meghan the veghan

What Do Zombies and 93% of American Adults Have in Common?

2012-03-01T09:00:00.000-08:00

Hey, there's you.

I recently started watching Season 1 of the AMC series The Walking Dead, which, to the detriment of my productivity, is available on Netflix. And slightly more recently (today), I finished it.

On to Season 2, once Erin gets home from her dinner party. If you think I’m watching this terrifying show at night in my rickety, old, definitely-not-zombie-proof cottage without my 105-pound, mild-mannered roommate to protect me, you’re crazy.

I have to admit I watch most of the gory scenes (and there are quite a few) through my fingers. The goriest moments include the human characters hacking up dead bodies and the zombies (or “walkers,” as the show refers to them) tearing into and devouring humans and animals indiscriminately. I haven’t gotten to Episode 6 of the second season yet, but I hear it involves a zombie massacre in a barn.

It got me thinking and I came to a couple of (completely useless) conclusions. First, I want to be one of the extras who gets to play a zombie. I have the right skin tone so they wouldn’t need much makeup other than to make it appear as if my face is decaying and falling off.

Second, in a zombie apocalypse, pretty much everyone would become an almost-vegan. There just wouldn’t be any non-perishable animal-based food to be had, other than candy and bread products. The human characters in The Walking Dead eat fish and squirrels when they can get their hands on them (who wouldn't? It’s a freaking zombie apocalypse), but most of the large animals have been eaten by zombies.

That brings me to my third observation. Those zombies don’t discriminate: they eat any living thing, from humans (of course) to horses, deer, barn animals, and dogs. It’s not even clear that they prefer human flesh to that of other animals; when the characters come across a zombie tearing into an animal, it’s not like the zombie loses interest in the animal and starts chasing the humans instead.

And the producers don’t discriminate, either: they amp up the gore just as much when a group of zombies is digging into a dog torso as they do when it’s a human getting nommed on. As I watched a zombie unraveling a horse’s intestines, it occurred to me that this scene was meant to be disgusting to all viewers.

But why should meat eaters be disgusted by the eating of animal flesh? They eat that stuff, too. And at least zombies eat the whole animal, not letting any of it go to waste. It’s not that I’m comparing meat eaters to zombies, but… yeah, I’m comparing meat eaters to zombies. Way to have more things in common with zombies than I do, guys.

Food for Sex: A Lesson for Next Valentine's Day

2012-02-25T11:17:00.000-08:00

Photo: soranohatemade.blogspot.com

If you're a romantically attached vegan, chances are that last week you had a delicious Valentine's dinner with your significant other, followed by some satisfying Valentine's sex (perhaps courtesy of Vegan Erotica, if you're into that type of thing).

But if you indulged in some of the most popular animal-based Valentine's meals and desserts, you might have run into some speed bumps (not the good kind) once you made it to the bedroom. In a report released last week, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine investigated foods that can "break a loved one's heart" on Valentine's Day.

In particular, the PCRM looked into the Blue Ribbon Brownie at Applebee's, the Smoked Mozzarella Fondue at Olive Garden, the Maine Lobster with Stuffing at Red Lobster, the Porterhouse Steak at Outback Steakhouse, and the Fresh Strawberry Original Cheesecake at Cheesecake Factory.

First of all, I'll just state the obvious: if any of the above restaurants is your Valentine's dinner destination (ahem), chances are you're not getting lucky afterward anyway.

But let's assume your girlfriend has a thing for the Olive Garden. If you order the Smoked Mozzarella Fondue as an appetizer, you're consuming 940 calories and a whopping 1,940 milligrams of sodium; that's almost as much sodium as you should consume all day.

The Lobster at Red Lobster packs 59 grams of fat (39 grams of saturated fat) and 535 milligrams of cholesterol; that's double the amount of cholesterol the American Heart Association recommends for an entire day. But the Porterhouse Steak at Outback is arguably worse, with 71 grams of fat (31 grams of saturated fat) and 325 milligrams of cholesterol; that's more fat than twenty-nine strips of bacon. Twenty-nine.

The Olive Garden, Applebee's, and Cheesecake Factory don't disclose how much cholesterol is in their food probably because, quite literally, it will kill you.

But cholesterol aside, the Fondue has 48 grams of fat (28 grams of saturated fat), and the Brownie at Applebee's and the Cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory weigh in at 63 grams (32 grams of saturated fat) and 29 grams of saturated fat, respectively.

What does a meal like this mean for your sex life? In men, diets high in fat and cholesterol can lead to artery blockages that cause sexual dysfunction. In fact, men with ED have a 45 percent higher risk of suffering from a cardiovascular event. But women aren't safe, either: heart disease is the number one cause of death for women in the United States. And you can't really enjoy sex if you're dead.

So next Valentine's Day, steer clear of foods high in fat and cholesterol. They'll break your heart literally and figuratively.

YouTube Video: Quinoa with Veggies and Tofu in Dijon Soy Sauce

2012-02-16T10:10:00.000-08:00

This is one of my go-to meals because it's pretty easy but delicious. My sister invented the sauce last summer and I've been making it ever since! Note: Step 4 (start drinking a glass of wine while you cook) is totally optional.


The finished product!

The Battle of the Bulgur

2012-02-15T13:54:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, I received a chain email. Now, there are only two types of chain email that even make it past my spam filter these days: “inspiring” poetry and/or quotations about being a strong woman, living each day like it’s my last, etc. that my mom sends me; and recipe exchanges. This chain email was the latter.

It stressed me out for a couple of reasons. First of all, it instructed me to come up with a recipe, send it to a person I didn’t know, and then forward the original email to my twenty closest friends. Twenty closest friends? If I had twenty close friends, I thought to myself, I wouldn’t drive them away by forwarding them chain email.

But I did just that. I forwarded the chain email to my seventeen closest friends (and three people whom I consider to be just so-so friends), and I sent a pretty tasty quinoa recipe to the random girl whose contact information was at the bottom of the chain email.

The second reason this recipe exchange stressed me out was that I had to indicate that I wanted only vegan recipes, of course. I put “vegan” in parentheses after my name and contact info, knowing that it would likely limit the amount of recipes I received in return.

And I was right. I received only three emails, one of which was an apology for not participating. (Um, I forgive you.) Fortunately, one of the emails was from my friend Kinley, and it contained a recipe for Bulgur with Spinach and Basil.

I didn’t know what bulgur was, so I went to my local hippie grocery store, Lazy Acres. Amazingly, nobody at Lazy Acres knew was bulgur was, either. But after spending about ten minutes hunting around the bulk section with the help of a dedicated sales associate, I found it.

Turns out, bulgur is just whole grain wheat. Here’s the recipe Kinley sent me:

Bulgur with Spinach and Basil

3 cups vegetable broth
1 1/2 cups medium-grain bulgur
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon olive oil
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 bunch spinach (thick stems removed), coarsely chopped
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, torn

First, I combined the vegetable broth, bulgur, garlic, salt, pepper, and olive oil in a skillet and brought it to a boil. Then I reduced the heat and let it simmer for about fifteen minutes, until the bulgur had absorbed all the broth. Meanwhile, I chopped up the spinach and basil. When the bulgur was ready, I just stirred in the greens until they were all wilted.

It tasted great; I always like the combination of spinach, basil, and garlic, and the bulgur was a nice change from boring old rice. I ate it as a main course and it was quite filling, but it would also work as a side dish.

As I nommed on my bulgur, I decided to send Kinley a text message to say thank you for the recipe. Unfortunately, Kinley had changed her number recently without telling me (and I am only a little suspicious that it’s because I send her annoying text messages). So I had the following text message conversation with someone who is now thoroughly confused:

Me: I made your bulgur recipe!
Not Kinley: Who’s this?
Me: How many people do you send bulgur recipes to?
Not Kinley: I don’t know what bulgur is
Me: With spinach and basil?
Not Kinley: No.

So, on the off chance that Not Kinley reads my blog: I hope this clears it up for you.

Is It Child Abuse to Raise Your Kid Vegan? "What Would You Do?" on ABC Asks

2012-02-08T13:42:00.000-08:00

Photo: veganheath.info

The ABC series What Would You Do? uses hidden cameras to capture bystanders’ reactions to staged awkward, sometimes illegal, and always controversial situations, usually involving social prejudices. Psychologists and other experts weigh in, discussing the results with host John Quiñones.

