vegansaurus!

Like most of you palate-less plebes, I love peanut butter and chocolate; I believe I’ve spoken before about how much I like peanut butter and chocolate sandwich cookies especially. Of course best are homemade cookies, and being a very selective egomaniac, I feel that my cookies are the best cookies, so ideally when I am eating a chocolate cookie with peanut butter filling, it is one I’ve baked myself.

Recently I* tried out such a recipe from Isa and Terry’s upcoming cookie cookbook

, a  little confection they call “peanut butter pillows” (note: I’m not special, Isa posted it in the PPK blog). It looked tasty enough, and as lazy as I am (read: extremely), sometimes even I can’t resist making one little batch of cookies.

They reminded me a lot of another bake-in peanut butter and chocolate cookie I’d made before and loved, this one from Kittee at Cake Maker to the Stars. These were some amazing cookies, really satisfying for breakfast; and something about the salty peanut butter plus the bittersweet chocolate chips plus the sweet, buttery cookie created about the best flavor and texture combinations I’ve experienced in a cookie in some time. Dang.

You can see why I was excited to test this new, similar recipe; a person can’t have too many good cookie recipes, and anyway if this one was maybe a little less laborious, or (somehow) tastier, so much the better.

Unfortunately, things didn’t work out so swimmingly. These Isa-created pillows baked up fine, but neither their texture nor

flavor was really any good. Mostly they needed a lot of salt, but more than that, the peanut butter filling was all wrong. It was all kinds of disappointing, eating these little bastards. Didn’t stop us from finishing the batch (not much could), but believe me, I didn’t enjoy the last three I ate at all, not one bite. Even in my favorite soy milk. MAN.

I figured out two major problems with the pillows right away, and I have theorized on further issues, but conclusions remain out of reach, what with not having had any desire to test those theories on a new batch.  Regardless, I can tell you what I know, which is first: they are seriously lacking salt. Isa’s recipe calls for 1/4 tsp., while Kittee’s calls for 1/2 tsp., plus she uses Earth Balance, which is itself salted. I think the most important thing I’ve learned about salt is that you use it to bring out all the other flavors in your food, rather than to make it taste like salt (when you taste

“salt,” it’s over-salted). Without enough salt, Isa’s cookie dough was quite bland, while Kittee’s was strong enough to stand up to the peanut butter, which does tend to overwhelm.

The second problem begins with the preparation of the peanut butter filling: where Kittee combines 1/2 cup of peanut butter with 1/4 cup of brown sugar, Isa mixes 3/4 cup of peanut butter with 2/3 confectioner’s sugar, some soy creamer, and a little vanilla extract. Your peanut butter becomes oversweet, and it loses its good texture, turning all weirdly smooth and sticky. Kittee’s filling is sweeter, of course, but it most definitely retains its peanut buttery qualities.

This leads to the second part of the second problem, which is the ratio of peanut butter  to cookie dough. As you can see in the images provided, Kittee’s cookies are significantly larger than their filling, and even if you increase the amount of peanut butter with which you fill each cookie, like I did when making these glorious angel-foods, the balance of taste and texture between

cookie and filling remains harmonious. Isa’s, on the other hand, have the opposite ratio: a whole lot of filling surrounded by a thinnish layer of cookie; this would be great, really, if the filling weren’t already ruined by all the powdered sugar and creamer. Instead of a big bite of PEANUT BUTTER and chocolate cookie crust, what you get is a mouthful of bland goo and sweetish, chocolate-ish cookie crust. It’s very unpleasant. As a final insult, the cookie then sits in your gut, like a pillow carved of stone, and takes roughly one week to digest.

When I make chocolate cookies with peanut butter filling again, I am without question using Kittee’s recipe. I can’t imagine wanting to try out those damn “pillows” another time, unless I’m out of options and feeling experimental. Otherwise, what is the point?

Note: I do not know, nor have I had any contact with, the authors of the reviewed recipes.

*All right, I say “I” did this stuff, but I did not really do it alone. Cooking’s always friendlier with two, after all, especially when it involves dough and filling. Part of my secret to good complicated baking is having good help.

Tentatively excited for this movie, a documentary along the lines of Fast Food Nation and Omnivore’s Dilemma.

