vegansaurus!

Top Chef’s Richard Blais, who owns a fancy burger joint in Atlanta that’ll likely horrify you with its menu, is looking for partners in a new vegetarian eatery. This follows a monthlong experiment in veganism.

Zooey Deschanel is vegan-ing up Top Chef Masters next week. Yes we talk a lot about Top Chef around here, but if they’re going to put veganism on TV, we’re going to tell you about it.

However, grumparella Michael Pollan thinks “food shows” are detrimental to Our Nation’s cultural heritage—if we’re all watching people mix up soup from cans and pre-cut vegetables, then how will we ever loose our own culinary imaginations? Perhaps a valid point, but then he goes on to criticize first-wave feminism for “thoughtlessly trampl[ing]” the notion that a lady can find satisfaction in her food work “in their rush to get women out of the kitchen,” which is just the most privileged-white-dude thing to say he might as well be crying over the Stars and Bars. Shut up, Michael Pollan.

Oh my god, a job: Santa Rosa needs an operations manager for a “new vegetarian fast-food franchise business.” Go on, “qualified” hopefuls, send an application already. DO IT.

Elle magazine is killing me with its “10 Most Dangerous Foods” list. Smartly, milk and beef are on it, but so are tomatoes, bagged spinach, alfalfa sprouts, cantaloupe, and “nuts” (illustrated with a photo of peanuts!). What these non-animal devil foods share is that they’ve all made people sick with salmonella and/or e. coli contamination; what Elle fails to mention is how produce comes to be contaminated with bacteria that can only come from inside animals.

You can get heirloom tomato cocktails at Range! Including the famous (and vegan!) Sungold Zinger, with Sungold cherry tomatoes, No. 209 gin, lemon, agave syrup, and salt. If you are a tomato-lover, you should probably try this; it sounds like the perfect summery respite from your bland-ola bloody mary.

According to the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, after reviewing 50 years’ worth of scientific papers, “there is currently no evidence to support the selection of organically over conventionally produced foods on the basis of nutritional superiority.” The full results were published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, but having read what’s available I do not fully understand the conclusion.

Seoul on Wheels, the Korean food truck, returns to the streets in August! The menu has just one definite veg item, though possibly the chap chae, and—I hope and pray—perhaps the kimchee could be veg as well. My first solid food was Korean and I would do terrible things for some vegan Korean that went beyond bibimbap.

Melanie “Minty” Lewis’ wonderful new book, P.S. Comics, is a collection of her minicomics to date. Minty’s tales of “Fruit Pals” and “Yorkie Roommates” are cute but heartbreaking accounts of everyday melodrama, which earned her an Ignatz award in 2007. She also recently created the most freaking cutest ever iGoogle theme, which you should all install immediately. Minty lives in Berkeley and is vegetarian.

How long have you been vegetarian?
Since I was 11.

Are you vegetarian for health, environmental, animal rights reasons, or a combination?
Originally I decided to become a vegetarian for animal rights reasons. I wasn’t that well informed about the health and environmental reasons for not eating meat when I was 11, but the more I learn, the more my decision is reinforced.

Do you ever include a vegetarian message in your comics?
I’ve always imagined Apple as a vegetarian—he’s such a sensitive creature and so aware of how his actions affect those around him, how could he not be? That said, I don’t think there are any “Fruit Pals” stories where dietary choices are at the forefront of the drama, although I do have a comic where Ruffles (the cat) experiences angst when she finds out that Fancy Feast is made from dead animals. I don’t really see my comics as an appropriate forum for vegetarian propaganda, but at the same time I can’t imagine creating a scene where a good-hearted character brazenly eats a hamburger or a self-centered jerk orders a vegan meal. That’s not to say that those characters don’t exist in real life; I just think it would be distracting to have that dissonance in a character unless it’s a driving element of the story.