In an upcoming What Would You Do? episode, which takes place at the Mason Jar Grill in New Jersey, a couple pressures the young daughter of a vegan mother to eat meat (they are all actors, including the waitress). After overhearing the girl’s mother explain to the waitress that she and her daughter are vegan, the intervening couple scolds the mother, saying, “She gets no protein,” and “It’s really a form of child abuse.”

Non-actor diners at nearby tables whisper among each other and stare as the couple goes so far as to order a hotdog for the little girl while her mother is in the bathroom. When the show airs, viewers will see whether the bystanders “step in, step up, or step away,” but ABC has already posted polls on its website.

The overwhelming majority of respondents responded to the poll question, “Would you try to convince a vegan family to feed their child meat?” with the answer, “No, I think vegan food is a healthy option for children.” But it’s definitely a controversial issue.

Less controversial is whether the hotdog the intervening couple orders for the little girl is actually “good for you,” as they say. Hotdogs aren’t “good” for anyone, vegan or not.

But is it child abuse, as the intervening man suggests?

In my (humble, vegan) opinion, that’s a ludicrous suggestion. It’s impossible to bring up child abuse with regard to diet without acknowledging the childhood obesity epidemic in the United States, a growing problem that is certainly not the result of veganism.

Childhood obesity is one of the most complex health and social issues in this country, and I’m not suggesting that parents who raise their children on a diet that contributes to obesity should be accused of abuse (though some have). But let’s keep some perspective, here.

Just like any parents, parents who choose to raise their children on a vegan diet ought to take care that they are getting all the B-12, calcium, iron, Vitamin D, and protein they need. The website EatRight.org offers some guidelines for raising kids on a vegetarian or vegan diet.

Watch What Would You Do? On Friday night at 9pm if you’re interested in seeing how the bystanders at the Mason Jar Grill react. My guess: the vegans win.

Easy, Vegan-Friendly Super Bowl Snacks

2012-02-02T09:54:00.000-08:00

Photo: VegNews.com

Somehow, despite my utter lack of anything resembling interest in football, I have found myself invited to a Super Bowl party. It’s my first Super Bowl as a vegan (not that I’m using Super Bowls as life benchmarks or anything), and so I have to wonder: on a day when productivity, marriages, and human decency are sacrificed for love of football and greasy, cheesy, meaty snacks… what is a vegan to eat?

Just because some guys on TV are tossing around a pigskin, doesn’t mean you have to be eating the rest of that pig in the form of bacon bits as you watch from your couch. If you have the time and ambition to whip up something fancy, check out Ecorazzi's list of Super Bowl vegan recipes.

But what if you are lazy? Or what if you have a vegan coming to your non-vegan Super Bowl party and you want to make sure she doesn't starve to death (but you don't like her enough to go to the trouble of preparing an elaborate vegan meal option)? Well, here are five ideas for simple, vegan-friendly snacks to enjoy this Sunday:

1) Potato Chips
This one’s not surprising, since the only ingredients in most brands of potato chips are potatoes and astonishing amounts of oil. Just make sure your potato chips aren’t made with animal fat, and you’re good to go.

2) Guacamole
Check the ingredients if you’re buying a tub from the store, or make your own by mashing up a few avocadoes and tomatoes and adding lemon juice and salt. Tortilla chips for dipping are usually vegan, too!

3) Veggie Platter
I know, I know, no one likes the person who brought the veggie platter, especially if there's no Ranch dressing. But if you’re okay with being a stereotypical vegan, go for it.

4) Fruit Kebabs
Unlike veggie platters, people will actually eat your fruit kebabs. Spear pineapple chunks, strawberries, blueberries, melon, or whatever fruit is in season and arrange the kebabs on a plate. If you want to get fancy, mix some lemon or lime juice into plain soy yogurt to make a tasty dipping sauce.

5) Vegan 7-Layer Dip
At any sports-watching party, whoever brings the 7-layer dip is everybody’s best friend. Make your own vegan version by using the following layers:
1) Tofutti cream cheese substitute (or Trader Joe’s brand) mixed with taco seasoning
2) Guacamole
3) Salsa
4) Shredded lettuce
5) Daiya vegan cheese
6) Chopped green onions
7) Chopped black olives

So what if my 2012 Super Bowl experience is bound to revolve around waiting for a close-up of Tom Brady’s ~~butt~~ face? At least I’ll have snacks.

I Can't Believe It's Not Cheesecake (Mousse)

2012-01-30T13:37:00.000-08:00

When I became a vegan, there were certain foods I knew I could easily veganize by using substitutes for eggs and milk. But there were some foods I assumed could never be properly veganized. Cheesecake was one of those foods.

For my eighteenth birthday, my parents threw me a surprise dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. All my best friends and my (then-unbeknownst-to-me) gay boyfriend came, and we gorged ourselves on all the horribly delicious appetizers and entrees we could stuff into our faces. We didn’t save any room for dessert, but we were at the Cheesecake Factory for Pete’s sake, so we felt obliged to order some cheesecake to go.

The next day, I had my wisdom teeth pulled. All four. Impacted. It was rough. And what made it rougher was that I had a piece of perfectly good, uneaten chocolate-chip-cookie-dough cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory sitting in my refrigerator.

I could barely open my jaw wide enough to swap out the bloody squares of gauze wedged into the gaping holes where my wisdom teeth used to be; there was no way I was going to manage to eat that cheesecake. So instead, I watched my family members devour it, bite by bite, until every last morsel was gone.

I made a vow that day: nothing was ever going to keep me from eating cheesecake again. It wasn’t that serious of a vow, though, because it became pretty much null and void when I went vegan. Until now.

Last week, I was shopping at Trader Joe’s and stumbled upon this display:

How perfectly delightful, I thought, that Trader Joe’s would name a product “This is not a tub of cream cheese. This is a tub of non-dairy spread.” I decided to purchase a tub of it to show my support for two-sentence-long grocery item names.

Part of me wanted to be boring and put it on a bagel or something. But a bigger part of me wanted to honor the vow I had made to myself on the day after my eighteenth birthday, and I decided to try to bring cheesecake back into my life.

Now, I’d had yummy vegan cheesecake on two occasions: at Café Muse in Hollywood and at Loving Hut in San Francisco’s Chinatown. But I’d never attempted to make my own cheesecake, vegan or otherwise, so I decided to set my sights low. I’d make cheesecake mousse. That way, I wouldn’t have to worry about baking it (and I wouldn’t have to go out and purchase any graham crackers for the crust). Here’s what I used:

Vegan Cheesecake Mousse
(makes 4 servings)

1 container vegan cream cheese
1 container firm tofu (about 15 oz)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp maple syrup
2 tbsp flaxmeal + 2 tbsp water (egg substitute)
2/3 cup powdered sugar

The only real instruction for this recipe is to combine the flax meal and water in a little dish first; after a few minutes, it will congeal into an egg substitute. Then I just dumped it into the food processor with the rest of the ingredients and pulsed it until it was smooth. I separated the mousse into four small dishes and refrigerated it for a couple of hours.

Success! It tasted sweet but not too sweet, and the consistency was actually pretty close to cheesecake. If you are feeling fancy, you can always add a strawberry or raspberry garnish. Next time, I’m going to serve it in shot glasses, layered with vegan chocolate mousse. Yum!

Top 10 Accidentally Vegan Junk Foods

2012-01-23T11:43:00.000-08:00

As a vegan, my diet consists mostly of vegetables, fruits, nuts, and grains. I'm an advocate for eating local, unprocessed foods as much as possible, blah, blah, blah. That's all well and good. But sometimes, I've got to have snacks. Disgusting, over-processed, diabetes-inducing snacks. And thanks to Peta's list of brand-name products that are "accidentally vegan," now I know what my options are.

Below is my list of Top 10 junk foods that are, purely by accident, vegan-friendly.

Photo: blog.nj.com

10) Reese’s Peanut Butter Puffs
If I can’t have Reese’s peanut butter cups, I’ll settle for their ~~slightly~~ significantly less exciting younger cousin. In the realm of junk food parading as breakfast cereal - and it’s a surprisingly vast realm - Reese’s (Reese?) is the obese king.

9) Smartie’s
According to my British friends, there is a UK version of Smartie’s that is way more delicious than our version here in the US. Well, those aren’t vegan. Sure, our Smartie’s might not be all that delicious – they might even be the thanks-for-participating prize of choice at pretty much every elementary school spelling bee – but you know what they’re great for? Gluing to a piece of graph paper in color-coordinated rows to learn about fractions.

