vegansaurus!

Events for your vegan weekend!
This is Genie the pigeon, recently adopted from Mickaboo Bird Rescue! Help out Mickaboo this weekend by stopping by the Rummage Sale for the Birds on Sunday, August 1 at the Market Street Co-op (1884 Market St., at Laguna and Guerrero) from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. There’ll be clothes, books, furniture, unclassifiable treasures, and if nothing pleases you, Mickaboo welcomes straight-up donations. Every cent benefits birds like young Genie here.

Of course, you had better go to the SF Vegan Bakesale tomorrow (Saturday! July 31!) in front of Mission Bicycle (766 Valencia St., between 18th and 19th Streets) from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., or we’ll have no money for the good people behind Rocket Dog Rescue and the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco! And then needy puppies and people will be homeless and probably die and do you want that on your conscience? So come on over and help out, already.

Would you like to be a vegan model? No, not just being pretty and eating celery, you guys. Really, walking in an all-vegan fashion show, as part of the 2010 Vegan Expo on Oct. 2 in Albany, N.Y. Check out the details and maybe see about entering! There are no size requirements AND you could end up wearing Vegansaurus favorite Vaute Couture!

Vegan-style news items
SFoodie visited two new city farmers markets this week—one at Cow Palace, and one at Mint Plaza. They sounded nice? Not very busy, but you know, new markets, and did anyone hear about them? Did any Vegansaurus readers go? Let us know if you do! Otherwise you’re just going to have to keep reading about them on other sites because after nine months of taking it twice daily almost every day, I am never taking it again. That bus is as anarchic as the 33 after dark, but it’s twice as long and picks up more passengers with face tattoos. [SFoodie]

Overfishing is killing our oceans! Phytoplankton are vanishing from the seas at an increasingly, terrifyingly rapid rate! You know, phytoplankton, “the basis of the entire marine food chain,” the wee algae which “produce around half of the oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere”? You guys we are all going to die, do not reproduce. [Scocca, New Yorker, Edible SF]

This week in Fucked Up Things Humans Are Doing to Animals, meet Enviropig™! Enviropig™ has been genetically engineered by the University of Guelph to produce an extra digestive enzyme that allows Enviropig™ to digest “plant phosphorus more efficiently” than standard pig. Further, Enviropig™ requires less food and produces less waste than standard pig! You may also be interested in pigs which have had “the fat-1 gene from C. elegans” “inserted…into” them, which converts omega-6 fats into omega-3 fats inside the pig. No? Well, Europe sure is! Europe, it turns out, is crazy for Animals With Whom People Have Been Genetically Fucking Around. [Shut Up, Foodies!, NY Times]

The State Fair is such wholesome fun! Except when a pregnant cow “rampages”/”stampede[s]” through the fairgrounds while exhibitors are setting up—then the police have to shoot to kill. [cbs5.com]

OK this is much better cow-related news: Catalonia just yesterday became the very first region (officially “autonomous community”) of Spain to completely ban bullfighting! The Spanish prime minister seems a bit miffed, and Placido Domingo is being a complete ass about it, but you know the Canary Islands banned in in 1991 and they technically “belong” to Spain, so this wasn’t even the first Spanish territory or whatever to put an end to the nastiest legally sanctioned “sport” since, what, bear-baiting? Or I guess cock-fighting is still legal in some countries. Someday. And then we’ll come for you, greyhound racing, and if our children’s children aren’t burned to death in the no-atmosphere, horse racing. OH YES. [CAS, AFP]

Have you ever had an ant invasion? How did you deal with it? What about a serious ant infestation? Tom Junod writes about a horrifying ant infestation his family endured, and as an admitted ant-freer and E.O. Wilson idolizer, I thoroughly enjoyed it. [Esquire]

Our Laura wanted to include this inspirational list of the Top 10 Things [Sherold Barr] Wish[es She] Knew Before [She] Was 30, and because I love our Laura, here it is. Some of us apparently are not afraid to expose our secret inner-hippie. Bravo for bravery, yes? Yes. [Crazy Sexy Life]

This is more the Megan Rascal beat, but it’s so hot, let’s give a girl a break: in New Hampshire, a black bear broke into a home, ate some fruit, and before running away at the sound of the garage door opening, “grabbed a stuffed bear.” OMG YOU GUYS WHAT DOES THIS MEAN. It means simultaneously tearing up and smiling, is what it means. Bear! [Daily Intel]

