NYC for Xmas!

So I headed home for Christmas and planned a whirlwind trip of NY and the surrounding areas.

First off.  I stopped in Richmond for snackiepoos on the way up, and shock shock, Harrison St Coffee was CLOSED.  Oh well, I hit Panda Veg.  I ordered the home style tofu, a spring roll and the sesame balls.  The tofu was not the tofu I'd had at the buffet, and I ended up throwing most of it in the trash, but can I expound for one moment on the joy and beauty that is sesame balls?  Okay

, so you have these little balls that get put

 in the deep fryer and expand to 3x their size.  Nothing amazing there.  What is amazing is the crispy, sesame seed coated outside, which yields to a hot, doughy, sticky bun with dense, molasses flavored peanut butter core.  I didn't want to eat all of them before I got out of Virginia, but I totally did.  They were fantastically delicious.

My first night, I had dinner at new restaurant Dirt Candy.  Dirt Candy is a very small restaurant on 9th ave, devoted to, as they 

say "leaving the 

vegetables to professionals."  A 3 person operation, it is a 

little snug, but uses that size issue to its advantage.  The front-of-house man is very helpful, 

charming and friendly.  He asked us and all parties seated after us if anyone at the table was vegan and made reccomendations on dishes accordingly.  The menu is very small-- 9 items total. We ordered everything on the menu except spinach soup and carrot risotto.  Here's how it went down:

The "snack" of jalapeno hush puppies was tasty, but I wish that chef

 Amanda Cohen had devised a more inventive way of combining the popcorn sized snacks with the perfect condiment that is maple butter.  If Cohen ever decides to make brunch, this would be the perfect thing to serve with, well, every breakfast item possible.  It would be ideal on waffles, pancakes and toast.  It does complement the puppies, but swabbing them across the butter is a little awkward.  I'd like to see a chef who seems interested in advanced techniques like Cohen try something like flash freezing the butter, then surrounding it with hush puppies.  

The star of this meal, as far as I was concerned, was the appetizer.  My father ordered the greek salad-- I didn't try it due to the cheese, but the

 portabello mousse.  Can we talk about this mousse for a moment?  Honestly, I was scared, but t

he waiter sold me.  My love for mushrooms can turn to hate very quickly, particularly when they are pureed, mixed with gelatin and served in futuristic style cubes.  BUT these totally scored.  The mousse tasted like mushrooms, almost more so than the thinly sliced pile that accompanied it on the plate.  The pear confit was a surprising

 burst of sweet that worked out.  The crostini

 added salt and a little crunch to what would otherwise be a mushy dish.  I really loved this.  I probably could've eaten two of them.  I kind of want to 

make portabello mousse squares for my friends, but I don't think they'd understand.  My mom ordered the regular garden salad, which looked pleasant but was really saved by the grapefruit

 pops.  The grapefruit pops are essentially grapefruit sections, coated in a hard candy shell.  They were divine and have resparked my interest in grapefruit brulee.  Hooray butane torches.

I went and saw Playing Dead and Autumn People at Mr Beery's in Farmingdale.  Playing Dead are friends of a friend who played the Stately on Labor Day Weekend.  They serve up radio friendly rock which holds echoes of local Long Island heroes 

Taking Back Sunday.  Autumn People are devoted psychadelic noise rockers.  I didn't expect to like their set as much as I did, but I really liked the show.  Fabian's voice is unexpected, the bass player can really write a bassline and their drummer managed to continue playing as feet, beer, instruments and band members came hurling at him and knocking over his drumkit.

The next day was Christmas, and for Christmas I made the I'm Fucking Hungry Fajitas for my main dish, and a slight variation on VWAV's Tuscan White Bean soup.  Add about 2 cups of spinach, then tell me how much you love me.  My family was, sadly, pretty wary, but my dad tried some and drank a whole lot of soup the next day.

I also made an apple-grapefruit pound cake.  I love pound cake.  It's very beautiful, but doesn't keep extremely well because it's so moist, and because the grapefruit on top starts to go bad.  Photo at right shows the Cake, and a slab cut off of it, for your delicious joy.  I did kind of nick and modify this recipe from my friend Rachel, so I'm going to share my changes with you.

Fruit Pound Cake

Cake:

1.5 C flour

1 C sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 C apple cider (or go half and half, cide and grapefruit juice)

1 Tbsp grapefruit zest

1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

1 tsp almond extract

Icing:

1/2 C shortening

1/2 C margarine

2 T apple cider vinegar

2-2 1/2 C powdered sugar

Grapefruit zest to taste

Preheat oven to 350 and grease a pan.  Mix all dry and wet ingredients separately, then mix together quickly, for no more than 2 minutes, then get it in the oven.  If you use a bread pan (to make a little loaf cake like me) it will need about 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. If you use an 8x8 pan bake about 30 minutes. You can also double the recipe and make a big honkin' cake with two 8x8s.

While your cake is cooling and shortening and margarine are approaching room temp, peel and section a grapefruit.  Then you can mix the icing ingredients together, adding more sugar if it's too loose and more cider if it's too stiff.  Ice the cake as you would any other.  Part of the beauty of this cake is that you can sub in/out almost any fruit and be alright.

On the way home, I got to go to my favorite place in the world: Vegan Treats. 

(Warning, this post is about to become a love song)

How do I love vegan treats?  Let me count the ways.  Observe the look of almost-mindless ecstasy as I bite into the love of my life, the Berliner.  Oh, how I miss jelly donuts.

I have lots of pictures of this donut because i wanted to remebmer it forever, but I won't make you look at them.  I also got a slice of chocolate covered strawberry shortcake, two (yes I know) cinnamon buns and a couple of mini cakes to taste.  They were so pretty!  How could I resist?

The cinnamon buns were exactly as I remembered-- overbearingly rich, smothered in icing, soft and chewy...so totally effing wonderful.  I shared them with my bandmates and it got everyone's seal of approval.

I'm just going to leave off with photos of all the wonderful treats now, but I propose a question or a challenge-- does anyone have any *idea* how they get their icing so fluffy and wonderful?  I know transfats are involved and don't really care.  Most baked goods are not that healthy anyway, and a little transfat to make the difference between satisfying and I-will-eat-this-until-I-cannot-physically-swallow-any-more seems like a fair trade.  Maybe it's because my real dream in life is to have a Vegan Treats Satellite here in Durham.

Let's talk THANKSGIVING

Thanksgiving is by far my favorite holiday.  I love food.  Thanksgiving is unabashedly devoted to it.  Where can I go wrong?  Well, this year it was creating too much wonderful food.

We started cooking on Tuesday night, this year, with the Candle Cafe Cookbook (CCC) seitan. Wessie and I went out drinking first, then came home, cleared off our island, floured it an

d got to kneading.  The next Morning, I woke up with VwaV's Raspberry Blondies.  The batter was FAR stiffer than

I thought it would be, but I didn't care!  The raspberry preserves were beautiful.  This picture doesn't do them justice.  My friend Jill Homewrecker came over and crocheted legwarmers while Wessie and I threw together the blondies.  While the blondies baked, we began the arduous task of washing out the dough for the seitan.  I know you can buy the pre-sorted out gluten, but I feel like you're cheating somehow unless you put 40 

minutes of backbreaking kneading into making your seitan.  Maybe it's that "5 miles to school, uphill both ways" good old days mentality.  Maybe it's the ab workout that justifies eating oneself into a coma on seitan.  It is a *very* good ab workout, FYI.