There’s actually a panel in one my earliest comics that always makes me feel guilty: Apple is eating dinner, and there’s a drumstick on his plate. I think I drew the drumstick because it’s an iconic shape and so many vegetarian meals just look like a pile of slop, but I worry that Apple will have a meat-eating reputation just because of my cartooning laziness. That’s a veat drumstick, OK?

What is your favorite animal?
I really love dogs, specifically terriers. I also like capybaras very much, because they sort of look like terriers. I found out from wikipedia that people used to eat capybaras during Lent because the Catholic Church classified them as fish in the 16th century. Isn’t that convenient for them?

Can you draw animals really well? Can you draw Laura as an animal? Will you do a portrait of my pit bull Hazel for free? Yes?
I draw animals better than I draw people. I can draw Laura as an animal. I can also do a portrait of your pit bull for free. I can combine Laura and your pit bull into… “Laurel.” Beautiful.

Favorite vegan food to make?
This is the simplest and most delicious tomato sauce on planet Earth. It takes kind of a long time to prepare all the garlic and tomato, and it probably seems like I am not very creative for recommending something so straightforward, but honestly I wish I had a friend like me to recommend this to me. I put it on everything, pasta is just the tip of the iceberg. It’s better on the second day after all the flavors have inter-absorbed, etc.

Favorite vegan dish at a restaurant/fave vegan restaurant?
I regularly crave the veggie combo at Cafe Colucci in Oakland, so many different flavors and vegetables in one meal. Cha-Ya in Berkeley (haven’t tried the one in SF) also offers highly delicious food, everything they serve tastes so fresh. They have the best miso soup I’ve ever had, and I really like the fried portobello mushroom thing that’s served with kiwi sauce. I was skeptical at first, but it’s good.

Based on food options alone, which is your favorite comics show to travel to?
I only went to the Portland Zine Symposium once, but it was at Portland State University and they had a farmers’ market right outside the entrance, so that was pretty neat. Portland has tons of cheap vegetarian options all over the place. You don’t even have to try.

Any eating tips for traveling cartoonists?
Bring nuts, and don’t expect any good eating options near convention centers.

Do you have one drawing tip to share?
If you just keep practicing, you will get better and you will develop your own style naturally. It doesn’t seem like there are any shortcuts on the path to becoming a truly good drawer. However, if you would like to take the easy route and simply mask bad drawing, there are lots of tricks I have learned: hide hands behind objects, draw fruit people instead of human people, keep your characters in easy-to-draw situations (avoid crowds and ferris wheels), seat characters at round tables instead of rectangular tables, copy other people’s artwork…

Do you have a day job, or do you draw comics full-time? If not, why not?
I do not have a day job, nor do I draw comics full-time. I freelance irregularly as a graphic designer and, more recently, a proofreader. While I recognize that I may be rationalizing, I think it’s best that I don’t draw comics full-time—it seems like an important part of the creation process for me involves allowing ideas time to percolate. Also I manage my time better when I have multiple things to do.

Why is Apple so awesome and also so depressing? Is he a comment on the human condition?
He is what he is, which is all of us.

Why is Banana such a creepy dick? And what’s up with Kumquat? Is it a coincidence that “kumquat” rhymes with “dumb twat”? Discuss.
I have kind of a soft spot for Banana. Sure he’s a creepy dick, but he has an enviable outlook on life. Imagine being so carefree that you can drink by the creek until you pass out in the middle of the workday! As for Kumquat, it hadn’t crossed my mind that her name rhymes with “dumb twat,” but that’s brilliant.

Do you think Pear and Apple will end up together? I don’t.
Doubtful. There was maybe a small window of opportunity once, but at this point they’re familiar enough to know that they’re incompatible to their cores (get it? ha ha! it’s true, though).

