vegansaurus!

Once a year fancy-shmancy Millennium turns into a trailer trash hootenany. It’s called the Southern Comfort Dinner and it’s a meal you don’t want to miss if you’re a fan of foods like FRIED EVERYTHING and SUNDAE BARS. If you don’t have an eating disorder (or are looking to start one! ‘Tis the season!), I’ll see you on May 21st! I’ll be the girl who keeps eating through the pain; they just shouldn’t give people like me access to an all-you-can-eat dessert bar. It’s just bad for business.

click here for the menu from last year.

click here to see the appetizers from last year and here for the “catfish” po’ boy! Oh and don’t forget the DRANKS! Love, I know thy name and it is $5 mint julep!

Make reservations because the dinner fills up FAST! Vegans ain’t stupid, we need our fatty fried food fix just like the rest of you assholes!

AND FINALLY I PRESENT TO YOU, the Sundae Bar in action:

PS: As is sort of evident from the above photo, the waitstaff really take the “trailer trash” theme seriously, and they dress the part to EXTREMES. You can too! Wifebeaters are unisex and uni-trashy.

Inspired by being broke, loving food, and having a certain amount of free time, Joel and I made yogurt last weekend. What with my love of yogurt and Joel’s love of making everything at home, it seemed like a good idea, especially considering we could make plain yogurt that, presumably, wouldn’t have that awful mayonnaise taste of commercial plain soy yogurts. We followed this this suspiciously easy-looking recipe that Joel found in The New York Times.

Ingredients
soymilk
soy yogurt
(the ratio is one quart soymilk to two tablespoons soy yogurt)

Equipment
pot
measuring spoon
spoon
small bowl
one-quart-plus capacity jar/bowl with a lid
thermometer (optional, but recommended)
cheesecloth (optional, but recommended)

A note: We used plain, unsweetened, organic WestSoy brand soymilk (ingredients: soy beans, water); this gave our yogurt an unmistakably soy flavor. Results, I assume, will vary with different soymilks.

First, pour your soymilk into the pot; heat until it reaches between 180 and 190 degrees Fahrenheit, or when it’s steaming and starting to bubble. Turn off the heat and let the milk sit until it reaches about 115-120 degrees F/ it is warm but no longer steaming. 

Of course, this “steaming” business also depends on the temperature of your house, so it is probably better to have a cooking thermometer. Anyway, once the soymilk has cooled off, pour a little bit of it into a small bowl, and mix with the two tablespoons of soy yogurt. We used Whole Soy brand vanilla flavor, because that was what I had in the fridge. Now, pour the yogurt mixture into the pot of soymilk, and stir to combine.

Next, pour the contents of the pot into your jar/lidded bowl/some kind of insulated bottle, if you have one of those in the right size, and cover it. What you want to do now is keep this container in a warm place, like inside 

your oven with the light on. That worked for the author of the Times article; because his oven doesn’t have a light, Joel heated his oven to 350, turned it off, waited until it reached about 100 degrees, and put the jar inside. Then, you wait.

During this waiting period, which the first time took something like 36-48 hours, let’s talk about why we love yogurt. You might call it an obsession, but there’s a lot to say and you have a lot of waiting to do, so let’s get to it.

Back when I was an uneducated, dairy-loving young’un, I ate as much plain yogurt as I could. My mother basically raised me on plain yogurt, homemade bread, and Moosewood recipes; she used to make her own yogurt, which was the best I’d ever tasted. Once it had cooled, you could take your spoon and skim the top layer of delicate little bubbles off, with just a smidgen of actual yogurt, and then you licked it off and smiled and plunged your spoon right into the center of the yogurt and turned it around in one perfect circle, and put that first proper spoonful of yogurt into your mouth and oh it was so creamy and tart and tangy and smooth.

In short, before I gave up dairy for the sake of the cows (the cows!), I was a goddamn yogurt connoisseur.

