Vegan Stephen

Vegan Home Brew: Part 1, The Wort

2011-10-23T20:31:00.000-07:00

I got my shit together and completed the first step of my first batch of home-brewed beer. As I mentioned in an earlier post, several of my dearest friends got together and bought me an avalanche of beer brewing equipment. The only missing ingredient was... ingredients. For that, I went to the closest home brewing supply shop, San Francisco Brew Craft. The place was smaller than I expected, and I instantly found myself in front of the hirsute dude working behind the counter. He greeted me with, "hey, what's up?" and before I finished explaining that I needed ingredients he'd already started filling out a hot pink "Beer Recipe and Brewing Instructions" sheet. I told him I was thinking about a pale ale a little less hoppy than Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. He scribbled a couple more things on the sheet and started shoveling ingredients from bulk containers around the shop. This was a pleasant surprise, as I had expected to be handed a dense box of pre-selected ingredients. Instead, I was getting a customized set of ingredients and brewing instructions! I was out of there in under 15 minutes, a mere $42 poorer.

I had prepared for Brew Day by reading SF Brewcraft's brewing instructions and the first chapter of "How To Brew," which came with my brewing supplies. I also watched Homebrew Heaven's awesome "Getting Started Homebrewing" DVD, wherein Chris and Don demonstrate the rudiments of brewing and bottling your own beer. (I watched this video repeatedly, mostly for my fascination of the cheap porn production quality.) Finally, I talked to my good friend and brewing veteran Dave for reinforcement.

Despite all this preparation, the whole process seemed to take all day. It took forever to heat the wort, and then to bring it to a boil after adding the malt extract. Then it took forever to cool it down to "pitching" temperature, which was a little higher than ideal due to my impatience. Consequently, I rehydrated my yeast about an hour too soon, but assured myself that yeast is a hearty little organism and wouldn't mind waiting for all the delicious sugar I was about to feed it. When I pounded the lid on the fermenter and stuck the airlock into its hole I really had no idea if I had succeeded. I had to wait for a couple days to know for sure.

And man, did I succeed! The airlock was bubbling along happily in the second and third days (see the video!), and calmed down toward the end of the week. The beginning of the week enjoyed ridiculously hot weather (high 70s!), so the beer didn't hit ideal fermenting temperatures for a couple days. I left it near an open window with a temperature-activated fan to keep things between 68 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit. I'm pretty confident that this is going to turn out well.

Next episode: Secondary Fermentation.

I Made Chocolate Chip Cookies

2011-10-17T01:50:00.000-07:00

There was no soy milk, so I ate them with beer.

I finally made something with my own two hands for VeganMoFo 2011. I decided to cease posting boring, every-day fast food simply for the sake of posting something. The rest of my October posts will discuss stuff that I made myself. (Exceptional exceptions excepted.) Consequently, this is my last October post. JUST KIDDING. Probably.

So, back to cookies. I used to make chocolate chip cookies all the time throughout my adolescence. While my peers were playing sports and making out, I was getting high and chubby on cookies. My parents got a microwave/convection oven back in the late 80s and we all thought that it was the shit. It came with a cookbook that showcased some of the amazing things you could do with this cutting-edge technology. One of the recipes therein was an ordinary chocolate chip cookie recipe that exploited none of this technology. It was a straight-up, dependable recipe that I used to pump out hundreds of perfect chocolate chip cookies. (By "pump out," I mean, "pump through my digestive system.") Then, one day, I grew up and became vegan.

Since being vegan, I've made chocolate chip cookies about three times. The first time, I adapted that wonderful recipe from my youth. The results were disappointing. I tried a couple vegan-ready recipes after that. Shrugworthy. Finally, I tried the recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking. Oh, em, gee. They turned out so well. They were lightly crunchy on their perimeters, chewy at their epicenters. I shaved a minute off the bake time with each of the three batches and the last one was the best.

I was curious about the Internet's opinion of this recipe, so I did an image search. It's certainly popular. But I'm surprised by their wild variation. Mine definitely turned out darker than others'. Maybe that's because I used golden brown sugar instead of light brown. Well, I don't care; I'm just glad that I can resume pumping chocolate cookies through my digestive system.

Herbivore's Grilled Soy Chicken Sandwich on Focaccia

2011-10-11T00:03:00.000-07:00

Did you know that Ansel Adams was a failed
food photographer?

Yes, another fricking sandwich. Hey, it's what I ate. I'm just being honest.

The thing about living a couple blocks away from Herbivore for most my vegetarian life is that I have eaten almost everything on their menu. That's bad because the menu no longer holds delightful surprises. It's good because I have confidently isolated three menu items that rarely disappoint me: the Southwestern Scrambled Tofu, the Sandwich Featured In The Title Of This Blog Post, and a Third Item To Be Disclosed In A Future Blog Post. This sandwich makes the list simply because the soy chicken is tangy. It's coated in a delicious garlic-lemon sauce, and it's perfect. It even comes with Herbivore's signature Absurdly Copious Side Salad!

Another Hand-held Meal

2011-10-07T22:59:00.000-07:00

Tonight I made a variation on Eastern Capital Sandwich. It's a real lazy person's home-cooked meal; all you really have to do is assemble some simple things in the right order and, before you know it, you're looking at a sloppy pile of delicious. My secondary neighborhood rip-off health food store's green peppers looked like crap today, so I used red peppers and jalapeños instead. I grilled some Alvarado St. Sprouted Rye in place of a roll. The fries were frozen Cascadian Farms; nothing special there. It was very difficult to eat using conventional sandwich techniques, so I fell-back on a fork and knife. Still delicious.

The Plant Cafe's Beety Burger

2011-10-06T23:21:00.000-07:00

For lunch today I got a Plant Burger to go from The Plant Cafe at 101 California. The Plant Cafe has three locations in San Francisco, but for as long as I can remember Google has not acknowledged this one. Try for yourself: go to maps.google.com and search for "plant cafe san francisco." You'll get the other two locations only. This is very frustrating, because I stopped remembering numbers, names, and places several years ago when I got my first iPhone. A rare alignment of luck and miracle helped me find it today, and the reward was significant; The Plant Burger is delicious. It's hearty in flavor, but light in matter. You could probably eat two and still be able to walk back to work fully upright. There's a bunch of other vegan stuff on their menu but I didn't really pay much attention; this is the go-to to go item. (Oh, and don't worry--that undocumented dollop of white stuff is Veganaise.)

A Vegan, Pre-packaged Starbucks Food?

2011-10-05T23:36:00.000-07:00

Photo stolen from starbucks.com

A few months ago I noticed a new product in the Starbucks display case, a "Sesame Noodles Bistro Box." There were other "bistro boxes" from this new product line in the case, but this one grabbed my attention because it wasn't obviously vegan-hostile. It threw a wrench into my daily routine.

Typically, I peek in the Starbucks on 2nd Street to see if it's ridiculously crowded. If it is, I walk a diagonal block to the Starbucks on New Montgomery. I usually stand in line for about 2 and a half minutes at the lesser-crowded franchise. I play some Words with Friends while I'm at the tail of the line, but I gradually lose my tenuous connection to the AT&T network as the shortening line draws me deeper inside. When my phone is rendered useless, I turn my attention to the broad array of vegan-hostile baked goods, sandwiches, and pre-packaged nonsense in the display case. This exercise keeps my contempt for Starbucks at a healthy level. It reminds me that I have no affinity for the Starbucks "brand;" it's simply the most efficient source of caffeine available to me in the monotonous system that defines my professional existence.

Then there's this new "bento box." I actually reached into the display case and withdrew the product for closer examination. I scrutinized the ingredients. It looked pretty damn vegan, though the "sesame peanuts" were questionable. You can list sesame seeds as an ingredient, or you can list peanuts as an ingredient. But "sesame peanuts" is suspicious. What's adhering the sesame seeds to the peanuts, exactly? Dried cane sugar solution? Kangaroo lactate? Fortunately, Starbucks lists the complete ingredients on their site:

sesame ginger noodle salad (water, broccoli, semolina durum flour [niacin, iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid], cucumbers, sugar snap peas, roasted peanuts, carrots, lettuce, red bell pepper, sprouted soybeans, sugar, 2% or less of: cabbage, soybeans, whole wheat, sesame seeds, salt, nigari [magnesium chloride (a natural firming agent), calcium sulfate], wheat flour, sesame oil, ginger, modified cornstarch, xanthan gum, lactic acid, spices, jalapeno peppers, green onions, cilantro, garlic, dried onion, tomato paste, cornstarch, rice vinegar, brown rice syrup, rice wine, vegetable oil [sunflower, palm and/or canola], lime juice, dried orange pulp, extract of mushroom, alcohol [to preserve freshness], sodium benzoate [preservative], guar gum). dark chocolate bar (cacao beans, cane sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin [an emulsifier], vanilla).

Yet I still haven't tried this product, after all this time. I think that, subconsciously, eating a pre-packaged Starbucks food would be a sort of communion. I would be taking Starbucks inside me in a different way. I'm not sure that I'm ready for that kind of relationship with such a big, powerful corporation. On the other hand, I feel obligated to vote for this product with my consumer dollar.

Ok, I'll try it, and I'll post the experience here.

The Little Chihuahua

2011-10-04T21:21:00.000-07:00

Photo stolen from haighteration.com

VeganMoFo founder Isa Moskowitz once told me that she preferred the taste of burritos from some joint in my 'hood named "The Little Chihuahua," over those from world-famous Papalote. I was skeptical. I couldn't believe that this respected and prolific cookbook author had such poor taste in burritos. Papalote smacked-down that insolent Bobby Flay, for chrissakes. Their roasted tomato salsa is so popular that it has its own Web site! How could some poorly-named hole-in-the-wall compete with perfection? I concluded that it wasn't fair of me to judge Isa so harshly, especially when I had never stepped foot inside The Little Chihuahua myself*. So tonight I went to check it out.

I skipped burrito photography class.

I was immediately surprised by the large number of happily chattering customers stuffed into the tiny restaurant. The interior was warm and welcoming on a gray, drizzling San Francisco night. I ordered a regular chile verde tofu burrito with black beans and guacamole on a tomato-chile tortilla, to go. I then spent 10 minutes bobbing and weaving my way around the salsa bar until they called my name. I remained skeptical that this burrito was going to be anything special, right up until I got it home and stuffed it into my mouth. Holy shit. It was good. The tortilla was toasted. There was delicious pickled cabbage inside. The tofu was tangy. The beans were flavorful. Two bites, three bites... It was really good. But was it better than Papalote? I can't believe I'm saying it, but... maybe. I'll have to do some more research to be certain. For now, I'm relived that Isa does indeed have excellent taste in burritos.

* I had eaten several burritos from the previous taqueria at 292 Divisadero St., and they were all poor to mediocre. Does anyone know what it was called?

Vegan Beer Brewing

2011-10-03T23:37:00.000-07:00

A few of my forthcoming blog entries for VeganMoFo 2011 will document my attempt to brew some beer. I've been muttering about brewing beer for several years, but I never seemed to get around to doing it. Many of my beloved friends grew weary of these mutterings and collectively shipped me a home brewery for my birthday this year. It is now time for me to stop muttering and to start brewing.