It’s already the end of July, and you live in San Francisco, so bundle up in your best summer hats and scarves (and snow fog pants) because it’s time yet again for SF Vegan Drinks, sponsored as always by your Vegansaurus. (Are we really making small talk about the weather? Yes in fact we are. Because IT’S FUCKING FREEZING. AND IT’S JULY. FUCK YOU SAN FRANCISCO. I STILL LOVE YOU BUT YOUR FOG-SNUGGIE OF MISERY AND DAMP CAN FUCK RIGHT OFF.) Still confused? Here’s Lyndsay’s fashionable press release to smooth it all over:

Just a heads up that the July installment of Vegan Drinks is Thursday, July 29 at Martuni’s (Valencia @ Market). Not only is this a fantastic chance to mingle with other interesting vegans while enjoying drink specials (this month: $5 Ketel One-Orange vegan creamsicle martini), a host of non-alcoholic beverage options, and all-you-can-eat vegan hot dogs and popcorn, you can support a local non-profit as well!

This month, we’re raffling off a dozen cinnamon rolls from Cinnaholic, and all money goes to Toni’s Kitty Rescue. Don’t miss your chance to win these sweet treats! Raffle tickets are $1 each.

What the—hot dogs, cinnamon rolls, and kittens? I’m almost certain that’s what heaven looks like. You’ll also get a chance to meet the whole Vegansaurus crew, or maybe some of us, or, let’s be realistic, probably none of us. Life is all one big gamble, and you never know what you’re going to get. It’s like playing Monte Carlo around here. Or, a bit more like Artichoke Joe’s. We at least won’t make off with your Social Security check. Vegan Drinks goes from 6 to 8 p.m. so if you find a tux rental with hourly rates, you’ll have plenty leftover from that check for cat food. Not for you, for all the new kittens you’re going to adopt from Toni! We’re already so helpful, getting you started early on the senior gambling debts/crazy-cat-lady aesthetic.

Hello friends, parents, strangers, graduates of the Columbia School of Journalism, etc.:

Thank you for caring about our well-being! Generally speaking, the thought that others concern themselves with our health is, if not thrilling, at least vaguely comforting. However, it’s time that you back off. Because frankly, accusing us of being secret anorexics, bulimics, binge-eaters, “orthorexics,” or some combination thereof, is really fucking insulting, and we’re sick of it.

Articles like this one by Danielle Friedman in the Daily Beast, which includes one figure and links to exactly one study in ScienceDirect, only make it more difficult for anyone to take a vegan diet seriously. When Friedman describes it or quotes others describing it as “restrictive,” “in the service of an eating disorder,” “a ruse,” “a cover for something darker,” “really an effort to avoid food in general,” and “system of eating that’s restrictive and passes judgment on food that’s not founded on health principles,” that does a disservice to all of us. Further, in the 12th paragraph Friedman contradicts her entire article (this is also the part where she commits to a figure): “for most of the country’s roughly 3 million vegans, who don’t consume or wear any animal products, their eating habits never veer into mental illness.” Thanks for the benefit of the doubt, Danielle! Unfortunately, we’re not the ones she’s interested in.

No, Friedman doesn’t care about “most of” us; she wants to terrify parents whose children have chosen to follow a vegan or vegetarian diet. THEY MAY HAVE AN EATING DISORDER, YOUR CHILDREN! Even though “most” vegans are totally fine and happy and eat foods both full of vegetables and full of donuts, that ScienceDirect study revealed that “young adults ages 15 to 23 who reported being vegetarian were, at some point, more likely to have also engaged in unhealthy weight-loss behaviors.” How much more likely? Friedman doesn’t say! And Vegansaurus doesn’t have $30 to pay to view the entire study, so we can’t tell you, either. We can quote from the results in the abstract, though:

Participants were identified as current (4.3%), former (10.8%), and never (84.9%) vegetarians. Current vegetarians in the younger and older cohorts had healthier dietary intakes than nonvegetarians with regard to fruits, vegetables, and fat. Among young adults, current vegetarians were less likely than never vegetarians to be overweight or obese. Adolescent and young adult current vegetarians were more likely to report binge eating with loss of control when compared to nonvegetarians. Among adolescents, former vegetarians were more likely than never vegetarians to engage in extreme unhealthful weight-control behaviors. Among young adults, former vegetarians were more likely than current and never vegetarians to engage in extreme unhealthful weight-control behaviors.