We never bought flavored yogurt, the option being stir some jam in it if you want taste variety, otherwise shut it because we are not buying that sugar- and preservatives-laden “flavored” yogurt ever, fruit on the bottom my ass, more like teeth- and brain-destroying fruit-like substance taking up room in an environmentally unfriendly little cup. My mother did not stand for any of that nonsense. Even now, she buys the biggest containers (read: 64 ounces) of plain nonfat yogurt she can, and then reuses the container until, well, I have never actually seen her dispose of a piece of Tupperware (or its generic cousins). Her cupboard still houses plastic containers she bought in South Korea in 1983.

But I digress. Have you checked on your jar lately? Is it

yogurt yet? Don’t worry, soon enough it will look like this, and you will be the envy of all your friends:

When I finally said NO MORE to dairy, I was going through a particularly insane part of my life, during which I ate mostly Kashi GoLean with super-reduced-fat soymilk (plus calcium! and fiber!), fruit, and the occasional sandwich. Soy yogurt will never live up to the perfect yogurt of my childhood, I would say to myself on one of many, many six(ish)-mile jogs. There is obviously no point in trying it because it will only disappoint, now keep running, lazy. Then I would go home and make a super-duper-low-calorie-high-protein shake with exactly 1/2 cup of the aforementioned soymilk and a tablespoon of flaxseed meal. Sometimes I added frozen berries. Yes, it was grayish-pinkish in color and tasted like sweet, cold sludge, but it was very precise. VERY PRECISE.

Today, three years later, with the help of drugs, a nutritionist, and a very patient and gluttonous boyfriend (lifetime member, Clean Plate Club), I eat lots of food, I prepare lots of food, and have discovered that among other things that I make a mean vegan cinnamon roll. Still, this did not solve the soy yogurt problem. Problem, you say? Lots of vegans don’t eat soy yogurt and have very good diets and lead fulfilling lives full of joy. However, thanks to many many years of crazy behavior, my digestive system still doesn’t trust me to give it adequate nutrition on a

regular basis. So, it revolts.

Break time: check your yogurt! It should look something like this:

the soymilk has solidified into yogurt! Awesome! If it doesn’t, put it back in the oven and wait a while.

To stop the bacteria from doing any further work, which you must do!, immediately put your new yogurt in the fridge until cool. When it’s cool, you can eat it, hooray! If you want really thick, creamy yogurt, though, you need to strain the whey out of it. Further instructions to follow.

Lorraine, I said to my nutritionist one day, none of my pants fit your eating plan has turned me into a monster and I hate you. You’re probably bloated, she said, rolling her eyes, and you haven’t gained any weight so calm down and try eating yogurt. That’s when the dearth of edible soy yogurts became a problem. Bravely, I confronted the problem head-on, determined to fill my gut with the happy bacteria it loves.

For a while, Wildwood was the yogurt for me. Then, just like Soy Dream in 2003, Wildwood changed its “formula,” so what had been good yogurt was now weird-textured glop (DAMN IT). I used to hate Whole Soy, but it grew on me, I don’t know, and now, for flavored yogurt, it’s all right. Some of So Delicious’ soy and coconut yogurts are all right, too. Everything

has been pretty adequate, you know? Sure, yogurts cost about $1 per six-ounce cup and sure, buying them individually isn’t environmentally friendly, but what else can a person do?

The answer, DUH, is make yogurt. And it is time to check yours. We were straining it, right? OK. Here it is, all wet and fresh from the fridge.

Now, pour the yogurt into some cheesecloth, suspend the cheesecloth over a bowl, and let it stand for a couple of hours (seriously, somewhere between two and three). The longer you let it drain, the thicker your yogurt will be.

When you and the yogurt are ready, take the yogurt out of the cheesecloth and put it into a container. Apparently you can mix the whey with some sugar or salt

and drink it cold, or use it to make bread, or, I don’t know, use it in a smoothie instead of water. The whey is full of riboflavin, a.k.a. vitamin B2. As for the yogurt, throw it back in the fridge until chilled, and serve however you like. Joel enjoys it with b-grade maple syrup, which makes a nice contrast to the super-tart, super-“earthy” flavor of the yogurt. I recommend the following recipe:

Mash one banana, as ripe as you can stand, with a fork in a bowl. Add around one cup of plain yogurt, and mix with fork until combined. Add cardamom—don’t be afraid to use a heavy hand. Mix again, add more cardamom if necessary, and a dash of cinnamon. Ta da! Banana yogurt. The combination of cardamom and banana and yogurt is just heavenly, tart, sweet, delicious. If you have fresh strawberries or raspberries, throw some in as well, you will not regret it.