8) Ghirardelli Hot Chocolate (Double Chocolate)
The chocolate mocha and chocolate hazelnut versions are also accidentally vegan, but if I’m fancy enough to drink Ghirardelli hot chocolate (and snobby enough to pronounce it with a hard “g”), I think I can handle the double chocolate, thank you.

7) Big League Chew
Never mind that the last time I actually purchased a Big League Chew, it was from the snack shack at my middle school baseball field and I was wearing tube socks and Adidas Sambas. Back then, I had no qualms about shoving fistful after fistful of those gooey pick shreds into my mouth, then tipping the bag back and pouring in the rest, so the resulting wad of gum was nearly impossible to manage between my jaws. It's good to know I can relive that experience any time I want.

6) Wheat Thins
Wheat Thins are one of those snacks that you just barely convince yourself are healthy for you to eat an entire box of. They’re basically crackers. They have the word “wheat” in the title! Come on.

5) Fruit by the Foot
In the hierarchy of elementary school cafeteria snack trading, Fruit by the Foot is the bourgeoisie. You could trade up for a Fruit Roll-Up pretty easily (jokes on the wrapper, hello?!), but no way was I going to score a Fruit by the Foot in exchange for the low-fat cheese stick or apple my mom stuck me with.

4) Kellogg’s Unfrosted Poptarts
A lot of people think the best part of poptarts is the frosting. I disagree. I think the best part of poptarts is the goopy, slightly grainy, artificially flavored “fruit” filling that sticks to the roof of your mouth like napalm. Lucky for me, I can have it in fake brown sugar, fake blueberry, or fake strawberry form.

3) Nabisco Oreo Cookies
When I was a kid (and had traded shrewdly that day in the school cafeteria, duping some poor sap into exchanging his Oreos for my chewy granola bar), I used to enjoy Oreo cookies in the most disgusting way imaginable. I would use my front teeth to scrape the crème filling off, and then – rather than just swallowing it – I would collect it from behind my teeth and use my fingers to roll it into a little ball. That ball would grow as I added the filling from three to four cookies, discarding the chocolate cookie part as I went. Then I would pop the huge, spitty crème ball into my mouth and suck on it until it dissolved. I can’t wait to resume this enchanting little ritual as soon as I get my hands on some Oreos.

2) Swedish Fish
Yes! Swedish Fish are the best.

1) Sour Patch Kids
I never understood this snack. Am I really nomming on kid-shaped candies? And what is a sour patch? Is it like a vegetable patch, but instead of vegetables, it grows… sour? Do the candy kids live in the sour patch? How did they get so delicious?

The world may never know. But at least I know what to snack on as I ponder these questions.

Nutty and Nice: Lemon Walnut Hummus

2012-01-18T17:08:00.000-08:00

A couple of months ago, I splurged and spent over $25 on a fancy bottle of walnut oil. I figured it was $25 toward my health, since one tablespoon of the stuff apparently has enough omega-3 fatty acids to sustain a family of four on a vegan desert island for a month (or something like that).

But since making this purchase, I have been anxious about using the walnut oil, so the bottle is still mostly full in my cabinet. This type of thing happens with every splurge I make. For example, last summer I spent 80 euro on a designer purse in Florence, Italy. Maybe that doesn’t seem like a lot of money to you, but at that point, the rest of my “purse” collection consisted of canvas shopping bags that had been given to me at organic food festivals and similar events.

Anyway, after spending so much money on this Florentine purse, I was afraid to use it for its intended function. I was plagued by fear that it would get stolen (the purse itself was far more valuable than anything inside it) or that my lip gloss would melt all over it or that some other misfortune would befall it.

The fancy walnut oil in my cabinet was becoming the food equivalent of my Florentine purse (which, by the way, is still in fantastic shape). I needed to use it for something. So a couple of nights ago, I decided to make walnut hummus with lemon juice. Here’s what I used:

Lemon Walnut Hummus

1 can chickpeas, drained
1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts
2 tbsp (fancy) walnut oil
1 tsp salt
2 cloves garlic, chopped
juice from 1 lemon

I had no idea what I was doing (I’m sure that is not incredibly surprising), but as it turns out, making hummus is about the easiest thing I’ve ever done. I just dumped everything in the food processer and pulsed it until it was the consistency of, well, hummus.

It turned out a bit tangy, which I liked, and nutty at the same time. I immediately decided to make hummus to bring to every party I’m invited to in the future. It’s so easy, and there’s something undeniably cool about the person who brought the homemade hummus. I want to be that person.

Unfortunately, this hummus was almost too good. David ate nearly the entire batch in one sitting (apparently when I said, “Would you like a bit of hummus to hold you over before dinner?” he heard, “I made this batch of hummus just for you, and I don’t want any of it myself”).

But since it’s so easy, I’ll just make another batch in the next few days. Now that I’ve moved past my anxiety over using my inordinately expensive walnut oil, there’s nothing stopping me.

Shit Meat Eaters Say to Vegans

2012-01-12T22:36:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I decided to get on the "Shit BLANKS Say [to BLANKS]" bandwagon. If you can't beat 'em... right? So my roommate Erin and I spent an afternoon frolicking around our neighborhood and trying not to get kicked out of our local Ralph's supermarket. Here you go:

Shit Meat Eaters Say to Vegans

(the picture is a link to the video)

Restaurant Review: Mike and Patty's (Bigger Isn't Always Better)

2012-01-09T17:30:00.000-08:00

I am not a very competitive person, generally. As a fifth-grade softball player, I was relegated to right field, where I tugged up stray blades of grass and honed my (now perfected) zoning out skills. And I’ll likely fail as an opera singer, since my diva ways do not extend far beyond writing a self-indulgent blog and photo-documenting all my meals.

But at Mike and Patty’s, a neighborhood breakfast joint in Boston’s fabulous Bay Village, a long-dormant competitive streak was awakened within me. I was meeting my pregnant-but-somehow-still-skinny friend Bridget for breakfast there before I headed back to Santa Barbara, and I arrived five minutes before she did.

It was immediately apparent that seating would be an issue. Mike and Patty’s, though charming and cozy, is cramped, to say the least. The single table was occupied by two couples and a baby in a carrier and the two counter stools were occupied by another, nerdier couple. Both parties had just gotten their orders.

Since there was nowhere to sit, I considered the option of just standing there balancing the plate on one hand while eating off it with the other, like I used to do in my little cottage before I had a kitchen table. But the only place to stand was directly in front of the counter, silently staring down a woman I had to assume was Patty, who wanted to take my order. I tried that for a while, but it got awkward pretty quickly.

As I waited, another customer showed up, carrying a messenger bag. Now it was really crowded. There was just no room for me, the random guy, and his messenger bag. As the couples with the baby prepared to leave, I watched the guy eying their soon-to-be-available seats. I hoped he didn’t think he was going to get one of those seats. Suddenly competitive, I began to imagine the altercation that would ensue if he made a move, and I clenched my fists, preparing for the worst.

But at that point, Bridget arrived and I realized I had had nothing to worry about all along. Bridget is pregnant. In the hierarchy of seat claiming, Pregnant beats Random Guy with a Messenger Bag any day.

The reason we had come to Mike and Patty’s is because it is quite vegan-friendly. Although there are no flat-out vegan items on its menu, many things are easily veganizable. They have Daiya vegan cheese substitute and Tofutti cream cheese substitute. And both Patty (at whom I had been awkwardly staring while I stood waiting for Bridget to arrive) and Mike (who was quite visible in the tiny kitchen and able to participate in conversation) were exceptionally friendly and willing to make substitutions.

I went with the Vegetable Torta (sweet potatoes, poblano peppers, avocado, refritos, and jicama slaw on a roll) and substituted Tofutti for the goat cheese. Putting sweet potatoes in a sandwich is one of those things that had never occurred to me but once I tried it, it made so much sense:

Thanks, Mike and Patty, for a perfect last meal in Boston. I understand why seating is so competitive – the food is worth it.

Restaurant Review: Mi Lah in Philadelphia - "Get Your Brunch On!"

2012-01-02T18:08:00.000-08:00

Have I mentioned how much I love brunch? Of course I have. So it should come as no surprise that I was determined to find a vegan brunch spot in Philadelphia while I visited my friend Saloni there this weekend. My search was pretty easy; Saloni already knew of a place within walking distance of her house.