The first thing I need to do is to figure out what's vegan and what's not. Most beer, in general, is vegan. There are many beers that use animal products in their clarification and filtering processes, but your average home brewer is not going to employ them. (If you're curious about the vegan-friendliness of your favorite mass-produced beers, check out www.barnivore.com.) So far, my home brewery contains two questionable products: BTF Iodophor and Super Grunge Remover (sodium carbonate). My cursory Web research suggests that both of these products are pretty simple chemicals with no obvious animal origin, but I e-mailed the manufacturers for the final word. If they turn out to be non-vegan, I can fall back Five Star Star San. Here's an e-mail exchange I had with the manufacturer:

Hi!

I'm interested in using your Star San product for home brewing. However, I prefer to use products that are:

100% cruelty free (not tested on animals)
100% free of animal by-products (no animal-derived ingredients of any kind)

Can you confirm that this product meets my criteria?

Thank you!
Stephen

To which Jon Herskovits responded via his iPhone:

All the ingredients in star San are on the GRAS (generally recognized as safe) list. This means they don't need bunny testing. You are good to use all five star products.

Jon Herskovits

Sent from my iPhone

"Bunny testing" sounded a little patronizing, so I thought I would press for more information:

Thank you very much, Jon, for your response. Could you also respond explicitly to my other question, about whether your products (Star San specifically) contain animal-derived ingredients? (I intend to share this information with readers of my blog, by the way.)

I really appreciate your time,
Stephen

To which I finally got a satisfactory, if terse, response:

No they are not animal derived.

Sent from my iPhone

Thank you, Jon! I feel bad about pestering him while he's on the go, but it's worth it to move forward with confidence in this long-overdue endeavor.

I ran a half marathon!

2011-10-02T23:59:00.000-07:00

I can't say that it was easy, but it was a lot less impossible than I imagined. The first two miles made it clear just how long the race was. "I only have to do this six and a half more times," I thought. But one mile bled into the next and eventually I passed the halfway point. I was grateful for the pacer groups, who were clusters of runners with times posted on their backs like "3:00" and "2:45." If you ran with them you would finish close to their posted times. I passed 3:00 pretty early on, but I didn't see 2:45 until the very end. The last three miles were by far the most difficult, as my quads were numb and my heart rate was over 190 bpm. (Is that even possible, by the way? I wonder if my monitor is accurate.)

I'm proud that I raised $740 to combat animal abuse. I'm also proud that I finished my first half marathon. And while I didn't enter the race with any competitive aspirations, I'm proud of my performance:

Finish time: 2:42:23
Placement: 7338 (out of around 12,000)

How does a vegan celebrate finishing his first half marathon? He eats a mushroom, olive, and broccoli stuffed vegan pie from Paxti's, accompanied by some delicious Sierra Nevada Tumbler Ale. And then he takes a 16 hour nap.

I'm going to run a half marathon!

2011-10-01T23:54:00.000-07:00

I believe that, as a vegan, I should appear to be healthy. I would love to sit on my couch all day and drink beer and eat chips, but should I ever shamble out of my womb-like dungeon and into daylight, people on the streets would point a me and shout, "Look at that soft and pasty vegan! See? Vegans are so unhealthy!" In reality, I would be unhealthy simply because I'm lazy. But I doubt that I would be able to explain this to my tormentors, so it's easiest to just be healthy.

I have discovered one old weird trick to appearing healthy: being physically fit. Once very couple of years I string together a series physical activities that I call "exercising," and I try to incorporate these activities into my life's patterns. Invariably, my laziness will prevail and I will end up back on the couch with my friends Beer and Chips. About four months ago, as another period of exercise was looming on my horizon, I passed by the PeTA booth at the San Francisco Green Festival. A friendly representative was promoting the Bay Area PeTA Pack, a group of people who were going to raise money for PeTA's undercover and rescue operations by running the San Jose Rock and Roll Half Marathon. This seemed like the perfect way for me to get off my ass and help some animals out at the same time.

I have been running ever since, and the Half Marathon is tomorrow. Franky, I'm terrified. I ramped up my training slowly to avoid injuring myself, and never ran more than about 5 1/2 miles in a single session. I'll have to run more than twice that tomorrow. Fortunately I can always walk a bit if I need to. All I have to do is make it to the starting line by 8AM, and cross the finish line by noon. I think I can do that, especially because I know that my friends and family support me, and that the money we raised will help some animals.

Peet's Coffee, Nutritional Data, and Cholesterol in Vegetables

2011-03-21T23:57:00.000-07:00

Did you know that cholesterol comes from animals? And only from animals? Of course you did, because you're a savvy vegan. For some reason, the average person has a hard time believing this fundamental nutritional fact. Is the average person's skepticism valid? A little.

Plants do contain tiny amounts of cholesterol. According to this source, 1,247 pounds of vegetable fat contain about 1 ounce of cholesterol. For those of you who prefer modern weights and measures, that works out to about 50mg of cholesterol for every kg of plant fat. By comparison, one kilogram of animal fat contains about 950mg of cholesterol. In other words, plants contain negligible amounts of cholesterol, and the cholesterol value in the Nutritional Information chart for any vegan food will always be 0 (zero). (Please play around with the USDA's database to check my math and discover your own facts!)

Imagine my surprise when I found non-zero cholesterol values for some vegan items listed in Peet's Coffee's Artisan Baked Goods Nutritional Information publication. In this document, the Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie and Vegan Oatmeal Raisin Cookie list 2mg and 3mg of cholesterol, respectively. That meant that one of the following cases must be true:

The cookies contained 40g to 60g of vegetable fat, respectively
The cookies weren't actually vegan
The data was incorrect

Case #1 is impossible, because the Vegan Chocolate Chip cookie lists only 8g of total fat, and the Vegan Oatmeal Raisin Cookie lists 13g of total fat. Case #2 is unlikely; the corporate nutrition advisors at Peet's Coffee would have to gravely misunderstand the definition of "vegan." Case #3 is likely; the document contains a lot of numbers and data entry is prone to human error.

And the winner is... Case #3: The data was incorrect. Here's my correspondence with Peet's:

Sent: Friday, March 18, 2011 4:44 PM
Feedback Concerning: Grocery

Feedback:

Hi. I just downloaded your baked_goods.pdf from
http://www.peets.com/stores/baked_goods.asp and found some errors.

Your Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie and Vegan Oatmeal Raisin Cookie list
cholesterol values greater than zero. Either those measurements are
incorrect, or those products aren't vegan. Could you clarify this
discrepancy?

Thank you

Date: March 21, 2011 10:53:51 AM PDT
Hi Stephen,

Thank you for your email!

We have verified with the owner of the bakery that supplies our Vegan cookies that there is no cholesterol in these cookies. It was an error in our information but it will be corrected as soon as possible.
This was just recently brought to our attention so the online information is in the process of being updated. I apologize for any confusion this may have created and hope this information is helpful!

Please let me know if you have any further questions.

Please do not hesitate to give us a call if you have any questions, anyone here is more than happy to assist you, even if you simply have questions about coffee or tea. We are open five days a week: Monday through Friday 6am to 6pm PST.

Thanks!

erica smith
Customer Service Representative

PEET'S COFFEE & TEA
PO Box 12509
Berkeley, CA 94712

800.999.2132
webmail@peets.com

Backlog: More Loving Hut, Appetite for Reduction Recipes

2011-03-15T23:40:00.000-07:00

The title of this post should really be "Welcome back!" because I haven't posted for months. But it wouldn't make a lot of sense, because I'd really be welcoming myself back. Self-welcoming probably has some affirmative psychological value, but it's corny. More importantly, it doesn't encourage SEO-friendly blog titles.

So I've collected 4 bloggable things in as many months. Let's cover them chronologically. First off, way back in December I made a couple dishes from Isa Moskowitz's newest book, Appetite for Reduction. I went for fast and apparently delicious, choosing Cauliflower Pesto Soup with a side of OMG Oven-Baked Onion Rings.

The soup came out pretty good; it's mild and soothing, suitable for post-shoveling nourishment, or for nursing an ailing loved one back to health. I'd look for something with more character--and calories--if I wanted to impress a guest. Unless that guest was trying to lose weight, in which case this soup hits the mark--it weighs in at 50 calories per serving. 50. I do not believe that anything could taste better than this without being more caloric.

I fucked up the onion rings. I couldn't find any healthy bread crumbs at my local rip-off health food store, so I bought a bag of Ian's Whole Wheat Panko Bread Crumbs. (Isn't "bread crumbs" redundant in that product name?) The problem with this panko is that it doesn't adhere to the onions rings with the batter from this recipe. The crumbs are too large. I was on the verge of throwing the whole mess away, but chose to improvise instead. I replaced the panko with a mixture of flour and salt and coated the rings with cooking spray before throwing them in the oven. I gave about half of the results to my beloved and eternally hungry companion Thisbe, and saved the best for the photo. Now that some time has passed since that crisis, I can appreciate the results more objectively and admit that the onion rings look just fine. They tasted just fine, too. While they're much healthier than their deep-fried counterparts, 220 calories a serving is no small sum; it might be worth it to save up your onion ring desires less frequent, more fried experiences.

Let's take a break from my amateur cooking stories and appreciate a photo my friend promnesiac took of a recent meal at Loving Hut in San Francisco Centre Mall. I think I've blogged about this place more than any other single topic. Well, it's no mystery why. It's always mildly bizarre, and always heavily delicious. Shown in the foreground is a Rainbow Salad. In the distance, a Garden Vermicelli. To the right, a vegan Thai iced tea. Everywhere, deliciousness.

Professionally designed.

Great. Back to amateur cooking. In fact, back to Appetite for Destruction. By far my favorite dish from the book thus far is the combination of Broiled Blackened Tofu and Jerk Asparagus. My tofu didn't turn out very black, but its coating sure did. I had to slap two wailing smoke detectors off my ceiling like an angry bear slapping wailing smoke detectors off his hibernation cave ceiling. You know, like in the fairy tale. Anyway, I made one significant and accidental modification to the tofu: I added a minced habanero to the coating. It's significant, because it's hot (though not as hot as I expected; I guess burning it burns off its burn). It's accidental because I meant to add it to the jerk sauce. The good news is that it worked, and I would do it again. The tofu was very tasty, remarkably so for 100 calories a serving. The asparagus, on the other hand was amazing. It was so, so good. Just look at it! How many calories a serving? 40. That can't be legal, either by human social standards or by universal laws of physics standards.

Lazily improvised.

Now let us contrast that delicious, creative dish with my own boring, uninspired what-I-usually-prepare dish here: grilled tofu and steamed asparagus. Edible, sure. Low-calorie, too. But look at the apologetic color of the asparagus. Sauteing it would clearly have been a better way to go. The saving component of this dish is the Caulipots from Appetite For Reduction, weighing in at 169 calories per serving. I've made that side about 5 times already. It's the only sane way to eat large quantities of cauliflower.

A Vegan in Worcester, MA

2010-11-23T05:56:00.000-08:00

My friends Dave and Jo moved to Worcester, MA about a year ago. At the time, Worcester offered them one significant feature: it was equidistant to two important places outside of Worcester. In the past year, however, they have discovered that Worcester offers them far more than a convenient geographical location. They have grown to appreciate other important Worcester qualities, such as cheap rent, loud neighbors, vandalism, and theft. I was eager to see what this special place was all about, so I forced myself upon them for 20 hours.

I made sure to eat plenty of food before I visited Worcester, hoping that a calorie surfeit would fuel me through most of my stay. But eventually, hunger got the best of me. When I apologetically mentioned this to my hosts, Dave reminded me that there was rumor of a vegan restaurant somewhere in Worcester--"Belmont something-or-other." That rang a bell. I vaguely remembered hearing about such a phenomenon through my deteriorating Boston area vegan network. So off to Google we went.

