Generation V

Some news...

2011-04-14T22:32:00.000-07:00

Hey folks! I have two announcements. One: THE SECOND EDITION OF MY BOOK IS COMING OUT! Hip hip hurrah! So, originally Generation V was published on Tofu Hound Press by my friends Bob and Jenna. Tofu Hound started from nothing and became the publishing end of an amazing vegan media empire, Vegan Freak. Recently, Tofu Hound became a part of the broader radical small press, PM Press, who wanted to reissue Tofu Hound's titles under their press, including mine. What a perfect opportunity to get my act together and update some things I've long wanted to update! The second edition now has many more recipes, a part about college (I'm not a teenage vegan anymore!), a new preface, and various other little updates throughout. I feel much more like it's something I, as a 20-year-old instead of a 15-year-old, can get behind. But beyond that it'll be nice to have the book in print again. For some reason this and not last year is the year a lot of opportunities and events (readings and whatnot) have come up and it's awkward to say "Hey, here's this book I wrote. Read it. Except you can't right now. Uh. Thanks anyway." I am happy. You can buy the new edition at PM Press's website.

That said, I also don't think I'm going to be updating this blog any longer, or at least very rarely. In addition to just being busy with other projects and life-things, I'm taking a step back from the vegan community for a while. I will always be vegan, and I value the friends, discoveries, and memories I've made through this community, but there are just other issues and questions on my mind and heart of late. I wouldn't say I'm burnt out, because to me that phrase is really negative - it implies some kind of breakdown or conflict, something not really chosen, bitterness. My identity as a 'vegan activist' is an identity I no longer feel like I occupy to the best of my abilities or the fullest of my spirit. I'm voluntarily bowing out of full participation in a movement to focus on other things that need my time and attention. I never want to not be vegan, and I would rather gracefully slip out of a movement for a time and live a life of veganism than burn out. I also don't want to devote myself to something my heart isn't in - veganism deserves to be advocated by people who are passionate for it, and it's not as if the community lacks for those. In my 5+ years of veganism, I'm glad I've learned that veganism is something that grows and changes as you do as a person. I know this will continue to be a part of my life, but my growth now is away from the community. I hope to return someday.

Brownies and back to school

2010-09-20T19:03:00.000-07:00

Hello, fair interwebs! After a long summer hiatus from blogging, I am back and will be updating more frequently. The year is off to a really good start. For one thing, my school's dining hall, which has always been really vegan-friendly, now has one station that's entirely vegan and serves things like hazelnut pesto pasta and mock beef fajitas. I like being well-fed. And beyond food-related, it's just good to be back. Most of my classes are creative writing and it's good to have all my friends around again. And I have an internship with a reproductive rights organization and my roommate and I are going to have a radio show through the school...busy but good. Anyway, I've been meaning to post this recipe for a while. Over the summer I was staying at some friends' house for a week or so and wanted to bake something really awesome to thank them. After being frustrated that most of Vegweb's brownie recipes called for weird ingredients like tofu (okay, I understand that tofu is a very versatile food, but it should never go in baked goods. That just seems weird to me, and I wouldn't want anything I made to ever be able to be called 'tofu cookies'. Why. Ugh.) I finally found this recipe and modified it based on what ingredients were in the house. The result: amazing. When they came out of the oven, only two other people were in the house, but we ate about half the pan within an hour. Yum. The secret: self-rising flour! Halfway through measuring out the flour, I ran out, and self-rising was the only other option. I was worried they would explode in the pan, but they became incredibly light and fluffy, which works surprisingly well in a brownie.

Fluffy Brownies

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup self-rising flour 1/2 c. sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup cocoa
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup vegan semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups water

Preheat oven to 350 F. Combine wet ingredients in one bowl, dry ingredients in another, and add the wet to the dry. Stir well, pour into greased 9 x 13 pan, and bake for 20-25 minutes.

i'm alive!

2010-06-19T20:43:00.000-07:00

Hello interwebs. I am still alive and still blogging, but have been traveling a lot lately and have been somewhat low in time/Internet connection. But! Something really exciting and Generation V-related is happening soon. Yippee. You'll see. I am finally back home in Portland and have had a happy day being love-tackled by friends at airports, writing and walking with other friends, and generally feeling warm and fuzzy over the life I have in this beautiful, rainbow-making city. Something vegan related to make this an actual post: food pr0n from recently!

curry-coconut udon noodles from Herbivore in San Francisco

roasted chickpeas for a picnic in Kansas City: mix a can of chickpeas with enough oil to lightly coat, some salt and pepper and garlic, and bake at 450 for around 20 or 25 minutes. Delicious!

the breakfast of all breakfasts. yum. Grill veggies one night, throw the leftovers in tofu scrambler the next morning, enjoy.

I love food. I promised a good dinner recipe for the house tonight but we forgot to get most of the ingredients while we were at the grocery. I've no idea. Pasta!

Rep. Jared Polis rewards veg school lunches

2010-06-01T11:36:00.000-07:00

Usually when my local paper mentions the v-word, it's either talking about someone I know or something that's been done in KC's small-but-fervent activist population or meaning to poke fun at liberals, picky eaters, etc. But the other day it cropped up in the news section! What? There was a news brief similar to this article and I am so excited about it. Colorado rep Jared Polis introduced a bill back in March that increases vegetarian and vegan options in school lunches and rewards schools that offer such meals to at least 2/3 of its students. Polis isn't a vegan, but he's doing this for the obvious reasons - childhood obesity and its accompanying health problems are skyrocketing. I'm not optimistic about its passage, but the fact that it's even been introduced is telling. It's interesting how much of an impact the fact that Polis isn't vegan is having on the way the media is talking about this. Every article I've read on this is generally positive and coming at it from an entirely reasonable, health-based angle. I feel like that wouldn't be the case if Dennis Kucinich (who is vegan) were this bill's creator. Being vegan in itself makes (some) non-vegans skeptical of you, your motives, your legitimacy. You're "one of those." You're not an individual who happens to be vegan, just a vegan. A friend of mine, if he ever has to call a restaurant or company to ask about vegan options/products or lack thereof, pretends he's someone considering going vegan, just asking for future reference. He does this to show that there are people in the world who are considering going vegan, that vegans aren't a special breed of people destined from birth to be wackos. This is why all the articles about Polis' bill are so positive and focused on health: Polis sees that plant foods are healthy, which is all well and good, but isn't one of those crazies who only eats those things. I think I'm going to write more about this later, it just says so much about so many things. But regardless of all that other stuff, this is exciting! If nothing else, even if it doesn't get passed, I think it could pave the way for better regulations about what's in school meals. We shall see!

pesto with Daiya!

2010-05-20T19:35:00.000-07:00

For some reason, I have always felt like I am never good at making pesto. Which is strange, because isn't pesto always the same very few ingredients? Hummus is hummus and some is better than others, but it's almost almost always good. PBJ is PBJ. Spaghetti is spaghetti. Etc. Shouldn't the simple combination of basil and olive oil and pepper and pine nuts and maybe a little garlic be intrinsically good? I've made pesto countless times and never had it blow my mind.....until the other night. Everything went into the food processor as usual, but I also threw in some Daiya (mozzarella Daiya, which I had never had before) and woahmygod. Magic. Observe:

So delicious. It retained all the freshness and summery delight of the basil and spices with all the sheer om nom nom deliciousness of revolutionary cheese. It also got the Omni Friends stamp of approval. I didn't measure anything, so I don't really have a recipe to offer other than put all the above ingredients in a food processor until it becomes delicious pesto.

Lessons learned:

1) Not making something successfully dozens of times does not mean you never will.

2) While sometimes it is wonderful for the natural goodness of herbs and pulses and spices and whatnot to shine through (Hi Dino), sometimes an omni sub is dish's saving grace.

2.5) Daiya is always an appropriate addition to a food

3) Fresh basil makes your whole kitchen smell good!

Yum. I had the leftovers for dinner tonight. What delicious things have you made or eaten recently?

summertime is chocolate banana smoothie time

2010-05-16T13:34:00.000-07:00

I know it's summer and I'm at home when I have one of these almost every morning. It's really pretty good for you but tastes decadent and is surprisingly filling. Basically, freeze a banana and throw it in the blender with some chocolate soymilk. The variations are endless: a little peanut butter, a little cinnamon, different kinds of milk, etc. If you've never frozen banana before, you are missing out. It tastes like vanilla ice cream! Pro tip: slice bananas before you freeze them. It's easier on the blender if you're making a smoothie, and more fun if you're eating them plain. Happy summer!