It’s called Mi Lah, which originates from the Indian Buddhist word for “nature, harmony, happiness, and kindness.” I support all those things, and I also support Mi Lah's use of local, seasonal ingredients.

The décor was quite unremarkable, so I will not remark upon it. But the menu made up for the décor’s lack of enthusiasm: across the top of the menu were the words, “Get Your Brunch On!” I found this delightful, if slightly aggressive.

I would get my brunch on, and I would like it. Bring it on, Mi Lah.

We started off with a complimentary plate of fruit: grapes with orange and apple slices. I like things that are free, so I liked the fruit plate, but if I was going to Get My Brunch On as the menu commanded, I’d have to step it up.

Free fruit always tastes good.

So I ordered what seemed like the menu item that would be most conducive to the Getting On of My Brunch: veggie sausage and avocado on oven-fresh biscuits in mushroom gravy with Red Bliss sweet potato home fries and bronzed coconut king mushrooms.

I wasn't sure what a king mushroom was. I hadn't even been aware that mushrooms operated under a feudal system; had I been unknowingly consuming bourgeois mushrooms my whole life? Or worse, peasant mushrooms?

Well, this king mushroom (which, as it turned out, was just an exceptionally long mushroom) was fried in a light coconut batter. The sweet potato home fries were crispy on the outside and just the right amount of mushy on the inside. And the biscuits, veggie sausage, and avocado were stacked eggs-Benedict-style, with the mushroom gravy substituting for hollandaise sauce. The combination of textures was perfect:

Saloni, who was considerably less concerned with Getting Her Brunch On, went with the corn masa cakes with refried black beans, avocado, and fresh mango salsa. The corn masa cake, underneath heaps of avocado and salsa, was surprisingly flavorful and very filling; Saloni couldn’t finish the whole thing, even with my help:

I wish Mi Lah were in my city so I could Get My Brunch On all the time. But I will have to try to make up for it by inventing new vegan brunchy recipes myself. In fact, while typing this post, I have decided that my New Years resolution will be to represent Mi Lah out in California by embracing “nature, harmony, happiness, and kindness” and, most importantly, by Getting My Brunch On as often as possible.

Anatomy of a Vegan?

2011-12-30T09:18:00.000-08:00

I love information and I love graphics (I guess), so obviously I love infographics. They just make it so much easier to wrap your head around concepts that are otherwise overwhelming or vague.

So I’m excited that the folks over at Advanced Physical Medicine put together an infographic to represent who vegans are and what we’re about. The cleverly named Anatomy of a Vegan infographic, based on a 2011 survey conducted on Facebook, addresses everything from the amount of money vegans spend on groceries to the reasons people become vegan in the first place.

But I have some problems with the way this information is represented. First of all, the infographic’s introductory blurb asks, “Did you know there are 3 million+ vegans in the United States?” But the survey included only 144 respondents, 6% of whom (somewhere between 8 and 9 people, whatever that means) are no longer vegans.

That might explain some surprising results. For example, 48% of survey respondents have an annual household income of under $30,000. It’s possible that this evidence debunks the common belief among omnivores that only the wealthy can afford to be vegan, while poor people must eat whatever they can get their hands on.

But it seems more likely that those 48% of the survey’s participants, who needed access to Facebook to participate, are students (like me!). Even though Facebook’s demographic is no longer dominated by the student population, I think the fact that 46% of survey participants have only earned a high school degree (so far), 74% are single, and 88% have no children supports my theory that the majority of participants are currently students.

Or maybe nobody wants to marry vegans. That might be true, too.

Along those lines, the part of this infographic that will be most disappointing for all the single vegan ladies is that only 17% of vegans are male. I guess that’s why one of the most commonly cited challenges of being a vegan is “dating non-vegans.”

Personally, I don’t mind dating non-vegans; in fact, I’ve never even met a vegan guy I wanted to date. The one drawback of dating an omnivore is occasional hot dog breath, but it beats scrounging around for one of those twenty-four (and a half) vegan guys who participated in this survey.

Restaurant Review: Veggie Galaxy in Central Square

2011-12-28T19:06:00.000-08:00

Before I went vegan, one of my favorite things in the world (I’m talking right behind bursting into joyful song in ~~inappropriate~~ unusual situations) was brunch. I once told my friend Nadia, over brunch, that I could never be a vegan for the simple reason that bacon... exists. About a week later, I went vegan.

My character inconsistencies aside, brunch is awesome and anyone who says otherwise is not my friend. Unfortunately, that’s probably why I don’t have any vegan friends: brunch is generally not a vegan-friendly meal. Bacon? No. Eggs? Duh, no. Coffee?! You try asking the haggard diner waitress if she could please bring you some soy milk.

But it’s the brunch experience that I really miss – waking up too late to eat a proper breakfast and walking over to a breakfast-all-day diner, drinking bottomless coffees and chatting about any old thing (but probably all the fun you had the night before).

So when my bouncy, recently tattooed friend Amanda suggested we check out a new vegetarian brunch place after our hot yoga class, I jumped at the opportunity. It’s called Veggie Galaxy, it opened a few months ago in Central Square, and I should point out that it’s not only a brunch place. They serve breakfast all day, but they also serve dinner and vegan desserts.

The founder, Adam, had a similar brunch-withdrawal experience to mine when he decided to go vegetarian. As he explains on the Veggie Galaxy website:

“After becoming vegetarian, the menu selections at diners narrowed for me. No more Club sandwich, tuna melt or meatloaf. No Reuben, no BLT, no eggs Benedict with a nice thick slice of Canadian bacon. I still loved going to diners, but always ended up with either an omelet or pancakes.”

So he founded Veggie Galaxy to fill that vegetarian diner gap. I say an omelet or pancakes beats watery oatmeal, which is what vegans have to call a meal at most diners, but I digress. Last week, Amanda and I bopped over to Veggie Galaxy after class. We were all sweaty and yoga-y.

Amanda just loves Veggie Galaxy.

I was ready to gain back the ten pounds of water weight I’d just sweated off, so we started with a “Vanilla Zebra” coconut milk shake:

As we sipped the shake, I looked around the restaurant. Almost everyone who worked there could be described as “biker/hipster.” And by “biker,” I mean bicyclist. They were thin and covered in tattoos, most wore thick-rimmed glasses, and men and women alike had haircuts that involved some variety of spikiness. I am not sure this style even exists in Santa Barbara, but apparently it’s a scene in Cambridge. Amanda sighed and said with admiration, “I bet all those line cooks work as bike messengers during the day.”

The biker/hipster line cooks at work.

I was so enticed by the dinner menu that I didn’t even end up ordering vegan brunch. But it’s nice to know a place exists where I could order vegan brunch, if I felt like it. I went with the vegetable pot pie (roasted seasonal vegetables, house smoked tofu, mushroom gravy, tarragon basil pesto), because I haven’t had pot pie since I’ve been a vegan. It’s just one of those things I never think to make for myself.

This pot pie was served with a side of mashed sweet potatoes, which was to die for. Those biker/hipster line cooks really know what they’re doing when it comes to mashing sweet potatoes:

Amanda got the “Kendall Square” (a vegan burger with roasted red pepper puree, beer battered onion rings, roasted garlic mayo, and baby argula) with red cabbage slaw. She chose this particular burger because it came with huge onion rings on top of it:

Although I had been determined to save room for dessert (Veggie Galaxy is also a vegan bakery), the coconut milk shake had made it difficult to even finish the last bites of our delicious entrees. Dessert just wasn’t gonna happen.

But I will be back! And I really want to rediscover Veggie Planet, Veggie Galaxy’s sister restaurant, in Harvard Square, my old ~~flouncing~~ stomping grounds.

Indian-Fusion Cheela

2011-12-27T07:12:00.000-08:00

I haven’t always been intimidated by my friend Saloni’s cooking skills. I never noticed what a natural cook she was while we were in college, since we ate the majority of our meals in a dining hall. But last year when I went to visit her at her apartment in Pennsylvania, I realized what kind of force I was dealing with.

This lady was flitting around the kitchen like Ratatouille, adding a pinch of this and a sprinkle of that to the multiple pots and pans on her stove, using a wooden spoon to taste the concoctions in each one, and making thoughtful analyses of what had happened so far, what was happening right then, and what needed to happen next in this whirlwind cooking experience.

She offered to let me help, but we both knew that I wasn’t going to contribute beyond chopping some vegetables, which she would then toss through the air in a graceful arch to land in one of the pots.