Once the seitan was resting, the blondies smelled so good that we couldn't resist and ended up cutting into them before the chips

 

were cooled and gooing them up.  Not that any of us cared as we shoved

 vanilla raspberry goodness into our mouths.

In the meantime, I started on the lemon tofu cheesecake from CCC and the gingerbread apple pie from VwaV.  Unfortunately for me, I ended up having to sift brown sugar.  Packed brown sugar.  On the plus side, my lemon tofu cheesecake 

with pom glaze actually 

TURNED OUT this year.  The cheesecake was perfectly set, and the glaze was thin enough to be poured over the top of the cheesecake, but thick enough to stay put and not dribble off.  I

 was super duper amped.  see the photos at right of the lovely/amazing dessert pairing.

That night I got to work on one of my favorite "feed an army" dishes: lasagna.   I don't mean to toot my own horn, but my lasagna has won over omnis far and wide and can defy the laws of the stomach.  I feel the need to share this recipe with you as a result of that.  I make product reccs here, but I've used others with good results.  For me, it's just the magic combo.

Can't Believe It's Vegan Lasagna

Tofu Ricotta (modified from Angelica Home kitchen)

2 packages tofu

1/4 c extra virgin olive oil

2 T to 4 T lemon juice

2 T to 1/3 c italian style herbs (think basil, oregano, thyme, sage)

2-4 cloves fresh garlic or 1-2 tsp garlic powder

1/2-1 tsp salt

few cranks of fresh black pepper

Put all ingredients into food processor and blend until no large chunks of tofu remain.

Bolognaise Sauce

1 and 1/2 jars Rao's tomato sauce (I like Rao's, I know it's really expensive but there is something abuot the flavor that speaks to me.  If you want to go cheaper, you can use 1 jar of premium sauce and 1 jar of regular sauce like prego, ragu, newman's...just make sure that one of your sauces is thinnish.  If you make your own, more power to ya, but I like this as a quick meal for when I suddenly have to feed 8-10 people.  Or myself, for a week and a half.)

1 package lightlife smart ground (yves is a good substitute but I find it has a slightly greasy aftertaste that reminds me of fatty beef, which I was not a fan of then and am not a fan of now.  The boca ground, to me, is pretty much inedible.  They tried way too hard to make it "meaty."  On another note, if you're trying to avoid processed soy, mushrooms, finely chopped and sauteed in a veggie broth will work well)

1-2 C chopped broccoli

1-2 C chopped spinach (either the broccoli or spinach can be replaced with your fav green leafies, left out or increased.)  

Set aside 1/2 jar (or about 3-4 C) tomato sauce.  Mix the rest with "meat" and veggie.

"Invent-a-cheesey melt"

1 block FYH Monterey Jack

1 block FYH Mozarella

Grate both blocks and mix together in a bowl.  Either fake cheese will work on its own, but I find the Mozarella is a little bland and the Jack is a little strong.  Mixed together, they give the affect of a combination of mozarella and parmasean.

ASSEMBLING THE LASAGNA:

Either boil your noodles or get your no-boil noodles ready for assembly.

Pour 1-2 cups plain tomato sauce onto the bottom of a 9x12 pan, spread it around, then cover the bottom of the pan with noodles.  Spread about 1/3 of the tofu ricotta on the noodles.  Pour about 1/3 of the bolognaise sauce over the ricotta.  Take 1/4 of the shredded cheese over the sauce.  Make 2 more layers of noodle, then ricotta, then sauce then shredded cheese.  For the last layer, put your noodles down, dump the rest of the ricotta on top and down the sides of the lasagna, use your other pure tomato sauce, then sprinkle the top with cheese.  Cover with aluminum foil.  You can refridgerate overnight or stick in the freezer (but if you freeze, be sure to thaw for 4-6 hours before cooking) before baking.  Bake at 350 for 45 minutes, then remove foil and bake another 10.  The sauce should be bubbling, cheese on top at least making moves towards melting. 

And voila.  You'll have 12 servings of deliciousness.

In addition to the lasagna, I had some really beautiful local greens from my CSA

 program, including kale, mustard greens and collards.  I ripped them up and made some super garlicky greens.  I also found some very pretty shitake mushrooms and baby bellas to complete my wild mushroom gravy.  Every time I make wild mushroom gravy, I seem to buy too many mushrooms...but wouldn't you?  They're so good!

Lastly, I'll leave you with the finished picture, and a few close ups, as well as guests enjoying the food.

The spread, starting at the bottom center and going clockwise:

CCC wild mushroom gravy

CCC Seitan Steaks, pan fried

Garlicky mixed greens

Mashed potatoes

Anne Gomez's roasted root vegetables

Vegan Lasagna

Dairy mac and cheese (Wessie's a lacto veg)

Dairy Crescent Rolls

CCC Lemon Poppy Muffins

VwaV Raspberry Blondies

CCC Lemon Tofu Cheesecake with Pom Glaze

VwaV Gingerbread Apple Pie

VwaV chocolate cupcakes with injected peanut butter mousse and topped with chocolate buttercream 

Pumpkin Pie

As you can see, we kind of got into a couple of things before people started eating.  I also had to wear a sweatshirt while pan frying the seitan so as not to get oil spatter on my pretty new dress.  Someone needs to get me an apron.

Unfortunately most of the other pictures of us hanging out and eating are a little blurry.  =(  I hope you all had great TGs!

Charoset

I had a pot luck at work a few weeks ago and needed to provide something I could make in the 20 minutes before work with ingredients I had on hand. Good thing I've turned into a super jew.

Charoset is a traditional passover "symbol" that goes on that plate in the middle (okay so I'm not that good of a jew) and represents the sweet times. Eastern European jews like my dad's fam make it with apples. If you're ghetto like me, anything will do.

Glucklich Yummy Charoset
3-4 Apples (whatever's around...I prefer honeycrisps, but had a few braeburns and a granny smith too)
1-2 pears
1 cup walnuts
handful of raisins
dash cinnamon
splash of maneschewitz concord grape wine (but grape juice or any red wine will work if you add a little syrup)

Finely chop walnuts, apples and pears. Mix cinnamon and wine, if possible. Toss in a bowl with raisins and wine mix. Serve with either main course or dessert. Makes an excellent snack too. Will keep in your fridge for about 4 days.

Field Roast vs. Viana

Hi Guys...
I know I got *massively* behind on blogging...the holidays, eating healthy and working hard will do that to you!

I'd like to offer some advice on "exotic" fake meats, per my palate.

First off, I probably should let you know that I bring Light Life bologna to work for lunch almost every day. Light Life is my friend.

Secondly, I ordered several products off Veganessentials.com to try and they came in evenly down the line.

We'll start with the bad:
I did not want Field Roast deli slices to be vile, since Field Roast tends to strike me as a little healthier (I can pronounce and understand what all ingredients are). Unfortunately, they are VILE. I ordered the Lentil Sage and Smoked Tomato flavors.

I really wanted to like these but they were inedible. You don't have to take my word for it, but they're pretty pricey, and you'll be happier just making a hummus sandwich. I know I was.






