vegansaurus!

Road trip: Babycakes in LA!

Babycakes has always been a staple of my New York living experience. Whenever I buy a new pair of shoes at Mooshoes, I always pop over to Babycakes to see what’s cookin’ (or bakin’, to be precise). I’m kind of miffed that the mostly gluten-free, vegan bakery offers dairy creamer for their coffee (I mean, soy creamer, coconut milk creamer, rice milk, almond milk— there are thousands of alternative milks out there that don’t involve the exploitation of animals!!!!), but they sure as shit know how to pound out some delicious goods. My hips, thighs, and butt are even more miffed that I have such an affinity for Babycakes’ delicious, decadent cupcakes—red velvet, anyone?!

Upon hearing that a new Babycakes was slated to open in LA today, I knew KNEW I had to haul ass (21 miles to be exact) to make it to the opening. And boy, am I glad I did. Erin McKenna was there (pictured in super-stalker fashion), in the flesh not two feet away from me icing some beautiful cupcakes. “Hi, I’m Brianna and I live in New York and I love Babycakes and I love you,” I gushed to her. She’s super-sweet and amazing and I was so happy to be in her presence. So, how does the LA location stack up to the NYC one?

LA is super-spread out, and although downtown is being gentrified, it’s still pretty inconvenient for most people in the Valley, in the beach communities (Santa Monica, Venice), in the UCLA area, etc. Babycakes LA is in an unassuming space in downtown, in the Historic Core district, where parking is scarce (and expensive!). The space itself is fairly large and much more open than the Lower East Side location in New York—but I think it loses some of its charm in that respect. The old-fashioned feel you get from Babycakes NYC just didn’t translate to its new West Coast locale. No more wooden barstools or cutesy decor; on the flip side there’s more room to breathe and sit and enjoy the goods: there are about three tables inside, and some sitting space outside.

As for the food, I’m fairly sure the baked goods in LA are more delicious than the original. I went with my mom and we practically cleaned out the place: four mini brownie bites (two filled, two unfilled), a cinnamon sugar donut, two cupcake tops, corn bread, a cinnamon toastie with cranberries, and some coffee. Out of all of the food sampled (read: devoured), my mom and I agreed that the cinnamon sugar donut was the most delicious. Almost churro-y in flavor and texture, the old-fashioned shape gave this donut some scrumptious charm. In the 20 minutes we were there, an entire tray of three dozen donuts completely sold out—they’re quite the popular menu item, apparently! The NYC donuts I tried about a month ago have NOTHING on the LA versions. The rest of the baked goods were, of course, delicious. The cornbread was moist and flavorful, the oozing chocolate brownie bites were decadent (but appropriately sized), the cupcake tops cut down on calories and gave you the good stuff (it was basically a sliver of cake with a huge dollop of yummy YUMMY icing) and even though the coffee was mediocre, I still enjoyed it—mostly because the whole place put me in a great mood. Pictured is someone else’s order: a chocolate chip cookie sandwich, a brownie bit (yum), and two donuts, the cinnamon sugar (!!!!!!!!) and chocolate.

Overall, Babycakes LA was worth the trek. I exited the shop feeling like a lardass, and it was then that I knew the bakery had done its job. Hopefully, its semi-obscure location, at 130 East 6th St., won’t deter people from frequenting the adorable shop, but only time will tell. I believe the shop is open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

[All photos by Brianna]

I Love the Noughties: A Vegan Decade in Review

If you had to pick a single word for vegan in the ’00s, it would be “mainstream,” as we watched veganism get wrestled away from the Birkenstocks-and-hemp set. Celebrity vegans and vegan fashion changed the public face of a movement that had been left for dead, and the food came along for the ride, with cupcakes and melty cheese pizza replacing granola. We even went political, passed some laws, lost some rights, and ran for president. Our fad diets beat their fad diets, and now here we are, 10 years later. Older? Wiser? Better dressed and topped with frosting? Let’s see how it all went down.