What is your favorite fruit? Do you regularly eat apples? Is that a little weird for you?
Peaches are my favorite fruit, but only when they are exactly ripe. We have an apple tree that yields perfectly crisp and flavorful apples, so I am a fervent apple-eater for a few months each year. Eating apples is not weird for me unless they have eyes. My husband and I had lemons and limes with googly eyes glued on them as part of the centerpieces at our wedding, and the florist suggested that this might prevent drunken guests from eating them. She said that drunken guests always eat fruit from the centerpieces at weddings, even lemons and limes.

What inspired “Yorkie Roommates”?
My dear departed yorkie, Lucy Fourpaws, inspired “Yorkie Roomies.” When I was in college, I lived in a house with four other girls, and she would eat the crotches from our dirty underwear out of separation anxiety whenever we left her home alone. One time we found a turd composed entirely of brightly-patterned underwear bits! As Lucy’s owner, I felt responsible for her actions and regularly bought new underwear for the house and/or reimbursed my housemates for their losses. Eventually we all learned to use a hamper with a lid, but not until many underpants were lost. A few years after college, several of my roommates admitted that some of their pairs with smaller holes were still in rotation.

Tell us about all your cute pets!
Otis is the terrier of the house. We got him from the Milo Foundation a couple of years ago—I suspect that they tricked us by making us meet him at a park instead of in their showroom where he surely would have growled and bitten us through his cage. It all worked out though! He’s a sweet little rascal as long as you aren’t a stranger coming in the door!

Rufflz is the white cat with crossed eyes and splayed hind legs, also from the Milo Foundation where her name was originally “Beijing.” She enjoys hiding behind foxtail ferns and making noises.

Pearl is the gray cat with the great big gut. She was originally a barn cat in Maryland, but Damien (my husband) rescued her and fattened her up. She actually lost a lot of weight when she first moved to California from New York, but she did not lose the skin that held the weight. We later found out that the weight loss was from the neighbor’s terrorist cat stressing her out. When he moved away, her flap filled in again.

Elvis is the black cat, also a rescued Maryland barn cat. He disappears for most of the day, and only returns for food and affection at night.

Who did you have to bribe to get a cover blurb from Jack Handey on your new book PS Comics? Are you guys penpals now? Can I have his number?
I sent him my comics and a letter, and he wrote me back with a cover blurb. Getting an email from Jack Handey was the most intoxicating moment of my life! He was super nice, but I got a vibe that long-term correspondence was not in our future.

Do you have a favorite “Deep Thoughts”?
“The crows seemed to be calling his name, thought Caw.” I think about that “Deep Thought” once a week, on average. Mostly when there are crows. I also like “The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face.”

What exciting upcoming projects can we look forward to? Because we do look forward to them.
Right now I’m in the very early stages of two graphic-novel-length stories. One is a “Fruit Pals” story in which Apple starts volunteering with The Gorilla Foundation after quitting his job. I’m also writing a story that Damien will illustrate called “Leisure Cove,” about a terrier that moves home to work at her parents’ furniture store in Florida while she pursues her dream of creating a successful interior design blog. Also, in non-meat-eating news, I’m going to design a poster & various press materials for my friend’s “Vegetarian Thursdays” campaign (so everyone would eat vegetarian on Thursdays, schools and restaurants would only serve vegetarian food on Thursdays, etc.).

Any questions for Vegansaurus? Anything!
Why don’t you have a podcast? I would listen.

Actually, we do! Kind of! There’s only one post in it so far, and it’s a video. But still. Beggars can’t be choosers!

You can find more of Minty Lewis’ comics at her site, pscomics.com.

Thanks, Minty!