However, there is a company out there that's worth its price tag. That company is Viana's Holzfaller Farms. The products are supposed to look like the image to the right, but they actually look more like large tear drops. Having been a vegan for a while, amorphous, unidentifiable fake meats don't really scare me. I ordered the cowgirl steaks and the chicken fillets.

The steaks are really good, solid seitan. They taste a lot like Field Roast celebration roast, but less salty and without the somewhat peculiar filling. They work very well with greens and mashed potatoes. More than the steaks though, I found the chicken fillets to be worthwhile. The breadding is light (I definitely reccommend baking, not microwaving or pan frying) and the flavor of the meat is also mild. This made it excellent both on its own and used in a dish. I'm very big on garlicky greens at the moment (thanks to my CSA) so I made a little Chicken Parmasean with Collards. It's pictured at right. I just used some of Mom's Brand Spaghetti Sauce and leftover Mozarella Tease, put it in a dish and baked on 350 for about 20 minutes. Picture of it at left. I ate that all up and it was delicious. More to come, soon!

Kimono

I discovered a new restaurant in Durham at 2505 Durham Chapel Hill Blvd called Kimono. It opened on Halloween. I went with Wessie and ordered the vegetable sushi combo, which includes, for 12.95: soup (choice of clear or miso), salad, 1 vegetable hand roll (avocado, cucumber, asparagus, yellow pickle, plum pickle and carrot), 1 10 piece vegetable maki, 2 pieces each of avocado, cucumber, asparagus, yellow pickle and carrot nigiri. I couldn't finish it all, but I was AMPED. The only thing I wasn't excited about was the miso soup. Even though it was super tofu, seaweed and chives heavy, I also think there was some bonito involved. =( Either way, the sushi and salad are still worth the price, especially since they serve it to you in a boat! I've never warranted a sushi boat before.

I've attached a picture of the apple they chopped up for us after our fourth or fifth meal there over the course of two weeks. Yay fancy apples.

Battle of the Fake Cheese

So in my mixed bag from Vegan Essentials, I purchased several types of fake cheese, including the much-fawned over Teese.

I should preface this with the fact that 1 - I am still very happy with the "cheese-like" consistency of road's end, but my local whole foods has deigned to NO LONGER CARRY IT, thereby driving me into a tizzy of rage, not helped by the fact that my roommate Wessie is seriously an easy mac addict. I am easily influenced in food cravings.

Here are my findings:

Teese Mozzarella = 4 1/2 out of 5
Teese Cheddar = 2 1/2 out of 5
First, the Mozzerella. This is the first vegan cheese I've come across that I actually would EAT BY ITSELF. It reminds me very much of that lame-ass fat free string cheese my mom used to buy me that was pretty tasty, but didn't string out and that I would in turn share with my dog. I've had Teese Mozzarella in a lasagna, so I know it'll be good in that usage. Emboldened by everyone's love of teese and praise of its melting powers, I decided to make a pizza.

Now, as you can see, the pizza looks pretty good (as evidenced by the narfed piece). That said, you can probably see that my pizza looks nothing like the Teese photo magic pizza to the right. I can forgive the lame meltiness. It's not that bad, I'm used to un-melty cheese and frankly, I don't use cheese enough to care too much. As far as substitute mozzerellas go, this one has my blessing.

Now, to discuss the Cheddar. Teese, maybe your cheddar is in beta, maybe it's still a little soft, but don't stick a fork in it because you're not done.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Teese, it comes in little red sausage roll up plastic thingies. I dislike these plastic roll up thingies for a couple of reasons:
1 - you have to peel it away to get to the (very slippery and very expensive) Teese, which, on my first attempt, led to a piece of (very slippery and very expensive) teese ending up on my (not so clean) kitchen floor and going for a visit to the garbage disposal.
2 - they are strangely shaped and do not fit easily into small size tupperware, which means you have to either store them in ridiculously large tupperware OR in plastic baggies
3 - the nutritional info is not listed on the packaging, which means you first have to go online, then you have to weigh your teese (or figure out how many times 26g goes into 1 lb, which I couldn't do) to know how much you are supposed to consume at one sitting.

Which brings us to the unique issue with the cheddar. Upon opening the cheddar, it looks, smells and tastes exactly like kraft singles. Which is AWESOME. Kraft singles and string cheese-- looks like I found the two bland american cheese substitutes I was searching for! Unfortunately, this doesn't hold up. Once you put it over heat (or overnight in the refridgerator) the flavor of the cheddar literally leaks out. I noticed when making my mac and teese (with 3 servings/80 g of teese to 2 cups noodles) that it was kind of...well...flavorless. The next day, I figured since I'd spent about 12 bucks when all was said and done on this pound of food, I may as well use it. I opened the bag and my hands were covered in a cheddar smelling liquid that leaked from the Teese, and took several good washings to get off. Melted? No flavor. After a day in the fridge? Less flavor and lots more icky water.

Again with the cheddar I found the melting power to be truly lacking (note big chunk of teese floating in bowl after boiling for almost 10 minutes). I guess I shouldn't say lacking--it is about on par with Follow Your Heart Brand cheeses and similarly reconstitutes into a gelatinous sludge when it cools. While the slightly sweet and almost absence of the chalky vegan cheese flavor of the mozzerella means i'll probably shell out for it again, particularly for use in my thanksgiving lasagna, sadly the cheddar needs to go back to the lab, in my opinion.

Follow Your Heart Cream Cheese = 3 stars out of 5 stars
I found this FYH Cream Cheese at Earth Fare. I like it better than I did at the beginning of last week, when I slathered it onto a bagel for the first time. In truth, I'm not sure if it's the fact that although Tofutti is probably higher fat, that it reminds me more of the low fat cream cheese my mom used to get from the bagel place. The FYH cream cheese tastes like really really thick FYH mayo. And when I started treating it like "supermayo" it changed my outlook on this product. Instead of 2 tbsp FYH cream cheese on a bagel, try 1 tbsp FYH cream cheese on bread, with some fake bacon and a little smart deli bologna. Because FYH Mayo is so high fat (1 TBSP runs 100 Cals) while the "Supermayo" is high fat, but not even close (2 TBSP runs 70 Cals) you get more bangs for your buck. I'd stick to tofutti for your "cream cheese" needs, but as a miracle whip/low-cal mayo, this is pretty worthwhile.

Tofutti Slices = 4 out of 5
Tofutti slices are the perfect american cheese substitute because
1- they come wrapped like american cheese
2- they are as unhealthy as american cheese
3- they kinda sorta melt and burn the crap out of your mouth like american cheese
4- everyone pretends to hate them but secretly loves them like american cheese
These singles still strike the right chord when making vegan "grilled cheese" or make a mac and "multi-cheese."
I don't care that they're probably made of hydrogenated oil and the hopes and dreams of vegan children. Tofutti and I are going to run away together and make hydrogenated oil babies.

As long as I'm unabashedly praising tofutti and their hydrogenated ways, can I just say that I desperately miss Tofutti Pan Crust Pizza Pizzaz? I live in North Carolina, not the land of the vegan, but for three shining months, Tofutti Pan Crust Pizza Pizzaz found its way into my local Kroger natural foods freezer without fail. Until all of a sudden it vanished and everyone pretended they had no idea what I was talking about when I asked why it was gone. This is my "stuff I miss about cheese" post and french bread pizza is definitely up there.