(Portland) vegan airport guide

2010-05-12T10:01:00.001-07:00

Today I leave the land of ironic hipster mullets for the land of sincere ones, so what better time to post about eating vegan in the airport than while I'm actually in one? This post is primarily about the Portland airport, but as there are a lot of chains here that are in a lot of other airports as well, hopefully this can be helpful to you regardless of where you're flying.

PDX may be in Portland, but it is still an airport, not a promised land of vegan delights. Here are your best bets:
Jamba Juice was my saving grace this morning. In addition to a wide array of vegan smoothies (my favorite is the Five Fruit Frenzy), they have oatmeal made with soymilk (but the brown sugar crumbles contain milk, so order without). You can also get hot chocolate with soymilk, a wrap with hummus and quinoa and veggies, and an apple cinnamon pretzel. Their website is very helpful as it has an entire section listing everything on their menu that is vegan.
Flying Elephant Delicatessen is a recent addition to PDX. Other than the usual chips, fruit salad, etc. they have a sandwich with vegan cream cheese (WTF? In an airport?), eggplant, and arugula. They also sell Kettleman's bagels, if you don't mind a dry bagel. (Why do they only sell vegan cream cheese on the sandwich?)
Riverfront Cafe has hummus and pita!
Quizno's has a veggie sub that is vegan when you order it on white or wheat with no cheese and no dressing.
Big Town Hero has multiple veggie subs, including one with avocado, that are vegan if you order without various dairy nonsense.
Wendy's French fries are vegan.
Pizzicato's airport menu drops the v-word. You can order any of their pizzas without cheese, and they also have hummus and foccacia and peanut sauce.
I know Good Dog Bad Dog has a veggie sausage, but I don't know if it's vegan. Ask. Anyone reading this know one way or the other?

That's PDX. The key to being vegan in an airport, or anywhere, is being crafty (if you have time). All things considered, pack your own food if you can. A Luna bar or pack of trail mix doesn't take up much space in a bag, doesn't go bad, and can be the most delicious food on earth when you're tired and jet-lagged and starving. But beyond that, you might often be surprised. For example, Denver's airport sells Nana's vegan cookies (in the nondescript Hudson News places), Newark has a few little natural-themed kiosks with Odwalla bars and Naked juices and the like, Minneapolis has an Asian place with tofu noodle soup, Seattle has a cafe (Kathy Casey Dish D'Lish) with a couscous dish. Those are all just off the top of my head, and all were surprises to me. You never know what you might find, and often a quick Google search of the airport(s) you'll be at can lead you to a list of restaurants there, which, combined with the powers of the interwebs, can give you a head start on finding vegan food. Happy travels!

soymilk, bali shag!

2010-05-03T18:28:00.000-07:00

It's finals week. My brain is dead. I saw this a few months ago and it is gold.

That is a typical day in Portland, yes.

Silk almondmilk and vegan milk thoughts

2010-04-26T17:01:00.000-07:00

So, the long-established standard of soymilk, Silk, now makes almond milk . I'm excited about trying it, but not being much of an almond milk person, I am more excited to see if Silk ever makes more non-dairy milks and what this does for overall perception of vegan milks.

I think it's safe to say that everybody knows what soymilk is. But few people (few non-vegan people, that is) know that there is a whole world of vegan food and drink - even among those vegan foods and drinks that explicitly try to replicate or replace non-vegan foods - beyond soy. Soy is a versatile thing, but it's not the pinnacle of vegan food science (e.g. the only vegan cheese that strings, Daiya, is soy-free) and, speaking for this vegan, I wouldn't call it a staple of my diet. And especially in vegan milks are there so many options beyond soy - rice, hemp, almond, coconut, oat and more. I do love soymilk, but I never cook with it because ricemilk has a cleaner taste (though ricemilk tastes too much like cow's milk to me, so I don't drink it), and chocolate almond milk is practically dessert. One question - why has no one made a cashew milk? Cashew is the magical ingredient of so much good vegan dairy, so it surprises me that there isn't one. What is your favorite vegan milk?

1.5 tons more carbon per year

2010-04-22T12:20:00.000-07:00

Happy Earth Day! It's cheesy but true to say that every day is Earth day. It's Earth Day if you're on Earth and getting anything - e.g. food, water, air, a place to live - from her. If you live on Earth, you have an obligation to take care of her as she cares for you. And there is simply no way that eating animals fits into that. According to New Scientist and researchers at the University of Chicago,going from an omnivorous diet to a vegan one does more for the environment than going from a gas-guzzler to a Prius. "The typical US diet, about 28 per cent of which comes from animal sources, generates the equivalent of nearly 1.5 tonnes more carbon dioxide per person per year than a vegan diet with the same number of calories." 3000 pounds per year! The bottom line is that the animal agriculture industry is wasteful and inefficient. The majority of grain grown in the US is not fed to humans but to animals, and because it takes around 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of meat, this is a really wasteful use of land, water, and fossil fuel. Think about it: you could grow plants, send them to a processor (if you must), and then to the grocery. Or you could grow plants, send them to feed mills, send the feed to factory farms, send the animals from the factory farms to slaughter, send the slaughtered animals to processing plants, and then send the meat to the grocery. Each of those additional steps requires enormously more amounts of fossil fuel, land, and water, not to mention the fact that animals produce methane and "the number one source of methane worldwide is animal agriculture. Methane is responsible for nearly as much global warming as all other non-CO2 greenhouse gases put together. Methane is 21 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than CO2." (source)

If you are serious about climate change and protecting the Earth, you have to stop eating animal products. This is not about superiority. I am a vegan and I am not the savior of all the earth. But the science is there. To ignore it is selfishness. Yeah, you want to eat meat. But don't you also want to take long showers? And wouldn't it be more convenient to drive somewhere than bike or walk? Local food is sometimes harder to find than non-local, right? If you're reading this, chances are you're already making other sacrifices in your life to protect the Earth. Giving up meat is no different.

If you want more info, I encourage you to check out the UN's report "Livestock's Long Shadow."

Starbucks to offer vegan frappucinos!

2010-04-19T21:16:00.000-07:00

What an exciting year to be vegan! Starting May 5, Starbucks will offer a soymilk-based blend for their frappucinos. Apparently it's already being offered in LA and I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case in other major cities as well.

Now, inevitably there will be some noise about whether this is really a good thing, since it's Starbucks, after all. But as I see it, pretty much every food you eat can eventually be traced back to some evil corporation. Obviously it would be ideal to only eat local, organic food that's 100% ethically sound, but I think it's the lesser evil to buy something vegan from a huge corporation than to just give up. But this is a post about the excitement of a giant corporation responding to demand for vegan items and being able to have a delightful vegan frappucino at any Starbucks in the land, so I'll stop there for today. I'm not much of a coffee drinker, but hey, the more (vegan stuff) the merrier (the world).

Thanks to Quarrygirl for the news and the picture.

oysters & consistency

2010-04-13T12:45:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine recently shared this article from Slate with me. The author, Christopher Cox, says that he doesn't eat meat, dairy, or eggs, but that he does eat oysters. His reasoning is that oyster farming is environmentally friendly and there's much question about what oysters can feel, as they have no central nervous system the way we and other animals do. Cox seems to believe that any vegan who wouldn't eat oysters is just being nitpicky. "Eating ethically is not a purity pissing contest, and the more vegans or vegetarians pretend that it is, the more their diets start to resemble mere fashion - and thus risk being dismissed as such." I agree wholeheartedly. Being vegan isn't about a checklist of foods you can and can't eat, and you don't get a gold star for thinking you're the purest of the pure. But Cox implies that all vegans who don't eat oysters (which, sorry Cox, is all vegans) are taking part in this "purity pissing contest", and that is where I find real fault. To be vegan, you have to embrace the fact that it simply isn't possible to never, ever, ever use animal products in some way (however indirect). There are animal products in tires (yes, really), and even harvesting plants is going to kill some worms or mice. Such is life. Veganism is not being pure or obeying a set of dietary laws, it's about doing what is possible and practical to end oppression. It isn't really possible in our world today to not use tires somehow, it's not possible to not use medications tested on animals, it's not possible to harvest plants without killing some insects, and that's just how it is.

