vegansaurus!

You didn’t think we’d let 2013 come at us without a best of list, did you? OF COURSE NOT. So for your reading pleasure, we came up with our very favorite meals of 2012. Let’s do this!

Jenny (that’s me!): My new favorite restaurant of all time is Pura Vida in Las Vegas. I ate so many wonderful meals this year, but Pura Vida topped them all. Chef Mayra is a culinary mastermind—her dishes are vibrantly colorful and packed with so much flavor! Almost every day I think about the breakfast burrito I had about eight months ago, and I cannot wait to to get back to Vegas to hit her up again! I’ve actually planned my entire wedding in Vegas (sans groom) (for now) solely based on Chef Mayra catering the elegant debauchery that will no doubt ensue.

Latin’tude breakfast burrito, I love you!

Megan: ”For me, it was the year of chickpea flour—and more specifically, the Tuscan chickpea frittata. Oh boy did we have some good times this year! I made them every which way from Sunday. So easy and so yummy! And totes versatile. It’s the best!”

Man, that was a lot of fun, when Megan was making all those frittatas! I can’t believe I never tried one myself, but I suppose that will have to be what 2013 is for!

Vegan, gluten-free frittata; so many delicious combinations!

Laura: ”The VegNews all-cheese holiday party, catered by Miyoko Schinner was, in a word, mind blowing! Cheese, cheese, and more cheese!! Giant cheese-stuffed ravioli was maybe the best thing I’ve ever eaten in my life (SORRY ABOUT THE PHOTO, I’m too pretty to be good at anything!) and fried croquettes on amazing salad, and so much more. Vegan meringue, too! Holy mother!

“Vegan cheese, you’ve come a long way since your days of gross inedibility! Buy Miyoko’s book IMMEDIATELY!”

Hot dang, that VegNews staff knows how to get down!

Vegan cheese, you HAVE come a long way!

Meave: Of course, sometimes it is impossible to pick just one, so our Meave gives the lowdown on her top five! First, comes Isa’s Maple Pecan Pie, because what holiday is complete without this delectable dessert? (Follow Meave on Instagram to see how her beautiful pie turned out—I was blown away at its loveliness!)

Maple pecan pie, before meeting the oven! 

Next up we have a filling and colorful veg bowl, to which Meave explains, “Angela Liddon, salad genius, made so many of my lunches better with her legume and veg bowls, but my favorite was her Lightened Up Protein Power Goddess Bowl. Meave is quite the salad dressing connoisseur (“I’m picky”), so if this made the list, you know it’s got to be good! Of course we can’t leave out the brunch at Donut Farm, which includes Meave’s personal faves — the winter hash, double-dipped donuts, banana fritters and potato works!

Winter hash forever! Or at least until spring!

Last but certainly not least, Sinto Gourmet kimchi, and for ogling, everything by Tofu666 (“my No. 1 source for food porn”).

Sarah: Keeping up with her title, Sarah dishes out some raw opinions, telling us her favorite dish of 2012 was “Cafe Gratitude’s I Am Whole bowl. Always”. I bet she’s missing that over on the East Coast! Hope you got your fill on your recent L.A. adventure, Sarah!

Sarah’s version of said bowl, via her personal blog queerveganfood.com.

Andrew: “I’m going to have to go with our recent Mexican vegan Christmas dinner menu—homemade refried beans, Spanish rice, homemade mole with tofu, three kinds of homemade tamales (soyrizo, mushroom and mole, and green chile and cheese); margarita pizza with soyrizo (definitely NOT homemade); and horchata made from scratch, which was used for Mexican White Russians. This fed seven of us at dinner and then everyone got some to take home. And we’ve had leftovers for one meal a day since.” I did manage to get myself invited to this magnificent dinner, but alas, Long Beach was just too far away!

Check out this magnificent plate, made complete with a Tecate, of course!

That’s enough about us and our favorites—now it’s your turn to rave about your absolute faves from 2012, so the rest of us can enjoy them in 2013! Happy New Year everybody!