Lastly, I can't review the Sheese I bought because when I opened it it had spirals on top that looked like mold and I was too icked out to eat it. Does anyone out there like Sheese? Or Cheezly? I'm starting to grow wary of trying new vegan cheeses. They can be really gross.

A Big Week for Vegan Food: Mini Blog

Now that I am finally recovered, I am going to do this in lots and lots of mini blogs. Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who sent their well wishes. I'm still fighting the plague, but it's getting better all the time.

At the beginning of this week, I placed an order at Vegan Essentials for some of their "refrigerated" foods. I haven't gotten through all of them yet, but you'll hear about some of 'em in a little bit.

Anyway, I was going to buy some Parma! but I saw on the Vegan Essentials product page that you could make it for much cheaper. I tweaked it a little and have come out with a pungent, parma substitute that costs less.

Parma on the Cheap
1/2 C nutritional yeast
1-1/4 C toasted walnuts (if you toast them, it loses the raw but gains a little delicious)
1 tsp salt (I used seasoned sea salt)
dash garlic powder

Totally delicious.

Matzoh Ball Soup

I have been awfully awfully sick recently and with no sign of relief. Finally, I broke down and pulled out my Candle Cafe cookbook, determined to make myself some of that Jewish penicillin of which Joy speaks.

The good news about the CC Knedyl soup is that it is *Very* low fat (1 tbsp oil in the whole thing) but very high flavor. I won't reprint the recipe because
1- I think this cookbook is a very good resource that you will be happy you own
2- I think it's worth buying this cookbook for the Matzo ball soup recipe alone.

The broth is a soak soup and the recipe calls for you to dump the veggies after the soak, but I couldn't bring myself to dump such tender root veggies, so I left them. I think my strategy next time will to be to put the herbs (the recipe calls for close to 1/2 cup dried herbs!) into a little satchel so I can sprinkle a few in, but not be digging through the weeds of this soup, while preserving all my veggies. I treated the kombu like a bay leaf and just fished it out. I am also now addicted to Butler's Soy Curls and drop them into all of my soups and recipes for a little protein punch. In this soup I'd reccommend soaking, chopping into smaller bits and then dropping in at the same time as the balls for maximum flavor absorption. Next time, I think I'll also go a little easier on the lemon juice. My soup is very citrusy and with all the herbs it's starting to taste a little more like sabzhi and a little less like knedyl. I wanna stick to ashkenazi recipes for right now.

Anyway, the real star of the soup (although the broth is surprisingly flavorful. Wessie was shocked) is the knedyl. I'd made Maneschewitz box matzoh balls before and was having a heck of a time binding them together. Joy & Barry had the brilliant idea to secretly meld knedyl and latkes and come up with WONDERFUL matzoh balls. If you were a light fluffy matzoh ball person, you'll disagree, but if you liked your knedyl dense and chewable, with lots of flavor, they have nailed the recipe for you.

They were so darling I remembered to take photos. I'll probably be making this soup for thanksgiving since it took so much less time than I expected it to and will really wow my goyem friends. Here's hoping the jewish penicillin works on me. I need to recover, stat!

It's not mine to share

But I love Huggy Bear so much I feel obligated to share it with you. Someone kindly deigned to put the whole HB Catalogue online, including the rarer singles. I swooned.

Huggy Bear were part of the british riot grrl movement, but were not all girl, were intensely private, punk, DIY and totally awesome. (Huggy Bear tidbit...when being courted by major labels, they agreed to accept an offer from BMG--if and only if they would drop Suede from their roster). Huggy Bear were snotty, childish and savant. Their songs about teenage insecurities somehow morphed into anti-capitalist rants, their songs about freedom and control somehow twisted into sexual manifestos. Their work was always spotty and certainly inconsistent, but when it shone, it was dazzling.

Their two full lengths, Weaponry Listens to Love and Taking the Rough with the Smooch, are probably the most “accessible.” If you have any remote fondness for art rock, riot grrl, noise rock or punk, don't ask questions, just download.

http://metrosea.blogspot.com/2007/10/huggy-bear.html

In the mood for some piggin' out

So, I've been sick all week and on Wednesday, I decided I was in the mood...the mood for some piggin' out.

My roommate Kiki mentioned that she was planning to make an apple crisp with the apples she hand picked in MA and I convinced her to use Earth Balance sticks mixed with shortening in lieu of regular butter to veganize. I stopped off at whole foods and bought Fajita supplies. When I came home, the house smelled WONDERFUL and I found a lovely note that read:

Don't eat this wonderful VEGAN apple crisp until we return.
-The Mgmt

I was STOKED.

I was about to make my fajitas when they returned with their "supplies" (some extra cinnamon and some reddi whip).

We all ate a little bit of crisp, which was adapted from the cooks illustrated recipe. Then Wessie participated (he more hovered, but he helped!) in the fajita cooking and in their eating. Wessie, who was a fallen vegetarian, has recently put a foot back on the wagon and is now pescatarian. He commented that these fajitas tasted better than the chicken fajitas he'd had. And he commented that my homemade seitan was better than the store bought. Double score.

I'm Fucking Hungry Fajitas (makes enough for 4 VERY hearty fajitas)

For the Fajita Filling:
About 1-2 C Seitan (homemade is obviously the best, but I used westsoy's stir fry strips)
1 green pepper
1 yellow onion
2-3 cloves garlic
8 oz sliced mushrooms
1 tsp seasoning salt
1/2 tsp celery salt
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tsp chile powder

Whole wheat tortillas

Optional fixin's:
Vegetarian refried beans (I prefer Bearito's "spicy" version)
Guacamole
Salsa / Pico de Gallo
Mexican rice
Tofutti Sour Cream
Vegan Cheese
Shredded lettuce

Chop and start sauteeing the onions and mushrooms in olive oil while you chop your green pepper and garlic, then add them and some chile powder to the oil. Rough cut the seitan and toss it in there too. Add your spices. I basically eyeballed them, but I think that was about right. Be careful with the salt! If you're using refried beans, put them in a pot or microwave to get them ready, then get your whole wheat tortillas, put a wet paper towel over them and microwave for about 25 seconds.

We used Bearito's spicy refried beans, Rudi's organic flax wheat tortillas, bagged lettuce, Pico de Gallo and Guacamole. Truthfully, if you've got guac, it'll serve the same purpose as most of the cheesy/sour creamy elements. They were delicious. I forgot how much I love homemade fajitas. They also take about 15 minutes tops, but you'll be eatin' (or trying to be eatin') the rest of the night and you won't want to share.

Survey, Because I have THE PLAGUE

After all that awesome food and blogging, I've come down with the plague. You're thinking "what a great opportunity to make something great and blog about it," while I'm thinking "I wish I still lived in NY so I could get some vegan matzoh ball soup from Candle Cafe." The only time I hate the American South (or the happy liberal pocket of it in which I live) hxc is when I am desperate to find Jewish food. Can someone somewhere please convince Amy's to start making Matzoh Ball soup?


What was the most recent tea you drank?
Today I drank Earl Gray, because there was no more mint.