It is, however,
possible to live and thrive without eating meat, dairy, or eggs, without wearing leather or fur, et cetera. And this is my problem with Cox's article. Oysters may not have central nervous systems, and farming them may be more environmentally friendly than farming other animals, but eating them - even at the exclusion of all other animal products - is still buying into speciesism, to the belief that "Well, I'm a human, and I want to eat this other animal, so I'm just going to because it's yummy." You don't have to eat oysters to live or thrive. You eat oysters because you want to and because they're there. When it comes to ethics, isn't it better to err on the side of caution? Doing so is not being an ascetic. It's being consistent. In my mind, making exceptions for oysters because it's so environmentally friendly to farm them starts one down on the slippery slope of other exceptions, other particular cases that hinge on technicalities but come down to the fact that something tastes good and is convenient for you.

And really - if you have reasons for consistency other than consistency's sake (like the fact that when you eat a consistently herbivorous diet, there's a very convenient word to describe it, and you don't have to deal with spoilsports like me and the other 571 people who have thus far commented on Cox's article lampooning his personal choices) why not just be consistent? I feel about oysters as I do about honey. It may not be as big of an issue as meat, dairy, or eggs, but you're already cutting so much out of your diet, is it really that big of a problem in your life to not eat it??

wtf PETA, vol. 48459375

2010-04-09T14:38:00.000-07:00

Last week, PETA wanted to advertise on teeter-totters at a playground at a public elementary school in Frankfort, Kentucky. The proposed advertisements would read "Tot teetering on obesity? Go vegan!" and have the PETA logo. In addition to the ads, the school would also get thousands of free veggie burgers in their cafeteria. Not surprisingly, the school turned the offer down on the grounds that the students are too young to understand or interpret such direct advertising. Good for them. Why does everything PETA does still surprise me? I mean, PETA does have a lot of great resources and they are very well-connected. But why do they stoop to such ridiculous levels? (Or kill animals? Or promote welfarism? Or focus on winnable campaigns that don't really effect change? Different posts for different days...) This is an organization that has literally made coffins emblazoned with their logo and an animal-rights message. Classy, classy folks. But even beyond the laughability of such a campaign, it just doesn't make sense. If a kid is young enough to be using a teeter-totter, and if that kid is already anywhere near obese, there are way more problems in his/her life than can be untangled by their/their parents' seeing an advertisement like that. Thanks for continuing to make all vegans look utterly ridiculous, PETA.

quick hit: Whole Foods carrying Daiya starting tomorrow!

2010-03-31T16:14:00.000-07:00

BIG NEWS, vegans! Starting April 1st (that's tomorrow!), Whole Foods stores nationwide will carry Daiya. Daiya is the best vegan cheese I have ever eaten, hands down. It tastes delicious, melts, and even strings the way dairy cheese does. If you haven't had the chance to try it, you are in for a treat. I am so excited to be able to get it when I'm home this summer! Look at the fancy new packaging, too!

camp for vegan/activist kids

2010-03-25T19:16:00.000-07:00

If you're in Portland you've probably heard about this already, but did you know that there is a summer camp for young activists? How awesome is that? Youth Empowered Action camp is in the Portland and Santa Cruz areas this summer and kids 11-15 will get to go and learn how to change the world and continue being awesome. I wish this had been around when I was that age. I went vegetarian when I was fourteen, vegan at fifteen, and let me be the first to tell you, it can get lonely at that age being the "weird" kid who actually cares about something other than themselves. I can't imagine how it must be to be eleven years old and be an activist, about veganism or anything else. It doesn't look like YEA has been around for long, but I hope it keeps going and keeps letting kids know "No, you aren't weird, you are on the path to becoming an awesome person and making the world more awesome as well." The environment of any summer camp can be so nurturing and reassuring. I was raised in the Christian church and went to church camp for several summers in elementary/middle school, and when I was sixteen I went to a summer writing workshop for high schoolers that was the best time of my life. In both cases it was like "WOAHMYGOD there are others?? This is okay?!?" So good. Summer is such a potent time, and the opportunity to live, for once in your life, surrounded by people who get you and support you is just amazing. YEA's website has a page with testimonials from kids who went last year, and they warm the cockles of my heart. "This camp is about being yourself and being who you are." "You can't usually talk about these things in schools. This camp is really peaceful and beautiful; just amazing." Winner: "Everyone was super happy and laughing and that's what our world could be." If that doesn't make you hopeful about the next generation I don't know what will!

ingenuity in cheese and chips

2010-03-23T21:20:00.000-07:00

Food science, especially when something vegan is involved, will never cease to amaze me. They can make mock snails from wheat (seitan) and ice cream from hemp and that's all well and good, but now they can make cheese out of oatmeal! OATMEAL. WTF. It's made of oatmeal and it's really good and tastes cheesy! My parents didn't raise a liar.

I heard about We Can't Say It's Cheese a few months ago, but, honestly, there are so many brands of vegan cheese out there, a name like that just doesn't cause one to drop the Daiya/Cheezly/etc. The other night I was at the grocery, planning to make quesadillas and not being able to find vegan sour cream (boo Market of Choice, boo). Near the regular sour cream was this fine product. Oh! Recognition! Intrigue! "Mexi-Cheddar"! Sounded like it would go equally well with quesadillas, so that was that.

This stuff is really good! It is a little thicker and milder than non-vegan jarred queso dip, but overall it's very similar and has a good flavor. It reminded me of a queso-style dip someone made at a vegan potluck a few years ago from Jo Stepaniak's Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook, if that means anything to you. Overall I can't think of any way to improve it without veering too far into territory of "This tastes so much like what it's a vegan version of, it's kinda gross" (e.g. ricemilk tastes too much like cow's milk to me, so I hate the taste). Hooray oatmeal cheese!

WCSIC (oh, name it something else) in the bowl, being tasty

yum! A segway into the other part of this post.....make your own tortilla chips! You don't need a deep fryer or anything fancy (other than yourself). Cut a tortilla into eighths, spray a cookie sheet with baking spray, and put it in a 350F oven for ten minutes or so. So much healthier than fried, probably cheaper than buying bagged tortilla chips, and they have better flavor. DO IT.

quick tip: makeshift salad dressing

2010-03-21T19:38:00.000-07:00

This is something I learned a few years ago, and it can be a lifesaver: salad dressing doesn't have to be from a bottle, nor does it have to have more than two ingredients. Oil & balsamic vinegar is the obvious go-to when you either have no "real" salad dressing, are at the house of someone who doesn't have any vegan, or are feeling too lazy to make one more complex than that. But my favorite makeshift dressing is...hummus! Hummus is the food of the gods and goes with almost everything. I mean, breathe if you love hummus. Exactly. But did you know that you can easily make hummus into salad dressing? Just put a few globs of hummus in a small dish and add a few spoonfuls of water. Use either a small whisk or the back of a spoon to stir until the water is fully incorporated and it has a dressing-like consistency. Feast. So yummy and easy and good for you!

abortion and veganism

2010-03-11T11:09:00.000-08:00

and a whole lot more, too...

One of the biggest stumbling blocks to widespread acceptance of abolitionist veganism is the rift between progressive vegans and progressive omnivores (yes, conservative vegans exist, but that's the shortest story ever written). The fact of the matter is that welfarism, "happy meat" and cage-free free-range hoof-massaged bedtime-storied animal agriculture are en vogue in a major way. Walk into any grocery store, be it Wal-Mart or the mom & pop hippie co-op, and there's going to be a laser beam show around a display of "free-range" crap and a picture book you can buy to show your children where your eggs, wanting factory farms, actually come from and blah blah blah.

This is not news to anyone reading this, and I think it should be easily understandable why this is the case. It's shiny! It's trendy! It's meat! It doesn't actually require ethics! I have no problems with laser beams. I have no problems with picture books. While I do have very serious problems with welfarism/"happy meat"/etc., that is another topic for another day, and believe you me, on that day, it's gonna be long. But briefly, both welfarism and abolitionism seek to answer the problem of animal oppression. Welfarism calls for regulation of animal agriculture, while abolitionism calls to end it entirely. Bigger cages versus no cages. With me? (For more, Gary Francione's outline)

Welfarism has taken over the hearts and wallets of many a progressive soul. At this point, I'm not sure if more progressives eat happy meat than are simply happy to eat any meat, regardless of how it was produced, but either way, I believe and will argue that consumption of animal products is directly at odds with the values and ideals of the progressive movement. I do not think you can call yourself progressive if you eat any kind of animal product, be it a McDonald's hamburger or the milk of your pet goat. Likewise, I do not think you can call yourself vegan if you are not progressive.