2000: Alicia Silverstone goes vegan and ushers in the Celebrity Vegan Decade. Yes, there were vegans before 2000, like Ian Mackaye, but it was still a fringe thing, for college activists and crusty old punks. In the ’00s, going vegan equals getting press, with celebrities coming out of the pantry left and right. It was the decade that gave us PETA’s Sexiest Vegetarian Alive award, and high profile announcements from Natalie Portman, Ellen Degeneres, Jonathan Safran Foer, Kristin Bell, and other stars like supermodel Petra Němcová and MMA cage fighter Mac Danzig. Love or hate celebrity culture, it’s here to stay, and now it’s going vegan.

2001: Stella McCartney leaves Chloe to start her own designer label, starting the first high fashion vegan shoe line. While most of what she does is out of the price range of mere mortals, in a very real way, this was a good thing for the perception of vegan fashion. “But if I went vegan, I would have to shop at Payless” would no longer be an excuse, and the false dilemma between ethics and looking good was finally gone.

2002: Atkins Diet goes mainstream and gets cred. Dr. Atkins’ book had been out since 1972, but it wasn’t until the early ’00s that people gave it a real try. In 2002, a Duke University study appeared to confirm the worst fears of vegans, that Atkins dieters lost weight and lowered their cholesterol. Of course we all know what happened in the end. Like any fad diet, the guru died and the company went bankrupt, leading to its fiery demise. Why was the Atkins diet such a big deal for vegans? It was the first fad diet to attack the “eating less meat is healthy” argument at the jugular. In the end, we were still right, but not without spending a few years in the low carb wilderness. Dark times.

2003: Dennis Kucinich announces that he will run as the first vegan for president of the U.S. of A., then wins the election with 76 percent of the vote, dissolves the Senate, and ends factory farming by executive decree. Okay I made up like half of that. But admit it, you decided to vote for this guy, sight unseen, the second you heard he was vegan, and his flappy ears or anti-abortion stance didn’t scare you away. Hell, I did. He also helped heal the left after the Green Party split in 2000 that gave us George W. Bush, by giving all of us lefties some hope that the Democratic party doesn’t have to completely suck. After all, any political party with a high-profile vegan politician couldn’t be that bad, could it? Okay don’t answer that. Anyway, give it up for the D-Kuch for making vegan history! Dennis, I present you with this gold plated dino-statue as Vegansaurus’s highest honor. As soon as I have a sec to ‘shop that up.

2004: Wayne Pacelle becomes the first vegan president of the Humane Society of the United States, making that one for two in the “first” and “vegan president” category. For the first time, a vegan is president of the largest animal protection group in the world. He completely broadened/shifted its focus on to farm animals. It makes sense because the vast majority of animals suffering in this world are the ones we eat.

2005: Vegan cheese that melts hits the stores, with the first known appearance of Follow Your Heart’s Vegan Gourmet. “It melts!” the label proudly trumpeted, reminding us of past disappointments, fraught with casein and other milk-based substances that were needlessly present in the so-called cheese replacements of the day. True vegan pizza was finally possible, and so was GRILLED CHEESE (and the great pre-Vegansaurus Mac and Cheese Bake-Off). And with that, we kicked off a revolution in the greatest vegan technology advancement of all. Teese, Dr. Cow, Follow Your Heart, Daiya—before the ’00s, such things were only found at the Whole Foods on Fantasy Island.

2006: Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World takes over the world. Seriously, where would we be without this book? It combined every element of vegan baking into a single handbook, a canonical scripture to be read aloud during holy days of rest. Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World appeared at exactly the right time, just as the global cupcake phenomenon was reaching a fever pitch, and convinced a skeptical omnivorous world that vegan baking is not only passable, but preferable.

2006: The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act passes, expanding the War on Terror to tofu. Last I checked, violence was already illegal, and politically motivated violence was already doubleplus illegal, but apparently we needed a special law to target animal rights activists. I’ll be the first to admit that our cause, just like every other cause, has its extremists that could use a chill pill. However, the new law did nothing to provide exemptions for whistle-blowing and other undercover investigations, and codified the right of animal enterprises to uninterrupted profits at the expense of free speech. The ACLU, unfortunately, allowed this abomination to pass. Thanks, jerks!