It’s the last Paul Shapiro’s Animal News You Can Use! of 2012, PLEASE ENJOY! And we’ll see you next year xoxoxoxo!

Remember HSUS’s groundbreaking undercover investigation at a Wyoming pig factory earlier in the year? This past week, a small amount of justice for pigs was delivered when authorities announced they’re charging nine people we caught on tape there, including two managers, with criminal animal cruelty charges based on our investigation.

I have a commentary that aired twice today on the DC NPR affiliate (WAMU) about why listeners should make cutting back on meat consumption their New Year’s resolution. Speaking of NPR, yesterday and today, NPR’s Morning Edition had two (here andhere) major stories on vegan eating.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune—the biggest paper in the third biggest pork production state—editorialized this past week against gestation crates. The paper notes, “The extreme confinement shows such a shocking disregard for animal welfare that they’re banned in nine U.S. states and soon will be in the European Union.” And by soon, they mean really soon. The EU ban takes effect next week!

Video of the week: My friend Adam Frank uploaded this just yesterday—the lion and lamb not really laying together, but more like playing together!

Vegan suit-enthusiasts, perk up! I don’t know how people have been buying suits but it seems hella difficult. Wool wool wool! Well if you want a super-fine suit that’s all vegan, Brave GentleMan is here to outfit you. They are quite expensive but it’s my understanding that well-made suits have always been expensive. And sometimes you pay for quality and the sense of wellbeing you get knowing children didn’t make your clothes.*

As has been pointed out previously, you don’t need to be a “gentleman” to wear these, chicks can wear them too, as can gender neutral peeps and really, anyone with two Gs. 

This is my favorite (besides the tux, obvi), the Convert:

So dope. Nothing like a fancy vegan in a suit, that’s what I always say.

*Brave GentleMan isn’t just vegan, the company is committed to fair-labor and sustainability as well.

Though in the past San Franciso’s Upper Haight may not have been a mecca for vegans, I can assure you that it is most definitely becoming one! Thanks to Whole Foods, I can get my fix of Food For Lovers vegan queso anytime I fancy; Sunrise Deli just opened up and man, they KILL IT with their avocado falafel sandwich; Escape From New York offers Daiya cheese; Picnic Bakery is coming soon; and we also boast one of the cutest specialty boutiques in the city—Buyer’s Best Friend!

Buyer’s Best Friend has been open for a little while now. I think they may have had their grand opening party over the summer. Every time I go in they have new and interesting products, and because they buy straight from the companies, they are able to sample out all their artisan food products! This is incredible news because most of their specialty food items are vegan, even raw! Buyer’s Best Friend also carries housewares, bath and beauty supplies, and cold-pressed Stumptown coffee!

Of course I took some pictures — let’s check it out!

All kinds of interesting, locally made, and beautifully crafted soaps, with creative names to boot!

The sales representatives were most excited to have me try this VEGAN bacon-flavored hot sauce. It was delicious, and completely cruelty-free!

Their shelves are stocked with all kinds of artisan oils, sauces, mustards, and glazes!

VEGAN CARAMEL SAUCE!

Pickled vegetables galore via Emmy’s!

Get yo’ hipster cold-pressed coffee ON.

Or you can get some beans to brew at home.

Raw vegan delights by Just Pure Foods!

Truffle oils and flour!

Before Buyer’s Best Friend opened, I had never had Cocomel’s coconut-milk based caramels. These caramels are definitely one of my most favorite things, ever!

Most of these chocolate delectables are vegan! Some are even raw!

Buyer’s Best Friend is located at 1740 Haight St. in San Francisco, between Cole and Shrader in the Upper Haight!

It’s Paul Shapiro’s Animal News You Can Use! Yay, Paul! Yay, Animals!

You may be interested in HSUS’s new fully wrapped bus ads rolling around DC and Des Moines with a message that gestation crate defenders are sure not to like, and while you’re at it, here’s the Des Moines Register’s coverage of it.