The issue of veganism and abortion comes up surprisingly frequently - I know to any vegan blogger that's a cliche, but it really does surprise me. The jist of it is that vegans don't want to kill innocent animals, so why would they want to kill innocent fetuses? If pigs and chickens deserve to live, don't blastulae? Or something like that. I won't give too much space to the whole "animals have sentience in the same way humans do, fetuses do not" thing. It's dumb. I am not dumb. You are not dumb. The issue of veganism is not life itself - if that were the case every vegan would be anti-choice, anti-death penalty, anti-war, and pro-having a dozen babies per person (and damn, we'd be the most consistent movement ever). The issue of veganism is personhood - the idea that all sentient beings, human or non, deserve at the very, very least the right to belong to themselves and no other, to be in control of their lives and happiness - and here is the link between veganism and progressivism that can't be ignored.

Why do women deserve the rights to abortion access? Because a woman is a sentient being. She can make her own decisions and deserves being able to control her own reproductive life. A fetus is not a person and therefore does not have rights. The true issue, I think, is not just that abortions be legal and safe - abortion access is only how the woman's rights as a person manifest themselves. A woman who wants to give birth deserves quality medical care for herself and her child, her child deserves quality education, and a couple deserves the right to make their own decisions just as much and for the exact same reasons - they are all people, all sentient beings, and all therefore worthy of ethical consideration.

Likewise, why do all people deserve the rights to marry? Because, gay or straight, all couples are sentient beings. They all belong to themselves, and if they want to get married, great. That doesn't harm anyone else. Abortion doesn't harm anyone else. If someone wants to get married, have a baby, not have a baby, dance naked in their backyard or anything else that doesn't harm anyone else, fiddle-dee-dee. They're all sentient beings and deserve a shot at their own happiness and well-being, without interference from anyone else (as long as they're not harming anyone else).

This is the principle behind all progressive causes. Why do workers deserve living wages and decent working conditions? Because workers are sentient beings and thus have the rights to a decent life, and money is not sentient. If one is to believe in any of these causes - reproductive rights, marriage equality, worker rights, suffrage, whatever - one must understand that the root is that all sentient beings deserve life, not just to be alive but to have control over their own happiness and to not be the property or pawn of any other person. This applies regardless of someone's being male or female, gay or straight, rich or poor, white or brown. When it comes to fundamental rights like these, they're all equal. They're sentient beings all, and holding the arbitrary specifics of race, gender, class and so on as means of value or worth constitutes racism, sexism, classism, and other forms of oppression, respectively.

We've established that ethical consideration hinges on the most fundamental element of being human, sentience, rather than on arbitrary characteristics like race. This is why you'll meet so many progressives who simply say that they believe in "human rights" as an umbrella term covering all manner of more specific issues, and why the Human Rights Campaign is called exactly that and not Same-Sex Marriage Campaign or even Equality Campaign or what have you. We can all think of some speaker for some progressive issue crying out "We are all human!" as a way of furthering their cause, because whatever their cause is depends on what we have in common as people.

But what about what we have in common as earthlings and sentient beings? As I said before, most progressives don't see animals as categorically worthy of ethical consideration, or if they do, they're still on another level than humans. I'm not saying that humans and animals are the same. There's no point to giving chickens the right to marry, or pigs the right to vote, for example, any more than there is point to giving men the right to safe abortion. Such rights have nothing to do with the one basic right to not be another's property, the way the same rights do when applied to gays and lesbians, adults, and women. The rights to vote and marry extend across all humanity because we all deserve to be heard, loved, and protected. Shouldn't the right to not be killed for another's gain extend across all animalkind, humans included? Don't we all deserve, before anything else, to just live and be our own?

If you say no, why? Because non-human animals are a different species than us? Species is an arbitrary characteristic, like race, and someone being a different race doesn't mean you can take away their right to vote, so if you think racism is wrong, speciesism should be wrong in your mind as well. Is it because animals are less intelligent than us? Intelligence (or at least the capacity for it) is also an arbitrary characteristic. Unless you are also in favor of testing cleaning supplies on babies and mentally retarded people, intelligence should be out. So is it because it's just the natural order of things or the way things have always been? According to many people in many points in time, it's the natural order and tradition for women to be inferior to men. You should be convinced of that if you're convinced that tradition is sufficient justification for animal exploitation.

Progressivism is about universal rights and rejects holding specifics like sexual orientation or nationality as markers for worth. Why, then, does something about universal rights not apply universally? Why are specifics like race not okay, but specifics like species are? Progressivism, if veganism is not part of it, does not agree with itself.

Daiya love and Sweetpea love

2010-03-04T10:47:00.000-08:00

I had heard the rumors. The myths. The, dare I say, legend.
Of Daiya.
If you haven't, Daiya is a vegan cheese that not only melts and tastes amazing (which some, if not all, vegan cheeses do) but it's the only vegan cheese that STRINGS the way cow's milk cheese does. And it is a thing of beauty.

The other weekend I was at Sweetpea Vegan Bakery with friends and simply wanted a grilled cheese. I had no idea that Sweetpea used Daiya. When my sandwich came, I took a bite and tasted the deepest richest most cheddary flavor I've tasted in years. Like Cheezly but more American-tasting. All well and good, but when that bite was done and I looked at it...

Look at that! Look how stringy and perfect! And it's vegan! Food science, I love you.

Because here's the thing about vegan cheese:

the good stuff is very good, the bad stuff is very bad. It must be said that we vegans don't crave cheese the way omnis and vegetarians do. Cheese from animals contains substances called casomorphines which are structurally similar to morphine. Like morphine, they make you feel good and you really can get mildly addicted to them. They are present in cheese because they are present in milk, and they are present in milk so that a calf will be drawn back to his/her mother's udder and keep eating and getting big and healthy. So when people say "I could never be vegan because I love cheese too much" or "I could give up everything but cheese" it's not just that cheese is the Best Food Ever In The World. If you've been eating something all your life and it contains chemicals designed to keep you eating it, yeah, it's gonna seem hard. But it takes three weeks for you to learn a new habit, and like I said, longtime vegans are living proof that the craving goes away. (We weren't born vegan, after all.) But that doesn't mean that cheesy things don't taste good. While some vegan cheeses, I will be the first to say, taste like plastic and vomit and I wouldn't wish them on anyone, some are seriously good. My older omni brother has had Cheesly and agreed that it tastes good. But DAIYA. Oh my. I want to make pizza with it. I want to make pizza with it and walk around my dorm pulling slices up stringily and saying "God I hate being vegan. Look at this crap I have to eat."

Also, for the millionth time, I am so happy I live in Portland now. I love the vegan minimall. Spring is sprouting in Portland, and it's such a joy to sit outside a vegan minimall on a February Saturday eating delicious vegan food (I had a bite of a friend's seitan au jus - YES, vegan au jus! - sandwich and it was as delicious as mine) and bumping into people like Josh Herbivore.

sweet chile tofu

2010-02-28T20:59:00.001-08:00

my roommate and i are addicted to sweet chile sauce. At our dining hall, it seems they have something Asian at nearly every meal, which is where our addiction started, but we have discovered that it's good on everything from pizza to sandwiches. As such, she bought a bottle of the stuff the other week and we marinated tofu in it. Because we live such Busy College Lives it ended up marinating for....several days. Oh well! The result was delicious and so simple I feel it's almost overkill to actually post the recipe, but..

Sweet Chile Tofu
One block extra-firm tofu
Around half a bottle of sweet chile sauce
A little oil for cooking

Press the water out of the tofu and cut into bite-size pieces. Put in a bowl or a flat baking-style dish and pour over enough sweet chile sauce to cover. Marinate for at least an hour. Coat a saute pan in a few tsp. or so of oil and heat on medium. Cook the tofu until it's golden-brown and crispy. Feel free to pour the leftover sauce from marinating over the tofu as you're cooking it, but be warned that if you use too much in cooking you will get little black chunks of cooked sauce because it won't all be able to be on the tofu, so save a little for serving. EAT. Serves 2-3.

it has been sauced.

my happy tofu friends

Also, do any Portland people know of local tofu? Surely some exists. The tofu local to my hometown was always so much better and firmer than any big brand.

a few of my favorite things

2010-02-20T14:02:00.000-08:00

Lately, I've been enjoying:

1) Clif Kids fruit twist things

I had never seen these before first semester, but my roommate loves them and always has them around. She loves them because the three-year-old she babysits back home loves them, but this is a case of all paths to enlightenment being valid. They are like beef jerky, if beef jerky tasted like fruit instead of dead animal, if it had a texture between fresh and candy instead of greasy, if it were associated with the children of food-conscious parents and not fourteen-year-old boys.
It's shaped like beef jerky. Anyway, they are really good and come in flavors from Strawberry to Tropical and apparently one is a full serving of fruit. These have been tossed into my backpack many a time this semester.