Okay so look at that photo. If that family of fucking perfectly beautiful capybaras doesn’t make you want to find/lose religion, there is no fucking hope for your whatsoever. Capybaras are the world’s largest rodent (the average weight is 100 pounds) and while that might freak you out, being hella large furry rats is actually AWESOME and you are just a close-minded anti-rodentia bigot god you probably hate little people too or some other bigoted bullshit. Capybaras are highly social and can hold their breath underwater for up to 5 minutes which basically makes them superheroes who walk amongst (those of) us (who are lucky enough to live in Argentina or Brazil). UGH, I wish there were wild capybaras in California…I would never leave the woods looking for them. It’s bad enough with my thing for Sasquatch, if I threw capybaras into the mix, I’d become a straight up woods-living witch, luring kids into my witch-shack with delicious candy only to eat them (and the candy). FUN FACT: In the wild, Capybaras eat grasses and aquatic plants, melons and squashes. UGH THE THOUGHT OF A CAPYBARA EATING A HONEYDEW PLEASE STOP I CAN’T.

Anyway, after learning recently that people eat these magical, adorable, perfectly perfect creatures, I nearly wanted to set the world on fire. WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK PEOPLE?? How can you look at that cutest ever cute face and want to chow down. But again, how can you look at this cutest ever cute face and want to chow down? I don’t know. Man, fuck it. This is a rant to nowhere. But somewhere in the world (most likely Venezuela. Fuckers.) there are ranches (read: factory farm lite) with capybaras living shitty lives and then being killed to be eaten. One of the most fucked up things I learned recently (from awesome cartoonist Minty Lewis who will be featured on these very pages maybe even later today) is that the Catholic Church allowed people to eat capybaras during Lent (when only fish is usually permitted) but should we really be surprised?

On the bright side, you can buy this really cute capybara magnet on Etsy so there’s that.

Firstly, I wish it had a different name. “Heaven’s Dog” makes me think of gourmet hot dogs or some such, and I don’t want to make a special trip for gourmet hot dogs, however the rest of the world feels, I just don’t like them in that way. Luckily the restaurant doesn’t

actually have anything to do with hot dogs, gourmet or otherwise, so if you get over the silly name then you should be fine. The food is good, and on the low side of expensive (about equal to Beretta), but nothing to really flip for. Let me tell you why, at great length!

Laura and I went on a Monday night, and it was slow as anything, hardly anyone was there. I think there was a family, as in, at least two adults and their coordinating small children finishing their supper when we arrived, somewhere around 8. That was unexpected, the family, but the kids weren’t loud or anything, and it was a Monday night, so maybe not so surprising. Our waiter seemed very Monday-night, quite mumbly and new. He was nice and helpful, knew what was and wasn’t vegan, asked about a substitution for us, and had good timing. He just seemed a little meek for the cutthroat world of restaurant service. Again, though, it was a slooooow Monday night, definitely a good time for a quiet waiter to work.

We ordered three items off the regular menu—two appetizers and one main dish—and the special appetizer. This was plenty of food for two people who love eating.

Also, one cocktail each. Laura was most excited about the vegetarian pork belly dish, so obviously we had to order it; we also got an edamame salad, the dan dan mei (with flat rice noodles substituted for egg), and the special, kabocha done tempura-style.

The kabocha was marvelous. It was battered and fried, but much lighter than tempura, and the batter had some kind of seed crushed in it? Or maybe seaweed, because it was salty in a lovely fishy way that contrasted neatly with the sweetness of the squash. If it had only been cooked a bit longer—a few of the kabocha pieces were a bit too al dente. It could’ve also been accompanied by more tasty cranberry sauce, alas.

I liked the edamame salad pretty well; the “bean curd ribbons” turned out to be sort of tofu sliced to resemble noodles, and they were my favorite part, I guess because of the texture. Not quite raw noodles, you know, but cool and a little chewy and exactly right. The rest of the salad was fine; I expected more from the pickled mustard greens—I expected more pickled mustard greens—but, no big deal.

Unfortunately for the two of us, the vegetarian pork belly

came three on a plate. Fortunately, they were all excellent, and as Laura is a supremely good friend (who had already asked for an order of them to take home to her boyfriend), she let me have the second one. They are made of mushrooms inside tofu skins topped with scallions and cradled inside pretty white clamshell buns, and you pinch them shut like teeny tacos and eat them up in two bites, chomp chomp, and they are scrumptious. They come with a sauce, which is fine, but I think they would’ve been better served with that cranberry sauce from the kabocha special.