There you go. But is the answer really “not to let their kids be vegetarian until they go to college,” as one dietician suggests, because “[m]ost families don’t have the time to prepare vegetarian entrées”? How about taking vegetarian and vegan children seriously, and preparing vegetarian entrées? How about educating yourself about veg nutrition, so you can do your job as a parent and get your kids the nutrition they need, while respecting their individual rights? How many times do you have to be told EAT LESS MEAT BEFORE THE PLANET BURNS UP before you start eating less meat?

Here is a personal anecdote, even: I had an eating disorder, for a long, long time. More than anything else, what has helped me keep eating normally is my vegan diet. I saw a dietician when I could afford it, and she helped me through the “it’s OK to eat things” and “if you don’t eat normally you will die” bits, but keeping vegan keeps me feeling sane even through really terrible times. When I was sickest, I was omnivorous. Maybe I’m a statistical anomaly, but I think that if everyone were all better nutritionally educated—by proper dieticians, not “nutritionists” with “certificates” from “The Learning Annex” or whatever Holistic Institute of Cleansing Auras”—we’d be much better off.

I recently wrote a lil’ rant about how much I hate circuses and I damn near broke Vegansaur Steve’s heart! As he points out:

It really sucks that “circus” automatically makes people think of animals, because there’s a lot of really great circus performance here in SF (along with Circus Center if you want to become a circus freak yourself) and none of it has anything to do with animals.

He’s right, there are some great animal-free circuses! And like he mentions, some animal-free circus schools too. The SPCA, Humane Society, PETA, and Born Free USA all have lists of animal-free circuses! Like Steve mentioned, in San Francisco there’s the Circus Center, where you can take classes and be a clown! There’s also a drop-in trapeze class. A DROP-IN TRAPEZE CLASS! I assume there’s a prerequisite but still, you can roll up and be like, “I wanna fly, motherfuckers!” The Circus Center is also home to the New Pickle Circus, formerly the Pickle Family Circus, founded in San Francisco in 1974. Bonus: The Circus Center is having some sort of showcase at the end of August! You should totally go and send me pictures!

There are also some smaller circus acts in the area that can be hired for fundraisers and other events like The Earth Circus in Half Moon Bay. There’s another one based out of 522 Haight St., Circus Finelli. I love this description from PETA: “Four unruly women clowns present a Slavic, slapstick cabaret with daring comedy and dangerous cutlery.” There are more schools too, like Trapeze Arts and the Kinetic Arts Center, both in Oakland. More proof Oakland is full of circus freaks. Just kidding! No I’m not!

[flyer from The Circus Center’s website]

GQ’s food writer, Alan Richman, has an eight-page article in the July issue on his recent “ethical eating” odyssey, and is it ever illuminating and not at all like The Omnivore’s Dilemma rehashed!

Sorry, that was a lie. In reality, his conclusions are not very far from Michael Pollan’s, except Richman’s a lot snider getting to them. Underneath his Big Quest persona, he seems kind of angry:

“Today our true believers fervently pursue such principles as ecologically sound, socially just, humane, halal, kosher, nitrite-free, gluten-free, free-range, certified organic, or raw, whatever their cause demands. Yet not even vegans, our ultimate culinary ideologues, can match the commitment of those who dedicate themselves to the land. Farmers are, literally, America’s unwashed nobility.”

This sets the tone for the entire article: Richman loves and idealizes farmers, and dismisses vegans and vegetarians out of hand. Here’s a typical zinger: “I don’t romanticize vegetables. I don’t believe in their nobility, nor have I been convinced by those who claim plants have feelings and scream silently when tossed into a hot pan. (I wouldn’t mind if that were true, since it would require vegans to starve themselves to death.)”

Poor Alan Richman wants it both ways: to be able to eat ethically without taking into account the fact that killing animals is unethical. Raising animals to kill them for your meal is unethical.

Check it: “‘We Americans prefer not knowing that the food we eat had a life. That way we don’t have to face the awful truth—that the food we eat had to die. We push away fish that arrives whole, with its glazed eyes, distressed not by the fate of the animal but by our own discomfiture, a dinner date ruined. Most of us would prefer that our livestock were treated indifferently, even inhumanely. If we consider animals inconsequential, a meaningless food source, we won’t be ill at ease when they emerge from the kitchen nicely cooked.”

Wrong, Richman. Vegans don’t eat animals because we know they have lives, and we aren’t so selfish as to presume we have the right to take away their lives for our meals. We’re the ones going undercover in slaughterhouses to expose the horrific conditions for the workers and the animals, and the ones protesting those conditions. We do not consider any animals inconsequential, because we don’t make an arbitrary distinction between “food” and “pet.”

