Sugar in everything

If you weren't convinced already that you should be eating more home-cooked meals this list of packaged products that contain the most sugar will convince you. I tend to not eat packaged foods, even the vegan ones (other than the occasional Lara bar- which have all of two or three ingredients) so I'm not really surprised that there is so much sugar in all of these other things. The problem is this list doesn't really show the most surprising sugar containing foods. Like in bread, pasta, salsa, soy sauce, chips, crackers, salty foods. I expect to find sugar in granola. Maybe I'm the only one but from having made it myself I know you have to coat the oats in something to make them stick. I think we all expect that a milk shake is full of sugar (full of a day's worth of calories?-- maybe unexpected.) I think it's good that this article is trying to raise awareness of the hidden sugars in our diets but I think there's a simpler solution than memorizing the worst offenders from a list. READ THE INGREDIENTS LABEL! Every food item includes one. Read it. Even if it takes you more time in the store. Even if you think you know everything in that product already. Even if you have read the label before (ingredients can change!) If you find something on the list you can't pronounce don't buy it. If it has sugar as the first or second ingredient (and it's not ice cream or cake) don't buy it. That's a pretty simple rule of thumb to live by while shopping for prepared foods. Read the label. If you can't pronounce, don't buy. If it has sugar and shouldn't, don't buy. Easy, right? And then start making more home-cooked meals. Your body, brain, and psyche will thank you for it.

The height of summer

I always consider peaches to be the height of summer. They are such a perishable fruit that it's unlikely that you will be eating them much after July. Unlike apples which you see year-round (even though they should seasonably be in the fall and winter at most) you never see anyone eating a peach in the middle of January. (Or if you do it's because it was canned at the height of summer.) Summer is a great time for peaches because they are provide a lot of moisture for those of us in dry climates. They are also good in the summer because you can eat their juiciness outside and let it drip all over the ground.

In honor of our summer of peaches, which are by far the best ever here in California, I thought I'd share the Peach Rosemary Sorbet that I made last week, courtesy of the Millennium cookbook. It was quite simple to make if you have a blender and an ice cream maker. Even without an ice cream maker, you can put the liquid in a pan and freeze it by stirring occasionally.

Peach Rosemary Sorbet

4 large ripe peaches (about 2 pounds)
1/2 cup of water
1/2 of fructose
1 Tablespoon of fresh rosemary (minced)
pinch of salt

Blend everything together and freeze. It was a huge hit at the 4th of July potluck I attended, even though everyone was skeptical at first. The combination doesn't sound like it would work but it's really amazingly delicious.

The new miracle fruit

There's a new miracle fruit on the block. And it's actually called "miracle" fruit. It's a tiny berry from West Africa that causes your taste buds to become confused. For about an hour after eating it sour things will taste sweet and sweet things will taste cloyingly sweet. Someone in NY has started having "food tripping" parties where everyone eats the berries and then tastes all kinds of foods- hot sauce, lemon wedges, goat cheese. Check out this article in the NY Times.

It's Called Variety

The reason I haven't posted in a while is because I was at a yoga retreat (the Kundalini Yoga Summer Solstice Celebration). Retreat, festival, space camp... all would be good descriptions for the camping out under the stars, meditating for three days straight, and raving with crazy old and young Sikhs that I did in New Mexico last week. It was all wonderful and I can't wait to go back next year. In fact, it's hard to believe I have to wait a whole year before I can go back. Sigh.

But besides for improving my meditating and bhangra dancing skills (that's right, baby! I'm a bhangra queen now!) I also got a chance to eat a lot of food. By "a lot" I mean, a large quantity, not a large variety. Every day we were served the same thing for breakfast and dinner. Lunches varied and could be quite interesting, in an Indian vegetarian kind of way. (Why is it always Saag Paneer? What's wrong with a good chana masala, I ask you?) Breakfast was probably the meal most complained about though after a while I kind of enjoyed it. Potato and celery soup, curried, with bananas. And yes, you were encouraged to put the bananas in the soup. Don't ask me why, but this actually made the soup taste better. I was kind of grooving on this by the last day. I don't usually eat bananas, especially ones flown in from Ecuador, but since we were in New Mexico and it was hot, some tropical fruit seemed appropriate. Tropical fruit is designed to cool you off, much like spicy food, and therefore best to eat in hot, humid climates. But I swear there was a freaking mutiny on the last day in the line for the "kid's" food, which was oatmeal. I think I saw more adults in that line than kids.

