Brownies and back to school

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.

(Portland) vegan airport guide

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!

camp for vegan/activist kids

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!

Daiya love and Sweetpea love

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:

vegan bake sale for Haiti / I love Portland

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.

oh, Portland

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.