there.
77. Fauxstess Cupcake - no, need to order some from one of my Vegan Etsy teammates who makes them!
78. Mashed potatoes with gravy - Jon is a master at this.
79. Jerky - primal strips are hilarious.
80. Croissants - no, but I remember them fondly. Somebody get up on it will ya?
81. French onion soup - Jon to the rescue once again. He even got us special bowls for it.
82. Savory crepes - haven't had crepes since the egg-filled kind we made in 7th grade French class. Would love to have them again though.
83. Tings - I'm not as in love with these as everyone else seems to be. They're alright.
84. A meal at Candle 79 - were there for our 2nd anniversary, and several other times.
85. Moussaka - I'm a fan of eggplant, but I haven't had this.
86. Sprouted grains or seeds - shur.
87. Macaroni and “cheese” - me and Jon have battles as to who can make the best.
88. Flowers - in high school theater we ate the flowers that we gave each other after shows... not really since then though.
89. Matzoh ball soup - I would LOVE a vegan version of this.
90. White chocolate - this as well.
91. Seitan - some in the fridge right now.
92. Kimchi - I do not like Kimchi. I've tried to like Korean food; it's just not my gig, except for maybe the occasional veg bibimbap. It's gotta be in the hot stone bowl though or what's the point?
93. Butterscotch chips - been looking for vegan butterscotch chips! If you know where to get them please tell me!
94. Yellow watermelon - sounds fascinating! You say melon, I'm in. But for that matter, you say fruit, I'm in.
95. Chili with chocolate - anything with chocolate.
96. Bagel and Tofutti - OMG so many times.
97. Potato milk - wow, never even heard of potato milk, and I thought I'd heard of all milks. I'd taste it, but I must say I'm a skeptic.
98. Polenta - love polenta! Melissa's makes a sundried tomato one that's awesome to keep around for a quick meal. I'd love to have homemade sometime.
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee - I've drunk a LOT of coffee in my time and worked in two coffee shops, so I want to say probably. But then this is a very special coffee, so maybe not. I'm afraid it would be wasted on me, as I'm not much of a connoisseur.
100. Raw cookie dough - probably more than a person should have in a lifetime.

Alright peoples, so there's installment one. Tune in tomorrow for part two: HLL's 2009 Vegan 100!

VeganMoFo Day Fourteen: Noodle Monday (even though it's not Monday).

2009-10-14T10:42:00.003-04:00

Jonathan and I have this really bad habit of forgetting certain things. Like, such as, for instance, that Lan Cafe and Lula's both are closed on Mondays. So we'll wander into The City after work, from Queens and Midtown respectively, all the way on down to 6th street in the East Village- only to discover that our destination locations have no love for us. At least, that is, not on Mondays. Terribly sad. And yet, fortunately, the city (and particularly that part of it) has enough to offer that it's pretty much impossible to walk more than about 200 feet without reaching a restaurant that will feed us well. Enter: Souen.

Souen has two old school macrobiotic spots in other locales in the city, but in spring of 2009 it opened this little ramen place. Yep, ramen. You think you've had it right? You boil water, open up that sad little plastic pouch (5 for $1!!), tear open that weird foil packet of powder that somehow contains like 27 grams of fat, soak, stir, and pretend it's food. Right?

Wrong!

That stuff is to a real bowl of ramen as Chef Boyardee in a can is to your mom's marinara with angel hair.

Souen's ramen outlet shows us how a bowl of these noodles is done. Although not a vegan or even vegetarian restaurant, they have a fair number of veg options and will go out of their way to make sure you know what you're being served. That's the kind of effort we appreciate, and when it comes with good food to boot, you know we're happy diners.

This is what I had: udon noodles in a curried broth with tofu.

The noodles, up close.

Jon had what is doubtless a more traditional affair: ramen in a miso-based broth, also with tofu plus a few types of seaweed and other greens.

A closer inspection of the real deal on ramen:

Souen is a long, narrow restaurant and I definitely wouldn't suggest going there with more than an absolute maximum of four people. Two is probably a better idea. But the atmosphere is warm and comforting while simultaneously modern and "organic" - overall pleasing to the eye and comfortable to be in. And that's coming from a girl who's had to leave dinners because I get so claustrophobic and uncomfortable.