It wasn't easy to find Belmont Vegetarian Restaurant's eye-watering Web site, but along the way I did find http://vegworcester.com/, which I initially assumed to be a squatted domain. According to this site, there are quite a few vegetarian-friendly restaurants in the Worcester area, though only 3 or 4 seem to be exclusively vegan (including the ubiquitous Loving Hut). So my culinary prejudice diminished. We departed for Belmont Vegetarian Restaurant.

From the outside, it looks like any sub shop store front you'd find on a busy, gritty, New England "city" street. Inside is a bright, spartan dining area containing two booths and an order window, which is flanked by a chalkboard displaying the day's menu. The chalkboard listed: "Curry, BBQ, Veggie Stew, Black Bean + Soy, Pepper Steak, and Mac + Cheese." Eventually, Steven, the proprietor and cook, approached us with an offer to try a sample plate. "You try everything. If it's not for you, you can go on your way," he offered, amicably. "Go on our way?" I thought. That's like saying, "If the water is too cold at this oasis, you may crawl 46 miles to the east for an alternative." But we humored him and tried everything, while listening to light reggae.

The food is generally differently-prepared soy or tofu chunks, like you might find at a buffet. You have three options when you order: small ($6.50), medium($9.50), and large($11.50). You get a bed of rice upon which Steven will scoop any combination of chalkboard items. I ordered the pepper steak and curry, and was quite pleased; the pepper steak was especially good and spicy, the curry was pleasant and mild. I considered getting one of the "patties" displayed behind the order window, but the medium bowl had stuffed me a bit too much. Maybe next time.

UPDATE: I only thought that vegworcester.com was a squatter domain because it came up in Google search results. I couldn't believe that such resource existed. I assumed that some crafty Search Engine Optimizer has mashed the word "Veg" with every city he or she could imagine, and sat back to enjoy the long tail traffic. It's a great site and I wholeheartedly recommend that everyone in the Worcester area--and beyond--visit it to find out what's edible in the region. Thanks, Drew!

Gardein Again, Including Limited Edition Collector's Meal

2010-11-22T15:00:00.000-08:00

I don't think I've ever bought Gardein products for myself. They're very similar to their meaty counterparts (well, what I remember of their meaty counterparts) and that makes me uncomfortable. The less my food resembles a corpse, the more eager I am to eat it. But whenever I visit Back East, my Mom stocks the fridge with all sorts of booty from the remote Whole Foods, which I appreciate very much. Invariably, there are a few Gardein products in the haul, and I don't mind trying trying them because God damn it, I'm in the middle cultural nowhere and lucky to eat anything that's not iceberg lettuce.

So, Gardein product the first: Tuscan Breasts. Uncanny meat-like texture under a tasty, tomato-based sauce. This seems to be the "no frills" Gardein product, and it performs exactly as advertised. I think a transitional omnivore would really dig it. It's shown here with a variety of Whole Foods buffet sides.

Gardein product the second: Limited Edition Savory Stuffed Turk'y. (They're too snooty to call it "Stuff'd Turk'y," unfortunately.) This was really good. It's a Gardein orb stuffed with celery, onions, cranberries, and bread crumbs; coated with a light, crispy breading. It's like a croquette. It comes with a delicious gravy that gives Tofurky's a run for its money. This is my favorite of the few Gardein products I've tried thus far, due to its under-emphasized meatiness. It's all about the breading, stuffing and gravy. And that's really what Thanksgiving is all about, anyway. Well, that and smallpox.

I Am Grateful For The Tiny Amount of Light Available

2010-11-13T00:30:00.000-08:00

I blog after dark. That's just the way it works out. Consequently, the photos that accompany my blog posts are starved of the bright, natural light that wholesome vegan food deserves. This post is a case in point. A friend and I went to Café Gratitude tonight, armed with only my iPhone 3GS to document the mostly-raw experience. Thanks to iPhoto, I was able to adjust the photos to the point where you can almost discern their subjects.

Enough about photos, let's talk about the experience. This was my first visit to the legendary Café Gratitude, and I was instantly pleased to find it was humble and homey. I had expected it to be swank and natural-fiber-artsy for some reason, filled with solemn patrons alternately ingesting their manna and uttering spiritual affirmations. I imagined that I would be forced to walk into the center of a cavernous dining area, squinting beneath a spotlight, and proclaim my order to a reproachful priestess who would bellow, "'Dazzling?' Surely you're joking, bland fellow. You shall not sup upon "I Am Dazzling" in this House. You shall eat "I Am Foolish," instead. Now be gone."

I Am Honoring

But no. The service was pleasant and easy-going. The patrons were motley and talkative. At one point, a boombox started belting The Beatles' "Birthday," and everyone started to clap rhythmically while the servers hopped up and down and sang along for the benefit of a lucky, aging guest.

While you are not required to, you may order your dishes by their "affirmation" titles rather than their prosaic titles. For example, the daily house special is called "I Am Celebrating," and the live burger is called "I Am Cheerful." When it came time to order, I had no qualms announcing to our affable server, "I Am Elated, and I Am Effervescent." (Though when I received the "effervescent" house ginger ale, it was clear it would have been more accurate to say, "I Am Overwhelmed By The Hot, Stinging Fist of Raw Ginger.")

I Am Elated

I Am Honoring (live nachos) was pretty darned good and a little spicy; I Am Elated (Enchilada del dia, basically the nachos in a live tortilla) was OK, and came with a tasty side of slaw; I Am Cheerful (live sunburger) was dense but flavorful. The tiramisu, however, was excellent. I haven't had anything close to tiramisu since my reckless omnivore years, and this was well worth waiting for. In fact, all of their desserts looked amazing. I think we would have done well to just get the nachos and a couple desserts, but the extra time it took to ingest the shrugworthy entrees allowed us to fully to soak up the positive atmosphere.

I Am Finished.

Eastern Capital Sandwich With A Side of Beer

2010-11-11T23:36:00.000-08:00

A couple weeks ago I came across a package of Tofurky "Philly-Style" Steak Deli Slices at a remote Whole Foods. I usually just put vegan "cold cuts" between a couple slices of bread with some lettuce, tomato, and mayo and call it a meal. That's about the extent of my patience with sandwiches. But I noticed a unique recipe for Philly cheese steaks on the back of the package, and it went a little something like this:

Put a couple tablespoons of oil in a pan and heat it.
Put a mound of chopped onions and peppers in the oil, in the shape of your roll.
Place a layer of folded Tofurky slices on top of the peppers and onions.
Put a mound of Daiya cheese on top of the Tofurky.
Cover and cook for about 8 minutes until the bottom layer has begun to caramelize and the cheese has melted.
Slap the sizzling mass on a roll with some mustard and mayo and take the whole mess back to the TV.

I was incredulous, but #5 sold me--just set it and forget it. I was impressed with the results: the flavor-to-effort ratio was phenomenal, and the Tofurky took on an toothsome moistness. As a bonus, my apartment smelled like an East Coast greasy spoon for hours. So I made another one tonight (pictured above), using jalapeños and Hickory Smoked Tofurky Slices instead of Philly-Style slices. It was equally delicious, though I should have used about 8 slices instead of 4.

Oh, if you don't have a side of beer handy, a scalding cup of Dunkin' Donut's coffee in a polystyrene cup will suffice.

Cranberry What-The-Fuckies

2010-11-11T01:47:00.000-08:00


VeganMoFo is teaching me how to become a more sensitive, compassionate friend.

Again, I found myself with a backlog of leftovers. So, cookietime. I googled for "veganmofo 2010 cookies" to find a recipe, and was stopped dead in mid-scroll by these. Holy Mother of God. (Where do people find all this natural light, by the way?) Wing-It Vegan's "Katie's Beet Cookies" post originated with this recipe, which seemed simple enough for my baking skill level.

The only ingredient I was missing was pureed beets, which I was certain I could find at my local rip-off health food store. Alas, the only beet product they had in stock was sliced, salted beets. So I had to improvise. It seemed like the primary criterion for a substitute ingredient was "red." So, how about apple sauce and beet juice? No; there was a dusty valley in the beverage isle where beet juice used to flourish. OK, how about pomegranate juice? That stuff is red. Sadly, the only bottles of pomegranate juice I found had one-inch thick layers of solid sediment at their bases; not a good sign. Okay, how about cranberry sauce? No, they're all sweetened and gelatinous. Fine, then just frozen cranberries. I'd thaw them and whiz them in the food processor.

When I got the frozen cranberries home I popped one in my mouth to evaluate the degree to which they differed from beets. Turned out, quite a bit. They were very sour. So I read the back of the bag and noticed a simple method for turning them into a sort of sweet mash, commonly known as "cranberry sauce." Yes, the very same jellied cylinder available in cans. Well, I thought, home-brewed cranberry sauce would be much better than that. Surely this would be the perfect substitute ingredient.

Sure, they look edible...

But when I finally rendered my "sauce," it was pretty lumpy. I feared it would not mix well with the dry ingredients, and cause uneven baking. Why not puree it? Like beets? So I whizzed the cranberry sauce in my Cuisinart and produced what I thought was a damned close approximation of pureed beets. I found that I had to add about a quarter cup of water to it to get it to mix with the dry ingredients, but I eventually ended up with a purple goop approximating cookie dough. (It's probably significant to note that I only added a tablespoon of sugar to the dry ingredients because the cranberry sauce required so much.)

Cookies don't do that.

Everything went smoothly until I took them out of the oven. They were strange. They had a uniform, almost plastic texture. They were soft and spongy, and not even slightly crisp. They were unusually pliable.

I let them cool and then tried one. It was like a pleasantly flavored jelly sponge cake. In other words, horrible.

So I made two clear mistakes here:

I tried to bake a colloid.
I liquefied most of the sugar before baking, leaving none to caramelize during baking.

Fortunately, I believe that every experience is valuable, especially the experiences in which you fail miserably. Failure is more instructional than success. In fact, I bet I can find a pithy quote on the topic in under 10 seconds...

“Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement.” -- C. S. Lewis

WTF is a "finger post?"

Return To Escape From New York Pizza

2010-11-10T02:23:00.000-08:00

50% artichoke hearts and sun-dried tomatoes,
50% black olives and mushrooms. 100% fuggindalishis.

That title will not make sense to anyone who does not eat pizza in San Francisco. I'm talking about Escape From New York Pizza. Previous to tonight's meal, I had not had a slice of their New York style pizza in over 7 years. That's because I went vegan, and they did not. Yet I'm still vegan. How is this possible?

The only food I miss from my omniverous life is thin-crust, preferably wood-oven baked, pizza. Like Pepe's, in New Haven; or Luna in Hartford, back when they were on Franklin Avenue. As with the death of a twin sibling, you eventually learn to cope with shattering losses and move on, looking forward to the little pleasures that you might be lucky enough to unearth on the barren, overcast wasteland of your lonely existence. If you're really lucky, the dead will dig their way out of the ground and come crawling back into your life, a little different than you remember them, but almost as lovable. That's kind of what eating tonight's EFNY pizza with Daiya cheese was like... maybe in part because I was watching Episode 2 of The Walking Dead.

Yes, Daiya cheese on an Escape From New York Pizza. Imagine my excitement when I saw this tweet from @vegansaurus last Friday:

BREAKING: Escape from New York Pizza in the Mission HAS VEGAN CHEESE! http://ow.ly/19P1gG

Vegan Pizza and The Walking Dead.
A perfect match.