At that point in my life, I was subsisting mainly on peanut butter toast, which, as you might know, has only two ingredients: peanut butter and toast. One time I even messed that up, when I got distracted by an episode of The Bachelor schoolwork and let the peanut butter toast get cold. I stuck it back in the toaster oven to heat it up, but when I took it out, the peanut butter had melted all over everything and it stuck to my hands like edible napalm.

But yesterday when I went to visit Saloni at her parents’ house (which is relatively near my parents’ house), I was feeling a bit more confident. Nobody would ever try to convince you that I’m a natural, but over the past nine months of being a vegan, I’ve at least become less of an embarrassing spaz when I try to cook.

Saloni’s mom is gluten-free and mostly vegan, so they decided to make a simple, vegan, gluten-free, Indian-fusion meal for lunch. It’s called cheela in northern India, where Saloni’s parents are from, and chillah in western India. It’s basically an Indian version of a savory crepe.

Indian-Fusion Cheela
(makes one)

5 heaping tablespoons quinoa flour (or bean flour)
water
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp lemon hummus
handful arugala
¼ tomato, sliced
raw onion to taste

Saloni’s mom is gluten-free, so she makes her own flour out of chickpeas, cannellini beans, and in this case, quinoa. She makes the different kinds of flour herself in her incredibly powerful blender, but apparently you can buy them at stores like Whole Foods.

First, she mixed water into the quinoa flour a little bit at a time, stirring it in until the batter had a watery, crepe-like consistency. She said to start in the middle of the dish and stir your way outward, to make sure there aren’t any stealth flour lumps.

Then she spread the olive oil over the entire bottom of the pan and poured the batter in carefully, tilting the pan so the batter would spread out into a thin, even layer. She sprinkled the cumin and salt on top and let it cook for about five minutes, until it was easy to remove it from the pan with a spatula.

Now comes the fusion part. Traditional cheela is eaten plain or dipped in various sauces, but we ate our cheela like a wrap. We spread a thin layer of lemon hummus over the whole thing and added arugula, tomatoes, and raw onion slices.

It was quite a tasty spin on the basic lunch wrap. I’m visiting Saloni at her house in Pennsylvania over New Years weekend, and I can’t wait to cook up some more yummy vegan meals with her! This time, I won’t be scared.

Youtube Premiere: Very Simple Vegan Chocolate Cake

2011-12-23T07:08:00.000-08:00

My first instructional ~~cooking~~ messy baking video: how to make Very Simple Vegan Chocolate Cake in a pan. It came out light, fluffy, and moist - no frosting necessary!

I think that's a pretty sweet thumbnail, too. It looks like I'm singing at you. Enjoy!

Holiday Parties: A Vegan Survival Guide

2011-12-21T07:07:00.000-08:00

Photo: makermama.com

Last weekend, my parents hosted their annual Christmas caroling party. Friends, neighbors, and relatives came over to have a light dinner and then we went out caroling around the neighborhood. Afterward, we warmed up with mulled wine and cider. It was the perfect opportunity to show off what a good singer I am under the guise of holiday cheer.

This was not the first holiday party I’d attended this season, and since it is my first holiday season as a vegan, I’ve been taking note of ways I can avoid awkwardness (for myself and my omnivorous fellow party-goers) in a trial-by-error kind of way.

Of course, your best bet is to just celebrate with other vegans. But if like me, you have few (okay, zero) vegan friends, and you don’t want to turn into an anti-social Grinchy McGrinchface, you will inevitably end up in a non-vegan holiday party situation. So I’ve compiled the following list of three simple behaviors that, I hope, can help other vegans avoid some of my holiday party fouls.

1) Bring a delicious vegan dessert to share.
If possible, make it yourself. And don’t tell people it’s vegan until they’ve gorged themselves on it. If you show up at the party and announce, “I have a plate of vegan cookies!” people might be afraid to try them. So let them enjoy the cookies and then savor their surprise when you mention that those cookies ~~all over their faces~~ they just ate were vegan. This trick worked great with the chocolate chip cookies I brought to a holiday sparkle-themed party and the peanut brittle I made for my parents’ party.

Note: this only works if your vegan dessert actually tastes good. Don’t bring nasty vegan cookies to a party.

2) Don’t talk about being a vegan.
Probably the only way to pull this one off is to not even mention you’re a vegan – as soon as you do, the person you tell will demand details. Why are you a vegan? How do you manage it? Where do you get your protein? Well, you certainly don’t get your protein from two pieces of red velvet cake, a caramel brownie, and a handful of M&Ms every few minutes. But the person you’re talking to thinks she does, and if you draw attention to her indulgences, she’ll just feel self-conscious and get defensive. At holiday parties, people want to stuff their faces in peace. This is one time when you shouldn’t disturb that peace.

3) If you must talk about being a vegan, direct the conversation to how weird raw foodists are.
I was the token vegan at my parents’ party, and people kept asking me about it. If I had refused to answer, it would have just seemed creepy, like I had lost my powers of speech or something. So instead, I bonded with them about the only dietary restriction more alienating to omnivores than veganism: raw foodism. “Yeah, it’s sometimes difficult to avoid eggs, but ohmygod those people don’t eat spaghetti. Can you imagine?”

And if all else fails, just start singing a Christmas carol really loudly. Joy to the World works well. At any other time of year, you will almost certainly be ostracized for such behavior – but at Christmas, people will admire your holiday cheer and join in.

Hard Christmas Crack: Vegan Peanut Brittle

2011-12-19T14:01:00.000-08:00

A couple weeks ago, the UCSB music department hosted a holiday party. I ended up getting kind of drunk on wine – not embarrassingly drunk, just kind of drunk – because there was nothing for me to eat except chips and salsa. It struck me that in general, holiday parties are not the best place to be a vegan.

So when my friend Linda (the plucky Mendelssohn scholar with whom I drove up to San Francisco last month) told me about her husband’s vegan Christmas candy recipe, I got excited and demanded she share it with me.

A few days later, I got an email from her equally plucky and slightly sillier husband, Chris. He described the peanut brittle recipe, which has been in his family for generations, with helpful commentary. I think he reads this blog, so he knew that if he didn’t go into great detail, the chances that I would screw up his family’s peanut brittle recipe were about as high as my ~~cholesterol~~ heart rate would be after I inevitably ate the whole tray of it.

I decided to attempt to make the peanut brittle the night before my parents’ annual Christmas caroling party. I couldn’t help but imagine Chris’s great-great-grandmother cooking up a batch of this very same peanut brittle hundreds of years ago over an open fire in one of those old-school cauldrons. In my mind, she looked like a jolly combination of Chris and Linda (although obviously that doesn’t make any sense) and wore a frilly yet practical apron. In this imaginary past, she was a vegan and substituted Earth Balance for the butter the recipe called for.

Vegan Peanut Brittle

2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup white Karo (corn syrup)
6 tbsp Earth Balance
2 1/2 cups red Spanish peanuts, skin-on
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla extract

I could not find any red Spanish peanuts at Whole Foods, so I just went with the bulk regular peanuts. Obviously, I had some strong reservations about using corn syrup. I justified it by reasoning that Christmas candy is supposed to be terrible for you, and who am I to get in the way of Christmas? There is a war on Christmas going on, people, and I know what side I’m on. The side of ~~high-fructose~~ corn syrup.

Chris’s instructions indicated that I ought to grease a sheet of foil (or a marble slab, but who has a marble slab?!) beforehand, because I wouldn’t have time to do it while cooking. That made me anxious.

So did the rest of his instructions, actually. He used a lot of italics to emphasize words like “immediately” and “fast,” and just reading through the recipe made me fairly certain I was bound to mess something up.

So I enlisted the help of my little brother, Brian. I figured that way, if the peanut brittle came out terribly, I could blame it on him.

Brian, not messing anything up.

First, we melted the sugar, water, corn syrup, and Earth Balance over medium-high heat in a big pot. When it started to boil, we dumped in the peanuts and stirred the mixture with a wooden spoon. At this point, we inserted the candy thermometer to keep track of the temperature; when it got to 300 degrees, we were supposed to take it off the heat immediately.

That is, apparently, the "hard crack" temperature, at which the candy becomes perfectly brittle. Obviously, I wanted my peanut brittle to be the equivalent of hard crack. Hard Christmas crack. That stuff's addictive.