Details like the handwritten (or should I say hand drawn) specials board and the extra friendly waitstaff give this hole-in-the-wall noodle joint a downright homey feel. So if you ever find yourself on 6th street on a Monday, craving a little something warm and noodley, this might just be the right dinner spot for you.

VeganMoFo Day Thirteen: you got soup in my muffin! (You got muffin in my soup!)

2009-10-13T09:46:00.000-04:00

In the following dialog, "old man" must be read in a Yiddish old man accent. "Pretentious waiter" can be read in anything pretentious - French, English, NYC Impatient - whatever floats your boat.

Old man: "Oh waiter, can you taste my soup?"

Pretentious waiter: "Is there something wrong with the soup sir?"

"Just taste the soup please."

"If there's a problem I'll be happy to-"

"Could you please just taste the soup?"

"Alright sir. Where's the spoon?"

"Ah-hah!"

Ba-dum bum.

Hee. I just felt like spicy soup muffins deserved a joke to start off with, and that's the only soup joke I know. (Know any soup jokes? If so, please share.) This is a recipe from How It All Vegan, a book that in my opinion no longer gets proper love. This is possibly because Terry and Isa came on the scene and all blew it up and everything. It's also, uh, ten years old. But it's the first cookbook I ever bought, and I think it's a damn good cookbook. My copy, for one, is very well loved. (As in, I've spilled a lot of crap on it and dog-eared way, way too many pages.)

Anyway. I woke up Sunday morning and knew that no way in hell was I settling for a bowl of cereal for breakfast. A flipped through a few of the books on my recipe shelf, but when I spotted this recipe, that I'd always meant to try but never had, it was clearly the one. It took me about an hour total, but that's largely because I'm still disorganized in getting my ingredients together and do self-defeating things like put ingredients away before I've used them. I'm wacky that way.

Ready? Here we go.

Completely contrary to my normal inclinations, I followed this recipe pretty much exactly. (To be able to read it, just click on it and it'll become much larger.) Do I say that a lot? I guess I do. But I'll say that and then follow it with a detailed description of how I changed practically everything in the original recipe. Not this time, buckos. This time, I made exactly one substitution - because who keeps rye flower sitting around? (Yeah yeah, hush up already. I don't, OK? So instead I used my signature blend of half white, half whole wheat pastry.) Other than that, I followed it to a T. Ah, and I didn't have fresh ginger, so I used powdered. But really that's it!

The way this book is written, it lets you choose your own "sweetener" and egg replacer for most recipes. Well, I use white sugar folks. Awesome vegan organic fair trade white sugar, but white sugar nonetheless. And since these are muffins I chose soy yogurt as my egg replacer - 1/2 cup to make two eggs. I think if I make these again I'll go with my instincts more and add lemon pepper, parsley, maybe oregano and/or basil, and other soup-like spices. Ooh, and finely chopped, rehydrated sundried tomatoes could be really interesting. Oh - did I mention that I left out the rasins? Because, ew. And nuts! Pine nuts or sunflower seeds could be a nice add-in here...

Now, the recipe doesn't tell you this, but because I have experience with it I'm gonna let you know. It tells you to curdle your soy milk (OK I used almond milk like I always do) with a little vinegar (fine, I used apple cider vinegar - I can't follow recipes!). Do it first. The longer it sits, the more it curdles, the better a replacement for buttermilk it will be. This recipe calls for 2/3 of a cup. So what you want to do is put in 1 tsp of vinegar and then fill the measuring cup the rest of the way with your milk. Oh, what, you don't have a 2/3 cup measure? Well I do, and it's the greatest thing in the world! I'm not huge on the fancy pants made-for-yuppies kitchen stores like Williams Sonoma. They tend to be more about show than about actually making food. But they have a few fabulous things, and one of them is All-Clad's odd-size measuring cups and spoons. Last year I got sets both for me and for Jonathan's mom. I love love love mine to death and a half like whoa, et cetera.