2007: Spotted: Victoria Beckham carrying a copy of Skinny Bitch while shopping in Los Angeles. Skinny Bitch had been out since 2005, but it took Posh Spice to get it on the bestseller lists. While the idea of going vegan to lose weight is hardly new, this was the first successful attempt to bring animal rights philosophy and PCRM’s nutritional science to the diet frenzy mainstream, by weaving our beliefs in with the ideals of Americans who desire “skinny” over “healthy” (these ladies are NOT actual nutritionists, you guys). Those of us on the vegan-lifer side of the fence know that being vegan is anything but a fad diet (and come on, we have pizza and cupcakes now, we’re enjoying life as much as anyone else) but as a subversive social experiment, Skinny Bitch was the first of its kind.

2008: Oprah goes vegan for 21 days. You don’t mess with the Oprahnator. Oprah speaks, everyone listens, and in 2008, she spoke about going vegan. “How can you say you’re trying to spiritually evolve, without even a thought about what happens to the animals whose lives are sacrificed in the name of gluttony?” she wrote at the time. Which is a nice thought, but do we stop thinking about what happens to the animals after 21 days? I didn’t really get it. Anyway, Oprah has a way of sprinkling her magic credibility fairy dust on everything she touts, which means “You’re what?” is no longer the Jeopardy answer to “I’m vegan.”

2008: Proposition 2 wins in California! Although not the first animal protection law to win by popular referendum (voters in Florida and Arizona passed laws of their own in 2004 and 2006) we won a truly epic battle that will protect calves, hens, and pigs from horrible confinement. Prop. 2 won with 63 percent of the vote in the U.S.’s most populous state, and as they say, as California goes, so goes the nation. Put that in your gestation crate and smoke it.

2009: Martha Stewart has a vegetarian Thanksgiving, Obama adopts a breeder dog instead of a shelter dog, and Jonathan Safran Foer proposes that we all eat our pets or give up meat. It was a freaky-ass year.

Erika, Maria, Laura, Megan Rascal, and Meave also contributed to this post. We are fam-i-ly! I got all my sisters with me! OK I’ll stop now.

Call for vegans: Cupcake Camp 2009!

Cupcake Camp is back again! It’s scheduled for Sunday, Oct. 4 from 2 to 5 p.m. at Automattic [sic] at Pier 38.* Your Vegansaurus entered two flavors in last year’s event, and we felt it went very successfully. HOWEVER: maybe 10 to 15 percent of last year’s cupcakes were vegan, and you know we cannot let that stand. It was like every sad dessert party you’ve ever been dragged to, everyone gorging themselves on delicious-looking cupcake-lollipops and ice-cream-filled cupcakes, and your Vegansaurus staring sadly at the schedule, hoping that the next round of entries would include a vegan batch. Consolation: there was plenty of Silk for thirsty non-dairy-milk drinkers.

This year, no more! Register here by Sunday, Sept. 27 to ensure a spot among the bakers/bringers of cupcakes. The two teeny tiny requirements are that you decide at registration how many cupcakes you’ll bring (at least one dozen), and what flavor(s) those cupcakes will be. We’re not worried about you though, you’re creative.

Cupcake Camp is sponsored in part by friend of Vegansaurus Sugar Beat Sweets, meaning even if you don’t enter—which you should!—you know you’ll get some fantastic vegan treats if you stop by, so mark your dang calendars already. Vegans represent! If you don’t bake for the animals, WHO WILL?

*Cupcake Camp notes that Pier 38 is in fact next to AT&T Park, at Embarcadero and Brannan; and a Google maps search will lead you astray, so do not do it.

Rocket Dog fundraiser!, cupcakes go boom, more urban chickens, famous writers tell you about food, and we are spoiled produce-cocktail-swillers in the Friday link-o-rama!

Rocket Dog Rescue Happy Hour fundraiser at Doc’s Clock! Be there tomorrow, Sept. 5th, from 4 to 8 p.m. at 2575 Mission St. (between 21st and 22nd): 50 percent of the bar and 100 percent of the proceeds from the silent auction (with fantastic prizes!) will benefit Rocket Dog Rescue. Doc’s Clock will also take donations for VetSOS.