2) Tao of Tea Moroccan Mint

Tao of Tea is a tea house here in Portland, and my school's dining hall has two of their teas. This is my go-to beverage when the soymilk machine is broken. It is a green tea with a full body and a very mellow, refreshing, not overwhelming mint flavor. I've not yet made it out to the tea house itself, but I want to. Now I am thirsty.

3) the banjo
So this isn't vegan-related, but being vegan makes me happy, as does the banjo. Connection made. More and more people who play the banjo have been coming into my life lately. I love the instrument! I have been realizing over the past year or so how much I really do like music with twang. More from the folk end (e.g. early Dar Williams) than country, but twang nonetheless. Last night I was hanging out with my friend Leah, who is teaching herself the banjo, and she taught me a few cords. 1) Playing the open strings is a chord on the banjo. 2) It's so much smaller than the guitar and you don't feel like you have this massive block of wood demanding that beautiful noises be produced from it immediately when you play it. 3) It's so much fun just to pick. I love music but my brain is just formatted to be literary. I am amazed at people who can jam, who can just flow into things that they make up and that sound good. But it's fun just to mess around and to sing. When I had a car in high school I would sing all the time, but now that I don't I've been realizing how little I do and how I wish I did more. An old friend had a bumper sticker on his car that said 'The more I sing, the better I feel' - very true. I think this summer when I have more time to learn I'm going to try to find a used banjo on craigslist and see what comes of it.

4) Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar

I've blogged before about the pumpkin brownies from this book, but last night I used the sugar cookie recipe in it to make cookies for the Vagina Monologues here on campus. Finally! A vegan sugar cutout cookie recipe that works! One Christmas my mom was making holiday cookies and I just gave her the first sugar cookie recipe I found from VegWeb. Now, I adore VegWeb and some of my favorite recipes are there, but for some reason these were just - weird. But Isa&Terry's were, as everything from their cookbooks, reliably delicious.

What have you been eating/drinking/using/reading/enjoying lately?

quick hit: grilling pita

2010-02-09T15:34:00.000-08:00

There, doesn't that look delicious? One of my favorite tips: always grill your pita bread. The effort to deliciousness ratio is ridiculous. Pita bread on its own is just fine, but when you grill it it stands out as a food on its own, not just a vehicle for hummus, and it's so quick and easy. Brush both sides of a pita with olive oil - I've found it easiest to put a little in a pan (which you need to do anyway) and then dip a paper towel (before turning on the stove, mind you) in it and use that to spread the oil more evenly/directly on the pita. Cook on medium-high heat, flipping often enough to keep good watch on both sides, until it's golden brown with little brown patches of crisp deliciousness, should take around five minutes. So much better than dry, cold pita. So little effort. Never underestimate the value of proper food presentation and little steps that make a big difference.

vegan bake sale for Haiti / I love Portland

2010-02-02T20:24:00.000-08:00

This Sunday was Portland's vegan bake sale for Haiti and it was awesome! Portland's alone made $3000 for MercyCorps, which brings the national total to $25K. Twenty-five THOUSAND dollars! Vegan treats are a force to be reckoned with. I wasn't there for long, but it was a madhouse, cookies and money just flying around everywhere.

Some of the people

one of four tables, and that's Isa Chandra Moskowitz, who organized everything, on the right.

monkey bread! I had never had vegan monkey bread before.

made with real monkeys

everything my friend Erin got...some cookie dough bites, green tea cupcake, blueberry muffin, some other cupcake, pumpkin muffin, pumpkin bread

Erin eats a cookie pop

Red pepper/tofu/Teese quiche. Oh my god, so good. I want to find who made this and do their taxes.....or something.

I love Portland so much. I love that there are people here who DO things like this, that there are people enough for things like this to be amazing successes. I was talking to a vegan friend of mine at the bake sale who has lived here for a while, and she said she always expects to know everyone at events like these and never does. There are too many vegans here for one person to know! And everyone here is so friendly. The last two times I have been off-campus (the bake sale and today having lunch at a food cart) random people have just struck up conversations with me to the tune of "Isn't Portland awesome? Isn't being vegan awesome?" Yes, kind stranger, yes. Such things do not occur in my hometown. It tickles me. Portland, I'm yours.

vegan sloppy joes!

2010-01-27T23:00:00.000-08:00

Finally, a recipe that's actually mine! This is one of my favorites. I made these over winter break and my omni dad was so cute about them. "What else do you use this vegetable texture protein stuff in?" "If I ate this and didn't know what it was, I'd think they were the real thing!" Heehee. If I ever do a second edition of Generation V, I want to add a lot more recipes, but this is one that's in the book already. If you've never cooked with TVP...do! It looks like gerbil food when you buy it and sounds like a disease, but fear not. It's pure protein so it has a very meaty texture, and like tofu, it just absorbs the flavor of whatever you cook it with. It's also good for chili, burger patties...I bet it would be good on nachos, too. But this is my favorite. Enjoy!

Sloppy Joes
1 c. TVP
1 ½ c. water
2 T. liquid smoke
1 T. garlic powder
1 T. onion powder
1 T. apple juice and/or 1 T. brown sugar (optional, but so good)
3 T. ketchup (or tomato paste/sauce)
½ c. barbeque sauce

Combine TVP and water in a medium-sized pan. Add remaining ingredients and mix thoroughly. Cook until the TVP has absorbed almost all of the liquid and is tender and reddish-brown. Feel free to add more of any ingredient to taste; as long as you have enough water for the TVP and aren't using 20 parts barbeque sauce per 1 part TVP you can't screw these up. Serves 4 or so.

vegan yum yum doughnut adventures

2010-01-19T18:10:00.000-08:00

As I said in my previous post, I just got Lauren Ulm's cookbook _Vegan Yum Yum_ and can't get enough of it. It has a recipe for vegan doughnuts...that you bake! All the deliciousness of a doughnut, but so much easier and less unhealthy (I don't think any doughnut, vegan or non, can really be said to be 'better' for you than something else...) than you'd expect. Recipe originally here. I didn't have a doughnut pan (why would I) before I found this recipe, but it was around $15 and so worth it for how fun these were to make and share and eat.

Vegan Yum Yum Mini Doughnuts

Dry Ingredients:
1 Cup All Purpose Flour
1/2 Cup Sugar
1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp (scant) Nutmeg
1 tiny pinch or shake Cinnamon

Wet Ingredients:
1/2 Cup Soymilk
1/2 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar
1/2 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
Egg Replacer for 1 Egg
4 Tbs Earth Balance

Preheat oven to 350 F. Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl with a whisk. Combine the wet ingredients in a small saucepan and heat until the EB is just melted. The wet mixture should be just slightly warm, not hot. If it gets too hot while the EB is melting let it sit for a minute or two, stir, and see if you can stick a finger in it comfortably. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir until just mixed. It should form something that's too thick to be a batter and too thin/soft to be a dough. Spray your doughnut pan with nonstick spray (the original recipe said not to, but I had better luck when I did) and drop in by the tablespoonful. Use your finger to spread it around evenly and err on the side of underfilling or else you'll have doughnuts with little muffin tops. Bake for 12-14 minutes until they just barely start to (golden)brown and a toothpick comes out clean. Invert on a wire cooling rack or plate and then decorate to your heart's content. If you are going to roll any in powdered sugar or cinnamon sugar, do so when they're still hot, for anything else wait until they've cooled off. Makes 20.

doughnuts hot out of the oven

cinnamon sugar, chocolate sprinkle, white chocolate (yes, vegan white chocolate exists) coconut, powdered sugar

vegan yum yum tomato alfredo

2010-01-19T16:49:00.001-08:00

I am in love with Vegan Yum Yum. I tend to enjoy cookbooks more the more pictures there are, and not only does this have a picture for every recipe, but the recipes themselves are beautiful, creative, and delicious. The other night I couldn't decide between Hurry Up Alfredo and Tomato Basil Cream Sauce so I combined the two. The original Alfredo recipe is here. This sauce has all the wonderful creaminess provided by raw cashews, without the planning and time commitment required in most other cashew cream recipes where you have to soak them overnight. Great texture, delicious flavor, really easy. I'll be making this again.