The recipe didn't call for sifting, so I didn't. First I whisked my flours together, and then I whisked the remainder of my dry ingredients in (as instructed, like a good little monkey - see?). As I was using a dry sweetener (sugar), I included this in with the dry whisking. (Clearly, loves, this photo is pre-whisked! I just like how it looks this way. :P)

Now, making a batter, I've found, is a distinctly different thing from making a dough. In summary, doughs (at least the non-yeasted kind, like cookie dough) are much more forgiving and laid back than batters. A dough you can screw around with, stir around for a while, take your time adding wet ingredients to. Batter? Not so. The moment liquid hits powder important chemical reactions begin to happen, and you have to move fast or things will begin to go awry. For that reason, it's best to have all of your wets laid out and ready to add before you start adding any. This is precisely why it's good to have more than one set of measuring cups in the house. Is everyone slightly obsessed with pretty measuring cups and spoons, or is that a special affliction? (Fine, fine, you know this stuff already, you're advanced and this is baby stuff. Whaevs. Move on then!)

Once your wets are in your bowl you want to "just" mix them. I found that this recipe was all mixed in about six stirs of the whisk. Seriously! I doubt I was even mixing for thirty seconds. It said to spoon the mix into a lightly oiled muffin tin and fill each about 2/3 of the way; I suppose that's what happened when I divided the batter among the six wells. We are, of course, talking about ginormous muffins - the kind where six takes up an entire baking tray. These ain't no cupcake-sized muffins people. I'm sure you could bake those with this recipe too, but it would make many more and you'd need to reduce baking time. (Thanks, Cap'n Obvious!)

The recipe said to bake at 400 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes. Being a bit OCD/paranoid about ovens, of course I checked at 15 minutes. Well, I'm super glad I did the knife test rather than just yanking them out, because my knife came out looking like this. Soup muffins indeed - I don't think this is what they meant. I set the timer for another five minutes.

Lucky for me and my muffins (and my sanity, because when baking times go wrong I start to lose it - see OCD comment above) 20 minutes turned out to be exactly perfect. The knife came out clean and the muffins had gone from pasty pale to lovely golden brown. I placed them in the window to cool and mused for a moment on whether Donna Reed ever baked soup muffins, and whether I'd enjoy baking in a crinoline. (Visions of skirts set aflame by my gas oven, anyone?)

After blogging for a little while, I went to check on the cooling status and found that the muffins were just perfect. They popped out of my lightly oiled muffin pan without issue, and were a wonderful accompaniment to a mug of Earl Grey tea with almond milk and a little sugar. Man, if I got up at 4:30 in the morning, I could have breakfast like this every day! Yep, I'm totally sure that's gonna happen.

VeganMoFo Day Twelve: Why the hell have I been baking so many cookies?

2009-10-12T12:50:00.003-04:00

It's true - I baked approximately eight dozen cookies in the span of... eighteen hours? But contrary to appearances, I am not actually squirreled away in my apartment, shoving cookie after cookie into my chocolate-smeared crumb-rimmed mouth. Nope. Sure, I've eaten some cookies in the past few days. Too many, even. I think yesterday I had eight. At least I know exactly what was in them!

But I've been baking cookies for a reason. A good reason, even. Some would even say, for a cause. Fo realz! And what's my big "why?" Because Farm Sanctuary asked me to!

OK, fine, not me specifically. We're not all BFF like that. But on Wednesday, Advocacy Organizer David Benzaquen raised the call for baked goods to be donated to a bake sale, to occur on Saturday. And I said, I can do that! As a matter of fact, it sounded like one of the best reasons I'd ever heard to bake way, way too many cookies. Major bonus: that I wouldn't just eat them all myself for once!

On Saturday morning I finished baking the chocolate chip cookies, packed up those and the Earl Greys, and headed on down to Tompkins Square Park in the East Village. This has long been a gathering spot for revolutionary thinkers and holders of progressive views and lifestyles. On Sunday it would be the location of the NYC Veg Fest, but on Saturday it was home to Harvest Rebellion, a small but rockin' music festival at which Farm Sanctuary was asked to come and table. No selling was to be allowed at the Veg Fest, so FS held the bake sale on Saturday.

We came to drop off the goods early - always good to be set up before things really get going. As usual FS had a beautiful display set up with info about the farm, as well as other educational materials about factory farming and veg alternatives. At the moment their champion campaign is Adopt-a-Turkey - a really fantastic program and a great way to start a new thanksgiving tradition in your family. Not only are you not contributing to the death of these beautiful animals by refusing to bring them to your dinner table; by sponsoring one, you are contributing to the happy and prosperous life of the FS turkey of your choosing! Totally rad, says I.