What vegan forms do you post/lurk on? If so, what is your username? Spill!
Happy cow as bullcityveg. PPK without a username.

You have to have tofu for dinner, and it has be an Italian dish. What comes to mind first?
Lasagna. Or stuffed shells. Just anything involving the awesome awesome tofu Ricotta recipe I have.

How many vegan blogs do you read on an average day?
When I get into Google Reader, about 25 or 30.

Besides your own, what is the most recent one you’ve read?
Besides Fearlessly Vegan, I think the last full entry I saw was chickpea soup on Centrepullball that looked amazing.

If you could hang out with a vegan blogger that you haven’t met, who would it be, and what would you do?
I have to go with Lindyloo from Yeah, That "Vegan" Shit because she seems to have a real pottymouth and affinity for hipster kitsch, like me, so I think we'd design a theme meal. I'd also be happy to hang out with Hannah from Bittersweet and be her official taste tester for the next few months =).

If you had to base your dinners for a week around one of the holy trilogy – tofu, seitan or tempeh, which would it be?
Tofu. I'm a tofu whore.

If you had to use one in a fight, which would it be?
Seitan. Its rubbery awesomeness would work well to smack the crap outta someone =)

Name 3 meals you’d realistically make with that tough protein of choice!
-Every year for thanksgiving I HAND MAKE the candle cafe Seitan, then marinate it in a mustardy sauce, pan sear it and serve it with mashed potatoes and wild mushroom gravy.
-Seitan strips make excellent fajitas when soaked in "chicken" broth, sauteed with mushrooms, onions green and red peppers, then served up with some vegetarian refried black beans, some guacamole, seasoned rice, salsa and sour cream. Can you say yummers?
-My first foray into seitan was making Carribbean Rice Pilau. It's awesome and the only tricky part is getting your browning just right. Even store-bought yucky seitan eventually absorbs the sweetly savory flavor of browning and onions and bloats and it's just wonderful.

What’s a recipe in vegan blogland that you’ve been eyeing?
I really really want to try and make Jennifer Schmoo's twinkies. But I am SOOOOO lazy.

Do you own any clothing with vegan messages/brands on them?
I've got a "Vegetarianism is for Lovers" baseball tee, a "Give blood and save a life, then go vegetarian and save 85" that is so old/loved that it is threadbare and has cigarette burns in it and a Smiths "Meat is Murder" tee. That counts, right? =)

Have you made your pilgrimage to the 'vegan mecca' yet? (Portland, duh)
I am afraid of flying, but eventually I will get there, because it is also a girl rock mecca.

What age did you first go vegan? Did it stick?
I went vegan at about 13 or 14. I don't remember exactly when it was that I finally quit eating fish and started checking labels vigilantly for dairy. It was right before HS. It stuck. I've only fallen off a few times since then, mainly without knowing (casein, unknown fish sauces in asian foodstuffs) and sometimes on purpose (I can't help it I fucking love pop tarts).

What is the worst vegan meal you’ve had? Who cooked it?
I think the unequivocally worst vegan meal I've ever had was at this place in North Miami that my brother took me to that called itself a "Healthy Eatery" and I vaguely recall that it was named something like Sunshine, or Sun something. The restaurant was full of senior citizens, the food was all labeled as "healthy meat," vegetarian or vegan, then with different dietary ideas too (heart healthy, low sodium, atkins etc) PLUS the restaurant smelled like a pet store that desperately needed to be cleaned. I think I ordered rice and beans, thinking they couldn't possibly screw it up, but it was bland, flavorless and undercooked. I barely touched my food. The irony? My brother who gave me so much shit for being vegan is now vegan too. And beyond that-- he is practically raw.

What made you decide to blog?
Vegan mofo was my inspiration.

What are three of your favorite meals to make?
Soup. It changes with the season, but I love making soup.
Sandwiches. I know that's kind of a ghetto meal but I like to cook fast.
Thanksgiving. (does that count?). It's like, a four day affair, but I have several items that are always on the menu, like my seitan steaks, my gravy, my lasagna, lemon cheesecake, I always add a new type of cupcake...

What dish would you bring to a vegan Thanksgiving-themed potluck?
See above. I host one every year!

Where is your favorite vegan meal at a restaurant? How many times have you ordered it?
That's tough. I *really* like doing the half soup/half sandwich at Angelica Kitchen in NY. I almost always get the Marinated tofu. I've probably eaten that or the Hot Open Face tempeh about 40 times (I was a *big* fan.) HOWEVER the Alfredo Special at Caravan of Dreams has a special place in my heart. And the "latin" specials at Candle Cafe got eaten a lot. OOF and Zen Palate's Celestial Tofu.

What do you think the best chain to dine as a vegan is?
There are always lots of local chains that are handy dandy. In NY, Zen Palate and Ayhan's were pretty good/safe. Down here, there's a local one called Baba Ghannouj that's good stuff, as well as Cosmic Cantina. National Chains? Most places will make you a salad pretty easily, but most national chains don't really care enough to be super sensitive to vegans, since we're not big money makers. I usually try to find a Whole Foods/Earth Fare or even regular supermarket. Seriously.

My kitchen needs a………
Food Processor. *sigh*

This vegetable is not allowed in my kitchen…..!
I don't bar veggies from the kitchen, but I like to make sure people know what they're doing before they bust out something like...okra. I also hate ALL orange vegetables. All of them.

What's for dinner tonight?
Probably Amy's Un-Chicken Noodle, then some Miso Soup with brussels sprouts. I was gonna stop and get tofu but I am too tired. =(

Tower Indian, Morrisville

After a tennis match on the Morrisville side of Cary, I decided to drag my parents along to a south Indian feast at Tower Vegetarian Indian in Morrisville. I'm glad I did.

The buffet was not in swing (a fact that really disappointed me), but since we had three people we decided to order off the menu. For starters, we ordered some puffed rice thing that my dad was trying to get as the only indian dish he knows how to say besides naan-- which is some rice and yogurt thing (Lacto-ovo Indian afficions, help me out)-- and a Masala Dosa.

I don't have pictures of the puffed rice thing because I thought it tasted kind of like that yucky bonito fish cracker stuff but my father loved and devoured it. The Dosa here was definitely tasty, crispy but soft on the other side, but the filling wasn't particularly well mashed or distributed. Maybe I'm just wishing I'd ordered a Mysore Masala Dosa in my hear of hearts, but the MMD I got at Udupi kind of beat this one up. And the coconut chutney at Updupi definitely beat this one up. But I like coconut chutney anyway, so I ate and enjoyed it.

For our main course, my dad ordered some sort of rice/lentil and curry sauce dish that I found to be a little bland and too garlicky. My mother ordered a vegetable kurama in a cream sauce and I ordered Channa Masala with Poori (and had a little poori freak out). The poori was kind of uneven but I need to tell you all a little secret:
Tower has the best Channa Masala I've ever eaten. Could it have been a little hotter? Yes, but that's not a problem. The sauce tasted like tomato, was thick and creamy in the way that Imagine tomato soup is thick and creamy, and it STUCK TO MY CHICKPEAS. Every ounce of it that I scooped up with a little piece of poori made me happy. I ate until I was full, then I took it home, waited a few hours and finished it. It was seriously chickpea crack.