And imagine, further, my excitement at the revelation that all the Escape From New York Pizza locations now offer Daiya cheese, including the one in my neighborhood. Of course I knew it might not be the same slice I remembered from my youthful years in this city, but it was as close as I was going to get. Indeed, it was very good. As good as Paxti's? Maybe. As good as Panhandle's? Ha! Way better. As good as Amici's? Hm, I need a refresher. In fact, I'll have to order a lot more pizza this week to answer all of these wonderful, wonderful questions.

San Francisco Green Festival, Fall 2010

2010-11-10T01:45:00.000-08:00


Adorable food transportation from Earthlust.

Twice a year, affluent San Francisco consumers converge on the San Francisco Concourse Exhibition Center to save the planet Earth by buying as many eco-friendly products as their Sherpa bags will accommodate. Such products include hemp clothing, cork flooring, solar flashlights, hybrid bicycles, flatulence-mitigating dog treats, water bottles, water filters, herbal tinctures, Vita-mixes, dehydrators, and sex swings masquerading as "yoga sling systems." And most importantly, beer, wine, and vegetarian food.

Let's play a practical joke on Stomach.

You can go home with plenty of pre-packaged food, but you can also chow-down in real time at one of the several vegetarian food vendors. (I did both.) I was surprised to see Underdog slinging wursts, and then more surprised to learn that they were slinging only their vegan wursts at the festival. (I think they were simply Tofurky brats, but it was still nice to see.) But I decided on a raw Coconut Curry plate from Lydia's Lovin' Foods--a mound of broccoli, cauliflower, and parsnip "rice", decorated with delicious green crackers. It was fantastic to ingest, but left me feeling like I had swallowed a handful of misshapen paperclips for about 24 hours. I'm not casting aspersions on Lydia's delicious, healthy food; my upper GI was simply not conditioned for a sudden, unprocessed fiber bomb. But hey, that's the kind of personal sacrifice I'm prepared to make to save our beloved planet.

Kale chips, seeds, and seaweeds.

After you've accumulated all you can carry in your reusable bag and your reusable stomach, it's customary to get hammered at the extremely popular Organic Beer and Wine Garden. (It's a bit of a misnomer; there's not a shred of flora nor ray of natural light anywhere near the roped-in pen.) I chased down my paperclips with lots of pale ale from the Eel River booth, one of only two brewers at the festival this semester. Hey, saving the planet is hard work that deserves reward.

Week One of VeganMoFo 2010, The Aftermath

2010-11-07T00:43:00.000-07:00

Sure, it's gratifying to make your own meals. It's a wonderful experience when you share your meals with other people who enjoy home-cooked food. But it can take a toll on your kitchen. I try to "clean as you go," but after 5 days straight of slapping together recipes I was left with a dishapocalypse. Thank God we're only blogging on weekdays; I can attack this mountain of debris over the weekend.

I felt that I earned a zero-effort to-go meal after a week of hard work, so I got a Soyrizo burrito from my local Papalote today. Oh, so good. And I only had to wash one dish afterward! Unfortunately, my proximal Papalote wasn't serving the seasonal Pumpkin Tamales that the Mission location is offering for a limited time. But this sucker always pleases.

Wherein I Blog About Making A Recipe That Someone Else Had Blogged About Making

2010-11-05T23:57:00.000-07:00

We take a lot of the Internet's magic for granted. A talented recipesmith can put together an interesting dish way out in the middle of nowhere, and the next day I can follow her instructions and produce the same dish, 1665 miles away. (Well, not the same dish; there are some minor components that can't yet be conveyed over the Internet, such as skill, experience, and technique.) By comparison, it took about 770 years for the first cheesecake recipe to travel from Greece to Great Britain. What's more, I'm certain that my version of Isa's Butternut Rancheros is far more genetically similar to the original than the British cheesecake was to its Greek ancestor. (Though it's clear that the attractiveness gene did not make it into my remote manifestation.) Welcome to the future.

Two elements of this recipe will forever remain in my culinary arsenal: the charbroiled squash, and the ranchero sauce. Ok, those are the two core elements of the dish. My point is that they are independently delicious, and can be used to great effect in separate dishes. But now that I'm thinking about it, you could cube the roasted butternut squash and wrap the whole thing in a tortilla. It would probably blow a mind.

A Delicious Abomination

2010-11-04T22:58:00.000-07:00

While I was tweetstalking @DomesticVegan late last month, another of her gorgeous tweets crossed my voyeuristic Twitter client:

Need a new dinner idea? How about #vegan Wild Rice Pub Burgers? http://bit.ly/ckEc6W

"Hell, yeah, I need a new dinner idea," I exclaimed. "In fact, I need 22 ideas for the impending VeganMoFo." Add the fact that I like pubs and burgers, and that I already had the side of beer on hand, this idea was what middle management would call a "non brain."

So while I was making last night's red lentil stew I also prepared the rice for this recipe. (Let me add, parenthetically, that I had never before planned a meal this far in advance.) Having that squared away made preparing the burgers ridiculously easy.

But there's a catch. After forming 6 relatively perfect patties, I realized that I had enough material to make 7 1/2. Rather than let the remaining 1/2 burger go to waste, I made a one-and-a-half burger. It was huge. When the bun saw me plop that monster down on the grill pan (I don't have a non-stick pan), it was like, "Aw, shit." And then there's the grill pan. I think that these burgers would benefit from the surface area and sizzling oil of a frying pan, especially when they're embarrassingly large. This big boy tasted incredible, but was lacking the cohesive texture that a pan or skillet would have promoted. Fortunately, I have 6 normal-sized patties sitting in the freezer, eager to be used as directed.

Thanks for the excellent recipe, Jess! I promise that this is the last of my VeganMoFo harassment.

Red Lentil Soup [sic]* from Allrecipes.com

2010-11-03T23:25:00.000-07:00

Among the 14 tweets @DomesticVegan produced back on October 25, 2010, was:

Dinner: Red Lentil Soup! One of my favorites! So easy, healthy, and delicious! http://bit.ly/98iVG8

For some reason, that stuck with me. It's such a sincere tweet. She seems so darned wholesome, this Minnesota girl. Surely I, too, would enjoy this easy, healthy, and delicious dish, despite my flaws and sinful lifestyle. I could just go to the store to get the ingredients, assemble them according to the recipe, and experience a brief but deeply gratifying period of simple perfection. Enjoy some clarity. Maybe lapse into some optimistic thoughtfulness, should the moment get a hold of me. Who knows, I might even plan for my future a little bit, maybe refill a prescription or two. Wouldn't that be swell?

Well, dear reader, it turns out that Day 3 of VeganMoFo 2010 is the first day of the rest of my life. I just birthed myself into a bright, hot, thick-and-delicious bowl of red lentils and squash, and by golly it's a beautiful place to be! My one departure from the rules was adding more cayenne pepper than suggested, and using hot curry powder instead of not hot. Otherwise, I think this recipe's a winner out of the gate.

Now go simmer yourself some salvation. (Goes well with beer.)

* "Soup" is not the word I would use to describe my results. "Stew" is more accurate. But stew is also more delicious than soup, so I'm not complaining.

Pumpkin Spice Cookies from VegNews

2010-11-02T23:59:00.000-07:00

The thing about making a shitload of soup is that you'll be eating it for a while. That's good, if it's good soup, and if you like to eat food every day. But it's bad when you need to blog about new vegan food all the time. Does a good blogger blog about eating his leftover soup, which he blogged about yesterday? Hell, no. He quietly eats his delicious leftover soup and then makes cookies and blogs about those.

The cookie recipe is VegNews Recipe Club's most recent dispatch, Pumpkin Spice Cookies. (If you're not already subscribed to the Recipe Club newsletters, I recommend you become so forthwith.) These were the obvious cookie choice, as it's autumn and that's when pumpkins rise from their spookypatches and cause all sorts of mischief for peaceful folk, and especially for misshapen, parentless children. Having a batch of pumpkin cookies cooling by the window is guaranteed to keep the maleficent squash at bay. But enough Christian mythology; it's cookietime.

First of all, these cookies are easy to make in spite of their wild ingredients. (Chocolate-covered raisins? And chocolate chips? In the same cookie? VegNews says, confidently, "yes.") Second, making them was educational, teaching me a few things which I've listed below. Finally, they taste good. They're not mind-blowing; they're subtle and sophisticated--even with the chocolate covered raisins. Oh, and finally-finally, I actually found all of the ingredients which I didn't have on hand at my local health rip-off market. That's kind of a first.

So, education. Here are some things I learned by making Pumpkin Spice Cookies:

Parchment paper can be reused several times
While the "back of a spoon" is definitely an effective Martha Stewart technique for flattening cookie dough, the cookies I flattened with my "front of the palm" had a more earnest and appropriately rustic appearance. But if you're going to frost them (I didn't), using a lightly greased silicone spatula can be an effective, impersonal technique, especially suitable for e.g. a Professor of Robots.
If you're spending too much time screwing around and drinking wine and smoking out on the soccer field between batches, you can refrigerate your dough to keep it firm and maleable until you get back.
You can toast shredded coconut on some tinfoil in your preheating oven. Takes about 6 minutes and you need to keep mixing it around to brown it evenly and prevent it from burning.
350 degrees F doesn't sound that hot, but it's more than enough degrees to induce pain and possibly damage in careless human flesh.
Some cookies taste better after they've cooled for a while. (And that's obviously my opinion about these.)

I'm going to take most of these to work tomorrow and see how they fare among the omnivores. It's often difficult to discern between reactions conveying, "Hey, these are really good!" and those conveying "Hey, these are really good, for vegan cookies! Loser." But I will try very hard to figure out who my enemies are.

Viva Vegan's Potato-Kale Soup with Sizzling Chorizo

2010-11-01T23:59:00.000-07:00

Happy Vegan MoFo! Gainful employment, the World Series, The Walking Dead, and congenital laziness have all conspired to prevent me from getting my first post in before dawn. They have failed. Not only am I posting, but I am posting about food that I made with my own two hands; food that I dished out into a solid, reusable bowl and ate with a stainless steel spoon. Tonight I successfully assembled and ingested Terry Hope Romero's Potato-Kale Soup with Sizzling Chorizo, from Viva Vegan!

There are a ton of recipes in Viva Vegan that I'm looking forward to making, but I picked the potato-kale soup tonight because it's simple and easy. (And because I like potatoes, kale, and soup.) I made the recipe even easier by cheating in a few places: I used Field Roast Mexican Chipotle Sausage instead of the Seitan Chorizo Sausages in the book; I used ordinary olive oil instead of the annatto-infused oil; and I used apple cider vinegar that I had on hand instead of white wine vinegar. The results? Still delicious. I don't get "stuffed" with soup very often, and I am definitely stuffed with soup right now.

Thanks, Terry!

Video: Clif Bar Crunch Follow-up, Part 2

2010-10-01T00:22:00.000-07:00

I'm finally posting this video of reaction to the White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Clif Crunch bar that the Clif folks sent me. You can check my earlier posts for context: Clif Bar Exapands Their Non-Vegan Product Line and Clif Bar Crunch Follow-up, Part 1. I can see how this video could be construed as a negative or sarcastic review, but the bottom line is that I like this new Clif bar. I just wouldn't touch one without having a beverage handy.

Word "Vegan" Appears on New Jalapeño Pop Chips

2010-09-28T01:28:00.000-07:00

Two things.