Jonathan and I spent a happy hour or so chatting with David, intern Molly, and other FS volunteers and passersby. And of course we couldn't help ourselves from purchasing and sampling some of the other donated bakesale goodies! Just take a look - all vegan of course! Totally delish - the animal cookies and apple muffins made by a splendid girl named Calla were an utter delight.

Alas, we couldn't stick around all day - big things afoot in wedding land that day. But it was clear that the event was a success. +1 for Farm Sanctuary, +1 for the animals and for awesome vegan baked goods! Thanks to the good people of FS for making it happen every day! Woot.

VeganMoFo Day Eleven: The perfect cookie.

2009-10-11T12:11:00.001-04:00

There are different kinds of people in the world. And that's alright - diversity is beautiful. There are those who want a fancy and/or schmancy cookie.
A mocha chip toffee crunch Pirouline-type rolled wafer, perhaps, or a creme de menthe meringue pouff. Well, that's all fine and dandy, but it doesn't quite have the warm and cozy feel of baking cookies with mom that you're sometimes searching for on a cool winter day, now does it? Nope, I says not. You can never go wrong, though, with a classic chocolate chip.

Shortly after I went vegan, I realized I needed to learn to bake vegan cookies. For any vegan with a sweet tooth, this is a fairly crucial skill to have. It just so happened that I had some chocolate chips from Key Foods around, which at that time were still accidentally vegan. (They have since started putting whey in them for reasons unknown, buncha jerks.) Lo and behold, on the back of the bag was a recipe for classic chocolate chip cookies. I've been tweaking that recipe for about three years now, and I feel I can truly call it my own - though it's really nothing revolutionary. At this point, though, it's my version of the perfect chocolate chip cookie.

Watch out - this recipe makes a TON of cookies - depending on how big you dole them out, we're talking 4 to 5 dozen here. But consider this: you can always freeze some of the dough, and have fresh baked cookies on hand in short order. :)

Melissa Bastian's Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies
4 tsp ground flaxseed
4 Tbsp warm water
2 cups white flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
Optional: 1 tsp cinnamon
1 1/3 cups margarine (yes, almost three sticks)
1 1/4 cups white sugar
1 cup light brown sugar, loosely packed
4 tsp vanilla extract
8 to 12 ounces chocolate chips

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Set out your margarine to soften. Line at least two large cookie sheets with parchment paper. (You don't have to use parchment paper for these, but it just makes cleanup so darned easy! If you're not using it, use nonstick sheets or better yet a combo of a nonstick sheet with a very light coating of baking spray or oil. Very light!)

The first thing you're going to do is make your flax "eggs". If you haven't done this before, it's awesome. Apparently you can just mix the ground flaxseed with warm water and let it sit, so if you don't have a vegetable chopper no worries. But if you do have one, well that's my preferred method. Combine the water and ground flaxseed in the chopper, and pulse/blend for a few minutes until the mixture basically reaches the consistency of egg whites. It really will! It's kind of creepy, but very good for your cookies. Set aside.

Combine your dry ingredients minus sugars (flours, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon if you're using it) in a large sifter with a plate beneath it. This is the MB / NYiG one bowl + one sifter cookie making method; if you have another way you like to do your wets and drys, feel free, but this is my fave. I developed this when I started baking in my first NYC apartment kitchen; by that standard my kitchen was HUGE, but in reality it was a wide hallway with appliances lined up along one side. I could cook in it only because we bought a sideboard type thing; every inch of counter space was taken up by our dish drainer. Two bowls? Ha. I think not. Aaanyway.

In a large bowl (and if you're making the full recipe, I mean LARGE!) cream the sugars and softened (not melted!) margarine together until they reach a nice creamy even consistency. I find that sometimes this is a two spatula job - as in hold one spatula (or spoon) in each hand and work the mixture into itself by pushing the implements together. Just do it and you'll see what I mean. Then mix in your flax eggs and vanilla extract. Mix until completely homogeneous.