National Hog Farmer this week lamented the progress we made in 2012 against gestation crates, noting our early successes getting large food companies on “the anti-stall bandwagon [set] in motion for others to hop on, much to the glee of the pork industry’s nemesis — the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS)….Even more disturbing is it has empowered HSUS and their ilk to target other common pig management procedures.” (Note: Einstein Bagels and Arby’s this week became the latest companies to announce plans to phase out gestation crates…)

Meat industry analysts (and owner of the Dow Jones Index) CME Group report this week that demand for meat in the US fell again this year, and conclude: “But it is obvious that there have been no banner years for at least the three largest species since 2004.” Perhaps more people are seeing pieces like this one from this week about the benefits of Meatless Monday.

Happy holidays!

P.S. Video of the week: Want to be inspired by some cool things that happened for animals this past year? Check this one out. (Bonus blog of the week: Some cool things specifically for farm animals that happened.)

Lydia is ready to party!

Harvest Home Animal Sanctuary is having its annual year-end celebration fundraiser on Saturday, Dec. 22, and you’re invited! Buy your $25 ticket now (or pay $30 at the door) and support a really wonderful rescue group at Saturn Cafe in Berkeley.

Here are the details:

Enjoy cruelty-free appetizers (Grilled veggies, sliders, sweet potato fries and taquitos) at the Bay Area’s popular Saturn Cafe in Berkeley.

The sanctuary’s event will feature a mini-silent auction to benefit the lifesaving work of the sanctuary. At Saturn’s Space Lounge, our no-host bar will include organic beer from Santa Cruz Mountain Brewery, organic wine from Orleans Hill, and delicious holiday cocktails.

With your ticket purchase, you will sponsor a rescued animal of Harvest Home Sanctuary for the month of December. At the event, you will receive a colorful card featuring a photograph your sponsoree.

The festivities start at 6 p.m. on Saturday and last till midnight at Saturn Cafe, 2175 Allston Way in Berkeley.

I’m always on the lookout for weird and crazy raw food, so when the Raw Chocolate Co. posted a glorious picture of chocolate covered Brussels sprouts on their Facebook, I was like OH DANG, this is my perfect food!

Sadly, it was a hoax, used to promote what they actually offer: raw cacao-coated mulberries.

After corresponding with an employee about why Brussels sprouts really should be doused in chocolate, she sent me their raw chocolate mulberries and they are seriously no joke. While they’re not candy derived from a brassica, which was my momentary life’s wish come true (and maybe still is a little bit), they are completely delicious and unique.

Here’s why: Think of your first experience with chocolate-covered dried fruit. If you didn’t grow up in Berkeley under the roof of hippie parents who raised you on public demonstrations and farmers’ market samples, your first experience with this dual-natured candy was likely in the form of Raisinets scarfed alongside your friends in the back of a movie theater. Raisinets are shitty and unethical and not at all vegan, but most of us learned to expect that chocolate-coated dried fruit would be chock-full of fillers and sickly sweet; the hard chocolate shell had tons of sugar, the raisins were sweet by themselves.

Now that you’re a grown-up and frequently dip into the bulk bins of organic chocolate-covered raisins at the Valencia Whole Foods or Rainbow, you’ve come to expect less child slavery and animal cruelty in the same hard shell/dried fruit format—it’s just how these things go.

Maybe it’s because Raw Chocolate and Co. is a British company, or maybe they’re true revolutionaries on all fronts—whatever the reason, their chocolate-covered mulberries defy any chocolate-covered fruit industry standards of which I’m aware. The mulberries are sprinkled with the cacao coating in a way that manages to preserve the integrity of the shape and texture of the mulberries, rather than masking their identity with uniform hard chocolate shells. The mulberries’ cacao coating is just the right amount of sweet (using really delicious unrefined sweetener coco palm sugar!) and isn’t a hard shell that takes a second to dissolve into its components but rather a melt-in-your mouth delicate glaze that gently gives way to the superior quality dried mulberries within.