Enjoy Vegetarian used to have a dish on its menu named “vag ham.” It has since been corrected to read “veg ham,” but for one glorious year, it was known to me and my friends simply as ham of the vag. And it was simply delicious. OKAY SORRY I HAD TO GET THAT OUT THE WAY IT WAS KILLING ME. Oh adorable Chinese-menu-Engrish, I love you. You bring me happiness in a way that few other things do.

Enjoy Vegetarian is a delightful little nook of a Chinese restaurant in the highly public transport accesible Inner Sunset. Almost everything on the enormous menu is vegan (some exceptions are clearly marked) and most all of it is delicious. Try the curry triangles, which are basically mashed potatoes wrapped in phylo and then deep fried. Listen. Potato +

dough + deep fryer = MAGIC. Get at least three orders. Everything on the menu is a pretty solid bet but I’m particularly fond of their salty fish fried rice (it’s salty! and fishy! but not gross and actually delicious! crazy!) and various claypots. The menu is heavy on fake meats of all kinds but they actually have quite a few healthier vegetable options if you roll like that. But then I guess you don’t really roll, you more move your splintery body through space.

Word to the wise: They close between lunch and dinner (from 2:30 to 5 p.m.) so don’t drag your ass all the way out there at 3 jonesing for a curry triangle or seven. Ugh that was an awful day. Also on that day, my car broke down because of lack of gas (WAY TO GO, CAR! WHAT A LOSER!) and I had to hitchhike up Van Ness to get to a fucking gas station and then the foster dog that was in my car locked me

out while I was gone and took a dump on a stack of important papers. Shoot me in the face.

Every once in a while someone asks me if I’m really planning on killing myself and how would I do it because that’s what you’re supposed to ask a potentially suicideal person and to them I say, “I’d SHOOT MYSELF IN THE FACE, dumbass. And listen, if I was gonna kill myself, don’t you think I would have done it by now?? I mean, look at the above scenario and realize this is almost a daily occurance in my life and then you ask me if I’m suicidal again! DO IT!!!” Ugh, actually, I must be the most optomistic fuck on Earth because if that shit combined with the depressing reality of living in this messed-up world doesn’t cause me to put a bullet in my brain, I don’t know what will. Suggestions?

Finally, BEWARE THE FREE DESSERT. It tastes how it looks, and I’m not going to get descriptive on its ass because it’ll get ugly. And it’s not just because I’m Whitey McBoringPalate but also because it’s the funk nasty. Get the oranges instead. Besides, better luck! Chinese people, am I right??

Somewhere in my brain there exists a template for the ideal vegan restaurant. I can’t tell you exactly what it is because I don’t totally know myself. Somewhere in the intersection between Candle 79 in New York, and Paradox Cafe in Portland, perhaps? Does that even make sense?

The Breakroom Cafe, I’m sorry to say, is not that perfect restaurant. I kinda psyched you out with that first paragraph though, right? Well, it’s not and here’s why. First, it isn’t completely vegan. On the bright(er?) side, it’s entirely vegetarian and just about everything on the menu is vegan or easily veganizable, although they do charge extra for a switch to vegan cheese or soy milk (boo!) This by no means detracts from its awesomeness—this is not a negative review!—as they still manage to hit several of my vague notions squarely on the head.

Point One: Delicious sandwiches, large variety of. Like Ike’s in San Francisco, Breakroom offers up some fantastic vegan sandwiches that go above and beyond a PB&BO-RING. Unlike Ike’s, they’re not looking to reinvent the wheel here with crazy new flavor combinations. Instead, they feature old standards like a two-layer club sandwich or turkey and bacon on truly excellent breads. The meatball sub features really good homemade meatballs, too! For an extra $2.25, you can get the sandwiches with a side of excellent vegan potato salad that they make there. The potato salad is pretty crazy, it’s like the insides of a spring vegetable masala dosa from Udupi Palace did it with your typical mayo-full picnic potato salad and produced the most marvelous baby. A whiz kid, if you will.

Point Two: Delicious pastries, homemade. Everything in the pastry case is vegan, which includes—along with your standard Black China cupcakes—homemade cheesecake, cookies, and an amazing pumpkin roll deal that is just pudding/sponge cake delectability.

Point Three: Soup! I have not tried this yet, but another patron was having a bowl, and it looked right up my alley.

Point Four: It’s within walking distance of public transportation, only a few blocks from the 12th St. Bart station in Oakland. It’s also between the Oakland FiDi and Chinatown so it’s great, convenient eating for business people and Chinese folks alike!