Vegan Yum Yum Tomato Alfredo (serves 2-3)

1 Cup Soymilk
1/3 Cup Raw, Unsalted Cashews
1/4 Cup Nutritional Yeast
3 Tbs Low-Sodium Tamari or Soy Sauce
2 Tbs Earth Balance Margarine
1 Tbs Tahini
1 Tbs Fresh Lemon Juice
2 tsp Dijon Mustard
1/2 tsp Paprika (smoked is awesome)
1 Pinch Nutmeg
2-4 Cloves of Garlic, optional
Black pepper, to taste
3 T. tomato paste
Small handful grape tomatoes (probably half a regular tomato, seeds and skin and all)
Basil to taste (I probably used 1/2 Tbsp)

Combine everything in a blender or food processor and mix until smooth, though with the raw cashews it's kind of impossible for it to be completely smooth. Some bits of cashew are fine and won't detract from the overall quality. Pour the sauce into a....saucepan and heat on medium, stirring, until warm and thickened.

an open letter to natalie angier

2010-01-15T22:35:00.000-08:00

(note: Natalie Angier is the author of “Sorry, Vegans: Brussels Sprouts Like to Live, Too”, which recently appeared in the NYT)

Dear Ms. Angier,
As a lover of nature, I enjoyed your article. The natural world always seems to be far more complex – and far more beautiful – than we can ever really know. But as a longtime vegan, I had a lot of problems with it. For one thing, you present this information as worthy of ethical consideration without ever really stating why, or what this – if it’s so important – means in practical terms for ethical eating. I’m not being facetious. Obviously, I understand that you’re saying that plants are more sentient than we assume, and that this implies that they are worthy of our ethical consideration, since the sentience of the beings we eat is a major factor in ethical eating, for some, the biggest factor. But judging by the title and your hurry to not “cede the entire moral penthouse” to vegetarians and vegans, your article – at least in its practical impacts on ethics – is directed towards vegans only. Are ethics all or nothing? Should we either eat in a way that harms no one and no thing or not try at all? No, and this is not the view your article itself presents. Food choices are indeed complex, and there is no way to be a perfect eater.

Even in a world where plants were as sentient as animals, a plant-based diet would still be the most ethical. Animals don’t grow themselves. They eat plants, too. According to a Cornell University study (http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/aug97/livestock.hrs.html), every year, 41 million tons of plant protein are fed to livestock, resulting in only 7 million tons of animal protein for human consumption. The commonly accepted ratio is that it takes sixteen pounds of plants to create one pound of meat. If humans just ate plants directly in a vegan diet, far fewer sentient beings – no animals, and drastically fewer plants (bearing in mind that this is a hypothetical world where plants are entirely sentient) – would be killed overall. As you say, “It’s a small daily tragedy that we animals must kill to stay alive.” We both agree that while it would be ethically ideal to self-sustain, this simply isn’t possible. However, this is no excuse to throw in the towel entirely. Just because we have to eat does not mean we can’t eat ethically, and just because it’s not possible to do absolutely no harm to any other being does not mean we aren’t obligated to minimize that harm as much as is possible and practical.

And as much as these discoveries in plant sentience are new, fascinating, and meaningful, I don’t think – nor does your article explicitly clarify why – it has much of an impact on the ethics of eating. Plants may be more sentient than we had thought, but this does not erase fundamental distinctions between plants and animals. It’s obvious that eating a pig and eating a head of lettuce are not the same thing. Even if the lettuce is aware of its surroundings and responds to stimuli and wants to continue being alive, I still think we have a moral duty to eat it before the pig.

When you stick a hot poker in the head of lettuce it might change color or smell funny. When you stick a hot poker in a pig - or a human like you or me - she may also change color and smell, but she also screams, she hurts, she tries to get away. Animals - pigs, humans, cats, whatever - all have central nervous systems and feel pain in the same way. As an animal myself, I can understand what a pig or chicken or cow feels when she's hurt, and if someone tried to kill me, I'd understand that too. I wouldn't want anyone to kill and eat me (or get me pregnant and take my baby and milk away), so I'm not going to do that to anyone else, human or non. Even if a plant knows something is trying to eat or hurt it, I can't understand it, because I'm not a plant. This harkens back to what you write towards the beginning about pigs and their smiles. There’s no getting around that it’s disconcerting thinking of similarities like that between animals and us. That’s why we try not to think of the similarities, so that we will be able to eat them without feeling bad about it. A pig has the cognitive level of a three-year-old human (http://mammals.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_intelligent_pig). What do you or I have in common with a plant (on a real, physiological level) that makes it worthy of our ethical consideration? If there is much, why does this trump the ethical concerns behind eating animals, with whom we do have much in common, especially considering that eating animals is, in a way, just eating even more plants?

Your article is and would be fascinating in itself, without the question of ethics. But the article’s ethical frame operates on a “gotcha!” – surprise, vegans, you actually are doing harm to living beings, too bad for you snobs – that simply isn’t true. As much as people like to assume all vegans are arrogant, holier-than-thou assholes, every vegan I know is fully aware that veganism isn’t perfect. I’m a vegan, and I know that mice and insects die when the plants I eat are harvested. I know that the medications I take were tested on animals. This doesn’t mean I’m not a vegan, nor that I’m not doing my best to live a life I think is ethical. There’s no need to say “Sorry” to me or any other vegan on this point, any more than there is need to assume that questions of ethics need only be addressed to us.

ooey gooey pumpkin pie brownies

2010-01-15T19:04:00.000-08:00

YUM. I got Isa Chandra Moskowitz & Terry Hope Romero's new book, Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar for Christmas and had such a hard time deciding which awesome recipe to make first. This is the holy book of vegan cookies. It has recipes for everything you'd expect (Blackstrap Gingersnaps, Peanut Butter Crisscrosses, Big Fat Crispy Rice Squares, etc.) but also creative and fancy things (Lazy Samoas, Frosted Grapefruit Icebox Cookies, Banana Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies, NYC Black and Whites, etc.). Being so fancy myself, I went for these. It is always time for pumpkin on my calendar. These are decadent but not gut-bustingly rich, and because pumpkin (like applesauce) can do the same job fat does in a recipe, they aren't horrible for you as brownies go.

Pumpkin Pie Brownies

For the brownie layer
4 ounce bittersweet chocolate, melted
1 cup canned or pureed pumpkin
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup flour
1/4 cup dutch processed cocoa powder
1 tablespoon tapioca flour (or arrowroot or corn starch)
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

For the pumpkin pie layer
1 cup canned or pureed pumpkin
2 tablespoons tapioca flour (or use arrowroot or cornstarch)
1/2 cup non-dairy milk (I used Pumpkin Spice soy)
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
pinch ground nutmeg
pinch ground allspice

To decorate:

A handful of chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease a 9 inch springform pan, or use a 9 inch square pan, preferably lined with parchment paper.
To make the brownie layer: Melt the chocolate. In a large mixing bowl mix together pumpkin, sugar, oil and vanilla. Sift in the flour, cocoa powder, cornstarch, baking soda and salt and stir to combine, then mix in the melted chocolate.

To make the pumpkin layer:

Mix all ingredients in a large mixing bowl and stir until thoroughly combined.

To assemble:

Use a spatula to spread the brownie layer into the prepared baking pan, taking care to bring the batter to the edges of the pan. Pour the pumpkin layer over it, leaving a little room at the edges if you can. Bake for 30 minutes, until the pumpkin layer looks fairly firm (a little jiggling is okay) and has cracked at the edges a bit. Let cool for 20 minutes and then transfer to the fridge to set for at least an hour and a half. Once set, decorate with chocolate chips and ~~serve~~ devour.

quick hit: vegan teen

2010-01-10T19:29:00.001-08:00

Today I did a Google search for 'vegan teen', and this was one of the first results. It's the strangest veg-related website I've seen, and enjoyable for that in itself. Just bizarre. I think this was somebody's final project for Computer Science in eighth grade. The site's design is too...stunning...to ignore, but other than that, it offers the only vegan-themed online games I've seen. In addition to driving a hippie van around to pick up tofu, you can also shoot Ronald McDonald in the face with a swordfish. And who doesn't want that?

One question: WHY does Google assume that 'vegan' and 'vegetarian' are synonyms? They are not, O Google. Blah.

vegetable biryani

2010-01-08T22:04:00.001-08:00

A delicious, fairly easy, completely non-authentic dish. I modified this from Jamie's Food Revolution by Jamie Oliver, who is to my parents what Isa Chandra Moskowitz or Sarah Kramer is to me: deity of delicious, beautiful food and very directly responsible for their first forays into a new kind of cooking. Fair enough. The actual recipe had amounts, but this is one that you can eyeball and that you'll have to work to mess up. I just estimated what the dish I had would hold.