Eric Ripert, however, does make incomprehensible distinctions: he’s a practicing Buddhist, and “says that if he were to operate his restaurant under those religious teachings, the decision of what to feed customers would be simple: vegetables, nothing else.” And I’d play the Goldberg Variations, but I don’t own a piano, so I can’t. You are a practicing Buddhist, but you own several seafood restaurants, and as a judge on Top Chef you eat all kinds of animal products without blinking. So what’s the point of mentioning this, exactly? It’s not endearing—it sounds crazy. Of course not all Buddhists are vegetarians, but saying you would serve vegetables, except you already serve fish, so you can’t—that is fucking stupid.

Equally stupid is Dan Barber’s assertion that “Where we are, the environment is telling you to eat meat.” Did he ask the soil himself, Richman? Did you put your digital recorder down to the soil? It’s one thing to need a few animals to help with the ecosystem; it’s quite another to house “an animal-breeding facility.” That’s using them, which is gross and disrespectful. But Alan Richman loves farmers! So Dan Barber can have sockeye salmon flown to upstate New York from Alaska because he believes they have the best fisheries, and it must be acceptable because he’s a farmer and a chef. Don’t question him, he’s supreme master meat-farmer.

Then of course Richman gets to bring up Mollie Katzen’s later-in-life switch to an omnivorous diet: “‘For decades I ate brown rice, broccoli, and tofu…. And I felt tired, depressed, and irritable. As I’ve aged, I’ve felt a need for animal protein.’” Omnivores love it when vegans and vegetarians start eating animal products again, like it’s a giant game of red rover and they’re winning. Mollie Katzen is a grown-up and entitled to her own decisions, though maybe if she’d been able to eat more delicious vegan cheeses, tasty protein sources, or even just more non-animal-based fats (olive oil! avocados!), maybe she wouldn’t have felt this “need.” Who can say? None of us here eats exclusively brown rice and vegetables, though.

Ultimately, it seems like Alan Richman’s problem is that even if he could find food that met his nebulous standards, he wouldn’t know what to do with it, and further, he has no faith in “we” “Americans.” Again, if he stopped ignoring the non-animal-eating community, he might stop despairing so much. We know how to cook at home, because the majority of restaurants in the majority of the country do not cater to us. Instead of using the whole animal, we use the whole vegetable—cook the leafy greens, and use their hard ribs for stock. Our diets are richer, cheaper, healthier, more varied, and (arguably) more delicious than an omnivorous diet.

Richman moans that “We no longer regard food as a gift, the way so many foreign cultures and religious families do. Instead of giving thanks and expressing gratitude on holidays, we gorge ourselves with meat.” Has the idea of a Thanksgiving without meat ever occurred to him? It’s fantastic. What about potlucks, or brunches? Within the vegan community, we cater to each other while we work and wait for the greater community to cater to us. Group meals are exciting and fun, each dish a present to friends. We get a lot of joy out of cooking and eating, part of which comes from knowing that animals didn’t suffer and die for our meals. How exactly is that “ethical eating run amok”?

Richman’s narrow-mindedness does him a serious disservice. If he really wanted to discove how to eat ethically, he should have researched vegans and/or vegetarians. Otherwise, he frames his article disingenuously: this is “talking to independent farmers and a couple of restaurateurs about how I can feel less guilty about eating the same way I do now.” And that is a bunch of bullshit. At least Michael Pollan made an effort. Alan Richman used his budget to travel around eating a lot, get his relatives to write about their own hard work living consciously, and type up the same stuff everyone else has been saying about eating meat and vegetables and Alice Waters and Dan Barber since the publication of The Omnivore’s goddamn Dilemma. What a waste of time.

We’ve taken great strides forward in recent years. Daiya vegan cheese and Gardein meat products have surpassed, by a long shot, much that came before them. But with all of these recent advances in vegan food science, it’s easy to forget the poor substitutions that came before, and how bad we used to have it. That would be fine and dandy if those products would just disappear. Unfortunately, many of them persist on grocery shelves, stubbornly refusing to update their recipes to stay competitive.

What’s your vote for the single worst vegan product currently on the market? What’s the one that needs a huge “steer clear” label pasted on it for those who have just become vegan?  What’s the one that makes you groan when your mom “helpfully” purchases it for you? Seriously, this is a public service. By clearing the shelves of all the crap products, we’re making sure that folks spend their hard-earned money on vegan food that actually tastes great. More great-tasting vegan food = an easier transition to veganism = hopefully more vegans. Right? I mean, that and we’re gonna have to stop being such assholes to non-vegans. I’m sure the reason they’re not vegan yet is because of some goofy tongue-in-cheek snark on a vegan blog. That makes the most sense.