There you go, you have yogurt! Minimal effort, and after your (again, optional but recommended) initial investment in a thermometer and cheesecloth, all you have to buy ever again is the soymilk! Most important now is remembering to save enough yogurt from the last batch to make the next one. Now you are free to blend and bake and cook with yogurt whenever you like; no more ridiculous 7 a.m./10 p.m. trips to the store because you promised you’d make whatever without checking to see if you had yogurt because HA HA you will always have some. Aren’t you healthy and economically minded and environmentally concerned and clever?

Also very good-looking. Good digestion contributes to glowing skin.

I’ve heard that one sign of a truly great chef is the ability to make an amazing salad. For me, the salad is the thing you have to get through to get to the FOOD. I can appreciate a salad and even when dieting, order one as a meal (I disgust myself) but it’s rarely the dish that stands out. At least for me. I’m sure there is some argumentative asshole out there who will say otherwise but you’re a liar and I’ll erase your comment anyway THIS IS NOT A DEMOCRACY.

THAT BEING SAID.

The salad at Brassica Supper Club is amongst the best tasting things I’ve ever eaten. It was deliciousness saladified. Baby dino kale, avocado, pickled onions, toasted pumpkin seeds, and the most outrageous creamy orange vinagrette. This is a salad that could go head-to-head with a plate of french fries in the Deliciousness Battle Supreme. It would lose but still, to battle a french fry? One could say you have arrived.

I think I’ve done a good enough job describing the salad so that you don’t get a picture. Instead, enjoy one of the really, really good white bean puree, roasted baby root veggies, and ramp gremolata soup! Also, I do not have a picture of the salad.

Unfortunately for you, the menu at Brassica Supper Club, a brand new kinda-restaurant in San Francisco, is always changing so you’ll never get to experience the magic that was this salad*. Fortunately for you, the three talented chefs behind Brassica are already planning future events. What’s an Underground Supper Club, Laura? Well, Village Freaks, Losers, & Outcasts, it’s a group of people (in this case, chefs who cut their teeth at Millennium, Cafe Gratitude and the short lived, ill-fated but always tasty Usual Suspects Cafe) who open their home and kitchen to you in return for some help with the cost of food. At Brassica, you pay $35 (that’s not including tip, Scrooge McDuck!) and you get a

truly excellent, gourmet meal. You sit on the floor (pillows for your buttocular region) and eat off low tables. The meal service includes tea (this really insanely good stuff called latte mate that tastes like chocolate and rooibos and almonds and is the shit TRUST) and water (if you want to drink, you can bring wine or beer or boones or jack, whatevs! They have glasses and there is no corkage fee) and four courses of awesomeness. I’ll spare you the details of our meal because it will only serve to make you insanely jealous and insanely hungry. Just know that these kids know what they’re doing and that it’s as fine a meal as I’ve ever had at Millennium. Oh and the meal ended with this OUTRAGEOUS vanilla cake layered with tangerine mousse and covered in a rich chocolate ganache and then drizzled with macadamia cream. Sorry, I had to.

The chefs are all vegan and that adds a whole nother level of greatness because you know the money is going to support vegans and especially vegans who are obsessed with good food. I find that particularly inspiring and that’s impressive because I’ve pretty much given up. It’s so cool that Carmen, Edward and Mark (your chefs/hosts/builders of The Dream) are SO into food and just happen to be vegan and want to make exceptional, exciting, fantastic vegan food. That is something I want to support. Activism through eating, deeeelicious. Not only that, the other guests are like-minded people who you can always turn to for excellent conversation when you can’t stand looking at your significant other FOR ONE MORE FUCKING SECOND I TOLD YOU TO STOP BREATHING LIKE FIFTEEN MINUTES AGO**!!

The upcoming events are posted here and I suggest you make reservations as soon as you can. The place is going to be a vegan sensation soon enough and you’ll definitely want to get in on the ground floor. Plus, if you’re lucky, maybe the chefs will give you a post dinner tutorial on how to make avocado milkshakes, complete with generous samples.