The package also includes all kinds of helpful math about what’s in them: 44 percent mulberries, 56 percent chocolate. 74 percent cacao overall, raw cacao solids, cacao mass, coco palm sugar, cacao butter, cacao powder, and all fair trade—yay!

I highly recommend trying these raw vegan chocolate-covered mulberries. They come in the most adorable tin ever and would make perfect gifts for that special raw foodie or candy gourmand in your life. And stay tuned for my in-development recipe for raw chocolate covered-Brussels sprouts!

Carrot cake and cappuccino, so effing delicious

Timeless Coffee, the brand-spankin’-new coffee shop on Piedmont Avenue, is a perfect blend of quality coffee, delicious food and excellent service. It’s hard to expand past a general review of “Yaaaaaaay!” but I’ll do my best. The airy coffee shop has counters full of house-baked pastries and candies and boasts a delightful variety of different coffee roasts, available as a pour-over or quick Fetco-brewed option. My first sip of the Sightglass pour-over called to mind every Dale Cooper quote on the “damn fine” quality of a superb cup of coffee. I drank it black as midnight, and boy was I happy.

As a coffee-loving, Oakland-based vegan, I hadn’t realized what I was missing until I walked into Timeless. Up until this point in my veganism I’d accepted that if I wanted good coffee, the only accompaniments available to me were bagels, Pepple’s donuts, or an elusive Fat Bottom Bakery cookie or scone. No longer. There is something so wonderful about a wide variety of delicious vegan treats right alongside your cup of joe. Violett at Timeless makes a killer selection of biscotti, Hostess-inspired baked goods, cookies, muffins, chocolates, and weekend cinnamon rolls. Having tried the house-made “Twinkie”, the Chocodile, and the carrot cake, I can guarantee that even the mightiest sweet tooth will be satiated. Pre-wrapped to-go items are also available. It took every bit of self-restraint to not stock up my cupboards with peanut butter cups and almond biscotti.

The “Chocodile.” Holy diabetes, this thing was good

Timeless is 100 percent vegan, right down to the barista-quality almond and soy milk used for espresso drinks. But if you show up and don’t see anything listed as “vegan,” don’t fret, it was a purposeful decision to keep the v-word off of the menu. By not branding themselves as a vegan café, Timeless is able to appeal to all walks of life. In regards to opening up the shop in his own neighborhood, RJ said, “I’ve always thought that Piedmont Avenue lacked in the vegan department. … Living here for eight years, it’s very limited, but I love this neighborhood so much. I knew the neighborhood would be open to it.”

His assessment seems to be correct, as he says the vast majority of patrons have been delighted about the vegan menu, even if they didn’t realize their peppermint fudge brownie and espresso combo was cruelty-free until after the fact. “People have been really excited that they’ve had it, and found out later. Their minds kinda changed. That was Violett’s and my approach to it, that it’d be a positive thing.”

A little on the pricier side, but you definitely get what you pay for

Despite only having opened on Dec. 10, Timeless was bustling with patrons when I went this week. Several people already knew RJ by name and seemed to have established Timeless as their regular spot. RJ, along with part-owners Violett and Sam, hopes to expand the menu soon, offering savory accompaniments like bacon-cheddar scones. Ultimately, they’d like to offer a weekend brunch and bi-weekly late dinner service with a fixed menu. RJ, a veteran roaster who helped establish Sightglass, even wants to start roasting beans in-house. This unobtrusive and beautiful coffee shop has already hit all the right notes with me and I’m excited to see what new creations they unveil in the coming months.

Timeless Coffee is located at 4252 Piedmont Ave. in Oakland.

Courtney Flynn lives in Oakland and spends way too much time inventing vegan recipes, reading science fiction, and crocheting hats for her dog, Blender. She sometimes remembers to update her blog, where she likes to write about food, restaurants and products that don’t suck.

Can’t see the video? Watch it on Vegansaurus.com!