Thing #1

I've been eating a lot of Popchips since I discovered them about a year ago. For those of you who don't know, they're a relatively low-calorie baked potato snack food. They're like a cross between Pringles potato chips and rice cakes. They come in many flavors, three of which list no animal ingredients on their packages: Original, Sea Salt & Vinegar, and Salt & Pepper. So I have always assumed that those flavors were vegan, and I have eaten copious amounts thereof. I suppose I shouled have e-mailed them for re-assurance, but now, I don't have to! It seems that Popchips have begun using the word "vegan" in the nutritional information of eligible products.

Thing #2
Popchips have released a new flavor, Jalapeño Potato. (Yes, I think that "potato" is redundant.) I was initially thrilled to see them at my corner store, but assumed that any flavor that radical would be needlessly tainted by whey or milk or lactose, as is common among snack foods. So I grabbed a bag for the habitual ingredients scan and that's when I saw the word "vegan." Amazing. But not as amazing as what they taste like. I'll just repeat what my friend Robin said when she had a fistful: "That's the best flavor of any food ever."

Interestingly, this flavor does not yet appear on their Web site. They could be testing regional markets, or they could have a lazy Web team. Here's hoping they're indeed a permanent addition to their product line.

VooDoo Doughnuts in Portland, OR

2010-09-27T15:50:00.000-07:00

I'm wrapping up my fourth and final day in Portland, Oregon. This city is a vegan paradise. Did you know that vegan cupcake and cookie trees line the streets? You just lean over as you pass by them on your Municipal Unicorn, and pluck the sweets of your choice from eagerly generous branches.

I've eaten so much good vegan food I can't keep track of it all. If I were a serious blogger, I would have had a panic attack trying to document all of the superlative vegan experiences I've had in such a short span of time. So I only focused on a couple, one of which is VooDoo Doughnuts.

There are two locations in Portland. The original location downtown, and the predictably named VooDoo Doughnuts Too! across the river, to the east. My companions (renowned and prolific vegan bloggers Isa, Amy, and John) and I visited the latter location, which looks like a reclaimed pancake house sporting an Appalachian living room out front.

Beside the order counter is a dessert carrousel displaying all of the day's available doughnuts. Everything on the top shelf is vegan, and there's a lot of stuff on the top shelf. I ordered the Grape Ape, mostly for aesthetic reasons. Something about that purple, crystalized frosting called to me, drowning out Isa's criticism of my taste.

It was tangy. Appropriately so, as I learned later from Amy that it's sprinkled with grape Tang crystals. It was like eating grape candy on a doughnut, an experience which partially validated Isa's warnings. But the fluffy magical doughnut foundation was excellent, sound enough to support even the most audacious of frosting abominations.

John, Isa, and Amy look on with varying degrees of credulity.

While this is an excellent doughnut, and its deliciousness is fresh in my palate's memory, I'm not sure if it ousts the Vegan Bake Sale Doughnut I had a few months ago. I'll have to find another one of those quickly to make the final decision.

Clif Bar Crunch Follow-up, Part 1

2010-07-01T00:32:00.000-07:00

As described in a previous post, I got a free "preview" sample of Clif Bar's new Crunch product, laden with honey. I wrote to them about my disappointment and got a pretty speedy response from Emily Zisman:

Hi Stephen,

Thank you for contacting us about the sample of CLIF Crunch that you received.

I’m so sorry to hear about our faux pas your disappointment at receiving a bar you cannot eat. It’s true that 3 or the 4 flavors have honey in them. I assure you that we aren’t trying to edge out our vegan fans. We just couldn’t deny the taste and texture benefits of adding that ingredient to those flavors.

We still have quite a large selection of vegan friendly products. I’ll certainly pass your comments on to the team so they know how you fell.

If you’d like, I’ll gladly send you a sample of the White Chocolate Macadamia CLIF Crunch bar to try. Just reply to this email with your preferred mailing address and I’ll send one your way.

Thanks for all of your support!

Best,

Emily Zisman
Clif Bar & Company
Consumer Services

Isn't that sweet? I thanked Emily for her concern and responded affirmatively. I'll be sure to follow-up with a detailed description of my Clif Bar Crunch: White Chocolate Macadamia CLIF Crunch bar. Maybe it's time for another video.

Clif Bar Expands Their Non-Vegan Product Line

2010-06-28T20:58:00.000-07:00

An evening of mixed emotions. I was excited when I found a box from Clif Bar and Company in my breezeway. (Nice toss, mail carrier--11 yards inside my gate is a new record!) I had responded to an offer in an issue of the company's cleverly-named marketing newsletter, "ClifNotes":

We've been in the kitchen, working hard to whip up a new recipe. We're still sworn to secrecy on the details but wanna send you a free bar to give you a chance to try it before it even gets to the store.

I eat a Clif bar almost every weekday morning, so how could I resist a sneak-peek at a new Clif product? I took the box inside and opened it up. This is where I was immediately disappointed. The new product was something called "Crunch," and my particular sample was "Honey Oat." Thanks, Clif. At least it wasn't made of bacon.

I went to the Clif site to see if there were other Crunch flavors. There are: Chocolate Chip, Peanut Butter, and White Chocolate Macadamia. Of all these flavors, only White Chocolate Macadamia is vegan-friendly. The others contain honey, though only Honey Oat is up-front about it.

I did some more research on their site. In a difficult-to-find section, I found the following:

All CLIF Bar products are made from ingredients that do not come from animals except most Mojo and CLIF CRUNCH flavors (contains organic honey), CLIF SHOT ROKS and Luna Protein (contains whey).

So there it is. Most of their products are still vegan. But I'm still disappointed. So I'm sending them this:

Dear Clif Bar and Company,

I received my preview Crunch bar today (Honey Oat). I'm vegan, so I was immediately disappointed that it contains honey. I checked your site and learned that three of the other four new flavors contain honey, too. Is this a trend?

My vegan friends and I used to appreciate not having to read your labels, confident that your products were friendly. But now you seem to be slipping to the dark side.

Please come back,
Stephen

Update (2010-07-01): I got a response and a vegan bar is on the way!

Potluck? Cupcakes!

2010-06-27T00:34:00.000-07:00

I got invited to a potluck at my neighborhood park, by friends I'd been meaning to catch up with since I moved back to San Francisco 7 months ago. So there was no question that I would go. But you can't go to a potluck without homemade food, just like you can't go to a costume party wearing merely a wig or a mustache or an eye patch. Meaning, you could go empty handed (or, in the case of my analogy, wearing a shitty costume), but you would be insulting the people who actually put some effort into their contributions.

Furthermore, as a vegan, you have to bring really delicious food. You have to break omnivorous stereotypes that bland tofu and rice comprise the bulk of our diet. So the quick-and-easy, please-and-impress-all answer was obvious: cupcakes.

There's really only one resource to turn to when you're making vegan cupcakes: Isa and Terry's Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I quickly flipped through it and decided upon a basic combination: Golden Vanilla Cupcakes topped with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting.

Two hours later and $35 poorer, I had 11 ugly but delicious cupcakes in a cardboard box. (I know they were delicious because the 12th cupcake was in my belly.)

A couple notes on the cupcake recipe--Isa and Terry give you the option of using canola oil or margarine. I chose margarine and I don't regret it because the cake was rich and buttery. Also, I overfilled the liners a bit, causing the cake to rise too high and form a small, mushroom-like ridge. It wasn't such a big deal, but it would have looked silly if I had chosen to pipe the frosting on rather than spread it on clumsily. So err on the side of under-filling the liners.

Samosas and Singharas: Learning Indian Food

2010-06-23T00:03:00.000-07:00

I want to learn how to make good Indian food. I want to have a few solid, delicious vegan Indian dishes that I can make off the top of my head, almost unconsciously. I want to one day be sitting there, on my couch, in my house clothes, and casually turn to my guest and say, "hey, I'm going to whip up some samosas."

I began my (possibly lifelong) journey toward Indian food mastery at my small library of cookbooks, intent on making kick-ass samosas. After flipping through all of their indexes, I found the word "samosa" in only two: Vegan with a Vengeance's Potato-Edamame Samosas with Coconut-Mint Chutney, and Veganomicon's Samosa Stuffed Baked Potatoes. I'd made the latter a couple times in the past, and loved them, but they were far more "baked potato" than they were "samosa," so the first recipe won.

An important word absent from the VwaV recipe's title is "baked." Yes, baked samosas, which contain edamame. Not exactly the authentic Indian cuisine I was aiming for, but the spice list added up to something close, so I gave it a shot.

After a mildly labor-intensive hour-and-a-half, I created a mound of soft, yellow pastries containing a samosa-like filling. When dunked into the mint chutney (which, sadly, lacked cilantro due to local scarcity), they tasted more like savory cupcakes than kick-ass samosas. Edible, yes. "Good Indian food," sorta. Satisfying? No.

At least I had defined, hopefully, the nadir of my journey.

About a week later I was at a bookstore with my friend Promnesiac and wandered over to the ethnic cuisine section to see what vegetarian Indian stuff they had. Turned out they had the bible of vegetarian Indian cooking: Lord Krishna's Cuisine: The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking. Holy crap. About 800 pages, weighing in at around 4 pounds. Not a photograph in the entire book, just illustrations. A section titled "Deep Fried Breads." Three different samosa recipes in the section titled, "Deep Fried Savory Stuffed Pastries." I returned the drool-swollen tome to the shelf, purchased a clean, dry copy, and dragged it home.

It was immediately clear that making the samosas in this book was going to be a challenge. Making the dough, filling, and accompanying chutney was going to be a demanding but manageable trial. Forming perfect samosas with all these components, however, was going to take a lot of practice. I didn't want to fail immediately, so I opted for a compromise: Tangy Potato Coconut Singhara Logs, (a.k.a. Aloo Nariyal Singhara). They're basically rolled-up samosas.

It took a mere three hours to make these and their accompanying Toasted Coconut and Tomato Chutney. Three very clumsy, messy hours that were punctuated with geysers of hot oil and the jarring sound of food processor abuse. But it was worth it! That is, until I had eaten all of them, which is far too many to eat and remain comfortable.

I think I'll pick something from the "Dal Soups" section next time.

Happy, Happy, Happy Hour at Ziryab

2010-05-20T00:02:00.000-07:00

This is a short and sweet entry about happy hour at Ziryab, an upper-mid-scale Mediterranean restaurant in NoPa. A generous falafel wrap with a side of French fries for $5.00. A pint of Sierra Nevada (my favorite), Fat Tire, or Blue Moon for $2. That means you can have an early but satisfying vegan dinner for a mere $15. (Well, $20 if you want two orders of falafel and fries.) There are hookahs, too.

Happy hour is in effect Monday through Thursday from 4PM to 7PM; Friday 12PM to 7PM; and Saturday and Sunday from 3PM to 7PM. See you there.

Me So Hungry, Me Loving Hut Many Time

2010-05-09T23:37:00.000-07:00

Congratulations! You just read the worst blog entry title ever. But the fact is that I've been to the Loving Hut in the San Francisco Shopping Centre three times since I discovered it less than a week ago.

Today I tried the spring rolls and the soy chicken sandwich. The spring rolls were excellent, and some of the tightest-wrapped I have ever seen. The sandwich was definitely tasty, due in large part to its excellent, fresh French bread. (I was able to eat almost all of it despite my lunch mate's disquieting tales of hexane in soy-based meat analogues.) It came with a small side of cole slaw which I am certain contained maple syrup. That's a surprising flavor to find in your cole slaw, but I think it worked. Overall, the meal was good and satisfying, but I would trade it all in for their Phở Noodle Soup any day.