Every night for dinner we were served "kitchari", essentially mung beans and rice, cooked to a mushy softness. It's old people food. You could loose all your teeth and still be able to eat kitchari. This dinner was also served with cooked carrots (my dad's favorite- yuck!) and cooked beets. A lovely pretty contrasting color scheme to the greenish brown of the rice and beans. Oh, and let us not forget: the lettuce! Iceberg lettuce, about half a head per person usually. I never thought iceberg lettuce had any value but the one time I tried to eat this without the lettuce I realized it did. Roughage really does help the medicine go down!

Sweet Tooth Gene

I now have an excuse for not being able to control myself around sweets. Apparently researchers have found a sweet tooth gene that makes the people who have it consume more sugar. I have been struggling with this problem my whole life. I'm sure there are some environmental factors (ice cream after dinner as a child, chocolate for presents) but it's kind of nice to know that I'm struggling against myself. The real answer of course is that I should be eating the low-sugar macro sweets instead of the freaking cupcakes that someone handed me yesterday! (I just have such a weakness for cupcakes, even non-vegan ones.) Macro sweets tend to have a slower acting sugar than the straight white crack that we use in everything else. Brown rice syrup is broken down slower in your body than cane sugar. So you don't get the big up (and resultant crash) with a macro treat that you usually do with regular sugar stuff. But that doesn't stop me from eating it, even knowing that I will feel a bit ill later. I'm getting a reputation as a bad vegan, but I feel like it's an addiction. I seriously can't control myself. Sigh.

More than Plenty

I recently checked out a book from the library by the originators of the "100-mile diet." It's called Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally by Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon. I'd heard about the 100-mile diet before. Occasionally when I describe macrobiotics as emphasizing eating locally people will ask if it's this. (It's not.) Macrobiotics encourages eating locally because you receive the energy of the local where you live. This means you're more likely to adjust to the proper temperatures of your locale because you're eating what was grown there in that temperature. Similarly to the issue of eating local honey because of the allergy immunity it provides, eating locally provides an energetic, yin-yang type connection to your earth. The creators of the 100-mile diet started it for the ecological reason of their dinner's carbon footprint. Even being vegetarians (that boasted of 59 cent meals when vegetables are cheap and plentiful) their average dinner traveled almost 1,500 miles. This is an interesting statistic and one that we should all be aware of. As Michael Pollan mentions in The Omnivore's Dilemma, is it better to eat locally or organic? These two are erring on the side of local.

Yet it's created some problems that luckily we would not face here in California. They have no oil and must rely on butter. They have no grains, since rice nor wheat grow near Vancouver. They have branched out of their vegetarian diet to become quite adventurous omnivores (oysters?!) all for the sake of having enough protein to continue biking around their rainy (though lovely) city. I never truly appreciated how much we benefit from being in the heart of California's bread basket of agriculture. I mean, I knew about the strawberries because I've been eating them non-stop since they showed up at the farmer's market several weeks ago. But olive oil, almonds, beans, and grains- I could not eat a macrobiotic diet without these staples.

That's why in the end the 100-mile diet will never work for me. Macrobiotics encourages you to eat your vegetables and fruits locally. Your beans from a 500 mile radius. Your grains from your continent and your seaweed from your nearest ocean. At least then I will not be eating apples from New Zealand (in the middle of the summer no less!) nor tropical fruit in the middle of a Minnesota winter. Which begs the question that gets asked of both macros and 100-milers, how can you do this in a typical Northern winter climate? Most people would say it's not possible. I think the authors would agree with me that you just have to plan ahead. Imagine your grandparents, or if not them maybe your great-grandparents. How did they survive winters before there were frozen TV dinners and microwaves? They canned fruits and vegetables. They pickled things. They stored roots in a root cellar. They froze things that could be frozen. So don't tell me it can't be done. It can be. It has been. And if our great-grandparents could do it before there were microwaves you can damn well bet that we could do it now.

Thai vs. Indian: Fight!

So I failed to get Thai food last night, as often happens on a Tuesday because the freaking restaurant is closed! Yes, that's right a popular San Francisco restaurant closed on a Tuesday. Alas, Tuesdays for some reason seem to be the day that I want to order take out. I've run into this problem a number of times now and still never remember until I call. Instead I went with Indian food. There's a great little Indian restaurant on Frederick and Arguello, next to Kezar Stadium, called New Ganges. It's actually an all-vegetarian Indian restaurant. It's very reminiscent of Vancouver, B.C. for me because there were so many vegetarian Indian restaurants there. I think I ate all-you-can-eat veggie Indian buffets almost every week-- at different restaurants too! So I like to support this place when I can.