Now you begin sifting in your drys. Sift some and mix, sift some and mix. The more you add the more difficult it will become to stir (duh), so I hope you have a strong shoulder. Many people prefer to do this with a wooden spoon; I have this crazy pyrex spatula that works great. If you're fancy you can do it with your Kitchenaid mixer I guess; I have one of those but I don't use it which is a travesty that maybe we'll talk about later. Whatever you use, make sure you scrape down the sides of the bowl regularly so that all of your dry ingredients are incorporated. Once your sifter is empty, take the plate that was beneath it and tap in its contents as well - there's important stuff in there! Mix until consistent - if you find any brown sugar lumps crumble them with your fingers. If they're too hard for that, probably better to just toss them out. (And if there are many that are too hard, you probably need new brown sugar!)

Now for your favorite part - chocolate chips! Fold those suckers in. Remember that if you OD on chips, your cookies may not hold together - you want to have a good cookie-to-chip ratio. This looks like a crazy amount of chips, but considering how much dough is under there it's just about right. Don't cheap out on your chips. Good chocolate chips is one of the secrets to good chocolate chip cookies. Like, duh. And when buying chocolate, consider your sources - there's some wicked stuff going on in the chocolate market (and I mean that literally).

This dough refrigerates well. So if you're like me, and you do something silly and short-sighted like start making cookie dough at eleven o'clock at night, and then need to go to bed, s'ok. Just cover it up, stick it in the fridge, and put off the fun part until tomorrow. If you pre-heated your oven thinking you were gonna power through, you probably wanna turn that off. It's a little pricey and not terribly safe as a heater.

Moon... stars... sunrise... TIME TO BAKE!

I have to say, baking cookies is an awesome way to start the day. Don't know if I could do it every day, but it sure put a smile on my face this weekend.

Alright. So what you want to do here is roll your dough into (to steal a PPK thing) "walnut" sized balls and place them at least two inches apart on your baking sheets. These suckers spread like whoa (for evidence see conjoined twins as pictured below). When placing them on the sheet, I also squish them down just a little bit with my palm. You can spoon them out instead of rolling, but they come out in nicer rounder shapes if you roll. I do use a spoon, though, to help me get the right amount of dough for the balls.

I had written down 10 minutes as the baking time, but then my old oven was a snarky beast whereas my new oven is a glorious goddess. At ten minutes they weren't right, so I waited till 12 and they were perfect. Whichever type of oven you're dealing with, you're striving for that gorgeous golden brown that we all covet. Currently, my advice is to bake for 12 minutes in your pre-heated oven. Let them cool for at least five minutes before you eat them - they come out VERY soft. Actually, they come out downright puffy, and you'll think something has gone terribly wrong like I did because I haven't made these since last year. But within a couple of minutes they sort of collapse, which unlike when your souffle does it is a good thing, and become just like you want them to be. (In case you're wondering, yes, Jonathan did already steal a cookie from the tray. And yes, those really are our kitchen curtains.)

Unlike the Earl Grey Tea Cookies, these babies are downright fabulous still warm from the oven. I highly suggest that you have a glass of cold almond milk (or soy or hemp or oat or whatever your school is) on hand, and taste at least one from each tray. After all, you want to make sure the quality is remaining on par, right?

And yes Jonathan baby, I'll make you a batch with walnuts.

VeganMoFo Day Ten: Duke of Earl (Grey)

2009-10-10T09:23:00.002-04:00

Would you perhaps enjoy a spot of tea (cookie)?

I found this recipe for Earl Grey Tea Cookies online about a million years ago, and what with the only non-vegan ingredient being butter it's ridiculously simple to veganize. Not even work, actually. The author of the recipe made some sort of comment about how not using "real" butter would make it vegan, but it would change the flavor and-

yeah, that's when I stopped listening.

While this is a simple cookie, it is also sophisticated one. (Hello, there's tea in it?) It has a delicate flavor, is of diminutive size, and is not overly sweet. Moreover, it's possibly the most advanced cookie recipe I've ever baked. Fine, that isn't saying much, but whatever. I've avoided making it for so long because it's what I noted as "difficult", but I've decided that avoiding "difficult" things is cop-out b.s., selling myself short, refusing to grow, and a handful of other cliches that are preventing me from doing some awesome baking. So when I came upon this recipe on Friday night, I knew the time had come.

What makes this recipe complex? Two things, really. One, it gets put together in a food processor. Not something that is difficult, per se, just something I hadn't done before. Two, once the dough is made you have to roll it into a tube, chill it, and then slice it into your nice round cookie shapes. For some reason this step intimidated me. Did I doubt my tube rolling abilities? Perhaps.