Also working in their favor are the facts that they are cute and small and have a rooster on their sign, which I’m guessing is a leftover from whatever restaurant was previously in the building. Genius move to keep that!

Points Five through Ten are on the wishlist, and all involve a deep fryer.

This Monday, as most of us return to our ridiculous jobs, let us celebrate the fun times every vegan has searching for affordable, tasty (read: not insanely expensive and edible) meals in the Financial District. Our guest post is brought to you by the fantastic Sharon who braves through the best and the worst of the Westfield Center Mall so that you may reap the rewards! What a gal!

At my stressful downtown job, the only time I get to myself during the day is my 45-minute lunch break. For whatever reason I almost always I find myself taking solace at the Westfield Center food court. Maybe it’s my Long Island upbringing, but there’s something oddly comforting about the variety of cuisine, the cafeteria trays, and knowing I’m just steps away from a Victoria’s Secret. (Who carries vegan skin care products now! Check it out.)

The Westfield Center has two distinct dining sections: There’s the familiar but pretty gross Panda Express section, which harkens back to my suburban upbringing when I thought a buttery Annie’s pretzel was a pretty good meal; and then, I’m not gonna front, there’s the bourgeois section with its bamboo lighting. The prices are admittedly a little higher, but there’s also a bounty of vegan options. This is my survival guide.

Sorabol: Korean Barbecue and veganism don’t usually go hand in hand, but Sorabol serves an awesome Bi Bim Bop bowl. There are a few tofu dishes as well, but I always go for this veggie bowl full of a variety of fresh and pickled veggies, rice, and jobche noodles.

San Francisco Soup Company: The soups here are great, and they always label what’s vegetarian and dairy-free. The vegan split pea is always on the menu, and there’s usually at least one other vegan special soup. Check out their salads, though. I often go for the Asian Chicken, substituting tofu, but becayse none of the recommended ones are vegan, you can always create your own. Their tofu is smoked and super tasty, and also comes in their yummy vegetarian wrap. Avoid their pre-made wraps though; they taste like plastic.

Out the Door: This is the take-out version of fancy-pantsy Vietnamese-fusion restaurant The Slanted Door. Similarly, it’s not the cheapest choice, but one of the healthier and tastiest. There’s a good variety of vegetable dishes, my favorite of which is the broccoli with five-spice pressed tofu. They often have a vegan curry special as well.

Also worth checking out:
The grilled Mesquite vegetable burrito at Andale Mexican Restaurant; the eggplant and tofu at Coriander Thai; any of the Middle Eastern dishes at Amoura.

What to avoid:
Although they have veggie burgers, Bistro Burger uses the cheesetastic Original Gardenburger. I’ve never even looked at the menu at Buckhorn Steakhouse because their workers bombard you with free samples of cow parts on toothpicks. And Bristol Farms: just don’t do it. It looks all fresh and Whole Foodsy, but their salad bar and hot foods bar are nauseating and ridiculously overpriced. They’re also non-union and always seem to have labor disputes, making your $15 worth of soggy spring rolls so not worth it.

Coming Soon! There’s a restaurant opening called Froots. Their website advertises fresh, healthy foods and smoothies, and I’m excited about the prospect of more vegan choices. There’s nothing sad about that, right?

The answer is in the United States: MOST LIKELY YES (and that includes all of their flavors, from the Golden ones to double stuffed mint! Hello!). In other parts of the world, yes and no. Lesson here: always read the label. Another lesson:

never trust Nabisco, those fuckers will unveganize your favorite accidentally vegan snack before you can say, “Fuck you, Nabis!” SEE HOW THEY DO!!!

However, the fact that they’re vegan doesn’t make them not chemical death. Delicious chemical death but still. Also, Nabisco, for reasons above and many others, is pretty much the devil. If you don’t want to support them or just want a break from supporting them (god knows I love a for real Oreo and the things you can make with them (VEGAN OREO PEANUT BUTTER TRUFFLE I LOVE YOU), you can always indulge in delicious Newman-O’s, Country Choice Sandwich Cremes and Late July Sandwich Cookies in Vanilla Bean with Green Tea and Dark Chocolate! All of these cookies are available in Whole Foods, Rainbow and most health/specialty groceries. Actually, I’ve seen Newman-O’s in Walgreens so don’t sweat it, you can find them.