Slate says, Watch out, cupcake-bakers, your business is a bubble on the verge of bursting! Author Daniel Gross briefly mentions that Babycakes “offers vegan cupcakes,” failing to note that it is also a “refined-sugar-free, gluten-free, wheat-free, soy-free…kosher” and organic bakery with a varied menu that includes savory baked goods. If Gross wants to conflate an entire specialty bakery with year-or-less-old, single-item stores with utterly generic product, he certainly may, but that is not the strongest way to make a point. At least, not to vegans. Presumably the fine ladies and gentlemen of Sticky Fingers Bakery, Sugar Beat Sweets, Sweet Avenue Bakeshop, Sweet Cakes Bakery, Violet Sweet Shoppe, Fat Bottom Bakery, and other purveyors of fine vegan baked goods would agree.

Ooh fancy, it’s The Nation’s 2009 food issue! Possibly pertinent topics include: starting a community garden, farmers’ markets in Mississippi, and Alice Waters on school lunch reform. Those articles, and quite a few more, are presently available in full for free online, so best get to reading while you can, non-subscribers.

Let’s look at restaurant reviews in the Chronicle! This week, Michael Bauer spent $200 on “pancetta-wrapped rabbit” at Oliveto and did not enjoy it. My heart bleeds for you and your “disappointing” meal, Mr. Bauer. Some might say next time, lay off the animals, but you soldier on. This is what I want in a restaurant reviewer: dedication to duty. For the vegans, four sad paragraphs about Golden Era, in which the reviewer turns up her nose at the fake chicken. What kind of joyless soul does not enjoy Supreme Master’s fake chicken?

Pizzaiolo, you have some sick ideas about supper: “Diners will be able to wander over, Barolo in hand, to commune with the creatures that might contribute to their dinner.” The “chef-owner” had a RISD-graduate-designed chicken coop built off of his restaurant to house his customers’ future meals/victims. I 100 percent want to vomit. This argument, that it makes you a better meat-eater when you “confront the reality” that your food used to be a thinking, feeling, living creature, it really burns. Yes, the disconnect between “antiseptic” packaged pieces of animals people buy from grocery stores and the actual animals those pieces came from is surreal and problematic; still, picking out the animal you want to have killed so you can eat it? How is that any better? That’s just on the acceptable side of bloodlust, and it’s revolting. If Pizzaiolo’s venture does anything, I hope it dissuades people from eating those chickens, when they’re forced to see the birds (theoretically) enjoying, you know, being alive, An apology to Pizzaiolo, we obviously didn’t read the article correctly! OUR SERIOUS BAD. It’s not vegan, but Pizzaiolo is taking a step to reduce their part in animal cruelty. What do Vegansaurus readers think of the backyard chicken trend?

Ethicurean takes a look at a potential federal bailout of the National Pork Producers Council, a.k.a Big Pork. Surprise: it’s industry-controlled, hypocritical, and a total violation of sensible business/economic practices! Ha ha ha oh meat industries, you rascals,* you.

The Vegan and Vegetarian Foundation created this lovely site called The Safety of Soya, to dispel the ridiculous myths and lies about soy that won’t seem to die—e.g., that “too much soy” will turn little heterosexual boys gay (Assuming they were heterosexual in the first place, that is).

The champion vegetable-eaters behind CSA Delivery blog made a minestrone soup to cure 1) the San Francisco summer blues and 2) a shameful craving for terrible food (in this case, minestrone soup from the Olive Garden, where not even the breadsticks are vegan). It looks like it was quite successful:

You know what Vegansaurus loves? Cocktails, are what we love. Lucky for us we live in one of the nation’s best cities for scrumptious, fancy drinks. Let us be grateful every day for these amazing bartenders who not only have amazing taste and imagination, but are so dedicated to their craft they grow fresh ingredients for the drinks they make you. Imagine that mojitonico with heirloom tomatoes picked that morning from a garden not five miles from the bar you’re sitting at. Now, die of bliss.

Bon Appétit knows its way around a backhanded compliment: Of Jeremy Fox’s wonderful Ubuntu the magazine says “the focus…is not on what is missing (namely, meat) but what is lusciously abundant,” and waxes rhapsodic about the restaurant’s vegetables for over 100 words. Nice to see your priorities are in order there, guys.

*no relation to super-commenter Rascal, Megan.

Mission Minis promises vegan cupcakes!