There was one disturbing component to my meal, hexane aside: the lemonade had at least a quarter cup of sugar in it. It made my teeth sing. I ended up fishing the ice cubes out of it for hydration.

Loving hut's unusual sweetening practices are easy to forgive, as they have the best vegan game going in Downtown San Francisco.

San Francisco Vegan Bake Sale IV

2010-05-08T23:23:00.000-07:00

The 4th San Francisco Vegan Bake Sale took place today, this time outside of Herbivore on Valencia street. I filled my To-Go Ware tiffin set with some delicious stuff, almost all of it made by Sugar Beat Sweets, a little organization soon to be San Francisco's first vegan bakery. Here's my report:

1. Two tiny cupcakes, one dark and chocolaty, the other light and vanilla-flavored. Both delicious, and perfect. I consumed each whole and upright, squishing the rich frosting against roof of mouth before getting down to business.

2. I miss my habitual Starbuck's Maple Oat Scone from earlier in the decade. It was an acquired taste, being rather dry and dense. It certainly invited a lot of coffee to the party, and for that I stuck with it, eventually growing quite fond of it despite its flaws. This vegan version is moister and spongier than my old friend, and therefore resistant to crumbling. I kind of liked the crumbling. I can only conclude that there is no perfect scone, but this one is as close as I will ever get. (According to @sfveganbakesale, these were not made by SBS but rather by "a guy named Adam.")

3. These two brownies were disappointing. They tasted like brownies, but their texture was off. They were hard on the outside, and chewy on the inside. They certainly weren't horrible; I've had many worse vegan brownies. They simply weren't of the same caliber as the rest of the booty.

4. Hands-down, absolutely, positively the best doughnut I have eaten in 6 years. Not at all cakey, but light and fluffy and breadier than most other vegan donuts. Kicks the ass of my former best doughnut experience, had at Voodoo Doughnut in Portland, OR.

5. I thought this was going to be one of those cakey jobs I described in #4, but it turned out to be much lighter than I expected. This is an example of the pinnacle of the vegan doughnut craft, before #4 came along and changed all the rules. If it weren't for #4, this lemony little number might have had a chance.

All this delicious stuff totaled $14, but I dropped $20; it goes to http://gorillacd.org/ and http://www.wildcarebayarea.org/.

What the Phở!? A Vegan Fast Food Oasis in a San Francisco Mall Basement?

2010-05-06T00:39:00.000-07:00

Today I escaped from the free, vegan-hostile lunch at the Web 2.0 Expo and set out to find the closest San Francisco Soup Company. The ubiquitous SF Soup Co. has at least one vegan soup every day, and that's where I like to go in the city when I'm hungry but not in the mood to make decisions. My iPhone directed me to the one in the Westfield San Francisco Shopping Centre at 845 Market St., an address I usually avoid because of the tourist vortices it produces. In fact, in all my years living in this city I don't think I have ever stepped inside that building. Until today.

I navigated my way to an escalator descending into the subterranean "Food Emporium," a fancy name for a vast, churning tourist chamber honeycombed with edible retail goods. It took me a while to find the SF Soup Co. due to throngs of seemingly stoned consumers dragging oversized Bloomingdale's bags around the labyrinthine food court. I was amazed by the slowness and purposelessness of some people's locomotion. Surprisingly, the Sunday-driving pace of my search was a blessing; it yielded a far more precious reward: the Loving Hut, proudly advertising "Vegan Cuisine."

The Loving Hut presents a small buffet beside the register, where a smiling server will assemble two dishes of your choice with brown or white rice for $8.25. They also provide a more permanent menu from which you can order, offering noodle dishes, sandwiches, salads, and more. Most of the food is Pan-Asian, but there are some Western oddballs in the line-up, such as a Philly Cheese Steak sandwich and "chicken tenders" with french fries. I ordered the Phở Noodle Soup and tried to find a safe place to stand and wait for it.

And wait for it. And wait for it.

The servers missed my order somehow, hastily serving several other people before I was compelled to inquire about the tardiness of my soup. After a total of 12 minutes of being jostled by downtown workfolk and out-of-town consumers, I finally got my Phở. It was delicious. I'm not a Phở expert because I've only had it twice in the past and was suspicious both times about the alleged vegan-friendliness of the broth. But I'll gladly become an expert on this rich, tasty, and spicy Phở, guaranteed to be 100% vegan*. My only complaint is that there was too much of it.

Back when I was waiting for my order, it had occurred to me that there was something familiar about Loving Hut. Something about their motto, "Be Veg. Go Green. Save the Planet." I Googled them later, and discovered that they are disciples of the very same spiritual leader that Vegetarian House in San Jose follows, Supreme Master Ching Hai. They don't announce their affiliation in this fast food context, possibly because it might repel suspicious consumers.

By the way, if you don't speak Vietnamese, "Phở" is pronounced "fuh."

* No actual guarantee offered.

Vegan in San Jose: Good Karma Cafe and Vegetarian House

2010-02-23T02:02:00.000-08:00

My friend Robin and I traveled to San Jose last weekend to witness its greatest cultural attraction, the San Jose Flea Market. We rolled into town around 2 PM and decided that we were far too hungry to go directly to the flea market; we'd need to eat something first. We asked our iPhones about "vegan san jose" and were surprised by the high number of results. (Google seems to think that "vegan" and "vegetarian" are synonymous, so most of the results were vegetarian restaurants.) The first two results were Vegetarian House and Good Karma Vegan Cafe. The Vegetarian House's Flash Web site was useless on the iPhone, and Good Karma's didn't exist. So we read some Yelp reviews and chose the latter. We couldn't ignore reviewers' urgency to try Good Karma's mashed potatoes.

Good Karma Cafe
Our iPhones soon led us downtown, to an area of San Jose that exhibits some rare architectural character. Parking was easy, the sidewalks were underpopulated, and Good Karma's Ryan welcomed us into his customerless cafe with relaxed enthusiasm.

Good Karma's atmosphere was exactly what this vegan finds comforting in a strange land: interesting art for sale on one wall, a community bulletin board on another, natural light, pizzeria style tables, a chalkboard menu, good music, and beer on tap. Ryan even asked us what music we wanted to listen to. We asked him to expose us to something new, which turned out to be something suitably independent and highly listenable. (I'd tell you what it was but it was also easily forgettable.)

Our first glance at the deli case assured us that we had picked the best vegan experience in San Jose. Unfortunately, everything looked and sounded so delicious that it was difficult to decide what to order. Ryan (who claimed to have personally made everything except the baklava and the pork buns) offered us some helpful advice. Between us we walked away with mashed potatoes, jerked tofu, dal, curry, basmati rice, and two pints of IPA. Carbohydrate-heavy? Yes. Delicious? Absolutely. The mashed potatoes were everything Yelp claimed they would be. The jerked tofu was probably my favorite of the dishes, followed closely by the dal.

Our senses were so pleasantly stimulated at Good Karma that we toyed with the idea of having a couple more pints there and foregoing the flea market adventure. Miraculously, we tore ourselves away from the oasis to complete our original mission, but not without a little Karma to go: a tamale, a pork bun, and a baklava.

The Flea Market and the Tech Museum
The San Jose Flea Market was a lot different than I expected. Robin, however, confessed a nostalgic familiarity with the scene; it reminded her of her formative years the Southern California desert, where she was surrounded by Baptists, Mexicans, poverty, and plastic.

There was plenty of cheap, non-organic produce at the flea market, much of which I couldn't identify. There were also lots of nuts flavored with who-knows-what. I didn't bother asking if the flavorings were vegan, despite my love for spicy pistachios; I doubted that their purveyors had the knowledge nor the vocabulary to answer that question satisfactorily, and would probably assure a nut allergy sufferer that these nuts were muy seguras.

After a couple hours of roaming the waning flea market we decided to look for a more gratifying experience, perhaps something that we could better relate to. So we navigated back to downtown San Jose and checked out Star Trek: The Exhibit at the Tech Museum. It wasn't a bad exhibit, but it was nothing like the exhibits I'd seen at the Boston Museum of Science over the past few years, like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. It was relatively small, and there were fewer authentic costumes, props, and models than I expected. Some of the most interesting stuff was on big, printed placards--the parking meters in San Jose were more interactive than that. But this isn't a blog about science museum exhibits, so I'll leave it at that.

Vegetarian House
It took several hours at a flea market and a museum to burn enough Good Karma to get us hungry again. Dismayed that we were about to eat a second meal in this city in one day, we trekked to the San Jose vegetarian restaurant voted #1 by our iPhones. I am glad that we did. (Before I continue, I'd like to mention that the photos included hereafter were taken with my iPhone in poor lighting; I had left my flattering camera in the car.)

From the outside, Vegetarian House looks quaint and homey. It also looks like a house. Then you walk inside and you're served a hot mug of WTF. Flourescent lighting, pastel colors, two separate dining areas; androgynous staff in polo shirts; walls of books, DVDs and CDs; photos of women in various costumes all over the place; a television displaying strange images... wait a minute. Is that the same woman in all those photos? And on all those DVDs? And on the TV!? Why, yes, it is! She's The Supreme Master Ching Hai. Hey, is this place run by a cult? Why, yes, it is!

We might have been a little disturbed or suspicious of a cult-run restaurant if it wasn't for years of experience with Ananda Fuara in San Francisco. Judging by the size of Vegetarian House's menu, the broad spectrum of dishes, the amount of media on display, and the number of customers, it seems that Ching Hai is indeed a more powerful deity than the late Sri Chinmoy (despite his superhuman strength). She's certainly a better artist. But it's possible that Sri Chinmoy is growing more powerful in the spirit plane and will soon emerge from that celestial realm to claim the title of Supreme Master. Until then, let's eat!

We started with the Ocean Basket, "a delicious platter of crumbed yam flour crescents, exotic mushrooms, coleslaw, French fries and a vegan tartar sauce." Oh, so good. And so bad for you. I could almost hear the gulls over Buzzard's Bay arguing over a stolen fried clam as we dunked those golden nuggets into their delicious sauce. I don't know when I last had tartar sauce. What would I put it on? Vegan seafood is rare stuff.

For her entree, Robin got the Guru's Curry, "an exotic blend of curries, white soy protein, potato, tomato and spices in a rich gravy served with a dal soup, chutney and rice." I think it was the winner of the night. It definitely kicked the ass of my Crispy "Joy Luck" Noodles, "crispy wheat noodles topped with vegetables, soy protein, mushroom and tofu, sautéed in a special seasoned sauce." My dish was flavorful, but I thought the noodles were too difficult to manage and ultimately a texture clash for the dish.

We finished with some vegan cheesecake, which I was too busy appreciating to photograph.

All the while we were served by polite, quiet, smiling staff dressed in smart attire. If you find their outfits fetching, you might like to browse the catalog over by the clothing display and order your own cult uniform. (The shirt in the shitty photograph below reads, "Save The World Am A Vegan And Green." I don't understand the grammar, either.)

In the end, if I had to pick only one San Jose vegan restaurant to go to ever again, it would be Good Karma. I felt that it had more soul and more flavor, overall, than House of Vegetarian. And, most importantly, it had beer.

Faux pas-stess Cupcakes

2009-11-29T20:39:00.000-08:00

I made 12 cupcakes for a potluck/house-warming party. Making cupcakes isn't supposed to give you a heart attack. It's supposed to be pleasant, contemplative, and therapeutic. When I chose to make Fauxstess Cupcakes from the lovely Ms. Moskowitz's Vegan With A Vengeance, I didn't know that I was choosing to make the most complicated cupcake of my life in front of an audience of 30 curious, omniverous, alcohol-drinking party guests.