The dan dan mei was not what I was expecting—it turned out to be this big creamy mess of noodles, with little pieces of tofu and some chilis here and there. There isn’t a picture of it because by that time I believe the photographer was overwhelmed by our meal, and tired of pausing before diving into the food. This was also the case with dessert. Very intelligently, Heaven’s Dog offers only three desserts, and one of them is vegan, hooray. It is a chocolate sorbet with a little salt—big fat black grains, name I can’t remember—on top

of what they call a cherry compote that was actually just big fat cherries that had been soaking in some kind of sweetish-sourish sauce. The serving was plenty large enough for two to share, especially considering the size of our preceding meal.

Some notes: While the website claims the restaurant is inside the Soma Grand Hotel, a more precise description would be “shares a building with the hotel, but no connecting entrances, so don’t try to get into the restaurant through the hotel lobby.” It’d be a nice place to go if you are around Civic Center and loathe to go up the hill to Little Saigon/the ‘Loin. As ever, while the four dishes we ordered were confirmed vegan, I can’t speak for any of the other vegetarian items, so ask first, or order just like Vegansaurus did and ensure cruelty-free satiety (HO HO clever!).

Corn is CHEAP and plenty this time of year: 25 cents at Safeway and 50 cents for organic stuff at Whole Foods. My local produce stand was more expensive than either of these so you make the call.

Serving size: for two
Prep time: 15 min

Ingredients
2 ears of corn (white or yellow, though I prefer white)
1/2 jalapeño
red onion
1 lemon
1 lime
1 to 2 tomatoes (Roma, sweet 100, heirloom—whatevs)
Italian parsley (optional)
salt and pepper

1. Preheat oven to 450 F. Take corn, husks and all, and place directly on middle rack. Roast for 20 minutes. Remove from oven; set aside to cool.

2. Meanwhile, get the mise en place ready. Everything is according to taste. I tend to prefer corn as the main focus so I go easy on the onion and tomato:
a. dice half a jalapeño into really small bits, seeds and all
b. dice red onion (I go easy on the raw onion)
c. dice tomatoes into small chunks. Best to squeeze the seeds out first so your corn salad isnt watery. If you use sweet 100s or baby tomatoes, slice in half.

3. Remove husks from corn. Take a knife and shear kernels from cob. Place kernels in large bowl.

4. Add jalapeño, onion, tomato to bowl. Add juice of 1 lemon and 1 lime. Adjust according to taste. Add salt and pepper to taste.

5. Optional: chop sprinkling of parsley and add at end.

Jalapeño and lime are really important in this dish; they make it bright and kicky.

This is another delicious recipe from the brilliant mind of Fancy Nancy. We <3 us some Nancy recipes.

Please welcome guest writer Ben Pearson. Between acquiring master’s degrees, Ben tends to his parents’ garden. It’s a pretty all right gig.

Veganism is about lots of things. It’s about helping the planet. It’s about getting laid by that one girl who rides the bicycle with the wicker basket. It’s about not eating things taken from sad and dead animals. But, it’s also about what you do eat!

There’s nothing wrong with stuffing your face with potato chips dipped in Tofutti, but not eating animals can be a great gateway drug into all kinds of crazy, environmentally responsible, healthy and fun food habits. Such as: growing your own food in a garden!

There are tons of reasons to garden. Some people say it’s good exercise, but that’s really only if you are growing very large trees in pots that have to be periodically rearranged or operating a plow yourself, sans oxen. But it is healthy in other ways. Most commercially grown produce has been steadily declining in nutritional value, but food you grow yourself and eat fresh from the ground will be full of all kinds of good stuff. Gardening also saves you money, cheapskate. And, unlike commercially grown produce (even organic farms usually use animal bones or waste in their soil, oftentimes from factory farms), you can ensure that your plants are grown using vegan-friendly methods.