So, get an ovenproof dish that's more than an inch or so deep. Preheat the oven to 450 F. Make some rice. While the rice is cooking, make some curry - this is great if you have leftover curry you need to do something with, or you can be lazy like me and just make one quickly with curry paste and coconut milk and chickpeas. Rub the inside of the baking dish with Earth Balance and then sprinkle the whole thing with turmeric. Layer rice, curry, cashews (I bet raisins would also be good), and whatever other vegetables you want (or don't want - I bet it would work fine with tofu or even fake meat thrown in, but I can hear my friend Dino yelling at me already so just throw some vegetables in there. It's delicious no matter what) until you get to the top of the dish, but make sure the top layer is rice. Cut about a tablespoon of Earth Balance (cold) into bits and dot the top of the rice with it. Oil a big piece of foil and cover the dish, but leave a little lip so that it doesn't explode. Bake for about half an hour. NOM.

This was so good. The rice on top gets nice and crispy, the cashews get tender, and all the flavors just blend so well. And really, how hard is it to put some rice on the stove, throw some curry paste and coconut milk together in another pan, layer them, and let it bake? I made this with a friend over, while talking to her and watching TV. So easy and so good.

holiday treats

2009-12-15T21:08:00.001-08:00

look what my parents sent me! Winter is cold. Heat is good. Deliciousness is good. These are truths about the world. For your pleasure I have done the difficult work of trying many holiday beverages to save you the trouble. Because I like you.

Celestial Seasonings Sugarplum Spice: Delicious! Festive and warming, a little sweet, a little spicy, but not overwhelming in either respect. Just a happy medium of everything your heart desires in a winter tea, including dancing ballerinas enticing you to drink it.
(The peppermint I haven't had yet - some jerk stole my mug, or some friend is borrowing it for an abnormally long period of time - but it's on my winter break to-do list and it comes highly recommended. The hot cocoa I also haven't had, but vegan cocoa mix at Target? I can haz plz.)

Celestial Seasonings Gingerbread: I tried this last night, not as good as Sugarplum Spice. A little too spicy. It does taste exactly like a gingerbread cookie if that's what you're into, but drinking a watery gingerbread cookie wasn't exactly my cup of tea. Har. I wouldn't call it bad.

Silk Nog: Nom. Rich with a good flavor. Delicious. However it does such a good job of being noggy - and thus almost unbearably rich - that I don't remember ever finishing a container as the only vegan in a household. But nog! It is essential to have nog at the holidays and it doesn't have any weird soy flavor. Yum.

Vitasoy chocolate peppermint: The best for last! Oh my god. If you haven't had this you have never truly celebrated the wintertime. It is so, so good. It has a good chocolate flavor and the mint is neither overpowering nor wimpy. Delicious. Please drink this. Six stars of five.

vegan in college

2009-12-15T20:51:00.000-08:00

I am alive! The last month has been ridiculous. Papers, finals, I won’t bore you. If I could get academic credit for cuddling and blogging and eating fried pies (Whiffies. Nom. Come to Portland.) I would have graduated by now. But I made it through the first semester of college alive! I’m surprised it took me a whole semester, but I do believe a vegan college student is required to post about her experience of things. I am lucky enough to go to a college with a really vegan-friendly dining hall (hint: liberal arts colleges on the coasts). The dining hall has different stations and there’s always at least one that has a good vegan option, marked by a big green circle.
There’s a salad bar, fresh fruit, a soymilk dispenser, cereal, and even nutritional yeast for your cheesy B12 delight. It’s so nice never ever having to worry about being provided for. I get asked surprisingly often if I would go to a school that didn’t have vegan options. I can’t imagine going to a school and not even being able to eat – or at least not being able to go to the dining hall with my friends like everyone else. My school has vegan theme day sometimes! Last one was macaroni with cashew cheese, housemade seitan “ribs”, corn salad, berry cobbler, and deliciousness.
Yes, I do love my school. If you’re going or thinking about going to a larger/public/less liberal school, they might not have cashew cheese but you can still survive. Peta2 does a yearly contest for the most vegetarian-friendly college, and while I’m sure it’s not exhaustive, a lot of the winners are state schools, so you never know.

Beyond the dining hall, though, I still eat well. I have been called ‘the hall Mormon’ before because of how much damn food I keep stocked. Sometimes I’m out on weekends and get back after dinner has been served, wake up too late for breakfast, plus I just like to cook and eat. I am on the floor of my dorm that has the biggest kitchen in the building, which is nice. It’s amazing how much stuff you really need to have a fully stocked kitchen…I read recipes and think “Wow, I don’t have a casserole dish or curry powder or aluminum foil or cream of tartar. Um.”

Here’s what I’ve got (bear in mind that this is the end of the semester and my mother has been plying me with care packages, so the ratio of junk to actual nutrients is a little distorted):

Apple sauce, dried cranberries, popcorn, noodle bowls/coconut rice, ramen (naturally), oatmeal, graham crackers, cashew crunch, chips, recently veganized Skittles hiding by the cookies and Dandies marshmallows hiding next to the granola bars.
Earth Balance in the fridge, peanut butter, chickpeas, rice, pasta and baking supplies in the kitchen cupboard. I try to have ingredients for a few simple, satisfying, not horribly unhealthy meals – e.g. rice with a simple peanut sauce, pasta with Earth Balance, nutritional yeast, and garlic, a Boca patty with green beans, peanut butter sandwich, etc. I feel like I’m going to be cooking a LOT during winter break. “You mean we have turmeric? And I didn’t have to pay for it? MULTIPLE SPOONS?!?”
I know I’m in college because last week I ate ice cream with a knife.

vegan coat patrol

2009-11-13T15:16:00.000-08:00

The vegan winter coat is one of the most elusive things in the world. Oh, you can find coats that are vegan, sure. But ones that will actually keep you warm while being at last somewhat fashionable? Oy, not so much. It's that time of year again. It seems like every vegan I know, regardless of how long they've been vegan, goes into "Shit I need a good coat!" mode as soon as the first leaf falls. There's very little effort to make or market coats specifically to vegans, and looking through tag after tag for the absence of wool and down can be a neverending chore. Why can we buy vegan haggis (and Tofurky soda), but no decent coats? Having just moved to a much colder, wetter climate, I needed a new coat in so many ways. When I first went vegan I got this one from the Vegan Store. A vegan peacoat you say? Peacoats are warm and cute, yes? Um, no. I would recommend this one if you are a man living in a relatively warm climate. It says they have unisex sizing, but by that they mean "Hi females. Here is a fleece rectangle." It's cut like a refrigerator box, not flattering at all for us ladyfolk. And as for warmth: it's not bad, but not terribly good. Meh. If it ever dances towards freezing where you live, look elsewhere. And the Polartec fleece would not hack it at all if you live, like me, somewhere with a wet winter. When it gets wet, it gets wet and kind of...filmy. If you're a man who doesn't see much snow, you'd probably be very happy with this, if not, not.

This year, however, I have this one from Columbia and I love it!

Don't I look happy and warm? (That's not me.) It does keep me happy and warm though. It has a nice thick Polartec layer on the inside that can zip in and out, making it work as both a winter coat and something of a heavy-duty windbreaker. It hasn't gotten too cold here yet, but so far I've been nothing but toasty. I have it in a light/dark blue & white combo that isn't on the website, and it's cute. The outer layer is waterproof and it has a detachable hood, musts for the Pacific NW. There are also stealth pockets on the inside for being sneaky. I am really happy with this coat and think that I'm finally out of the endless vegan coat search. It is a little pricey, but I think it's worth it to have a high quality coat, and I'm sure it will last me several years at least. Columbia also has a lot of outlet stores, so if you can find one near you, do it, I got this for about half the price.

As for other vegan coats, sportswear brands like Columbia, North Face, etc. are, though pricey, promising. While a lot of their coats do have wool and down, they are designed for being X-TREEM in the winter and thus aren't 100% wool like peacoats, because that doesn't protect you from the spray you get as you schoop down a black diamond ski slope. Or so I would imagine. My home state of Kansas is not notorious for its skiing. Anyway, they like to use manmade materials with names like Opti-Warm and Microtemp to show they are approved by Science.
Here are a few other vegan ones I've found:
the Zurich Parka from Columbia

the High Jump Parka from Columbia

the Bugaboo from Columbia

Boulevard Jacket from North Face

Ava Insulated from Merrell

Amber Road Coat from ModCloth - a friend just got this one and describes it as "not that warm, lighter than I expected", but it's so cute!

The interwebs are your friends. All of them. Stay warm, vegans!

4 years vegan!