Let me back up a bit. I was going to make the Lime Cocounut cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World--which I have made before with great success--but all of my books have been shipped off ahead of me to San Francisco with the rest of my tangible life. Fortunately, my Mom continues to surprise me; she produced a crisp copy of VwaV that she recently got off amazon.com. (I don't know if any other vegans out there have a hard time eating with their families, but I'm grateful that I don't.) She then expressed her faith in my ability to create anything edible by recommending that I simply grab a baguette and a jar of bruschetta sauce from Stop 'n' Shop.

I believe that the nature of the things that you create is affected by the energy that you put into making them. If you put a lot of effort into creating something, the results will usually reflect that effort in some way. The creation may be flawed, or ugly, but it will have a soul. A supermarket baguette and a jar of sauce do not have souls.

Similarly, I believe that the effort you put into a potluck contribution reflects your respect for your fellow guests. If I throw down a dozen Dunkin' Donuts on the potluck table, I may as well turn around and piss in the punchbowl. Also, protocol dictates that you arrive with your creation in-hand, offer it to the host, and then mingle with everyone else, mutually admiring the contributions peripherally while focusing on interpersonal interaction. You shouldn't destroy your host's kitchen by making your contribution on-site, while the party is in full-swing. That's what I did.

I had spent the day helping my hosts clean their apartment and fetching party supplies and groceries. I also drove all over Fairfield county looking for a sifter, an electric beater, and a pastry bag. I had planned to have the cupcakes done before the guests started arriving, but I had barely got the batter into liners when they started to roll in. An hour later I was struggling with a separating ganache while loud people were tearing apart a chicken carcass beside me. (Rabbitt is vegetarian, so his thoughtful in-laws saw it fit to bring a roasted chicken to his potluck.)

In the end, I succeeded. The sink was filled with messy flour and frosting and filling, but it was impossible to do the dishes in their crowded kitchen. From that wasteland I emerged holding the fruit of my scrutinized labor aloft on a cutting board, and in a final flourish of drama, spilled three of them onto the floor.

Whatever. They were good, if ugly. Best of all, they didn't seem to have absorbed any of my stress, frustration, or self-consciousness.

WTF is Gardein?

2009-11-08T21:23:00.000-08:00

The last time I visited my folks, my mom busted out the Mexican torta she learned about on her own, after harnessing the yin and yang of local print media and the Word Wide Web. This time, she introduced me to Gardein, the "garden protein," which she learned about on Oprah.

I was immediately suspicious of the stuff, largely because I had never heard of it (I'm the vegan in the family for chrissakes), but also because I couldn't believe that Oprah was pushing a thoroughly vegan product to every white American woman over the age of 55. So I did a little Googling and clicked through the gratuitous Flash pages on www.gardein.com and determined that, sure enough, the stuff was legit. So when my mom asked me if she should make the chick'n scallopini recipe featured on the show, I consented. (Now, a lot of vegan bloggers would have taken the reins at this point, dutifully making the dish for their mothers. But, as I've said before, I'm lazy. And my mom claims to love cooking for me, so it's win-win.)

So off we went to the closest Whole Foods to procure the ingredients, packing enough food, water, blankets, and ammunition to ensure a safe journey. When we finally made it to the store we were met with two obstacles: they had a small selection of Gardein's broad product line, which didn't include the "chick'n fillets" nor the "scallopini" described in the recipe; and they didn't have udon noodle cakes, whatever those are. So we got the "santa fe good stuff" and regular udon noodles, hoping for the best.

The best turned out pretty good. My mom put four piles of udon noodles into separate ramekins after cooking them, to give them a cake-like shape that held together pretty well in the pan. The stuffing in the "santa fe good stuff" did clash with the Asian tone of the recipe, but it was easy to forgive. The texture of the Gardein was disturbingly close to what I remember of actual chicken, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. Surprisingly, the most delicious part of the recipe was the pea shoots. Frickin' delicous.

While I feel that this product came out of nowhere on a rocket-fueled marketing sled, I'm pleased that its sights are set on the mainstream; I can see it giving a lot of on-the-fence omnivores the motivation they need to eat less meat. I'm certainly not in the crossover market that Gardein is targeting, so its similarity to the "real thing" isn't a selling point for me. Nonetheless, I'll gladly try their other flavors, if for no other reason than to expand my options for easy protein. Thanks again, Mom.

Veganism Invades Central Connecticut

2009-11-03T16:50:00.000-08:00

I really dropped the ball on VeganMoFo III. But here I am on November 3 with a new post! So I'll just pipe all criticism--internal and external--to /dev/null and get on with it.

I do have a blog entry stuck in the buffer that's worth flushing. Back in the middle of October, I visited my parents, who live a mere 9 miles outside of the geographical center of Connecticut. This is not a vegan-friendly region. The closest vegetarian restaurant, It's Only Natural, is 20 miles away. The closest Whole Foods is 20 miles away in a different direction. Fortunately, the bigger supermarkets have "Natural Foods" aisles, offering tofu, soy milk, soy margarine, etc. But it's just not as easy being vegan in central Connecticut as it is in New York City.

While driving to my parents' house from Brooklyn, I called my Mom up to let her know when I'd arrive. She told me that she was preparing a "special sandwich" for me. This was interesting; I had grown accustomed to the six or so types of dishes that she had prepared for me since I became vegan--adaptations from her eastern European repertoire and a couple recipes she'd found in magazines. So a "special sandwich" was intriguing.

When I finally arrived she presented me with a Mexican Torta and a side of fries. I was thrilled that she was expanding the menu, and asked her what inspired her. She handed me a printout of this VeganMoFo blog page, which I recognized immediately. "Wow, Mom, how did you find out about VeganMoFo?" I asked. "It was in the newspaper," she replied.

The newspaper? In central Connecticut? My mom then handed me the Food section from the October 8th edition of the Hartford Courant, featuring an article titled, "Turn Over A New Leaf: Vegan Diets Are Moving More Solidly Into Mainstream." (Note that the link is to the Google cache; for some reason, the original article is no longer on www.courant.com, nor on the Chicago Tribune page that it redirects to. Conspiracy theories activate! UPDATE: It disappeared from the Google cache, so I have updated the link to the only remaining digital copy I can find in under 20 minutes.)

I read the article as I devoured the delicious and messy torta, amazed at the positive treatment of the vegan lifestyle in what I had always considered to be a little, backwater rag. And I was heartened to learn that there are vegan cooking classes in West Hartford. I even learned where the word "vegan" came from:

Convinced that a diet completely free of animal products, including dairy and eggs, was the "beginning and end" of a true vegetarian lifestyle, [Donald] Watson coined the term "vegan" in 1944, using the first two and last three letters of the word "vegetarian."

(Maybe I had learned this a long time ago, but, embarrassingly, it seemed like news to me.)

And then there was the sidebar, discussing VeganMoFo III, and a link which my mother typed into her computer to find the torta recipe. I felt like some kind of universal alignment had just occurred, casting enlightening energies upon central Connecticut, my Mom's kitchen, and me.

Pick A Pita

2009-10-18T21:46:00.001-07:00

What is up with the names of falfel shops in New York City? Pita Hut, Pita Pan, Pita Like a Racehorse... There's a falafel/shawarma place on 8th Ave. between 39th and 40th that makes a pretty good falafel for $6. Pick A Pita. (Why they didn't call themselves Pita Picked a Peppa, I don't know. Maybe the sign would be too expensive.) They're kosher, so they don't put any dairy in their toppings, which might adorn something off the the rotating meat column as easily as they would a few falafel balls. If you're vegan, that's great, because the vegan and non-vegan stuff are well segregated.

All of their sandwiches are served in pita pockets, as their name suggests. You can pick one of two pitas: regular or whole wheat. The whole wheat pitas fall apart easily, so be sure to grab a fork if that's your preference. Or you can screw the pita altogether and get the "platter," which is a salad version, but more copiously appointed and a couple bucks more expensive. Whatever route you go, you're sure to be stuffed by the end of your journey.

They have a wide selection of toppings: hummus, tahini, cucumbers, tomatoes, cucumber and tomato salad, red cabbage, pickles, tabouli, fried eggplant, and hot sauce. I hate eggplant, but they season and deep-fry theirs in such a way that I was able to tolerate it in my first few sandwiches. After that, the novelty of its preparation wore off and I stopped adding it.

If there's one thing I've learned in my brief blogging-about-food career, it's that I'm really good at making food look less appetizing than it really is.The above photo is no exception. Don't let it turn you off; Pick a Pita delivers a solid falafel sandwich that I've returned to more times than I can count.

It's Just a Chunk of Metal

2009-10-15T21:01:00.001-07:00

A group of vegan and vegetarian friends and I go out to lunch once a month. We call ourselves The Veggie Five. We're like super heroes, but without special powers, and we don't fight crime. We just get together occasionally and eat vegetarian food. Today we ate at Pukk in the East Village.

Pukk is another "pan Asian" vegetarian restaurant, like Zen Palate or Gobo, but with an emphasis on actual vegetables over meat analogues, in a Thai style. They offer $6 lunch specials which come with "vegetable clear soup" and your choice of an appetizer and an entree. I chose Spicy Spring Rolls for my appetizer, and Pepper Garlic Chicken for my entree. The spring rolls are fried, and wrapped in eggless egg roll wrappers. The Pepper Garlic Chicken has a few chunks of fake chicken and a good helping of vegetables. The "vegetable clear soup" is much tastier than it sounds, and saltier than one would expect. All-in-all, it was a filling and tasty lunch, but nothing amazing. It was better than Zen Palate, and cheaper.

Our pal Ravi ordered Pad See-Ew Duck, which he claimed tasted very duck-like in both flavor and texture. (We were a little concerned about Ravi's familiarity with authentic duck cuisine.) It even came with a surprise chunk of metal that looked like a twisted stainless steel suture. When he brought this to the attention of our waitress, she said something vaguely apologetic and retreated to the kitchen for more information. She eventually returned and assured Ravi that the metal was nothing to worry about, and mumbled something about a free dessert, should he be interested. We eventually pressed her further on that point and he got a free chocolate cheesecake mousse, which he shared with all of us. It was delicious and metal-free.

The bill for all five of us was around $73, gratuity included. I would definitely go back, but would scrutinize my dish for foreign matter.

Her Majesty's Secret Symphony

2009-10-14T21:02:00.000-07:00

Ok, that's a shitty title. But it's staying because if I spend any time thinking up something better I'm not going to get my daily VeganMoFo entry done before the deadline.

So I went to my all-time favorite weekday lunch spot, Green Symphony, to throw together "the usual:" collard greens, broccoli, couscous with hummus, and a chubby little samosa. All that, a Vitamin Water, and a bag of Stonewall's for under $15. After putting that together I go up to the counter and the proprietor (who always asks my co-worker if he's vegetarian, but who doesn't give a shit about my superior veganism) pulls out a golden, ornate picture frame and plops it down in front of me. It's a promotional photo of Daniel Craig, autographed. The proprietor then waited patiently for my reaction.

Having been to Green Symphony a dozen times already, I've become familiar with the wall of fame in the tiny dining area: about 20 framed, autographed headshots of actors and musicians of varying degrees of notoriety.

"Oh!" it dawned on me. "Was he in here earlier today?" I would have said, "Hey! Daniel Craig came in!" except I couldn't remember the actor's name and had to later ask a friend who plays the new James Bond.