We’ll tally the results and do a follow-up post next week.

My vote: Tofutti Soy-Cheese Slices. What’s yours?

See, sometimes people aren’t the worst! Some lovely person over at Reddit made a plea to help a sweet pup named Rambo who was on death row at the city of Claremore, Okla. Animal Control. I don’t really know how Reddit works because the web interface is too ugly for my sensitive eyes, but apparently the post went wild and people voted it up the chain to the top ad, and Rambo got adopted! By a Reddit person! How awesome is that? Hint: SO AWESOME! Sometimes I report (ha! I’m a reporter! Promotion!) about super-sad animal stuff so I thought maybe everyone could use a pick-me-up! Yay! The world’s kind of all right sometimes!

[picture of Rambo from Claremore Animal Control]

SF Animal Care and Control rescued these barn swallows whose nest “in an area of a residential home” had been vandalized. They made them a new nest with this basket! [via Pawesome]

Events and happenings!
Hello bunny-fans! Missed your chance for a rabbit at the previous Harvest Home Sanctuary event? That’s OK, because there’s another, even bigger one tomorrow! On Saturday, July 22 from 1 to 6 p.m. at the House Rabbit Society (148 Broadway St. at 25th Street in Richmond), you can visit the bunnies, eat veg food—including vegan chai cupcakes and sno-cones—listen to live music, and of course, adopt! There are 80 rabbits who need homes! COME ON DO IT GET A RABBIT THEY ARE THE BEST. Check out some of your future best pals here. Maybe bring your single bun to make a friend!

Any Canadian readers? Vegansaur Jordan informs us that the Edmonton Humane Shelter is in the middle of an “Indy Cat 500” drive to adopt 500 cats between July 16 and 31. Apparently Edmonton is full of cats—at its previous cat-adoption event, the EHS adopted out nearly 200 cats in two days! Come on, Canada, spay and neuter your kitties, already.

On Monday, July 26, Hot Spud opens. Hot Spud is a baked potato restaurant, run by Simone Powers, formerly of Café Gratitude. It is not a vegetarian or vegan restaurant, but perhaps Chef Powers, who “perfected her baking skills” at a raw restaurant (…) will one day offer a vegan option. However! Reader Xin is the baker for Wicked Grounds (“San Francisco’s first and only kink café and boutique”), and reports that all the baked goods are vegan, including: “scones, cookies (chocolate chip, peanut butter oatmeal, and double ginger), waffles, and other specials depending on what I feel like doing, like cinnamon rolls (which are ridiculously fatty and delicious). You should totally come check us out!” Thanks, Xin! [Hot Spud news from Inside Scoop; awesome tip from awesome Xin]

Articles of interest!
The Department of Homeland Security wants Your (“alert, outgoing, active, confident”) Purebred Dogs! They will pay! And yes some of the trained officers (the dogs become actual officers) have attacked civilians in the course of performing their duties, that’s OK because they’re dogs, these things happen. Meanwhile, breed-specific legislation has allowed the slaughter of thousands of innocent pit bulls across the country. [Tom Scocca and Pawesome]

Hey remember last week’s super-gnarly episode of Top Chef where they murdered live crabs without even blinking? Turns out the Maryland crab industry is really, really exploitive of the migrant workers—mostly women—who come every season to pick the crabs. It’s unbelievably fucked up! [Shut Up, Foodies, to which we were referred by SFoodie—thanks]

Eater interviewed GZA and guess who’s vegetarian! And apparently really into raw food, and staunchly against pork. There goes your theory, Tara Duggan and Eric Tucker (that one stung, you know?). Might we suggest this goddamn amazing-looking vegan Cuban-style sandwich, should you find yourself craving something melty and meaty one night? Or ever? [Eater and Vegan Happy Hour]

Hello penguin! This fine fellow, a Magellanic penguin was rescued by SOS Fauna Marina on the coast of the Department of Maldonado, Uruguay. According the the L.A. Times, “at least 100” of these penguins were rescued after being soaked “in an hydrocarbon” [all sic] while migrating. [image AFP/Getty via L.A. Times]