More on all that stuff later. But today, the gardening benefit I want to talk about is: you get to eat some hella weird plants! Lots of people are talking about omnivores lately. It’s kind of the dietary equivalent of those 19-year-old girls who say they are bisexual but really just make out with girls at bars sometimes to impress dudes— they’re still annoying and straight, and omnivores are still carnivores.

But you don’t have to let them have all the fun. While they’re out eating bald eagles with a side of baby sea turtles, you can one-up them by eating as much as you can of the truly massive variety of edible plants that are not available in your supermarket. I mean, I’ve never seen either of nature’s most nutritious greens for sale, lambsquarter and the omega-3-powerhouse called purslane, even though both are easy to grow. The kinds plants we eat have been decided by commercial viability as much as our palates, oftentimes at the expense of biodiversity and our health. So stick it to the man, Vegansaurus readers! Grow and eat weird plants like orach, purslane, “corn salad,” and borage! Grow weird (and natural) varieties of already-familiar plants: purple carrots, yellow globe-shaped cucumbers, and striped beans! And finally, eat edible parts of plants that nobody eats anymore: the leaves and very young bean pods of fava bean plants, the tendrils of pea plants, and the young seed pods of the mature radish plant!

By now you are asking, “What the fuck are all these things? I’m gonna go eat a banana.” Instead, let’s look at one of these plants in detail!

Radish pods

Radishes are cool if you’re a gardener because they are easy to grow. You just put the seeds in any kind of semi-decent soil, water them sometimes, and then in 20 to 40 days, you’ll have some yummy little radish bulbs to eat. That’s it!

But the bulbs aren’t the only edible part of radishes. The young leaves, picked before they start to feel spiky like a cat’s tongue, are delicious raw in salads. And old radishes produce a ton of delicious seed pods that are like slightly spicy snap peas.

Here’s how to grow them: plant radishes as described above. Basically, ignore them but keep watering. In about two

months, they will turn into massive, four-to-six-foot tall plants with pretty flowers that will turn into crunchy seed pods. Pick the pods when they’re still fairly young—they get tough after a while. That’s it! You don’t need many—each plant gets enormous and produces a lot of pods.

In some parts of the world, like India, there are varieties of radishes grown exclusively for their enormous pods. But almost any kind of radish will produce pods that you can pick to add some crunch and spice to salads or stir fry (don’t be alarmed if they pop!—that’s how you know they’re ready to eat!) And if you’re feeling fancy, you can always try this delicious, vegan Indian recipe. Enjoy!

[all photographs provided by Ben]

The determined sleuths/neighborhood busybodies over here at Vegansaurus snapped a shot of the interior of Pi Bar and it’s lookin’ fresh! We also got our hot little hands on a business card. Yes! We’re obviously very interested in the availability of vegan pizza options, so we made a call to request vegan pizza (please please please), but just got a recorded message that stated:

“Thank you for calling Pi Bar. We’re looking forward to a mid-August, early September opening; look for us then. Thanks for calling!”

That is pretty much verbatim with some license taken in the fact that we are lazy and didn’t want to call back to get it verbatim, you dig?

In other news, Anthony’s Cookies on the same block of Valencia will soon be selling vegan cookies!! Can I get a what-what for that adorable crew at Anthony’s? I would also like to state, for the record, that I want to marry them all. Sweetest bros around.

A VERY PROFESSIONAL interview with the fabulous Sharon Troy, founder of the AWESOME new vegan restaurant and airport survival guide, VegTable! Please check out the interview and then go join VegTable and populate it and make it awesome and LET’S GO VEGANS TAKE OVER THE INTERNET.

Q: What inspired you to start VegTable?
A: I’ve been planning several trips this summer and I like to find the best vegan options when I travel to new cities. I usually end up having to cross-reference various travel and review sites out there. I wanted a site that was one-stop shopping for vegans. Like Wal-Mart. Except it’s a collaborative wiki, so it’s more like if your local co-op had the selection of Wal-Mart.