The service was good. Next time I'm in/near morrisville I'll order the same thing, but this time just CM w/ poori to go. I wish we had a good south indian/veg spot in Durham.

Now, mission 2: Dal Sag or Channa Sag in a non-cream based sauce. If you know of one, don't be shy.

Sage

So, for the 2nd weekend in a row I hit Sage in Chapel Hill. And forgot to take pictures. But, let me tell you something. Sage is effing delicious.

Let me help you order.

The first couple of times, we got the Mezze platter, which is good, but really you should go for the hummus. Mezze platter wastes precious space on things like potato salad. The hummus plate is hardcore yummy. Not really thick, very lemony and pita wedges are garlicky and toasted and delicious. There are fresh cucumber sticks to dip with too.

The regular salad is absolutely delicious--lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, shredded carrot, cabbage...something else. I love the vegan dill dressing. My mom ordered a crunchy salad which looked really good, piled high with sprouts and crunchy stuff.

Entrees-- I almost always get the kebabs now. They roast peppers, onions, broccoli, tofu and portobello mushrooms with balsamic and something else delicious and serve it over wonderful basmati spiced rice with a size of what we jews call "israeli salad" and they call it something else.

The Sabzi is a spinach and parsley soup interspersed with tempeh, tofu, kidney beans or lentils and infused with dried lemon. It's really really tasty. Bud-M-Joon is a curried lentil and eggplant concoction that tastes vaguely indian and strongly of cinnamon. It's tasty. The last entree we shared was the Fesen Joon, which is tempeh in a sweet sticky thick sauce that is sort of like persian sweet and sour sauce. It's tastier than you'd think, but I'd recommend sharing it because it's hard to eat as a whole meal.

I also favor the carribe, which is basically cuban black beans a rice served with tofu, rice, avocado and plantain.

For dessert, they serve really good chocolate banana vegan cake (it's the only vegan option though) with a lovely vegan vanilla ice cream. Either way, I'd recommend trying Sage out. Since Soul Good closed, it is the last all-vegetarian restaurant this side of the Triangle (the indian places in Cary and Morrisville deserve a shoutout, though) and it's a tasty treat for a once-in-a-while special occasion.

German Chocolate Cupcakes

Well, when I found out it was my friend Joe's birthday and we were invited to play a show with him, I immediately volunteered to make (secretly vegan) cupcakes! Not that I think Joe or his TOTALLY AWESOME BAND, (Hammer No More the Fingers, check them out, they rock) or any 20 something year old boys are particularly picky in the eating category, but I like the opportunity to wow people with yummers cupcakes.

In order to make them, I used the Super Rich Chocolate Cake from the PPK (links to the recipe) as well as the Pecan Coconut Fudge and Chocolate Buttercream recipes from VCCTOTW. I made a few tweaks-- like I decided to sub chocolate soy milk for all the regular old soy milk, and I used about three shots of bourbon instead of vanilla (we like to drink).

The cupcakes came out BEAUTIFULLY. Dork described them as "orgasmic," Wessie said they were like "chocolate crack," and Sick gave a nod while dropping bits of icing into her mouth. Joe really enjoyed them (observe bite number two at right-- prepping yourself for chocolate overdose) and was helping me force people to try them so they would not die without knowing the joy that is Vegan German Chocolate heaven. There's a photo at left of them chilling on the floor. Just as a note-- the Cake recipe only made enough to fill 22 cups, and the coconut/pecan icing was sufficient, while the fudge didn't quite make it all the way through.

Can't wait to bust these out again! Isa's cupcakes never fail.

The Curious Case of Shirataki

This week I managed to hit a pretty big milestone-- dropped a size in clothing. Which is awesome.

Anyway, since I spend a lot of time on both thedailyplate.com which is an excellent free resource for tracking your calorie and nutritional consumption (although lacking in the vitamin dept) and also a lot of time looking at weird foods on the internet, I've been put in an ad targeting pocket for diets. I saw this ad that was like "miracle noodles" and I wondered...could they be talking about Shirataki?

Once, about 2 years ago, I saw a bag of tofu shirataki in my local whole foods. I have insulin resistence, so I always am looking for good sources of carbohydrates and more protein. Anyway, I bought the bag thinking "yummy protein pasta" and ended up chucking it because after I opened it it smelled like magic markers and paint drying and I couldn't bring myself to eat something that smelled like that.

Well, I'm over myself. I did a little research on the interweb. Shirataki is the new oolong tea or acai berry--something most of us have known about for a while but now it is the "new miracle diet food." Granted, shirataki is sort of a miracle diet food. The real stuff has about 6 calories a cup (compared to pasta's 140-200) and is extremely filling. HOWEVER it is not really pasta-like. If you approach it more like a noodle shaped foodstuff (in the same way that soba noodles and spaghetti squash are pasta-like, but simultaneously different) you'll be happier with it. Tofu shirataki is considerably more palatable, consistency-wise, than ordinary yam shirataki, which is supposedly rubbery and gross. The smell can be reduced with thorough washing and a solid parboil. Armed with five dollars, I set off for the whole foods to purchase some of the stuff.

I bought some fettucini style, thinking that wide flat noodles might be easier to pass off as something other than spaghetti, went home and set to rinsing them thoroughly in 125 degree water. I then set a pot to boil for the parboil (seriously guys, this smell is something else) and started a little "get your nutrients on" sauce on the side, made of Yves Ground, Rao's Tomato sauce, broccoli and spinach. The point of pasta, for me, is the way delicious sauces wrap around the noodles, not the noodles themselves. I made a TON of sauce, probably 3x as much as I'd need, but I figured if the noodles were again inedible, I could just eat the yves/veggie concoction and call it a night.

After a 4 minute parboil, I rinsed, blotted and tasted one of the noodles. It tasted like nothing, and sort of had the consistency of glass noodles, so I dumped the shirataki into my sauce, stirred and then parceled it off. Overall, not a terribly high calorie meal, packed with protein-- came in at 365 calories (using 1/2 package shirataki, 1/2 package yves, 1 c broccoli cuts, 1/3 c frozen spinach and 3/4 c Rao's) per serving, with 31g Carbohydrates, 13 of them are fiber, 37g Protein and 10g fat. Not terrible.

So next week maybe I'll try either a shirataki and chreese or shirataki w/ peanut sauce. I also probably need to work on my food photography. Maybe I should refresh on VeganYumYum's big mfing photography post. But I think she's way more visual artsy than I am. It looks gross, but it's actually really tasty and really filling. I promise. =)

Vegan Meme

Stole it from Leave it to Cleaver

1. Name a song that involves food in some way.

Evil Weiner - Flying Candybar

2. What criteria do you use when choosing a new cookbook to buy?

Did Isa Chandra write it? Is it a restaurant cookbook of a restaurant I like? Is it a blogger's cookbook from a blog I want recipes from?

3. What did you eat today?

So far, a light life bologna & heirloom tomato sandwich.

4. Name a vegan food that you know exists but you have never tried.

Faux shrimp.

5. The Food Network just called and needs you to start your new show tomorrow. What will the title of the show be?

Beer is Vegan. Seriously, I was floored to get this blog name.

6. Favorite hot sauce or other spicy condiment?

Coconut chutney. Close second goes to wasabi.