But I persevered, and I am here to tell you my story.

Earl Grey Tea Cookies
2 cups flour
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup confectioners sugar (also called powdered sugar or icing sugar)
1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp Earl Grey tea (tea from about 6 or 7 commercial bags)
1 cup (2 sticks) margarine, softened and/or cut into chunks
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp water

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Set your margarine out to soften. Line at least two large cookie sheets with parchment paper.

In your food processor, combine sugars, salt, and tea. Pulse to pulverize tea (although if you're using bagged tea like I did, it's pretty small to begin with. Bagged tea is the dregs.) While you are doing this it will appear as though a very fine curl of smoke is rising from your food processing bowl, but don't worry. It's just from the powdered sugar.

Once the original mixture has become homogeneous, add the flower and pulse again. Continue to pulse until the majority of the mixture is moving like it's a liquid. You'll see what I mean. It's cool. If you don't see what I mean, just pulse till you think it's all good and mixed.

Add your butter, vanilla extract, and water. I combined these into one bowl first, and that seemed to work well. (I softened my butter a little too much - thus this glorious mess.)

Pulse until the mixture becomes a dough. Don't worry - it will. I stopped a couple of times and pressed the mixture down with my spatula. At first it became a sort of crumbly dough, but after a little bit it became nice and pliable and began to round itself out. That's when I called it done.

Next, divide the dough in half, and place each half in a ball on its own sheet of plastic wrap. (Incidentally, this right here is probably where the recipe lost me the first time. I promise it's not hard!)

Roll each ball into a log approximately 12 inches long. My logs ended up about 1.5" in diameter. This step was not as difficult as I had feared, though the dough is fairly dry so you have to be careful not to let it crack.

Once your tubes are tube-a-riffic, roll them up into their respective sheets of plastic wrap and pop them into the fridge to let them chill. I put mine on a cookie sheet for safekeeping. (Don't they kind of look like white sausage? Creepy yeah? I swear I wasn't actually making sausage.) Chill for 30 minutes or so.

Once your rolls are nice and cold and firm, unwrap from the plastic wrap and slice about 1/3" thick. Place on your parchment-paper-lined cookie sheets about two inches apart, but don't worry - these do not spread very much. Mine ended up getting somewhat flattened out during their time in the fridge, which didn't surprise me much, so I ended up rounding them out a bit as I put each slice on the cookie sheets.

Into the pre-heated oven they go, and bake for 12 minutes and/or until the edges become golden brown. Remove and let cool; if you are fancy enough to have those wire cooling racks, use em after the cookies have been out of the oven for five minutes or so.

So, listen. I know how much you like cookies that are still warm from the oven. In fact, any person who has a human heart beating in the chest rather than a cold dark stone of some kind likes cookies still warm from the oven. But the stark fact is that these cookies are just no good that way. Believe me, I tried. A couple of times. No dice.

You know why? Because they're tea cookies! Also known as butter cookies. You know, like the ones that come in that dark blue tin with all the weird paper cups in it. (A.K.A. the ones you haven't eaten since you went vegan.) I didn't really know it until they were baked, because I've never made anything like this before, but that's what's happening here. I've never had Earl Grey Tea Cookies before I baked these, even, but I think they're pretty tasty. It's a subtle flavor of bergamot harmonizing with a classic buttery crumbly sort of affair. Next time, I'm totally going to press them into turbinado sugar before baking - because how awesome would that be? I thought of adding a little lemon extract, but I'm glad I didn't. It would have overpowered their gentle natural flavor.

These are a whole other species than the ooey-gooey straight from the oven chocolate chip cookies that I'm also baking today - don't worry, I'll tell you about those soon. No, these little ones are made to nibble on... while you drink tea. Or perhaps a glass of almond milk?

VeganMoFo Day Nine: Marshmallow, Part Two.(or - Death By Marshmallow!)

2009-10-09T10:13:00.001-04:00

Apparently I am trying to die a sweet death amidst piles of fluffy white goodness.

It's not my fault! It's all because of VeganMoFo. (Terry and Isa, j'accuse!)