Q: How can users collaborate on the site?
A: It’s pretty easy to sign up for an account, and then you can contribute pages for restaurants (or other veg-friendly shops, etc.) and help build up listings in cities we don’t yet have. Right now we’ve mostly got major cities in there, but I want to get to the point where we’ve got small towns and highway rest stops. No corner of the globe uncharted!

Q: Why should people sign up to contribute?
A: Well, I’ve always found that the vegan community loves nothing more than to support one another and share resources. Members can contribute ideas as well as content, so there’s a lot of potential to expand it. I’m also thinking about member events, or ways I can work with restaurants to offer member discounts. The site’s only two days old, so we’ll see how it goes.

Q: Where do you see the site going?
A: The goal is to create one big mega-resource for all things vegan dining and travel related. I’ve started the “airport survival guides” to help frequent vegan flyers. I’m also thinking of creating pages that list some traditional foods native to particular areas, that are vegan (or perhaps more importantly, the ones that are not). There’s a lot we could do with it. If everyone who saw the potential use for the site contributed just one page, we’d have a rocking resource in no time.

Q: How long have you been vegan?
A: Four years, though I’ve been vegetarian for almost nine years.

Q: What’s the best airport for vegan eating that you’ve been in?
A: Salt Lake City, amazingly enough, has a restaurant with clearly marked vegan options that are pretty good (I need to add that to the wiki still!). I just flew out of the new JetBlue terminal at JFK and it had some decent options. I think the worst is Oakland, especially if you’re flying in the morning.

Q: Favorite vegan restaurant?
A: Is it cliched to say Millennium? I don’t care. It is sooooo good.

MAC N CHEESE AND BBQ TOFU AND POTATO SALAD AND HOLY SHIT SHOOT ME IN THE FACE THANK YOU JESUS.

It’s at 301 Broadway at 3rd Street in Oakland. Open Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Check out our Souley Vegan review and go go go go go GO!

IMPORTANT: The VegNews polls close at 11:59 p.m. on July 31, and we want you to write Vegansaurus in for Best Veg Blog! Also, win prizes. Yes! Time to root for the Underdino! If there are any prizes, we’ll totally share.

Veggie Trader provides free classifieds for home-grown produce! People like Meave’s parents, who have uncontrollably prolific orange and peach trees, should really get in on this. The site expressly prohibits the trade of meat, eggs, and dairy products (yes!), and Californians must obey both statewide import laws and quarantine orders for the light brown apple moth.

Ezra Klein is PISSED about how cheap chicken is; <3 that Ezra Klein.

Factory farms are all, We are beneficial to rural communities! And small farmers are all, Actually the stench from your animal torture chambers is poisoning our air, and the runoff is poisoning our water! Amazingly, courts are siding with the small farmers.

Men can get naked for animal rights, too!

The New York Times gives you 101 simple salads, in neat little categories. Nos. 1-36 are “mostly vegan.” Incidentally, Synergia Soyfoods makes this scrumptious vegan feta cheese that tastes so authentic that the first time I ate it I teared up with joy, if you are looking to make salads that ask for such an ingredient.

The Times also presents the crème brûlée cart guy as Mr. Small Business Twitter San Francisco. Vegansaurus strenuously objects to such representation.

The Long Now Foundation! (est. 01996) is hosting a seminar with the authors of Tomorrow’s Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food. They both teach at UC Davis—an excellent school!—and are married, which makes this lecture sound even more appealing. Go learn something on Tuesday, July 28 at 7:30 p.m. at the Cowell Theater; tickets are $10.

Vinnie’s Pizzeria in Williamsburg has awesome vegan by the slice. AND THIS TRASH CAN. SO AWESOME. Here is a photo of Laura eating vegan pizza at Vinnie’s. If that doesn’t get your motor running, I don’t know what will. Laura wrote this.