All photos courtesy of the lovely Sharon!

*SUCKA!

**Of course I’m not talking about Jonas as he is the best ever but I can imagine your relationship is not as solid and loving.

With the release of the new Star Trek movie today, I thought I should point out that Vulcans, those quintessential mavens of enviable, indisputable LOGIC, are all vegetarians! (Unless, apparently, they are some kind of social outcast Vulcans.)

In fact, the entire Federation could be considered vegans, as just about all their food seems to be provided for them via replicators, the equivalent of vat-grown meat. As Riker points out in one episode, “We no longer enslave animals for food purposes.” Woo! My kind of future!

Unfortunately, the Trekkie community has yet to embrace this philosophy fully. Get with it, guys! If you can put on pointy ears and wear a dorky uniform out in public, you can order a veggie burger once in a while! Sigh.

I am compiling a list of things that you would think are always vegan but are quite often not. I’m doing this because a couple times in the past weeks, I’ve been somewhere and asked if the following things are vegan and the answer has been No, and also, “You’re the only vegan to ever ask that!” so I thought I should share with you less sophisticated/worse-than-me vegans. Let the gigantic superiority complex begin!

1) Home fries at diners. They are often cooked with or finished with butter. Even places that are extremeley vegan-friendly will have non-vegan home fries! This is SO ANNOYING to me. It’s like, just leave the butter you throw on at the very end off for my order or use delicious Organic Earth Balance and save everyone from fatty cholesterol death without sacrificing taste! GAH PEOPLE! Also, is home fries one word or two? Anyway, make sure to always ask! Also, I apologize for the Home Fries poster because A) what’s up with that hair, that dress and that FONT? B) DREW BARRYMORE UGH and C) TERRIBLE MOVIE. I mean, so bad. And this is coming from a woman who lists Billy Madison and Cabin Boy in her top-five all-time favorites. OKAY? Also, that should mean nothing as those are both excellent films.

2) Hot dog and hamburger buns. Even if the veggie dog or veggie burger itself is touted as vegan, the bun often is not. It can have whey, eggs, or any number of crappy animal products in it. Usually a place can subsitute bread for the bun, although with a veggie dog that is depressing and makes it look even more gross and phallic, just a weiner hanging out of two pieces of bread!

3) Beer, Wine, and Liquor. Vegans are usually pretty good at this and some don’t discriminate when it comes to SWEET ALCOHOL, but with sites like Barnivore, it’s fairly easy to make sure your LIFE-SUSTAINING FLUID is vegan. I fully apologize for that last sentence.

Now that I’ve pointed out all those things, you probably know of a million more. Feel free to post in the comments and get into flame wars and shit. Anything to liven it up around this joint!

Sorry, I’m like the Grim Reaper of Veganism over here. I’ve accidentally eaten non-vegan homefries (sp??!!) and non-vegan buns in my vegan days and guess what, I’m still vegan, bitches! You live, you learn. Plus, there are so many more things you can eat as a vegan than you can’t eat! Erik Marcus actually did a great guest post on Fatfree Vegan about it here. Maybe the comments should be more about all the great things we can eat and worlds of food that opened up to us as vegans—I mean, I never knew I could make a delicious meat analog out of wheat gluten…NUTS! And what about all the coconut milk desserts I never woulda known? And CHIA SEED GRAVY, the thought of you not in my life? I can’t hang.

This is a Road Trip Thursday because you need extra time to get to Mendocino and

back, but you still have time to call in sick to work tomorrow and get away for the weekend. DO IT EVERYONE ELSE IS DON’T YOU WANT TO BE POPULAR?

Okay so. The Stanford Inn is pretty much heaven on earth. It’s heaven if you are healthy and active and want to wake with the sun (PSYCHO) and mountain bike and kayak (CARAZAY) and do partner yoga (I CAN’T EVEN BEGIN) and you’re everything I stand against in this world, BUT it’s also heaven for lazy asses who just want to

eat and drink and hot tub and lay around watching premium cable in their enormous bed with billion-thread-count sheets and eat complimentary vegan cookies and bon bons and pet llamas. I call that Living and you can quote me on that. Actually, I think you can technically quote me on everything I put on the internet and kids who are posting nerkid photos of themselves on myspace OUGHT TO THINK ABOUT THAT ONCE IN AWHILE*.