See, after linking to good old Sweet & Sara yesterday, well of course I had to go poking around their lovely website (which wouldn't you know it was designed by good old Jason Das). Well, wasn't I surprised! The site is full on up with products of theirs that I've never seen before! We've picked up their signature vanilla marshmallows and toasted coconut marshmallows plenty of times. But oh, oh. The world of glorious wonders offered truly does boggle the mind.

So I ordered some.

Actually, I ordered a lot. A really lot. A lot lot. What did I get? Well, I'll show ya, and you can anxiously await these treats along with me for the next few days as I wait for the shipment to arrive. (The glory part is that you, too, can order these fine products to be shipped right to your door {if you live stateside, anyway}! I freakin love the internets!)

How cute is this ridiculously cute little ghostie?! Oh, well, I guess I just answered my own question there huh. Whatev, I'm psyched. Back in my days of ignorance (i.e. when I didn't know where gelatin came from), I used to eat peeps like nobody's business. It's something that hadn't really gotten replaced in my vegan life. UNTIL NOW! I can't wait to see what adorableness will spring forth come spring!

People. Really now. Strawberry marshmallows? Like you're not gonna just totally go nuts over this?! Made with real strawberries people. Real ones! Not artificial strawberry flavor here. This is for realz. And they're pink!

Is it me, or does this stuff just keep get more exciting as we go? This here, now, is the cinnamon and pecan marshmallow. How many exclamation points am I allowed to use after that? Why don't you envision like six. Six? Yeah, I guess that should do it, probably. Not just topped with cinnamon here people. Infused. INFUSED.

Now stuff is just getting crazy. This is the Sweet & Sara original S'more. Yeah, that's what I said. It's a graham cracker, topped with luscious rich vegan marshmallow, then covered in chocolate. Yup. I might let Jonathan have some of this one because he's really excited about it. We'll have to see if he behaves though. And he'll have to be really, really good.

You thought the original S'more was exciting. Yeah, OK. Well, THIS ONE HAS PEANUT BUTTER IN IT. I know. I KNOW! There are those who will contend that everything is better with peanut butter - up to and including veggie burgers. I'm not quite one of those. But many things are greatly improved by it, and chocolate, marshmallow, and graham all fall into that category. I'm wondering if it's possible to order these by the case even if you're not a vendor...

Alright, allllright. Now, as if all that wasn't enough, she had to go and do this. It's like she was there at my grandma's house during the Christmases of my youth, watching Aunt Julie take the foil off of her plastic plates of divine homemade candy. This, poppets, is the rocky road bark - marshmallow and almond floating in a sea of rich chocolate.

I want to say that this is enough sugar to last me a month. If I'm not careful, it'll be gone in a week! It will be pure torture waiting for that box - but oh, such sweet reward when it arrives. I'm quivering with antici...

pation.

Join me in a week or so (after I've received, photographed, gorged, and awoken from my sugar coma) to hear how everything was, see how the real thing matches up with these professional glossy photos, and be jealous of my mad mad marshmallow booty!

VeganMoFo Day Eight: Candy is dandy...

2009-10-08T10:57:00.001-04:00

...but liquor is quicker. A very wise man in a very funky outfit once said so. (Name that movie!)

Regardless, I've got me a big ol' soft spot for candy. This past weekend, knowing that I would be heading into a tough week, my darling Jonathan picked me up a treat. A very special treat, in fact - one so special that I didn't even know such a thing existed. What could this marvel be, you ask? Why, the small miracle that is VEGAN air-puffed marshmallows! It truly is the 21st Century, people.

Now, for quite some time, we've had the pleasure of Sweet and Sara's wonderful artisan-style marshmallows. These are delightful squares of chewy-sweet sin, and I adore them and their refrigerated goodness. I even fed the toasted-coconut version to my parents this past August, and skeptical as they may have been they were forced to give in to the deliciousness. However, the artisan variety is a distinctly different animal (punny!) than the stay-puff minis of my youth. Original Vanilla Dandies from Chicago Soydairy, those fine folks who brought us Teese, hit much closer to the mark.