So, gianty meaty soups. Campbell’s Chunky: FULLY LOADED is over one pound of “meat” and whatever the hell else, vegetables, say; the Pho Gardens CHALLENGE BOWL is two pounds of noodles with two pounds of “beef with tripe.” In general, the world is fucking disgusting, NEVER FORGET.

Vegan.com discusses the extinction of Bluefin Tuna. SO SAD PLEASE STOP EATING FISH.

The Tofu Xpress, an amazing new gadget that helps make tofu even more delicious, gets a review over at Notes from a Vegan Feast. What have you done for Vegansaurus lately? THE ANSWER: Bought us this miracle-worker! Please! You’re so wonderful, that’s the thing about you. SO GIVING.

The other day, Laura and I were shopping for tomato sauce or something. We ended up spending a ridiculous amount of time researching various organic brands on our phones to see who owned them, and weighing the consequences of our purchase. Rainbow Grocery, where we were (and where there is terrible phone reception—is the building lined with lead?) used to have some kind of chart displayed that showed this information, but it seems not anymore.

What we needed was this! The Better World Shopping Guide is a super-convenient, pocket-sized handbook, which ranks brands with grades from A to F, according to their performance in terms of human rights, environmental sustainability, and animal protection. The content is organized into categories, covering everything from airlines to wine. A lot of vegan brands are included, as well. Under meat alternatives, for instance, we discover that Tofurkey wins a B+, while Gardenburger gets only a C, and Boca scores a dismal F (they’re owned by Kraft). I was heartened to learn that all my favorite beers earned a B+ or higher, while Guinness and Red Stripe, two beers I know offhand aren’t vegan, were both down near the bottom with a D (ha!). I’m sure a lot of this is information that many people already know, but it’s nice to have that assurance in your pocket.

Where the book falls short is that it’s merely a quick reference guide. There is no real info as to why each company earned the ranking they did. That data is starting to become available on the website’s research page. In the meantime you have the assurance that “data is collected over the past 20 years from a wide range of nonprofit sources on the social and environmental responsibility of more than 1,000 companies.”

In addition to the book, all of the content is readily available on the website. There is also an iPhone app available! It’s $1.99, and makes getting the info that much more convenient and very swanky.

I give this book an A+*!

* [Ed.: ADORABLE].

The stuff at Loyal Army is so fucking adorable it’ll make you barf kittens. The cuteness, it’s painful like a migraine. Like the kind of migraine you get when you look at me because I AM SO CUTE SOMETIMES IT CROSSES THE BORDER INTO REPULSIVE.

Loyal Army is a relatively young, SF-based company (the flagship store is in the Upper Haight!) that makes cute hoodies, cute shirts, cute bags and cute accessories in all sorts of different cute overload prints and designs. They have stuff for women, men, teens, tweens, kids, toddlers, babies and preemies (aww). Actually, their stuff is probably most suited for kids because some of this shirts makes grown people look straight up ridiculous. If you’re 30 and wearing a t-shirt with a talking stack of pancakes on it, I’m gonna automatically lose respect for you. Actually, I’ll probably try to be your best friend but really, you can do better.

MOST IMPORANTLY, Loyal Army launched a line of t-shirts and tote bags with an “Animals Have Rights Too” theme, including a dog and a cat hugging in a heart-shaped explosion of adorability! It will make you want to tear your eyes out because you JUST CAN’T TAKE IT and it’s on sale for $12! The coolest part is that 20 percent of the proceeds of the sales of these shirts and totes go to Rocket Dog Rescue, a local dog rescue group that saves dogs from the shelter and abuse and neglect situations and puts them into loving homes <3.

And, with that, I promise I will never use the word, “cute” again in any of my reviews. We can start a dollar jar for every time I fuck up. Then, at the end of the year, you can take the dollar jar and buy yourself a Delorean.