I haven't eaten there in a while because the owner honestly drives me crazy. He's one of those people who thinks he can convince you of something or change your mind when all you want to do is order your favorite dish. It got so bad that I wouldn't go in there to eat and started only ordering take out. Then the take out got annoying because he would try to convince you over the phone. If I was the one to pick up the order he would harass me with kindness in the restaurant. Giving me mango juice and flowers. After a while all you want is to pay for your food and go. It's doesn't have to be a long interaction.

But the food is generally amazing. You can tell that it's all actually freshly made. The samosas are not frozen and then re-heated when you order. The food is not super greasy, though sometimes it can be overly spicy. Last night was perfect. When I called some woman took my order. She asked if I wanted it mild, medium or spicy. Since I've had super spicy things there before (so spicy no one at the table can eat them) I erred on the side of mild. She sounded shocked and asked again to confirm. "You want it all mild?!" As if such a thing had never happened before. Since I knew that D would prefer spicier and since I am slightly sick still I rescinded and suggested medium. And it was spicy. But in a good way. And the crazy owner was not there when I went to pick it up so I was very happy. Alas, he was not there to give me the special vegan dessert that he sometimes does but that thing never tasted good anyway.

Indian food is not terribly macrobiotic unless you happen to live in India. Generally it's too spicy and tropical in a way that macrobiotics frowns upon. But the last few days have been unseasonable warm here so spicy food makes sense suddenly. Normally (or at least during the summer) I need warm, filling food that you usually find in the middle of winter. But a nice spring day when it's actually warm is the perfect time for some spicy food. I was also trying to cure myself of a cold so spicy food helps with that too.

One pot meals

Ok, I know I've mentioned my obsession with sweet potatoes. Again last night I made sweet potato chips. They got fairly burnt but didn't stay super crispy (at least not in my lunch box today). I also made a all-in-one-pot meal (excluding the chips). I'm a big fan of cooking everything together- fewer dishes to clean up! On Sunday I made an extra huge batch of brown rice and lentils. I cooked 3 cups whereas usually we only do 1/2 or 2. This is enough rice and lentils to last through the millennium. Or almost. I've been running out of clever ways to use them. The first day I put it in the soup I was making. (Again one pot.) The second day, yesterday, I put it in the stir fry. Today? I might have to order take out. I'm planning on going to a book signing for Dale Pendell. Yes, of the Pharmako/poeia fame. He seems like a fascinating person so I am even skipping a show that D's band is playing to do this instead. I love getting books signed! I feel like a little kid about it.

I will report back on the take out options. It will probably be Samila Thai (I think that's what that place is called.) It's on Haight St. near Cole. They have pretty standard Thai food with a few vegan anomalies which are worth checking out. They make a fake fish dish which is pretty good if you like spicy. It's also better if you are sharing dishes with the whole table. On its own it's very much just the "fish". I think they have some other things that you can get with fake meat as well. I'm not a huge fan of the fake meat so after trying the "fish" (and determining that it was too damn spicy for me!) I've stayed away from them. I tend to go with the standard "tofu and veggies with peanut sauce". The one other thing that puts this Thai place above the rest is that they offer brown rice. Hooray! That's always the disappointment of ordering take out, especially Chinese or other Asian specialty. There's a mound of that crappy white rice that polishes your insides (in a bad way). I'll support almost any restaurant that serves brown rice. It's such a staple of my diet that it's hard to be without it, especially when white rice is the substitute. sigh.

Your environment

The other day someone at work mentioned how much your environment, the physical realities of the place you live, work, and sleep, affect your mental state. I didn't want to go all new age-y on her so I simply nodded in agreement. What I wanted to say was that if your environment is not grounded, i.e. you've just moved, you're perpetually messy, you live with chaos, then those energies affect how you feel throughout the day. I think this works with food too. I need really grounding food when I have a lot of heavy duty thinking and tasking to do. When I have no responsibilities I like to have lighter, dreamier food.

I've just started reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I know, it's a huge NY Times best seller and everyone else has read it ages ago. That's fine. I have a tendency to avoid books that everyone else likes because I don't trust that I will agree with everyone. I usually don't. I'm hard to please and have very high standards when it comes to literature or writing in general. Grammar mistakes, poor sentence construction, and general sloppiness just piss me off. And yet I can't stop reading a book once I've started, so I have to finish even the worst drivel. Hence I try not to start anything until I'm sure I will really like it. I was not sure about Eat, Pray, Love. It seemed so cliched. I used to work in a travel bookstore and spent all my time reading these kinds of travel/ spiritual quest/ memoir. They are roughly all the same. Man/woman goes to foreign locale and learns lessons about life/ experience/ specific skill. But this one had been on my radar for a while. A friend had read it and told me it was ok. Not "fantastic, you must read this!" but "ok." So when I saw it at the library I thought, "Well, why not?" Since I got it from the library at least I won't be spending any money on it.