They’re supposedly opening sometime soon (whatever the fuck that means! Oct. 1st, permit gods allowing, so let’s say sometime in October MAYBE) at 3168 22nd St. (between Capp and Mission). They’ll have a few vegan flavors (banana cake with maple frosting LAY IT ON ME) and will set you back a buck each. More details from these scooping motherfuckers and Mission Minis adorable website.

Violet Sweet Shoppe

Crystal Rice, proprietor of Violet Sweet Shoppe, has been in business only a few months, but already has a solid baked goods repertoire. As a brand-new independent operator, she seems ready to go.

We tried some of her desserts a couple of weeks ago, at her pre-WWVBS bakesale at Little Otsu, as well as meet the lady behind them. While Joel and I went separately from Laura and Jonas, we ended up purchasing nearly all the same items: spice cupcakes, cinnamon roll cookies, and gingerbread sandwich cookies. Laura and Jonas also bought some chocolate chip cookies, but Hazel knocked down and ate their cupcake*, so we ended up having a few different experiences after all.

The number-one best thing we all ate—and this is a six-person consensus here—is the gingerbread sandwich cookie. Laura says it tastes “like a cloud of perfectly sweetened lemon cream floating betweet two soft gingerbread hugs.” In fact, Laura’s parents liked these cookies so much, I’m told, that they bogarted them down to a couple of bites, and “Goldie”** Beck “asked for a direct line to Violet Sweet Shoppe to order [the gingerbread sandwiches] immediately.”

Joel also loved the gingerbread cookie; he compared it to an oatmeal creme pie, “all mooshy” and delicious. I have to concur: they are really fantastic cookies, and a perfect size, too; and you already knew how Jonas feels about them.

I loved the cinnamon roll cookies. They are pretty, and delicately flavored, and totally perfect with milk. I would absolutely pay for the recipe for these. Granted, without milk they are a little dry, but with milk, they come alive.

Unfortunately, Laura says, “the chocolate chip cookie…was kinda big and dry, but the flavor was good…maybe it was the freshness?” She also reports that Goldie “didn’t like them at all,” and as Laura “trust[s] her taste when it comes to vegan baked goods,” the chocolate chip is not the best cookie Violet Sweet Shoppe makes.

The spice cupcakes get their name from the addition of white pepper to the more traditional baking spices (cinnamon, cardamom, etc.). The ones we tried didn’t especially benefit from the combination, though. The frosting was very good, but the cupcakes were a little chewy, like the gluten had overdeveloped. Maybe the batter for this batch was over-mixed; maybe it sat too long before baking. These are very common baking errors. The other flavors she sold that afternoon might’ve been perfect, but I can’t say, as we only tried the spice—clever, I know. However, Crystal Rice has worked as a professional pastry chef, so I imagine our cupcakes were little aberrations.

The sale outside of Little Otsu ended in just two hours, which says something about the quality of Crystal’s talent—as well as the desire for vegan baked goods around here. Horror vacui, you guys.

Violet Sweet Shoppe takes orders for special occasions, and I suppose regular occasions if you are feeling in need like gingerbread sandwich cookie-pie heaven. Wholesale orders are also welcome. Contact information is available at the site. We are really happy to have another talented vegan baker in the city, and look forward to the next opportunity to enjoy something Crystal Rice has made.

*This was not the first documented incident of Hazel’s deliberate street-foood sabotage.
**”Goldie” is her handle. Obviously.

San Francisco’s FIRST (storefront!!) VEGAN BAKERY!

Okay, we’re only in rumor stages here, folks, but word on the street is that these people are in the process of signing a lease and making all of our FIRST STOREFRONT VEGAN BAKERY IN SAN FRANCISCO piggy dreams come true. They have a website, a twitter account and my undying affection if they can get that bitch open in time for my birthday. WHICH WILL BE EVERYDAY WHEN THERE’S A VEGAN BAKERY I CAN WALK INTO AND BUY A BIRTHDAY CAKE ALL WILLY NILLY SPUR OF THE MOMENT AND SHIT. Oh joy, thy name is easily attained vegan baked goods!

The thought. It’s almost too much.

Oh well, we can pass the time waiting for them to PLEASE GOD OPEN by guessing what neighhorhood the bakery will call home. It looks like they’ll be blacking the losers out until there’s only one left standing, survivor style. I like. Also, pleassssssssse let it be The Mission. Please, please, please…