Hey, how’s the Gulf oil spill cleanup going? WELL: the fresh water from the Mississippi river being pumped into the wetlands to keep the oil out is poisoning all the oysters, who live in saltwater! It seems like the river water went right to the oysters through channels that oyster-farmers demanded be built years ago, because the levees kept out too much of the Mississippi and the salinity was too high. Man, we can’t get anything right! At least WE CAN STILL EAT THE REMAINING OYSTERS AND THAT IS THE IMPORTANT THING. Fish are basically vegetables, anyway. As for animals who eat fish, as of July 20, 1,282 oiled pelicans have been rescued—that doesn’t mean “saved” or “cleaned” or “released,” just “taken from the wild, covered in oil”—and 969 oiled pelicans have been found dead. Super. Right? Super. [WSJ and BBC]

So back in April, the Supreme Court heard U.S. v. Stevens and was all, OK this animal-torture porn conviction is way harsh, it totally infringes on your First Amendment rights. Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) then sponsored a bill that says, essentially, trafficking in actual animal-torture porn is ILLEGAL and BAD and we will FUCK YOU UP if you do it—but SIMULATING IT? That’s…withing legal limits. Hunting and fishing videos and stuff, you can sell those too, but that’s all. And that bill passed the House yesterday in a 416 to 3 vote! Hooray! Now it’s in the Senate, where “it is expected to pass,” but you know, we’ll see. Those jerks loooove to pick fights. [L.A. Times]

Farm news! It is time for farm news. SFoodie totally kicked our ass reporting on farmers markets this week, which is super-lame of us and we are shamed. To wit: the Homegrown Marin Market, which we were absolutely going to tell you about before its debut last week, was pretty all right! There was vegan currywürst (NB friends: the umlaut is in “würst,” not “curry,” otherwise you’d pronounce it “cure-y”)! The Mission Community Market seems like it was a good time, too; very block-partyish, like the organizers had hoped for. Maybe if someone paid us to go places and report on things we would be better at this “job,” dang it. Over at Hayes Valley Farm, someone maliciously gassed two entire, mature honeybee colonies, and attempted to murder a third. The colonies were home to something like 60,000 to 100,000 bees. While we don’t believe in eating honey, humanity needs bees to pollinate flowers, and this is gross cruelty. Bees are awesome and we all need them TO SURVIVE so maybe murdering them is NOT THE ANSWER. Goddamn. In Africa, years of “careless interbreeding” of native cattle and European cattle has resulted in a major loss of genetic diversity in African cows, which is never, ever good, especially when “70 percent of rural Africans” rely on cattle for food and income. The new cows have no resistance to native diseases! And the climates are too harsh for them! So they’re dying all over the place! Whoops! [SFoodie; Hayes Valley Farm; TreeHugger]

Finally: Mike Tyson, vegan, gives a strange interview these days. This collection of veg cookbooks is fine and all, except that one of them clearly has A FISH ON THE COVER. Still, the recipe for Babycakes’ cornbread is at the bottom of the page, so, win some, lose some. Most importantly, congratulations Cinnaholic on the good review from SFoodie! You deserve all the accolades coming your way!! (PS: Inside Scoop, taking photos and being snide does not count as a “review” so get it together and eat a cinnamon roll already, they are delicious.)

Berkeley is no longer just a blight on the urban map of the Bay Area. For so long it was just a place for terrible students and terrible rich hippies (the worst kind of hippie!) and was only to be suffered if you really had to have delicious vegan brunch at Fellini. Well, it’s still all those things! But now it has taquitos! And cinnamon rolls! And Saturn Cafe! 

Saturn Cafe is an import from Santa Cruz and it’s an important one. First of all, in a city that goes to bed at 6 p.m., it stays open to the unbelievably late hour of midnight. Kudos to them for making that happen because I can’t imagine the amount of city bullshit that they’d have to deal with to make that happen. Bureaucracy win! Secondly, it’s all vegetarian and that’s fucking awesome. It’s always nice to know that your tofu scramble won’t get cross-contaminated with bacon surprise (surprise! your breakfast had a mother!). And then there’s the decor? Saturn bills itself as a “Space-Age Diner” to which I say, “Space-Age?! More like GAY-AGE!” This place makes Pink Saturday look like a klan rally. Seriously, I brushed against a glitter-covered column and I swear, I’m still finding silver sparkles in my crap. All in all, LOVE. More glitter! Glitter for ALL! Life is a rave, pass the glow-in-the-dark Mickey Mouse gloves and let’s do the damn thing!

So already, Saturn Cafe has my heart. BUT THEN, my mind kicks in! That pesky thing that keeps me from being happy. Seriously, stupid people have it the best. And my mind tells me WAIT A MINUTE WTF IS THIS??? For a vegetarian restaurant, it’s sure slim pickings for the vegans. There are several areas in which they fail. I will now detail them because that’s how I do CONTROVERSY WHAT!