Chris’s instructions said we would be “stirring constantly” for twenty minutes or so, so I let Brian take care of that (his arms are significantly more built than mine are, since he works out like a maniac), while I helpfully held the candy thermometer in place. I had to hold it so that it wouldn’t touch the bottom of the pot, or its reading would be skewed.

We were stirring so quickly that the wooden spoon became a blur.

Surprisingly, we weren’t stirring for twenty minutes at all – after only about seven minutes, the thermometer read 300 degrees. I think it’s because we were using an electric stove instead of a cauldron over an open fire, like Chris’s great-great-grandmother. Whatever the reason, we took it off the heat and followed Chris’s next three directions, which read:

- Once you kill the heat, immediately stir in the baking soda. This will make the mixture foam up. Don’t freak. Keep stirring.

- Then, immediately stir in the vanilla. This will make everything smell like toasted marshmallows (and peanuts). Keep stirring all the way to the greased foil/marble slab.

- Dump it, fast fast fast. As close to “all at once” as you can. Luckily, there’s enough oil in the candy that you shouldn’t have too much sticking to the sides of the pot.

Oh, the anxiety! All those italics. As Brian kept stirring like the gym rat he is, I added the baking soda. When it foamed up, I was tempted to freak, but I remembered that Chris’s instructions had explicitly said not to freak. So I remained calm and added the vanilla.

When it was time to dump it (fast, fast, fast!), we recruited my mom as an extra spreader. I poured the molten candy onto the pre-greased foil while she and Brian frantically spread it around with wooden spoons until it just wouldn’t spread any more:

We let it sit for two hours. While we waited, we played Parcheesi and stared at the cooling tray longingly. Finally, it was cool enough to eat:

Here I hold, in my hot little hipster hands, a delicious heart attack.

It was delicious! Perfectly brittle and the right combination of sweet and nutty. And it was a huge hit at the Christmas caroling party. Thanks, Linda and Chris (and Chris’s great-great-grandmother)!

Restaurant Review: Sublime (Award for Most Ridiculous Bathroom Soundtrack)

2011-12-16T10:33:00.000-08:00

Before last week, I only used the word "sublime" in reference to the 19th-century literary concept (or the ska punk band whose 1996 hit "What I Got" made me wish my mom smoked pot so I could sing about not getting angry). But Sublime is also the name of what seems to be the only 100% vegan restaurant in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. And "sublime" is a pretty good descriptor of the meal I ate there on Wednesday night with Victoria and Kinley.

In addition to a bunch of food-related awards, Sublime has won the Zagat award for décor, and it’s obvious why: the atmosphere feels like a swanky restaurant in a hotel lobby. Palm trees extend toward skylights and there is even one of those fancy walls that look like they’re made of falling water.

But what stuck out to me the most, as ridiculous as this sounds, was the bathroom soundtrack. I noticed pretty quickly that the musical accompaniment to my bathroom, er, activities was a catchy tune with lyrics along the lines of, "Germs and dirt can make you sick, so wash your hands – quick, quick, quick!" It was reminiscent of those instructional songs that maniacally happy traveling groups perform for impressionable children in elementary school multi-purpose rooms.

As I washed my hands – over and over, compulsively, since the song was making me anxious – I waited to hear what would come next. Was this an entire CD of similar cleanliness-themed children’s songs? The "Wash, wash, wash" song ended… and then it started right back up again. It was playing on loop!

Baffled not only as a patron of the restaurant but as a musicologist, I left the bathroom to report back to Victoria and Kinley. Obviously, they jumped up immediately to go experience the "Wash your hands" soundtrack for themselves. In between hilarious trips to the bathroom, we managed to immensely enjoy our meals.

We started with the gardein sliders, which were topped with Daiya cheddar cheese. There were four of them, which meant that we each got one and then had to awkwardly slice the fourth one into three equal parts:

Our waiter, Julian (who was quite knowledgable and helpful), brought out some complimentary pesto polenta to have with our sliders as an appetizer. This dish started off on the right foot with me by being complimentary. But beyond that, its texture and pesto flavoring made it much more interesting than the boring bread most restaurants bring you:

For my main dish, I went with the mushroom ravioli. The combination of tomato "butter" sauce, basil, and whatever delicious ingredients they put into the cashew cream was incredible. I’m glad I ordered the large size, because I ate them all up rather quickly:

Kinley, who has been a vegetarian for over a year, opted for the Singapore Street Noodles (rice noodles, Asian vegetables, red pepper, water chestnut, curry, ginger, cilantro, basil, and chili sriracha sauce). She gave me a little bit to try, but they were too spicy for me:

Victoria ordered the Wolf’s Thai Pizza, which uses thai peanut sauce instead of tomato sauce and doesn’t even bother with a cheese substitute. Instead, it’s topped with snap peas, red peppers, marinated tofu, green onions, cilantro, and roasted peanuts:

We shared a bottle of cabernet sauvignon from La Parra vegan winery in Chile. The fact that Sublime, an all-vegan restaurant, offers some wines from non-certified-vegan wineries makes me feel less self-conscious about my lack of wine discrimination. If it’s wine – especially if it’s red wine – I’ll drink it, certified vegan or not.

Julian recommended the coconut cake (white cake with a coconut butter crème) for dessert, and obviously I took his advice. It was served with an almond tuile ("tuile" is the word you use if you want to refer to a really thin, sweet cookie or wafer but you can’t bring yourself to be un-fancy for even a second), which provided a nice contrast in texture when eaten in the same bite as the moist cake:

From the complimentary pesto polenta to the heavenly coconut cake, my meal at Sublime was, at the risk of sounding redundant, just sublime.

Except for the bizarre bathroom music, for which I have decided to invent the Meghan the Veghan Award for "Most Ridiculous Bathroom Soundtrack." I listened to the singer’s instructions (I had no choice!) and "wash, wash, washed my hands" so many times and so vigorously that now they’re all red and raw. Gross.

(Swedish) Pakistani Stew

2011-12-12T09:28:00.000-08:00

I’m on vacation in Fort Lauderdale, visiting one of my best friends from college, Victoria. One of our other best friends, Kinley, showed up a couple days ago and we’ve been reliving our glory days: staying out way too late and making Victoria’s mom come pick us up after last call. It’s a bit embarrassing. The only difference is that now one of us is married (ugh… Kinley…) and we’re all approximately 20% less fun.

I can’t complain. Right now, I’m sitting in a lounge chair next to the pool with my laptop sticking to the tops of my thighs which, like the rest of my sunburned body, are steadily accumulating a slimy film of sweat. It’s awesome.

Why, you might ask, don’t I just take advantage of the similarly hot and sunny weather where I live, in Santa Barbara? The answer, I suppose, is that this type of relaxation is addictive. If I give myself one beach day at home, I will never return from the beach and, consequently, never finish my graduate degree. Give me an inch and I take a mile, you know how it goes with me.

In addition to being my first Florida vacation in years, this is also my first time being a house guest as a vegan. My original strategy was to prepare a vegan dish for everyone else to try along with their normal-people meal, but that strategy has been derailed.

That’s because Victoria’s mother, Martha, discovered a vegetarian Swedish cookbook that had been gifted to her years ago when one of her cousins went through a week-long vegetarian phase. Martha is Colombian, but she learned Swedish for love about thirty years ago and so she went about translating a few vegan recipes I might be interested in.

We settled on the recipe for Pakistani Stew. Well, it’s what Swedish people perceive as Pakistani Stew. If you're getting bored of this blog post, and if you happen to understand Swedish, feel free to just use the recipe below:

The best part about this meal, other than that it tasted wonderful, was that we all got to participate in preparing it. Martha translated the (rather simple) Swedish directions aloud in her Spanish-accented English and we all got to work.

Here’s what we did:

(Swedish) Pakistani Stew

¼ head white cabbage
1 head cauliflower
2 carrots
1 onion, diced
4 potatoes, diced
1 can whole tomatoes
1 packet frozen peas
4 tbsp olive oil
½ tbsp cumin
½ tbsp cinnamon
2 cups water salt to taste
cilantro to taste

We chopped up the cabbage, cauliflower, carrots, onion, and potatoes, and tossed them into a pot to cook in olive oil on medium heat. It took about ten minutes of stirring for them to become rather tender:

Then we added the peas (a “packet” is obviously a vague amount of peas, but we all like peas so I just dumped in an entire frozen bag), tomatoes, cumin, and cinnamon.

After stirring that all together, we added two cups of water and a handful of salt (Martha told me, “Look away!” as she poured in a ~~ridiculous~~ generous amount of salt) and let the whole thing simmer for ten more minutes.