The Stanford Inn is located in Mendocino, about three hours up the Pacific Coast from SF. If you haven’t been to Mendocino, it’s what we like to call “God’s Country.”

That is because it is very beautiful and also inhabited mainly by bible-thumping hicks. Those seem to be the two qualifiers for “God’s Country.” Actually, I don’t know about the hicks…that might not be true. I’m mainly talking nonsense. Okay strike that, I’m talking complete nonsense. Mendocino is filled with charming retirees, artists, and hippies and their disaffected youth (aka HOODLUMS). They have several restaurants with more than one vegan option on the menu, and an almost all-veg co-op grocery in an old church. cool.

It’s a little pricey for people in my demographic (i.e. people who live in SF and spend all their money on rent and eating out) but they’re currently running Spring Specials that allow you a gorgeous room for $198 (Mon-Thur) and $228 on the weekends. All rooms

include FREE BREAKFAST (and this ain’t continental, you can choose from the menu! Pancakes, waffles, tofu scrambles, amazing SCONES?!—who knew! scones are such a boring non-food but these scones are ridiculous!—also, I love that if you pay for breakfast they charge you extra if you want EGGS. THAT IS CORRECT. Vegan tax in reverse, I love you!) and free rentalsonkayaksandmountainbikesSNOOZE. They also offer this couples special where you get two nights, FREE BREAKFAST AND DINNER at Raven’s Restaurant (the onsite all vegetarian mostly vegan restaurant) and a free massage or facial for $685. Now, I’ve done the math on this and while I’m basically a math illiterate, I believe it’s a very good deal, especially considering that dinner at Raven’s, while not $$$, will set you back about $100 for two people.

Speaking of Raven’s Restaurant. It’s excellent and the chef has a really sassy blog on the Stanford Inn website. I strongly recommend you check it out. He is pissed! He is sassy! He is ONE OF US! The food is not at quite the caliber of Millennium but it’s still VERY good and uses a lot of produce from their own gardens. Very cool. I especially liked the tofu scrambles at breakfast and the pancakes! I love a vegan pancake!

A couple things to note: 1) You will be the youngest people there and if you’re not into that, this is not the place for you. The other guests aren’t stuffy or lame, they’re just hella old like the crypt keeper, you dig? It’s to be expected when you look at the price and then consider that younger people spend their money on strippers, coke and other

fun-in-the-moment but ultimately super-lame shit. 2) They have a pool and hot tub that are open 24/7. Midnight slightly boozy underwater handstands? Yes please! They also have a sauna but Jonas couldn’t get it as hot as he wanted it, even after he threw water on the furnace. We are lucky to be alive. 3) Make sure to be around for tea time from 3-4pm when they serve up drinks and homemade snacks like brownies and wraps and crostini and hummus! FREE FOOD AND DRINK DO NOT MISS IT. 4) Head into Mendocino and walk around and then head up the road 10 miles to Fort Bragg and walk around. Apparently Fort Bragg is the place where the first tempeh was cultured in the United States. Hippies. Also, check out the raw food restaurant/raw foods culinary school!? in Fort Bragg. It was really good, especially the ice cream! 5) IF YOU ARE THERE DURING THE WHALE MIGRATION, DO NOT TAKE YOUR EYES OFF THE OCEAN. I never stopped staring at the ocean and now I think I have a lazy eye! Worth it! 6) Also, on the drive up, you’ll pass Anderson Valley Brewing Company. All of their beer is vegan and you can snack on free pretzels and excellent house-made mustard. Perfect rest stop on your trip.

I guess to wrap this bitch up, save your pennies and go to The Stanford Inn. Since it’s about a three-hour drive from SF, you’re going to want to stay more than one night to make it worth your while and that package above looks pretty good. When you consider that you’re supporting an all-veg business in a beautiful place, it should push you over the edge! YOU MUST GO. Tomorrow. So call in sick with ebola** and hit the open road!

*signed, prudy mccheckyourself.

**I actually did this once when I was in college. I got confused, I thought I was saying I had e. coli. Oops!

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.