1. No vegan cheese options. If you order something that regularly has cheese on it, the vegan version comes with this insane tofu spread that’s basically mashed up tofu with some chives mixed in. This grainy mixture is their stand-in for both cheese and sour cream. It’s very odd…not altogether bad, just odd. And when you consider the leaps and bounds vegan cheese products have taken in even the past few years, maybe the folks at Saturn just need to get on testing vegan cheeses. Might we suggest Daiya, Teese and Cheezly? We might!
2. The veg chicken patties they use aren’t vegan. Dude, there’s GARDEIN. No excuse!
3. Stuff like pancakes aren’t vegan. I don’t get it; pancakes are like the easiest thing to veganize. Let’s do this! Also, while you’re at it, please veganize the biscuits and gravy! There isn’t ONE place in the entire San Francisco Bay Area that serves this and I’m telling you, that alone will make Saturn famous. With my pants. And what is underneath my pants. That’s right, my vagina. I could go further but children read this blog! Also, if you are a child PLEASE STOP READING AND CALL CPS, your parents should be held responsible!
4. Two options for vegan ice cream! You’re in the land of Maggie Mudd now, broker a deal with those fools! Let’s see some PB&J! And Apple Pie! I will pay for it, in both money and hella points for gluttony! This is kind of a throw-on request because I like to shoot for the moon. It’s really nice that they offer vegan milkshakes and I don’t want to push my luck.

All in all, Saturn Cafe, I love you. But please come through for the vegans! We count on our brothers in arms (or, in arms-ish. oh and that’s you, vegetarians! hi!) to have our backs in this big bad world of restaurant dining. If you could pull through for us on the front of vegan options, we will repay you in a never ending supply of our cold, hard vegan cash. And we’re by and large very rich*—how else would we shop at Rainbow all the time!? Shit.

OH ALSO: Maybe if they receive lots of very polite email from vegans letting them know there’s a desire for more vegan options, we’ll see some action! Maybe not! But, as always, it’s worth a try! Go forth, mighty (and polite!) vegans! Go forth, and spread our mighty (and polite!) message!

*lies.

Today is the first day of the Ringling Brothers performances on Coney Island this summer. THAT SUCKS! I HATE RINGLING BROTHERS! I HATE CIRCUSES!

All animal abuse is awful but many of us probably have our one issue that bothers us more than others and for me, it’s circuses with “performing” animals. ESPECIALLY the elephants. I love elephants! They are amazing! They are so totally cool and sweet and I love them. Juxtapose that with how horrifically they are treated—it’s despicable! They get electric shocks, and don’t forget about the disgusting bull hook. I would bull hook the heck out of those “trainers,” I swear. As far as animal abuse videos go, this one just kills me. I won’t watch it ever again because I will cry and not leave my house for three days and then only emerge to be mean to people. It’s not of Ringling but trust me, there are plenty of Ringling videos too. I will give you permission not to watch this video because it is super-disturbing and I feel like vegans don’t have to watch that stuff since we are already vegans. Everyone who goes to the circus, however, should have to watch that video over and over.

Back to Coney Island: I already missed the big protest but we can still go out and meet with the protesters on any Wednesday through Sunday while the show is running. It’s running until fucking September. GOD! I’m about to cry! But I won’t because I’m a tough guy.

Anyway, everyone knows that Cirque du Soleil is way better than Ringling. Like, a million times better. And they don’t use any animals! Has anyone besides me seen the one that’s just in Vegas, O? It’s amaaaazing. My family and I went a few years ago and I was all like, “what’s this thing? I don’t know, I’m tired,” but then I went and it was SO AWESOME. Actually, it was so dope that I kind of can’t see any of the other ones because they are not as awesome.

Another thing I hate: how all the New Yorkers are so very enchanted by the whole elephants having to walk through Manhattan every year. OMG it’s just so totally amazing. I’m like, STFU JERKS! Why are people so selfish? Probably because it’s our world and animals are just here for entertainment and food because they can’t protect themselves from the cancer called humans. Right on!

[illustration by Megan Rascal]

[Ed.: Crappily, the circus will be coming to the SF Bay Area in August and September. If you’re interested in heading out and educating circus-goers of the crappiness behind the tents, please holler at the fine folks with Humanity Through Education.They make it really easy to show up, grab some leaflets and signs, and help the animals of the circus! And check out Ringling Abuses Animals for other stuff you can do too.]