Oh and Meave points out that I forgot to mention Trader Joe’s Jo-Jo’s! They are delicious, vegan and come in lots of varieties from traditional to Peanut Butter/Chocolate to THE HOLIDAY TIME CANDY CANE JO-JO! Those are the most magical, Chocolate cookies and vanilla cream swirled with bits of candy cane. AMAZING. Plus, awesome for making cupcakes with.

You also want to check at your local grocery store to see if their generic brand offers an Oreo-like cookie. They often do and they’re often vegan.

Homework: eat as many Oreo & Oreo-style cookies as possible. Report back findings/BMI.

Extra credit: Bring me Oreos.

OREO CLASS DISMISSED!

I asked our Twitter followers what their favorite “accidentally vegan” find was and here’s what some people answered:

Oreos and cookies appear to be people’s favorite “can’t believe it’s vegan” snacks. How about you?

Please welcome guest writer and frequent Vegansaurus photograph-provider Joel!

“In 1906, Sing Hau Lee established Quong Hop, the first tofu shop in America.” This was in San Francisco proper; the company now manufactures its soy products in South San Francisco. “He brought with him his family’s tofu-making secrets that had been a tradition for generations.”

Man! That is old! And old things are quality, unless they’re people! I mean really, what else do you need to know? I obviously consider that to be a rhetorical question cause I am about to tell you the rest of what you need to know.

I’ve been eating tofu for many years, friends, and I am pleased to say that Quong Hop tofu is the best I’ve had the pleasure of stuffing in my face. The irregular edges give it a welcome personality that is entirely missing from your average House-brand tofu  bricks. And the flavor and texture are head and shoulders above the rest. Delicate flavor; firm, chewy texture. Great for marinating (it will not fall apart!), great for stir-frying (it still will not fall apart!). The texture becomes a thing of transcendent beauty should you venture to freeze the tofu.

While I’m at it, a quick lesson for those who don’t know. Freezing tofu gives it a meat-like texture,

more porosity, and less water content. This means that frozen tofu will work better in almost any application. Why does this happen? A block of tofu contains many tiny droplets of water, totaling a good portion of the weight. When frozen, water expands. That means that these tiny droplets (a) create holes (“pores”) bigger than normal, and (b) compress the interstitial tofu-matter correspondingly. When the tofu thaws, the network of newly enlarged pores allows the water to drain out.

To freeze tofu, simply pop it in the freezer in its original packaging. Once it has frozen solid, move it back to the fridge to thaw. After it’s thawed, drain and use as normal. If you’re in a rush, thaw it in the microwave. If you’re feeling dedicated, leave it out to thaw and put some weight on it so that it newly melted water is immediately drained—this will yield the best texture but is probably not worth the work unless you’re showing off. The simplest thing to do is thaw in the fridge and then squeeze the water out with your bare hands, over the sink. The freezing will have toughened the  tofu so it won’t crumble, and the porosity will be such that your hands can easily get most of the water out. This is cool because you can feel like some sort of macho he-man*, able to dry a block of tofu with nothing but a spasm of your mighty delts.

No matter what, you do want to drain some

water, but this is where things get tricky. Depending on the application, you might want to treat it differently. For dishes where you’ll be cooking the tofu in a sauce—curries or soups, for instance—you want to drain all the water you can, lest it dilute the cooking liquid. If your recipe cooks the tofu over a fairly low heat, or for a fairly short time—pan-frying with vegetables, maybe—you’ll want to squeeze out most but not all of the water. And if you’ll be cooking over high heat, or for a long time, you’ll want to squeeze out only a little of the water. My example for this is stir-fries. I want my tofu to get nice and crispy, so I cook it over very high heat for about five minutes. If I had squeezed out all the water, it would end up hard and dry through and through. Instead, most of the water I left in steams out

the top while the bottom crisps, and is then replaced by the stock or sauce added in the last portion of the stir-fry. Magic!

If this was too in-depth an exploration of cooking nerdery for you, just squeeze out about half the water. Everything will be ok.

Now! My minions! Take your new knowledge and show the tofu-doubters in your life what’s what! Although, for practical reasons, you might want to try it out once or twice by yourself. Get the technique down, and get all the he-man grunting out of the way in private.

______________

*or, uh, a mucha she-woman?**

**obviously I know that the female counterpart to He-Man is She-Ra but that’s not exactly germane to a blog about veganism, is it? Why don’t you write your own blog post about it over at NerdsFightingAboutHe-Man.com and we can talk about it there.

Nerd.