2009-11-12T20:03:00.000-08:00

On November 12, 2005, I went vegan. Best decision ever! My tastebuds, critical thinking skills, complexion, social life, and wallet are happy. That sounds ambitious, but it's true. I can't imagine not enjoying the foods I was introduced to only after going vegan, not being able to understand oppression, having to worry about much acne, not having the vegan friends I do...a good, good thing, one I smile to think of. That's all I've got tonight, but here are some of my favorite quotes:

“How good it is to be well-fed, healthy, and kind all at the same time.”
Henry J. Heimlich

"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident."- Arthur Schopenhauer

“Wild animals never kill for sport. Man is the only one to whom the torture and death of his fellow creatures is amusing in itself.” – James A. Froud

“If one person is unkind to an animal it is considered to be cruelty, but where a lot of people are unkind to animals, especially in the name of commerce, the cruelty is condoned and, once large sums of money are at stake, will be defended to the last by otherwise intelligent people.” – Ruth Harrison

“The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.” – John Kenneth Galbraith

“Veganism is an ethic that is committed to reverence and respect for all life and the planet that sustains it. Veganism brings with it the joy of living with peace of spirit, and the comfort of knowing that one’s thoughts, feelings, words, and actions have a strongly benevolent effect on the world.” – Stanley Sapon

Tofurky soda

2009-11-08T22:25:00.000-08:00

If you've ever had Jones soda, you know they like quirky flavors and gimmicky packaging, e.g. Blue Bubblegum flavor and a Cthulu-themed series. I like quirky flavors and fun things. To a degree, that is. Just in time for the holiday season, Jones is rolling out a completely vegan Tofurky and Gravy flavor.
Of soda.
Um....
Part of me is really glad that they're marketing to vegans. Last I heard there are more Americans who think they have been abducted by aliens than who are vegan. So it's exciting to see such a random, nothing-to-do-with-veganism/health/the environment company loudly proclaiming from the main page of their website that a new product is '100% Vegan' 'Turkey approved' (har) etc., etc. Would they be selling it/making it/advertising it if it weren't at least okay?
But on the other hand....really? I'm trying to imagine what on earth this would taste like. Soda is supposed to be sweet. Tofurky and gravy are not. So either it's a cold fizzy turkey soup with no sweetness or....gravy and HFCS. Yum.
However, we must remember the union of sweet and savory that can be good, like vegan bacon and syrup. But that in a drink? Curiouser and curiouser. And if they had to pick a fake meat to make anything out of, Tofurky is not the one to have chosen. Tofurky is turkey-flavored tofu. Meh. What about field roast? It has been my and many of my vegan friends' experience that Tofurky is what you have for your first vegetarian/vegan holiday because you've heard of it. Never again do you have it, because the next year you have discovered Field Roast, which is something you actually want a second bite of and don't feel embarrassed offering to omnis.

I'm not sure where or how you can find this Tofurky soda. The Jones Soda website will sell you a six-pack: three Tofurky & Gravy sodas, three other diet sodas they're trying to promote, all in a commemorative lunchbox for the low low price of $11.99. In all honesty I am eager to at least try this soda. But not twelve dollars and three bottles worth.

"You're so brave!"

2009-10-20T12:13:00.000-07:00

Today, boys and girls, we will examine something that is both well-intentioned misconception and carefully crafted excuse, the “You’re so brave for being vegan!” So often do I tell someone I am vegan only to hear people ooze with amazement at my stores of courage, bravery, and strength. After all, to someone who has never had to wrap their brains around the idea of giving up convenience for ethical principles, it would seem like a lot, and it seems like it would be a nice thing to say to a vegan friend. It hardly needs to be said that veganism is a big change from the normal omnivorous lifestyle (at first, but that’s another post). But really, it’s not hard. I don’t wake up in the morning biting my lip, getting ready for another difficult day of ethical challenges, glad I was blessed with the heart of a lion.

Are you strong for not enslaving another human being even though it would be easier for you to have someone else do all your work?

Does it take courage and grit for you to not throw around gender epithets (e.g. slut, skank) with abandon even though other people around you may do so?

Is the bravest thing you do all day refrain from narrowing your eyes at a homeless person because it’s their fault for being lazy and stupid?

No, no, and no. You just wake up and do those things because it’s second nature to you. Veganism is no different. I wake up and live my life in line with my ethics, square against the things I think are wrong and cruel and shameful, celebrating the things I think are good and true and beneficial for the world. That's all I do. That's what veganism (and other things, like feminism) means to me, and it's not hard at all. To an omnivore it may seem as ridiculous or unnecessary as not wearing the color purple for ethical reasons, but for vegans it’s something that goes far beyond simply not eating x, y, or z. It’s believing that all creatures – animals, humans, men, women, the poor, the rich, all who share this earth – deserve, at the very least, to belong to themselves and no other, to be in control of their lives and happiness. No matter who you are or what you eat or care about, it takes far greater strength and effort to silence one’s conscience than it ever would to live it.

So in other ways the “You’re so brave” is just an excuse, a justification, however subconscious, for inaction. After all, if being vegan takes extraordinary courage, then it’s automatically beyond the call for “normal” people. If it’s something only the truly strong can hack, then no one should feel bad for not being able to handle it, right? In the post of mine in another blog on which this one based, Gary Francione summed nicely, “As we know, however, a better way to avoid cognitive dissonance - in this scenario, at least - is to not engage in the morally troubling activities that cause the dissonance.” Wait, you mean, not do things that are ethically wrong? Crazy talk…

And to round out the overall tone of this post, here is Gus the bulldog having a snack. I love you, internets!

what if, while the monkey was making you the sandwich, he DIED?

2009-10-13T15:04:00.000-07:00

A classic.

oh, Portland

2009-10-12T16:51:00.000-07:00

Everything you have heard about Portland being a vegan Mecca is entirely true. I grew up in Kansas City, and although we did have one vegetarian and one vegan restaurant, it was still the Midwest and one of the barbeque capitals of the nation. That was about it. And although any city of decent size – especially those on the coasts – is going to have a lot of vegan options and vegans, period, just because they have large populations…Portland is different. I moved here at the end of August for college and I'm falling more in love with it by the day. It’s not weird to be vegan here. Did you read that? It’s not weird to be vegan here. We have a vegan minimall, multiple vegan bakeries, a vegan grocery, a vegan bike shop, vegan salons, vegan tattoo parlors, a few farm sanctuaries close by, vegan doughnuts, vegan everything. It’s so nice not worrying about going to a random restaurant, just knowing that they will know what vegan is and, other than chain restaurants, are going to be able to provide for you.
My favorite things I’ve done in Portland so far:

Met Isa Chandra Moskowitz. Yes, of Vegan with a Vengeance, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, Veganomicon, and Vegan Brunch fame. She was at VegFest a few weeks ago and made a total fangirl out of me. Now I want chocolate beer waffles…

Speaking of food, we have that, too. Things I have eaten here: a club sandwich with housemade fake turkey, guacamole, and two layers of sandwich (Vita), a doughnut shaped like a penis (Voodoo), a salad with perfectly-cooked tempeh and just-spicy-enough Thai peanut dressing (Paradox), a fried coconut crème pie (Whiffies), cheese made of sunflower seeds – not mindblowing, but something I’d never seen before (Papa G’s). Come prepared to either ride your bike or get fat.

Veganism is just normal here. At home whenever I would see someone in a ‘VEGAN’ t-shirt, I already knew them, and if the v-word was on a menu, it was only at the vegetarian restaurant. Here I have gotten used to seeing random people with vegan-message clothing/stickers/etc. and banners that say ‘VEGANS WELCOME’ around. This can’t be unique to Portland, but still. It’s nice.

Another thing about Portland is that so many people here are transplants who heard of our city’s glory and migrated, so everyone is welcoming because they know what it’s like to be new. And we have public transportation that works, and trees and mountains and waterfalls, and a great literary community, and naked bike rides, and lots of pretty people doing cool things, and a bookstore that takes up an entire city block, and....
If you want to come here, you should. It’s amazing.

sometimes you just have to laugh

2009-10-06T20:31:00.000-07:00

Highlights from the first few weeks of college:

"You tell Japanese people not to whale-hunt and they're like, ha ha, what? They don't get it. It would be like someone telling us that killing cows is wrong!"

"Eating vegan desserts gives you irregular bowel movements. Unless you're already vegan."

"*speech about how you need to eat meat to survive*"
Me: "I haven't eaten meat or any other animal product in four years and I'm alive.."
"Do you take a vitamin?"
"Well, yes, but -"
"That's why you're alive."

No matter where you are or how long you've been veg*n, you're going to come into contact with stupid people. Sometimes you need to educate them, but sometimes it just won't be worth your trouble. Laugh. Loudly. And be glad you have a brain.