I generally like people to get along. I think it’s nice, and me feeling that way makes it easier for me to believe I’m an OK person. However, every once in a while, something happens that really pisses me off, and I have to talk about it to everyone, and this is happening right now, so I have to tell you about Vegetarian With A Vengeance! ARRRRRG!

Anyway.

We all know the seminal vegan cookbook Vegan With a Vengeance by the talented Isa Chandra Moskowitz, right? Well, it turns out that FIVE YEARS after it was published, Grub Street Publishing in the UK (the owner of the publishing rights to Vegan With a Vengeance in the UK) is releasing Vegetarian With a Vengeance on July 30. That’s right—a vegetarian cookbook with a disingenuously familiar name. What the hell?

Understandably annoyed by this apparent biting, Ms. Moskowitz recently posted about Vegetarian With a Vengeance on her Twitter feed, prompting an outpouring of vegan rage, which overflowed onto Vegetarian With a Vengeance’s Amazon page. How has Grub Street responded to the criticism/vegan shitstorm? Oh, only in the most mature and professional manner possible: by posting a poorly written, unclear screed in the discussion thread on the Amazon page. No press release, no post on the company site, no Facebook announcement—no communication of any kind save a few internally inconsistent comments buried within a thread on another company’s website. Clearly, this is a publisher that cares deeply about the vegan and vegetarian community.

It turns out that the book was originally written in Danish, and there’s some debate about whether the Danish title, Vegetarisk Vellyst, translates to Vegetarian With a Vengeance or not. My buddy Ditte, who is Danish (is from/lives in Denmark Danish, not Danish American, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but let’s just say she speaks good Danish), swears up and down that the only really plausible translation is “Vegetarian Delight,” which Google seems to agree with. The publisher swears (in the Amazon thread) that it was the authors who came up with the scurrilous translation and that the publisher snapped it up because they thought it would do well because of its similarity to Ms. Moskowitz’s book’s name—not that they intended to ride her coattails or anything. In any event, it seems clear that Grub Street was attempting to capitalize on the association the creatively translated title would buy them with Vegan With a Vengeance, even if it’s unclear who did the actual creative translating (you all can wade through the Amazon discussion and draw your own conclusions—I’m not your mom!).

The whole thing is a confusing, frustrating, dumb mess, and it’s really sad to see. Not to be all starfucker or anything, but I know Isa. She’s a nice person who is a great cook and writes fucking awesome recipes. She’s generous with her time and her recipes, but more than that, she’s an example for all vegan cookbook authors out there when it comes to being a good member of the vegan community, giving credit where it’s due (example here), and dealing with conflict in a responsible way. Not to say that we should canonize Ms. Moskowitz, but I’m left wondering why it was too much to ask that the people looking to make a profit in vegan (or vegetarian) dollars treat the people in the community with a little respect.

I’m really happy to see all the vegan books coming down the pike. It’s awesome that there are so many great options out there, with more being released every day, and I’m really happy for the authors of these books. But I’m also worried, and incidents like this make me more so. It’s great that businesses are figuring out that vegan money spends just as green as, um, other money, but it’s not as great that businesses are figuring out how to exploit the vegan community to make a quick buck. Veg publishing is, apparently, a business worth getting into these days, and I’m worried that I’m going to start seeing other vegan authors taking hits from shady publishing houses, or unscrupulous vegan authors who “borrow” recipes unattributed and unchecked by their publishers. And don’t even get me started on authors who back out of their publishing contracts six days before printing, causing the only all-vegan publishing venture I was aware of to decide that maybe the book business isn’t the way to go, costing all future vegan authors the possibility of an all-vegan ethical-as-fuck publisher. All this is to say: ugh. Can we please just get some fucking unity in the fucking scene?

Because that’s really it, right? Being vegan (and vegetarian to an extent) means being a conscientious consumer. It means abstaining from the products that come from the death or suffering or stealing from another living thing. I guess we’ve been lucky that we could mostly take for granted that buying a veg cookbook was a pretty safe bet, ethically speaking—until now. Dig a little deeper when you’re putting down your hard-earned dollars, and let’s give our money to the people who are interested in doing the right thing, not making a quick buck. We have this amazing luxury in that we can pick and choose what vegan books we want to support, so let’s (non-dairy) milk it for all its worth! We may not all agree on which authors/publishers/books are the best choices, but the point is that the thinking about it and putting in the effort is a worthwhile thing to do. For the vegans, for the animals, let’s do this!