Today, celebrate the Earth and how awesome it is by giving up meat, dairy, and eggs! Together we can make a diffference! I am a total hippie!

Check out the PDF report from HSUS, which includes the findings of the 2006 United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization Report, Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options, “stating that the livestock business generates more greenhouse gas emissions than all forms of transportation combined.”

Not only that but:

It takes 2500 gallons of water to produce a pound of meat, but only 60 gallons of water to produce a pound of wheat. A plant-based diet requires a total of 300 gallons of water per day, while a meat-based diet requires more than 4,000 gallons of water per day. The livestock sector is also a key player in increasing water use, accounting for over 8 percent of global human water use, mostly for the irrigation of feedcrops. It is probably the largest sectoral source of water pollution, contributing to eutrophication*, “dead” zones in coastal areas, degradation of coral reefs, human health problems, emergence of antibiotic resistance and many others.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that livestock waste has polluted more than 27,000 miles of rivers. GAH!!!!

80 percent of the agricultural land in the United States is used to raise animals for food. It takes up to 16 pounds of grain to produce just one pound of edible animal flesh. Think of all the humans we could feed if we used that land to grow more fruits, vegetables and grains for people? World hunger could be eradicated!

And to those folks who “only eat fish”: don’t even get me started on how fishing is basically strip-mining the oceans! THAT IS NOT GREEN, A-HOLES! The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization reports that the aquaculture industry is growing three times faster than land-based animal agriculture, and fish farms will surely become even more prevalent as our natural fisheries become exhausted. Conditions on aquafarms are so horrendous that on some farms, 40 percent of the fish may die before farmers can kill and package them for food. Aquafarms squander resources—it can take five pounds of wild-caught fish to produce just one pound of farmed fish—and pollute the environment with tons of fish feces, antibiotic-laden fish feed, and diseased fish carcasses. Also, ever notice the amazing amount of fish that fish-eating “vegetarians” consume? They never choose the veg options! They are just big fish-eating machines! They make up those cows and chickens in fishes.

And while going completely vegan is ideal because it’s the absolute best thing for the earth, you can make a difference by cutting back today. Every hour in the United States, one million animals are killed for human consumption. If all the omnivores cuts back on their animal consumption by only 10 percent, approximately one billion animals would be spared a lifetime of suffering each year.

And on that happy note, Happy Earth Day!

*eutrophication: excessive nutrients in a body of water, frequently due to runoff from the land, which causes a dense growth of plant life and death of animal life from lack of oxygen.

Good Magazine posts this nice-looking infographic showing the cost, in gallons of water, of various foods and activities. It would have been nice if they had compared a hamburger to a veggie burger instead of a boring-looking salad, and compared beef to tofu or seitan instead of to chicken. And what about the cost of a bottle of water, shipped from, say, Fiji?

Framed this way, I don’t know if these are hard truths hitting home so much as gently rapping. But more of this kind of thing in the national consciousness certainly can’t hurt.

(via kottke.org)

Gavin Newsom* did the right thing this week, he removed foie gras from the menu of all his PlumpJack restaurants. This follows the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimous vote to commend restaurants that don’t serve it. (Not a ban, dumbasses. I don’t expect SFist to publish anything worth reading but to just print lies? World Class, you guys.)

Foie gras is, like, the weirdest thing to me. It’s DISEASED LIVER. Liver is the part of the body that produces URINE and BILE. It’s responsible for much detoxification by metabolizing and/or secreting environmental toxins and potentially harmful biochemical products produced by the body. Then, you add in the fact that the liver you’re eating is so bloated and diseased that it can’t properly function and you have a huge gland of bile, urine, toxins, biochemical waste and whatever else is trapped in there. EAT UP!

Wayne Pacelle, of the Humane Society of the United States, had a powerful blog post about Foie Gras up now. I’ll post part of it below but you can read the rest here.

“… [I]f there’s anything I’ve learned in more than 20 years of campaigning for animals, it’s that regardless of how pointless the cruelty, there will always be those who will excuse or defend it. The cockfighters say the birds fight voluntarily. The puppy millers claim they are just supporting a market demand. Aerial wolf killers say that they are protecting moose and caribou to keep game herd abundant for rural communities.

The fact is, some will say just about anything to defend cruelty. As Ruth Harrison, author of the groundbreaking 1964 anti-factory farming book Animal Machines, wrote:

“If one person is unkind to an animal it is considered to be cruelty, but where a lot of people are unkind to animals, especially in the name of commerce, the cruelty is condoned and, once large sums of money are at stake, will be defended to the last by otherwise intelligent people.”