Now, I'm just going to say it right up front. I ate the whole bag straight. When Jon brought these home I thought about incorporating them into some kind of recipe (vegan rocky road!), or floating them in some almond milk hot cocoa, or even roasting them over our gas stove. Well... yeah, we didn't do any of that. I just ate them. All of them. I think I let Jon have like six. Are they good? Yeah, they're good. Are they like the "classic" marshmallows we all remember? They melt in the mouth a little more readily, and there's some tinge of some kind of odd background flavor that I can't quite come to grips with. But basically, yes. This is an air-puffed marshmallow, for sure, no doubt. They totally get extra points for super cute packaging / mascot. Did I like them? Um... I mentioned that I ate the whole bag, right? Did I mention that I did so inside of three days?

That fact is slightly frightening when put in the context of this here nutrition label. Fat free, woo! But pretty darned sugar-full. (And, well, duh. They're marshmallows.) Not the worst sugar OD I've ever had, but a pretty good dose. If and when we get another bag, I'll probably have to have my man hide it from me and just dole out appropriate portions. It seems that I may have self-control issues. Another nice feature on this label, though: "made on dedicated vegan equipment". Gotta love that - particularly for those of us who cringed at the discoveries of Operation Pancake a while back. That industrial food-making equipment can be dicey stuff.

The verdict? I like me some Dandies! You should try some today. After all... They're Air-Puffed! ;)

VeganMoFo Day Seven: When in Williamsburg, do as the hipsters do...

2009-10-07T13:48:00.002-04:00

Ahh, Williamsburg. It's like this really happening small town with the most amazing Main Street you've ever seen. Somehow everyone there is young and hip and beautiful. The shops are packed, the restaurants and bars are bustling, and yet the streets are relatively quiet. How can this miracle occur? Because it's really just a neighborhood in Brooklyn, a nice place to hang that's close to Manhattan without being Manhattan. W-burg began its existence on the hip/art/music scene when the East Village got too expensive. A few people wised up and realized that one stop east on the L train would take them into uncharted territory - and much cheaper rents. Well, fast forward 15 years. The rents are now as high as in Manhattan, and all the more spooky elements of the neighborhood are gone. The upshot of all this is that it's now an alright place to find some vegan dessert.

Near the corner of Bedford (Williamsburg's main drag) and North 8th (just one block north of the L train stop) you'll find a fairly cute little ice cream shop called Penny Licks. Since opening, this place has taken its knocks from the vegan community. It is not an all-vegan shop by any means, and SuperVegan actually lists it as not even all vegetarian - I believe this is because of the gummy bears they sell as an ice cream topping, which likely have gelatin in them. So there's one issue right there.

But the biggest bone that's been picked is that nothing is made in house. As far as its vegan offerings go, the shop sells Temptation ice cream and Vegan Treats cakes and pastries. So not only not in house, but not even in state. Here's the thing though folks: they have vegan options.

Quit being such spoiled New York vegans already! If I stumbled upon this exact shop with these exact options in pretty much any other city in the country (except for maybe Portland) I would be full of awe and glee! And before Lula's and Stogo opened up in the city, this was the only chance we had to get a real cone of ice cream and walk down the street eating it like the people who walk up to the Mr. Tastee truck get to do. So if you don't like it, don't go there, but hush up already. They're supporting small vegan businesses and they're not hurting anybody, least of all you.

Aaanyway.

Yes, every now and then when we're down the Brooklyn way, we stop into good old Penny Licks. Maybe you're wondering why it's called that? Well this is one really cool offering they have that I haven't found anywhere else. If you're just feeling like a little bit of something sweet, for just one dollar you can get a "Penny Lick": a miniature scoop of ice cream in the tiniest cutest ice cream cone you ever saw! Observe, my darling Jon and our friend Liz, partaking in this diminutive treat. (Sorry for the blurry photos - these two were not the most willing models. But look how much they enjoy those cones!)

Now, me, when I see so much sugar all reason leaves my head. And despite the fact that we've usually just come from Food Swings, I'll go and do something utterly ridiculous... like try to get Jonathan to split a Vegan Treats Peanut Butter Bomb Brownie and a scoop of Temptation chocolate ice cream with me.

Well, we put a dent in both, at least. We tried, we really tried. VT makes some seriously sugary desserts. I think if we'd kept going we may have actually hurt ourselves. But oh, it does hurt so good.

Yes, I'm sure that we'll continue to stop by Penny Licks every now and then. And maybe one of these days I'll wise up and actually order the appropriately sized treat that is the Penny Lick, instead of trying to coax myself into a sugar coma.

Hey, anything is possible.