7. How old were you when you became vegetarian/vegan?

Vegetarian was about 13. Vegan was about 8 months later.

8. Favorite vegan cheeze?

I like them all for different things.
Road's end organic for ez mac. Follow your heart Monterrey jack and Veganrella cheddar mixed together for a velveeta cheese sauce. Teese for anything involving mozzarella. Tofutti cream cheese. Tofutti slices for grilled cheese. Parma for a slight flavor.

9. Cutest baby animal?

puuuupppiiiieeeez

10. Favorite type of jam/jelly/marmalade/preserves?

raspberry for everything except PB&J. grape for a traditional PB&J.

11. Do you take any vitamins/supplements?

sometimes I toss some hemp protein, soy protein or flax seeds into "mushy" food. occasionally I'll down a b12 pill. even less frequently I'll swallow an acidophillus pill.

12. What food/dish most embodies the Fall season?

apples and apples and a few more apples

13. What food would you have a hard time living without?

soup

14. Coffee, tea, or hot chocolate?

tea

15. It’s 10PM and you’re starving. What do you eat?

If I'm out, I'm hitting cosmic. If I'm in, soup. And maybe a cupcake.

16. If you have an animal companion, what is his/her favorite food?

they like pretty much everything.

17. Worst injury you’ve gotten in the kitchen?

cut through my nail and nail bed.

18. When you have a food-related question, who do you call?

teh internets. =(

19. Summer is ending- What food will you miss most?

all of it. but especially cantaloupe, cherry tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes and zucchini.

20. What snacks do you keep in your purse/backpack/desk at work?

soup, pistachios

21. Favorite soup to make on a rainy day?

spicy tomato vegetable

22. What’s your favorite combination of fresh vegetable and/or fruit juices?

apple celery

23. Favorite brand of root beer?

I don't really differentiate between them.

24. Make up your own question!

Favorite vegan dessert?

Right now I am jonesing so hard for a piece of strawberry shortcake from vegan treats. like whoa.

Lunching

I was reading through all the vegan mofo posts (over 1000! I go away for one weekend...) and I came to a realization about myself. I was like "ooh sandwich recipe!" "ooh that would be a good quick lunch."

Lunch is my favorite meal of the day. Let me explain why. You'll agree. Maybe.

1. Soup and sandwiches are the shit.
Soup is (obviously) one of my favorite foods. It can be a vegetables about to go bad sinkhole. It can be an "oh my god I need to get 5 servings of veggies in today and I am failing because I ate a cupcake for dinner" lifesaver. You can freeze it and make enough for a week. And SANDWICHES! You can make really plain, comforting sandwiches, like peanut butter and jelly on wheat (though I prefer PB&Banana), more practical, sandwich-y sandwiches like lightlife bologna with vegenaise, tomato and lettuce on rye, or you can get fancy and gourmet and make my favorite kind of sandwiches-- the pretentious $8 sandwich. The one I made on Saturday (which was seriously a treat I wasn't expecting, but I played a 3 set tennis match and decided I deserved it) was as follows:

2 slices fresh pumpernickel rye bread
2 tbsp tofutti better than cream cheese mixed with some chives and onion powder (I wanted it to be really rich)
1/2 avocado, sliced
two beefy heirloom tomato slices
1 super thin onion slice
generous helping alfalfa and clover sprouts
4 slices smart deli bologna
4 slices smart deli turkey

Assemble. Cut in half. Eat half. Be really full. Eat the other half anyway, because it was mad tasty.

What's not to love?

2. Lunch Menus
I love lunch menus. I'm a big sucker for the tasting menu at restaurants, but usually do not have the confidence in a chef to make a whole vegan meal, nor the money to compensate him for it. (an incredible exception was in London, where I was able to partake in a vegan tasting menu at Nahm, which was the best thing I've ever done. Although it would've also paid my utilities for 2 months.) But the lunch menu usually offers some sort of wonderful small-portion combination, which comes with a drink and an appetizer for about 3/4 the price of a dinner entree. Not to divulge too much information about what a sick little foodie I am, but sometimes when I'm trying a new restaurant, I'll order two lunch entrees so that I get to try more stuff. Sometimes that doesn't work out so well (cough cough the recently deceased Pao Lim) but hey! What's not to love about the special dividing plates? One of my favorite places for that was Zen Palate in NY, who had a really cute "prix fixe" lunch thing, which came with a smaller portion of an entree, a cup and a half of rice or potatoes, two taro rolls, a (kind of excrutiatingly small) salad, a drink and a small taste of dessert.

3. Making Lunch
I make my lunch every morning. It's boring (I usually just make a sandwich and a soup or salad), but sometimes I'll be hit with a little pizzaz and I'll make a more exciting sandwich or salad. Really, I just like that the first thing I do in the morning after the getting up, brushing my teeth etc is chopping vegetables while watching 20 minutes, but it's still nice. Plus, on the preparing food end of things, it's probably the lowest anxiety food prep I can do. Dinner is always more of a production and breakfast...truthfully I've started just eating half a sandwich =). Most people don't mind a simple salad or a cold sandwich for lunch, though. On weekends, I usually wake up just in time for lunch, which means I can spend an hour making something really sassy.

4. Going out for Lunch
Then you have leftovers for dinner. Or for lunch.

5. Lunch Buffets
Again with the tasting menu. I've found Indian places have the best lunch buffets ever, but most chinese places have lunch buffets too. I kind of don't trust omni Chinese food anymore, but I can appreciate the joy of a good lunch buffet.

6. The ladies who lunch
Don't you feel really important when you have a "lunch meeting" or a "lunch date," like you live such a busy and important life that you are going to take an hour in the middle of your day and indulge in delicious food? I do. And it doesn't harbor all of that obnoxious date-y stuff. People know that when you're out to lunch, it's for good company and good food, not because you're trying to get laid. And there is absolutely no danger of one of those traveling musicians or flower salesmen trying to guilt you into giving them money. Not that it happens a lot, just saying.

So yeah. Lunch. Hip hip hooray.

Shots 8mm Music

While I was in DC, we went to some little indie record shop in Adams Morgan. I always browse the compilations and found this compilation from 8mm, a bar I used to frequent when I lived in Berlin. It was a really cool ex-pat hang out; they had good live bands in every so often and spun a wide array of music. I hadn't heard of any of the bands, but when I listened to it, the first song was really great and upbeat. But the trashy noise girl band WG (Vaga) was the clincher for me. Don't miss Blah Blah Blah. It's my current fav. Lots of high energy rock, a little "pretty" singer/songwriter stuff and a good sampler.

Anyway, I present this compilation for your aural pleasure.

Part 1
Part 2

DC Trip Skip n Fall!

So, this weekend, Dork and I headed up to DC sans Sick (sad sad) to go see Wire at the 9:30 club. I scanned DCVeg.com, Happy Cow, Vegnews, as well as citysearch and google in order to find the best vegan eats and vintage shops in the city.

Here is what we hit:

Panda Veg, Richmond VA
We were HUNGRY after like 2 hours on the road, so we popped into Richmond, hoping to hit up the Harrison St Coffee Shop, which unfortunately closes at 3 on Saturdays (And opens at 11. Why would you open for 4 hours, Coffee Shop?). Lucky for us, there was an all-you-can-eat vegan buffet at Panda Veg, which was open 11-11. So, naturally we stopped in.