"He's the second most popular person," he said, proudly, in broken English, gesturing over his shoulder toward the Wall. "Just under Billy Joel."

"Oh, well that's great!" I said, somewhat genuinely. "It's great that all these people come here to eat."

He thumped an open hand on his aproned chest and said, "They take care of themselves. They're healthy." He pointed at the photo of Mr. Craig sitting beside my cash, "He's healthy too. Egg whites!"

I nodded as if to say, "I'll be damned," brows raised and all.

And, indeed, people come to Green Symphony to be healthy. In addition to the buffet (which is mostly vegetarian), Green Symphony also offers custom smoothies, herbal supplements, healthy sandwiches and salads, lots of vegan and gluten-free baked goods, and a broad spectrum of pre-packaged, vegetarian-friendly nutrition bars and snacks. And coffee and tea and stuff, too.

My lunch was delicious, as usual. But I never figured out a way of closing this blog entry with a clever reference to Daniel Craig or James Bond.

Video: Primal Pain In The Ass

2009-10-13T05:57:00.000-07:00

Wow, I'll post anything!

Inspired by supercarrot's comment on my previous jerky post, here's a very orange and yellow review of Primal Strips' (hopefully) experimental packaging.

Maybe someday I'll figure out how to use Final Cut's color correction capabilities. Or move out of this basement.

Scrambled Tofu

2009-10-11T13:00:00.000-07:00

I dropped the ball Friday, missing a weekday of VeganMoFo blogging. To make up for it, I took a picture of my brunch. Well, my lunch, really. I just don't think it qualifies as a "brunch," as I made it myself in the privacy of my own dungeon-like apartment. And I didn't make mimosas.

The recipe is basically Vegan with a Vengeance's "Scrambled Tofu," to which I added cayenne pepper and broccoli. The English muffins are spelt, from Rudi's Organic Bakery.

OK, you can go back to bed now.

I made something!

2009-10-08T21:00:00.001-07:00

Well, "threw some shit together" might be more accurate. But it was delicious: Barilla whole grain spaghetti, grilled Field Roast Italian sausage, steamed broccoli, and homemade vegan pesto. Minimal effort for maximum satisfaction. I'd buy it, if I could.

(After I took the picture, I defiled its beauty with a fistful of nutritional yeast.)

I'm a Lazy Vegan

2009-10-07T10:35:00.000-07:00

Some VeganMoFo bloggers are spending a lot of time and effort to make wonderful, delicious food themselves. I'm not. I've become lazy living in New York; it's easy to get vegan food made by someone else, quickly. Though it is expensive. If I knew how money worked, the expense of pre-prepared food might motivate me to cook for myself more often.

So, my blog thus far has been filled with stuff that other people have made, and which I, in turn, have eaten. Today's post does not challenge convention: Quinoa Salad and Black Bean Soup, from S'nice on 5th Ave at 3rd St., in Brooklyn. (I hiked this stuff back to my dungeon-like apartment to take pictures of it privately.)

The quinoa salad was great. It had black beans, slices of avocado, tomato chunks, onions, greens, avocado dressing, tortilla strips, and of course lots of quinoa. I cursed my feeble spoon for not being a shovel. But there was so much of it that I could only eat half--the rest is in the fridge should I ever get hungry again. (I think I got substantially more by taking it "to go," than I would have had I eaten it there.) The thin black bean soup started off nicely, but seemed to get saltier as I ate it. So I offered it to my roommate, Thisbe, who thought it was delicious.

I strongly recommend S'nice if you're ever in my neighborhood, or proximal to their West Village counterpart. They've got all kinds of stuff, the best of which, I believe, is their vegan tofu panini.

Jerquee

2009-10-06T20:59:00.000-07:00

When I lived in San Francisco, it seemed that you could buy Stonewall's Jerquee from anyone. Dudes offering you great deals on expensive watches down at United Nations Plaza would whip out a consolation bag or two of Stonewall's when you declined their initial offers. Midas mechanics would find ways to work Stonewall's Jerquee into the bill for your catalytic converter replacement. You couldn't check out of the UCSF's emergency room without signing an agreement that you would consume several bags of the stuff during your recovery period.

When I moved to Boston, Jerquee was no longer accessible through conventional means; I had to order it online. Even when I moved to New York City, I didn't find Jerquee until I'd been there for several months and came across it at a West Village deli. Today, I found Jerquee at my current favorite lunch spot: Green Symphony. I was thrilled. I scooped up a half dozen bags from the bottom-most shelf of their prepackaged food display, plopped them on the counter, brushed off the dust, removed the expired bags, and then purchased the remaining four. Delicious stuff. Recommended. You, too, can get it online at amazon.com. Just click the image to the right, disgorge some credit card numbers, and wait patiently for the postperson to bring it to you.

Video: Vegan Pesto

2009-10-05T05:29:00.000-07:00

I produced my first "cooking" video over the weekend: making Isa Moskowitz's "Classic Pesto" from Vegan with a Vengeance. It was a clumsy effort, but it accomplished its goal: eliminating the surplus of basil from my herb garden.

Here's the recipe straight out of the book, republished here with permission from the author:

Classic Pesto

1/2 cup walnuts

3 cups packed basil leaves
3 cloves garlic, smashed and coarsely chopped
1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil, or more to taste
1/4 cup nutritional yeast (optional)
2 teaspoons lemon juice

Toast the walnuts in a toaster oven at 350 degrees F for 5 minutes or on a baking sheet in a conventional oven for 10 minutes, turning once.

Combine the walnuts, basil, garlic, and salt in a food processor or blender and process while you add the olive oil in a slow, steady stream. Add the nutritional yeast and lemon juice, and pulse to combine. The sauce should be the consistency of a slightly grainy paste, not a puree.

I learned a lot about DIY cooking video production. Some key lessons being: don't mix wildly different cameras in multi-camera shooting; don't bang shit around so much; keep your whining, over-heating laptop as far from the microphone as possible; don't say "um" so much; and rehearse before shooting.

I Guess It's Kinda Like A Dosa

2009-10-02T22:52:00.000-07:00

Today my camera and I took a long lunch down at Washington Square Park, to get one of my favorite meals in the city: a dosa from the NY Dosa cart at West 4th St. and Sullivan. I got to the cart at 2:45 PM, well before the dosa guy usually sells out, which is around 4 PM. But today must have been busy; when I ordered my customary pondicherry, he laughed and said he was all out of pondicherry and dosa filling. But he told me that he could throw together a few things to make a "meal" for me, including extra lentil soup. "OK," I said, and stepped aside to wait.

He ended up giving me a "veggie stick" (some egg roll type fried thing) in a dosa wrapper, a "drumstick" in a moderate pool of barbecue sauce, and two cups of lentil soup. All for $5! A bottle of water and a $2 tip and I was out a mere $7.

But the thing is, the consolation dosa wasn't nearly as good as the chubby, potato and veggie-filled pondicherry I'd grown accustomed to. The meal was filling, and the lentil soup was excellent, as usual. But it just wasn't the same thing. The "drumstick," by the way, is a gluten-based chicken leg analog on a wooden stick (exactly the same as the one served by V-Spot in Brooklyn). I appreciated his improvising with what he had, and giving me a break on the price. But I'll have to go back again soon to get the real experience.

On the way back to work I grabbed a coffee and, feeling a little unsatisfied by my consolation lunch, swung by Green Symphony on 43rd St. between 7th and 8th for a snack. Green Symphony is a great little buffet/deli that offers a surprising amount of vegan food. They have a lot of homemade bars and cookies, almost none of which can be metabolized for under 600 calories. I got a "BMW" bar, the name of which is an acronym, but for what I can't remember. Maybe "Body, Mind, Wellness?" I don't know. It's filled with walnuts and apple chunks and raisins. It's mushy and filling. It may very well be gluten free. It tastes like it looks. I don't recommend it, unless you're starving and have few other choices.

VeganMoFo, Day One

2009-10-01T19:42:00.000-07:00

I am not a good blogger. Like many people, I get excited about a blog idea, post a half dozen entries within the course of a month, and then let the blog stagnate until the domain name expires. But this time is different. Right?

I think it is different this time. I created this blog to participate in this year's VeganMoFo III, along with hundreds of other vegans who are trying to be good bloggers. We're all trying to blog about vegan food every weekday for the month of October. I'm motivated by knowing that there are so many other people trying to do the exact same thing. However, I'm made apprehensive by the fact that--aside from IMs to co-workers ("Wanna get lunch?") and jotting down shopping lists--I've never written about food before. And I'm not a prolific recipesmith. But I'm vegan, and I spend a lot of time and money on eating. So there must be something to write about.

Let's start with what I ate for lunch today. I work in Manhattan, in the southwest corner of Times Square, just east of Hell's Kitchen. There's not a lot to eat for a vegan in that neighborhood, but over the past year I have discovered about a half dozen places that offer decent vegan food options, all within a few minutes' walk from work. Today, I went to Zen Palate, on 9th Ave. at West 46th St.

Zen Palate is dependable. Their lunch specials are ordinary and invariable. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say, "Gosh. The Sweet and Sour Sensation isn't that good today." It's like the Groundhog Day of vegetarian restaurants.

Here's an example. Being a noob food blogger, I forgot to take my camera to lunch with me today. So I was going to draw what I ordered: Tofu Delight. It would have been a horrible drawing, but I was going to do it anyway, because it would have been funny. But, on a whim, I thought I'd Google for an image of the dish and save myself the trouble. All I did was search for "zen palate" at images.google.com, and the first result was a photograph of my lunch. It looked exactly the same as what I ingested a few hours ago. The only difference is that it was actually served to some girl from Los Angles over a year ago (thanks for the photo, quarrygirl).

Actually, there's another difference. I always substitute the moo-shu roles for the deep fried taro rolls that come with the lunch specials. They're not that detail-oriented about their vegan friendliness at Zen Palate, and they don't answer detail-oriented questions about their ingredients with a level of confidence that I trust. So I suspect that the taro rolls use conventional egg rolls for their wrappers. They might not, but for some reason I don't trust them on this issue.

How was it? It was edible, it stimulated my taste buds, and it was vegan. The moo-shu rolls were the highlight; I could eat those suckers all day long. After eating around 30 Zen Palate lunch specials over the past year, I just can't get too excited about it. But it's the only vegetarian restaurant within a reasonable distance from my workplace; for that, I will always love them. Oh, how much did it cost? $15 with tip. Not too bad in this city.

This blogging business isn't too difficult. While I'm at it, why don't I tell you what I had for dinner, too? A small soy cheese pizza with vegan pepperoni, mushrooms, and olives from Pizza Plus in Park Slope, Brooklyn. When I first moved to this neighborhood, I was thrilled when Google Maps told me there was hit for "vegan pizza" just a few blocks away.

Pizza Plus uses Follow Your Heart "Vegan Gourmet" mozzarella cheese and vegan fake pepperoni. (Yes, "fake" is redundant, but I like saying it. Fake meat. Fake cheese, etc.) Their crust and tomato sauce are delicious. My only complaint is that, as the cheese cools, it starts to take on the texture of mashed potatoes. Fortunately, mashed potatoes are also delicious.

PIzza Plus's vegan pies are among the top three vegan pizzas I've eaten, excluding those that I've made myself. This small pizza was about $15 (with no tip... c'mon, they just passed it across the counter to me). Their staff is always super-friendly, and if you're not a misanthrope, you might enjoy their outdoor seating in pleasant weather.