I’ve been waiting for a good anti-down video to come out and PETA has just released one (warning: it’s a bit graphic). I feel like omnis never think about down when it’s actually totally awful. I didn’t even know about the foie gras connection. And down is totally unnecessary in these modern times! There are super-alternatives! 

So spread the word: don’t buy down!

Two weeks ago, on a recent trip in a paradise I like to call LA, I hit up one of my fave spots — Pressed Juicery in West Hollywood! While purchasing a mass amount of juice and trying to make small talk with the register dude, I was told two incredible things: that it was their one year anniversary, so I’d be getting 10% off my order and that they were planning on opening up an SF location. I was very excited upon hearing this, but while walking away I couldn’t help but think of the lip service and broken promises we in the Bay Area have been given about getting our own Babycakes and Native Foods, and so I promptly let it go. 

However, it looks as though we actually are getting a Pressed Juicery and soon too! Eater SF says it’s going to be in Noe Vally; that the space is already available! I’m not going to hold my breath or anything, but I’m pretty stoked about this — I think my heart even skipped a beat. I’ll be here waiting for you, Pressed Juicery. I love you so! 

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I miss seafood. Thankfully, many a talented chef and  vegan company have heard my incredibly influential sobs, and risen to the challenge of putting this kind of delectable food item on the market! Today, we talk about Sophie’s Kitchen — specifically the crab cakes. 

 

I got these bad boys at Whole Foods, a market I did not previously notice them at until recently. Here’s what I have to say — if you see them, grab them up. Honestly, I could not be more stoked with this product. 

I am not a fan of frying my food my food at home, which some of you might find surprising since I eat so much of it when going out. Whatever, let’s move on. I baked them, at 350, for about 15 minutes, or golden brown on the edges. I immediately ate one of them plain, because waiting for both the oven to pre-heat and then the cakes to bake was excruciating. Delicious! I don’t know how Sophie’s Kitchen does it! The best part is that these are gluten and soy-free! The texture is spot on, without being too much, if you aren’t a fan of faux-meats that are exactly like the real thing. The taste itself is also pretty spot-on, without being overly “fishy”, thanks to the wakame powder. 

Baked to perfection and demolished in 30 seconds.  

Being a San Francisco Bay Area native, hot crab sandwiches were a part of my childhood. They bring back family lunches out, in Marin County while visiting my grandparents, and then my mom replicating those same sandwiches in our kitchen at home. Sometimes the hardest part of being vegan is not being able to eat the food that is linked to my family and our memories. Sophie’s Kitchen Vegan Crab Cakes are delightful to me, not only because they are scrumptious, but also because for the first time in over a decade I got to eat a hot ‘crab’ sandwich! 

My crab sandwich was nothing too spectacular, as I made it at my grandma’s house with only the crab cake, some french bread and Veganaise on hand. You can bet when I make them at home, I’ll be going all out with an english muffin, green onion, Veganaise and  melted vegan cheese. I can’t wait. However plain this one may seem, I was happy none-the-less!

The crab cakes are somewhat small, so I thought I could eat all four that come in a box, no problem. I actually could only get through two, because they are quite decadent! 

Last but not least — the ingredients! I know a bunch of you are into analyzing this part of processed and packaged food items, so have at it! 

I can’t wait to try all of this company’s other products! 

Last weekend, New York hosted the Hack//Meat conference, where experts gathered to “brainstorm the issue of meat.” Per Businessweek:

One of the more interesting proposals to come out of Hack//Meat is from Foodpairing, a food industry research company and app developer. Foodpairing has broken down flavor to its molecular components and has compiled databases that can match the flavor of those ingredients against other completely different ingredients. By compiling “foodpairing trees” its technology can identify vegetable or seafood ingredients that reinforce the flavor of different meats, or in some cases, can act as a substitute for a meat entirely.

Yes, “molecular gastronomy” gives you a case of the eyerolls, but past the “sciencing your food all up” part, this sounds like an interesting way of making meat substitutes that meat-eaters will accept and maybe even embrace. Let’s go science!

[Photo by Rick Harrison via Flickr]