Notice the buffet-- when we arrived it wasn't quite so full. I grabbed a few pieces of "Beef" with broccoli, what they called seared tofu (but was actually more sweet and sour tofu), some spring rolls, some fried rice and some really ghetto looking lo-mein.

The beef/chicken sub they used was something of which I am not a fan. Now the tofu on the otherhand was really crispy yet chewy inside, sweet and just about perfect. The spring rolls were obviously homemade (none of that homogenously shredded cabbage and celery) which made for slightly more difficult eating but totally worthwhile and delicious eating. The fried rice looked great but was a little bland but the ghetto vermicelli rice noodle lo mein was amazingly flavorful. I was already pretty full by this time but then they brought out some doughnuts, general tso's "chicken" and some weird potato thing, so we went for 2nds. Dork thought the doughnuts were awesome, but I found them to be weird, salty and generally unpleasant. I am just not into the fake meat here, but those potato things were really tasty. After we felt like we were gonna puke, we went to the bathroom (something I'd reccommend avoiding at Panda Veg) and hit the road again.

After we arrived in DC, my good friend Sean dropped us off by the 9:30 club, but we hit DC9 first. They have a really reasonable happy hour-- $3 well drinks, $2.50 bud/bud light and $3 beer of the week, which was ABITA! We moseyed over to the 9:30 at around 9:30 and found Wire just climbing onstage and getting ready to play. Sorry Tone! My phone screwed up a little while I was trying to take photos but resulted in a really cool one, at left. I've also included another, more normal wire shot.

After the show, we headed over to the Black Cat owned Food For Thought. (See their punk rock "Don't forget to tip" sign). It was a little confusing--you need to show ID to get into the cafe--but we figured it out, went in and ordered. On recommendation from several sources, I ordered the vegan lasagna and Dork ordered a deep fried chili dog. We decided to try and split a piece of chocolate peanut butter cake. While we were there, waiting on our food, some guy spilled ketchup all over himself, we laughed and eventually he came to join us while he waited on his friends. When they arrived, they slid into our booth and we ended up hanging out with them all night. One of them works for a DC cultural site called Brightest Young Things, which is pretty cool and I'll definitely check out the next time I'm heading up there. As far as the food goes, Dork loved the hot dog (girl likes anything deep fried, I swear), the french fries we were offered for the lack of chili and we both thought the lasagna was really really good. Wish we could say the same for the chocolate peanut butter cake. The cake was dry and the icing was thin and syrupy. It's definitely a good spot for reasonably priced (a slice of cake and a piece of lasagna were exactly 10 bucks) late night eats, drinking and hanging out, but I'd skip on the dessert.

The next day we attempted to go to Java Green for brunch, but found them to be closed on sunday, which is kinda silly, since a place that has a separate brunch menu really ought to be open on the most popular brunch day of the week, shouldn't it?

We ended up visiting Asylum in Adams Morgan, after a whole heck of a lot of driving around lost. I ordered the French Toast (omg I haven't had french toast since I was like, 8!) with a side of homefries and Dork got a breakfast burrito. We divvied the food up (two slices toast to each, and half a burrito). Be careful when ordering off the Vegan Brunch menu-- it says in very small print that the sides you can order ARE NOT vegan, and Dork was really jonesing for Texas Toast. Good thing we asked, huh?

We both tore into the breakfast burrito first, probably because french toast just feels like dessert. The breakfast burritos were a mess of saucy-potato-tofu-goodness with salsa. The potatoes were probably the same as the homefries, which were sort of vile (I think homefries and I think cubed potatoes, seared to crispy with a little onion, lots of salt and lots of grease). The fries were not crispy in any sense, a little spicy and covered in one of the ickiest fake cheeses I have ever eaten. The burrito just drowned out a lot of the gross in the fake cheese I think. The french toast was really the star of the meal for me. It was like I remembered, pillowy bread with a little chewy texture, cinnamon and powdered sugar, drizzled with maple syrup. I had about a quarter of it before I even remembered to add the syrup. Asylum is a sort of gothic bar most of the time, judging from the red velvet and wrought iron decor. The wait staff were pretty distant and hard to get ahold of (our food came about 15 minutes after order, but it took us nearly 20 to get our order taken), but the food is cheap (all entrees were under $10, most of them closer to $6) and we were happy.

Last stop before we left was the much-lauded Sticky Fingers Bakery in Columbia Heights.
I inspected the case and decided that buying 12 cupcakes would be the easiest way to truly sample their wares. Pictured at left, I bought: 2 coconut cream cupcakes, 2 PB&J, 2 Choc Raspberry, 2 Strawberry Shortcake, 1 Fluffernutter, 1 Cookies n Cream, 1 Smores and 1 Almond chocolate. Since we were there and I'd been talking about it for like a month, we also ordered a cinnamon bun so I could get my cinnafix. I grabbed a lasagna for the road and Dork picked up a tofu and cold sesame noodles. Cupcakes run between 2 and 4 bucks a pop. The prepared foods are a little more expensive (sandwiches are in the $7-$9 range, which, for pre-made/pre-packed sandwiches, is a little steep) and they were unfortunately out of the infamous and beloved Teese.

Dork and I sat down in the quaint, cute, pastel pink shop to split our cinnabon. The shop is well lit, has wifi and apparently a huge following. I read on their site that Sticky Fingers plans to expand to NYC. Given their cozy aesthetic and the fact that they seem to be making a killing, I bet they'll do well.

My previous experience with cinnamon rolls was very limited. My first cinnamon roll since vegandom was the pre-packaged kind. I then found that Cosmo's Vegan Shoppe will ship them, but the bakery from which they procure the buns isn't my fav. The latest and greatest was a quick dip into Bethlehem PA's Vegan Treats on the way from Philly to NYC and those are the buns I love. Gooey, rich, messy, moist and nauseating, they are everything my little heart imagined a real cinnabon would be like. I'm sad to report that Sticky Fingers' buns were not up to this golden ideal for me.

We drove back to NC and upon arrival realized we were *famished*, so we heated our pasta up. The lasagna at Sticky Fingers is GOOD, man. A little more herb and spinach lends it a healthier, more complex flavor than the Black Cat version (which was still really good), and their sesame noodles were nutty and delicious, but not too heavy as is the danger with peanut sauces. For dessert, we split a Strawberry Shortcake cupcake, which was very tasty. I ended up running directly to the Cave after that for a show with Teh Vodak and The Can Kickers, so I slipped the cupcakes into the freezer before I left.

I came home after that and decided to sample half a coconut cupcake and half the chocolate almond. *sad news* The cupcakes do not hold up well to freezing. The cake itself almost immediately (over the course of about 4 hours in the freezer!) took on the day-old baking soda strong taste that I've found to be most prominent in wacky cake. Thoroughly bummed, I ate about 1/3 of the cake part, then ended up scraping the icing and licking it off my fork. The coconut and strawberry shortcakes were good, but the almond chocolate icing was divine. Even so, I still prefer the creamy perfection of Vegan treats and I don't think I'll buy a dozen cupcakes again. Just the one will do. But maybe I'll buy more than one piece of lasagna.