It’s our job to take a stand and compel people to examine long-held assumptions. Foie gras should be an easy call for any person with a serious view of animal welfare.”

*I’ll forgive his hair. For the week.

Hello AWESOME Vegansaurus Readers.

First, you are so awesome.

Second, The Healthy School Lunches campaign that Laura is working on with Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) has been gaining huge momentum in Congress. It’s looking more and more like getting healthy nondairy vegetarian food and nondairy beverages into the National School Lunch Program could actually freaking happen. It’s SUPER exciting.

The one area we really need help in is gathering signatures from the constituents of Congressman George Miller of Contra Costa and Solano counties. He is especially important because he chairs the committee that will vote on implementing these changes. We need signatures to show Congressman Miller that his voters care about getting better nutrition to children. The problem is, it’s very hard to get activists in that area motivated and so I’m reaching out to you, the beautiful and wonderful readers of Vegansaurus!

Can you devote a weekend day in the next month to collecting signatures in Contra Costa or Solano County? I will get you everything you need to make this successful, including a buddy if you don’t want to do it alone! If you don’t live near those counties, I’m organizing carpools from San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley EVERY SINGLE WEEKEND DAY IN APRIL to get you out there!  This is the absolute easiest thing to petition for and you’re doing something AMAZING for countless animals and children nationwide!

If you’re interested, email Laura at lbeck(at)pcrm.org with the specific day/s you are available to petition. Let me know where you live and if you need a ride (or if you have a car and can drive). When leaving from SF and Oakland/Berkeley, we’ll probably leave the city at 11 a.m. and get back around 3-4 p.m., so it won’t even take up most of your day. One day WILL help. I want to create this schedule now, so please email and let me know if you can come out.

If you can’t come because you live too far away or for whatever other reasons, you can downloaded petitions from our grassroots website and collect signatures from your family and friends! As a substitute/addition to petitioning, you can write to your congressional reps and ask for these changes—check out the sample letters! Please send a letter to your congressperson today. (click here to find out who your congressperson is and their mailing address! Please mail the letter to their D.C. address!)

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!

Amici’s pizza has seriously stepped up the New York-style pizza game in San Francisco. As of this past weekend, they started serving vegan cheese. It’s melty, gooey, tasty Cheezly vegan cheese* and it is marvelous. A little vegan birdie told me that this would be happening months ago and I dared to dream but didn’t think too much about it because if it didn’t happen, I would’ve been all stabby. But then the day came and vegan cheese is on the menu and, my friends, it is a damn good day.

Amici’s is a local chain with two restaurants in San Francisco and the others spread out all over, from San Rafael to VACAVILLE. HOLD THE PHONE. YOU CAN GET VEGAN CHEESE PIZZA DELIVERED TO YOUR HOUSE IN VACAVILLE?! Yes, yes you can. And oh yeah, they have a pretty large delivery area so check their website to see if you can get it delivered right to your mouth. And the variety of toppings is outrageous. We got our pizza with fried eggplant, slow-roasted garlic, carmelized onions, roasted red peppers and artichoke hearts. It was about $30 for a large but you know what? It will make two meals for two people. Not bad. Also

, I have salad makings from Farm Fresh to You so I GUESS I can/should/won’t eat the delicious yet fatty pizza with a disgusting yet nutritious salad. I GUESS. Ugh, why does FFtY not deliver vegan pizza and chocolate bonbon’s?! I’m turning into some unnatural combination of Peg and Al Bundy over here. Help.

So stop reading this and get on their site and ORDER ONLINE (no talking to another human! Can I get a what-what for the technology!?) and have vegan pizza at your doorstep in 45 minutes. Oh and let them know you’re thankful for the vegan cheese and maybe one day soon, they’ll start offering their four-cheese lasagna vegan-style. Hyperventilating at the thought. They could use Cheezly, Dr. Cow, Sheese and Teeze and make THE MOTHER OF ALL VEGAN LASAGNAS!!! Ugh, now I’m Garfield.

*Cheezly is a hard to find British vegan cheese that they’re now selling at Rainbow! I like the extra melty mozzarella and the bacon flavored best. The bacon-flavored cheese is especially good for mixing into creamy sauces, gives them a carbonara flavor! Ow!