We served it over the leftover quinoa from the meal I had made the night before, and it was delicious. I have never combined cumin and cinnamon before, but now that I’ve tried it, it seems like an obvious combination.

Everyone went back for second helpings, and Kinley ate the leftovers for breakfast the following morning. In fact, she's eating them right now, and washing them down with a Bloody Mary. Being married makes you so weird.

An Etiquette Lesson: The Vegan House Guest

2011-12-10T09:26:00.001-08:00

For the first time since becoming a vegan, I'm a guest in a non-vegan household. One of my best friends from college, Victoria, invited me to spend a week at her parents' home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida before I head up to Boston for the rest of my month-long vacation (the one perk of being a graduate student).

Me and Victoria, in love.

This is not the same Victoria who recently visited me in Santa Barbara (though she is equally beautiful and brilliant). This Victoria lives in Bogota, Colombia but has spent the last few months visiting her parents in Florida, where she grew up. Her mother is Colombian and her father is Swedish, and both are friendly, gracious, generally hilarious people.

But I was still nervous at the prospect of staying in a non-vegan household for a week. How would I approach mealtimes? I didn't want to make these wonderful people feel uncomfortable, but neither did I want to eat their Swedish meatballs and Colombian... whatever meat they eat in Colombia. Ham? I don't know. It would be tricky to handle.

I took a red-eye flight and arrived yesterday morning while Victoria was at work as a substitute teacher. Her father made me some fancy Irish oatmeal in hot water and added golden raisins and apples - so far, so good. I decided to go to sleep for as long as possible to avoid any more food encounters until Victoria got home.

It didn't work. I woke up at noon, totally starving. Victoria's father had told me to help myself to whatever vegan things I could find in the kitchen, so I opened the cabinets and discovered a whole container of Seeds of Change quinoa + brown rice packets. Jackpot! I heated one up and ate the whole thing.

When Victoria got home, the first thing we did was go grocery shopping. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as Trader Joe's in Florida, but there was a Whole Foods nearby. I stocked up on bulk quinoa, Daiya vegan mozzarella shreds, Earth Balance, almond milk, and all kinds of veggies. I was prepared for the week!

Victoria had a great idea for approaching mealtimes with her parents. They would cook and eat whatever they would normally cook and eat, and I could make a vegan dish to share with everyone (and obviously eat most of it myself).

Last night when we got home from grocery shopping, only Victoria's mom was around for dinner. So I decided to make a lot of my favorite go-to vegan dinner: quinoa + Daiya + whatever veggies I have + soy sauce. In this case, the veggies on hand were kale, zucchini, and summer squash. Neither Victoria nor her mother was familiar with quinoa, so I got to show them how to cook it (which is not too exhilarating, but I get my thrills where I can).

When the quinoa was ready, we melted the Daiya into it so it got all sticky and clumpy. Cheezy quinoa! Yum. With veggies and soy sauce, it's a perfect meal. Victoria and her mom loved it and helped themselves to seconds. It felt good to share a vegan meal I had invented myself with them. We sat around and finished off two bottles of wine while chatting about love, cultural differences, and Republicans.

So far, so good. My philosophy when staying with non-vegans, I decided, is to let my commitment to being a good house guest trump my commitment to being an obnoxious vegan. I'm not going to stray from my vegan diet, but neither am I going to talk anyone's ear off about why my meal is better than theirs. I'll let you know how it goes!

"C" Is for Christ!-(These Cookies Are Vegan?!)-mas

2011-12-08T13:25:00.001-08:00

I realize this is the second cookie recipe I’ve posted in a row. If that bothers you… well, sorry I’m not sorry. It’s Christmastime, Mr. Grinch!

Besides, I had to post this recipe because of the amazed reaction it got from my omnivorous friends. There is something quite satisfying about omnivores trying something I've made and remarking, “This is vegan?!” It’s the exact opposite of the feeling I get when I totally botch calculating the tip at a restaurant and my friends exclaim in disbelief, “You went to Harvard?!”

But as I got started on my chocolate chunk cookies, I was beginning to wish I had paid more attention in the one math class I took as an undergraduate. Or, you know, in sixth grade when I learned how to add fractions. I was trying to do math in my head (calculating the ratio of dry ingredients to wet ingredients can be tricky!) and I ended up adding altogether too many chocolate chunks.

Okay, full disclosure: I got a little excited and just dumped in the whole 10-oz bag. These cookies turned out to be little more than some cookie dough holding together ridiculous amounts of chocolate chunks.

I was baking the cookies to bring to the sparkle-themed Christmas party my friends Katie and Kacey were hosting (don’t act surprised that I have the type of friends who throw sparkle-themed parties). Since I (incredibly) don’t own any sparkly clothing or accessories, I figured I’d better bring some delicious cookies to make up for it.

As unbelievable as it sounds, I had thus far not invented a recipe for vegan chocolate chip cookies. Back in my very early days as a vegan, I turned to a helpful instructional video for a recipe that worked just fine. But now it was time to get creative! I had a bag of vegan dark chocolate chunks in my refrigerator so I decided to go for it – chocolate chip cookies are pretty hard to mess up, I figured.

Vegan Chocolate Chunk Cookies
(makes about 24)

2 cups flour
1/2 cup Earth Balance
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup organic white sugar
2 tbsp flax meal + 4 tbsp water (equivalent of 2 eggs)
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt 10 oz. vegan dark chocolate chunks (or to taste)
2 tsp vanilla extract

While the oven preheated to 350 degrees, I mixed the flour, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl together. Then I melted the Earth Balance, brown sugar, and white sugar together in a sauce pan on the stove top, over medium heat. I just wanted to see what would happen if instead of melting the butter substitute on its own, I made a yummy sugary mixture all at once.

When the Earth Balance and sugar were melted, I added the flax meal + water combination and the vanilla extract and stirred it all together. It was tempting to just drink it straight out of the sauce pan - it smelled delicious - but it was scalding hot so I abstained.

Then I poured the hot, wet ingredients into the bowl of dry ingredients and mixed it all together. It has since occurred to me that this is backward from the usual combination method - dry ingredients slowly stirred in to wet ingredients - but hey, I never took a baking class at Harvard. If they even offered one (and I have a sneaking suspicion they did), I would have been too busy not learning how to calculate a tip properly to enroll, anyway.

When the batter was all sticky and gooey, I dumped in an entire 10 oz. bag of dark chocolate chunks. Then I packed the batter into little 2-inch balls and arranged them on a cookie sheet. I baked the cookies for just eight minutes, since I wanted them to be moister than the gingerbread crisps I had baked a few days earlier.

It worked! They were a total hit at the sparkle-themed party. I had the satisfaction of smiling and shouting, "Yes!" when person after person approached me to exclaim something along the lines of, "Christ! These cookies are vegan?!" These were the messiest, gooiest chocolate chunk cookies I'd ever eaten. I think they more than made up for my lack of sparkles.

It's Beginning to Smell A Lot Like Gingerbread

2011-12-06T10:34:00.001-08:00

There’s not much to complain about in the way of weather here in sunny Santa Barbara. But around this time of year, it’s hard not to notice the distinct lack of, well, anything remotely Christmassy happening. There is no crisp bite in the air to nip my nose, no blustery wind to knock me over as I bustle down the street laden with shopping bags, and certainly no snow.

But Erin and I have been doing what we can to bring some Christmas spirit to our rickety old cottage. A few days ago, we wanted to immerse all our senses in said Christmas spirit. That meant turning on Love Actually (to satisfy our sense of sight); drinking wine (sense of taste); blasting holiday music (sense of hearing – and yes, the combination of holiday music and the sound from Love Actually resulted in Christmassy cacophony); bundling up in hats and scarves (sense of touch – and general warmth because, as I’ve implied, our cottage is old and drafty at night). But what about our sense of smell?

We’d have to bake gingerbread cookies! This was on Erin’s agenda anyway, since she likes to gift little packets of cookies to our friends each year. But these gingerbread cookies would be vegan. Here’s what we used:

Vegan Gingerbread Crisps

6 cups unbleached white flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tbsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 cup shortening, melted
1 cup molasses
1 cup packed brown sugar
½ cup water
1 egg substitute (1 tbsp ground flax meal + 2 tbsp water)
1 tsp vanilla extract

Frosting
powdered sugar
almond milk

Because this recipe involves taking a three-hour break while the dough sits in the refrigerator, we got started early in the afternoon. I have to admit, Erin did most of the baking on her own because I was too busy dancing around and lip-syncing U2’s version of “Christmas Baby Please Come Home,” using a rolling pin as a microphone.

She sifted together the flour, baking powder, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon in a big bowl. She mixed the shortening, molasses, brown sugar, water, flax, and vanilla in another bowl. Then she told me to knock off my ridiculous dancing and help her combine the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients. We alternated who poured the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and who got to use the mixer:

We divided the dough into three chunks and wrapped them in plastic wrap, then stuck them in the refrigerator for three hours. This gave us enough time to take care of less important tasks (I graded my students’ final papers and Erin pretended to write her masters thesis).

After three hours, Love Actually was turned back on and the holiday music was cranked back up (obviously, we had never taken off our scarves, hats, and mittens, nor had we stopped drinking wine), and we got to the fun part.

We preheated the oven to 350 degrees. Then we sprinkled some cutting boards with flour and rolled the dough out flat. It was at that point that we discovered we had no cookie cutters. We would have to use the rim of a glass cup to make circular cookies, and knives to design our own gingerbread shapes. Erin had more success with this step than I did; her stars and holly shapes were much more accurate than my ~~bathroom door symbols~~ gingerbread people:

Since my cookie-design skills are less than exemplary, one of the gingerbread woman’s legs was significantly thicker than the other. But she was beautiful anyway. And to be honest, Erin's "reindeer" looked more like a dog. There, I said it.

We baked them for ten minutes, until they were just barely brown on the bottom. Then it was time to frost them. To make the frosting, we mixed powdered sugar and almond milk in a dish until it was the consistency of Elmer’s glue. Then we poured it into a plastic bag and used scissors to make a tiny incision at the tip of one of the corners. This made it easy to squirt the frosting wherever we wanted it, and since it was so thick it didn't melt or spread out.

The cookies tasted great but were kind of crunchy - hence gingerbread crisps instead of plain old gingerbread cookies. Erin was disappointed because she likes her cookies like she likes her amphibians: nice and moist. But I thought they were perfect, and they made our little cottage smell delicious.

App Happy: Vegan Xpress

2011-12-02T17:50:00.001-08:00

I am generally suspicious of anything that makes use of the metaphor "express." Unless you're my therapist trying to get me to express my emotions so we can get to the bottom of my irrational fear of fireplaces, I don't want to hear it. At least the Polar Express is an ~~actual~~ fictional train. In 2008, there was no way I was getting on board John McCain's "straight talk express" - heck, I don't even shop at Express.

So when my only vegan friend (and founder of Go Vegan Santa Barbara), Carrie, told me about the iPhone app Vegan Xpress last month, naturally I was skeptical. Not only did the title of this app abuse the word "express," it went the extra step and dropped the "e." Dropping the "e" in "express" is probably only trumped in absurdity by replacing the "c" in words like "candy" with a "k."

But a recent experience at In-N-Out burger changed my mind about the Vegan Xpress app. No, I don't regularly frequent In-N-Out, but my friend Victoria was visiting California for the first time, and when she brought it up, I couldn't deny her the experience. So while she nommed on her animal style burger, I snacked on a side of fries.

I knew they were vegan because I had Googled it (and Google is obviously always right). But it occurred to me how handy it would be to have an app that would list vegan options at restaurants that didn't prioritize vegan patrons: accidental vegan options, like the fries at In-N-Out.

I got pretty excited at the idea of inventing this app, but then I remembered that it already existed: Vegan Xpress. So yesterday I decided to purchase it.

Now, the only thing I dislike more than the appropriation of the word "express" is paying money for iPhone apps. My iPhone cost enough money already. But I justified this $1.99 splurge by telling myself that it would save me the gas money I would otherwise waste while driving around looking for a vegan restaurant.

The app does four things. First, it lists vegan offerings at normal-people restaurants. So if I (heaven forbid) end up at a Taco Bell with my omnivorous friends, I can check out Vegan Xpress and... boom! I'm ordering the Fresco Bean Burrito. If I end up at Carl's Jr. I'm screwed, unless I feel like drinking some BBQ sauce.

And now I know that while the french fries at In-N-Out are, in fact, vegan (as are the fries at Burger King), the fries at McDonald's are not (except, apparently, in Canada).

The second thing the app does is list foods you can buy in a grocery store that are surprisingly vegan. For instance, almost any Wonka candy - Gobstoppers, Laffy Taffy, you name it - is vegan, and so are unfrosted pop tarts! Disturbingly, almost every kind of Oreo cookie is also vegan... so what the heck is the "cream" filling?

But the best thing about Vegan Xpress is its last two functions: beer and wine. The app gets its info from Barnivore.com, which lists vegan beers, wines, and liquors. Now, I've known about Barnivore for a while, but the convenience of having an app to refer to while I'm wine shopping cannot be overstated.

I've never made much of a point about drinking vegan wines, just because it's pretty impossible to tell which wines are vegan. Some vegans steer clear of wine all together for this reason, but... yeah, that's not gonna happen for me. So now, a quick consultation with Vegan Xpress can give me some peace of mind!

In fact, my mind is feeling very peaceful, since I am sipping on some vegan wine at this very moment. I was going to use it to cook something, but then I got distracted writing this post. Thanks, Vegan Xpress.

Restaurant Review: Fresheast in West Hollywood

2011-11-28T10:18:00.001-08:00

After a wonderful visit full of dancing, spontaneous handstands, and persinnamon cookies, I had to drive my friend Victoria to the LAX airport so she could fly back to the east coast. Before saying goodbye, we decided to have lunch at Fresheast (which, despite its name, is in West Hollywood).

Not everything on the menu is vegan, but the many vegan options are marked with a little green leaf and almost anything can be easily veganized (and prepared with separate cookware). All the ingredients used at Fresheast are local and organic and no menu item includes refined sugars or transfats.

Beyond that, all the VerTerra plateware and utensils are - I kid you not - made of nothing more than fallen leaves and water; in fact, the entire building is constructed of recycled woods. If you show up on a bike or in a hybrid car, or if you bring your own container or cup, you get a 10% discount.

There are so many good, green things about this restaurant that my head almost exploded into a million little sustainable pieces (which the folks at Fresheast totally would have repurposed into table settings or something).

Executive chef Jonathan Schwichtenberg does not, as his name might suggest, prepare only meals involving schnitzel and bratwurst. Rather, the whole menu is inspired by Korean, Chinese, Thai, Japanese, and Indian food. It’s relatively affordable, too: the most expensive item on the menu is $13.95.

And now, full disclosure: Fresheast’s public relations representatives contacted me about trying this restaurant, and my meal there was on them. But I have hated free food in the past (hello, spicy tofu samples at the mall), so I wasn’t about to let the fact that this meal was free sway my assessment of it.

Victoria and I each ordered a juice to go with our meal – after my overwhelming experience cleaning my own juicer last week, I was totally down to let someone else handle all that for me. I went with the Fresheast Juice (orange, lemon, apple, cucumber, spinach, kale, and red beets), which tasted like a refreshing wake-up punch in the side of the face:

We enjoyed a family-style feast of the following dishes:

Spicy garlic noodles

Tiger tofu

Avocado rolls

Palak paneer with tofu instead of paneer cheese

The spicy garlic noodles were, of course, too spicy for me to handle. I gave them a taste and then had to chug about a quarter of my juice to get the horror out of my mouth. But everyone else seemed to enjoy them.

The tiger tofu, on the other hand, was delightful. The menu describes the "tiger" sauce as "a perfect mixture of sweetness and Korean bold spice," and I'm inclined to agree. All those fresh grilled veggies were delicious, too.

The avocado rolls were out of this world. I think the only other avocado rolls I've tried were from the Cheesecake Factory in my pre-vegan days, and these ones definitely put them to shame. Unfortunately, there was only one roll for each of us; I could have eaten the whole plate myself.

I was kind of disappointed with the tofu palak paneer; it wasn't super flavorful. That's probably because the "paneer" part was missing in this veganized version, so the whole thing was toned down. At least it didn't attack my tongue with hot spice the way most Indian food does.

All in all, Fresheast gets my full recommendation to vegans and non-vegans alike. I plan to spend a good portion of the next year or so of my life lobbying the owners to open a branch in Santa Barbara so I can dine out there whenever I feel like being sustainable and/or ethnic.