I have to admit through my skepticism that I am enjoying it so far. The Italy section made me want to go to Italy. Not so much for the art or the culture, though I'm sure that's nice, but for the food. As a vegan I'm not sure I even could eat in Italy, certainly not the way she did sampling everything that was suggested to her with a healthy side of gelato. It did make me want cheese though. I find that missing cheese is the one thing that is hard for me as a vegan. Macrobiotics helps more than that awful fake vegan cheese but something is not satisfying me in my regular diet the way cheese would. Anyone have a cheese substitute suggestion? I've seen the recipes for miso/tofu cheese in the macro books and they just don't look good. Anyone ever tried those?

Sweet potatoes

I've been obsessed with sweet potatoes lately. I just can't get enough of them. I haven't (yet) gone to the extreme of making sweet potato pie (which I have in the past). Mostly I've just been making sweet potato fries and sweet potatoes in with roasted veggies. Today I bought some Hannah sweet potatoes. Anyone know the difference between a Hannah sweet potato and your traditional variety? Me neither. But I do know that they are yellow-er and a bit more mellow than the standard variety. Not as non-sweet as the Japanese variety, but related it seems. Tonight I made the sweet potato fries as seen in Vegan with a Vengeance.

Sweet Potato Fries

2 large sweet potatoes, cut into a fry-like shape
1 Tablespoon of olive oil
1 teaspoon of ground cumin
1 teaspoon of ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon of black pepper

Sounds great, right? I never have the spices she asks for though, so substitute I do.

My recipe:
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
salt and black pepper to taste

You mix all of whatever spices you choose with the oil and then add the potatoes. This method works much better than what I've done in the past- dump spices on the potatoes and hope they will mingle in the oven. Never works. Temp is 425F and then in theory it only takes 15 minutes each side. The book claims that you should use tongs to flip them. I've never had fries be so evenly distributed on a tray that I could use tongs, so I just take a metal pancake flipper and mix them all around. It's not perfect but if you do it often it keeps them evenly brown. And I don't know if it's my oven or what but everything takes longer. I did it for a good 45 minutes. But then again, I also like them to be crispy.

So go ahead and bust out the sweet potatoes. I'm telling you, they are amazing.

Scientists

"Scientists are saying the future is going to be far more futuristic than they originally predicted."

-quote from Southland Tales

Ethiopia

I ate Ethiopian food for dinner tonight. There's a restaurant on Haight street, really not very far from home, called Massawa. I think I went there once years ago with some friends, the same friends who treated me to it tonight. The time years ago I remember not being impressed. I didn't like the spongy fermented bread (injara) and I thought too many things had tomatoes in them. Tomatoes are usually avoided in macrobiotics because they are part of the nightshade family and therefore vaguely harmful. Apparently if you have arthritis you should avoid nightshades as well as they can exacerbate the condition. I don't have any real health problems that keep me from eating them, but my partner does, so we tend to strictly avoid them. We've been on tour for the last few weeks so I took the opportunity to overload on them. I had potatoes made up as cajun french fries a few weeks ago. And now this Ethiopian food, which really did have tomatoes in pretty much everything. I found I enjoyed the injara much more than in the past. I think my tolerance for fermented things has grown over the past few years what with our experiments with sauerkraut, amazake, and pickles. So this time I was pleasantly surprised and enjoyed it greatly.

In other news, I am trying to harvest wild yeast. I am hoping to land some of the famous San Francisco sourdough yeast but since I don't have a clue as to what I'm doing I may be lucky to get anything at all. So far I have a small bowl with flour and water and raisins (for the sugar). I had read that you could use raisins or other dried fruit as a way to get it started but I don't know if you were supposed to take them out or not. Mine are still in. If nothing happens after a few days I guess I will compost this and try again, with perhaps more instructions.

House of Light

I recently spent some time in Austin, TX for the South by Southwest music festival and hence there has been a delay in writing this. The festival was great, if only because it was almost 90 degrees. I went swimming in a natural springs pool that was naturally about 60 degrees year round. It was heart-stoppingly cold, even on the blazingly hot day.
I also ate at a macrobiotic restaurant called Casa de Luz. Not only a beautiful calming environment but also an amazing restaurant and community.
The restaurant also runs a natural cooking school which was tempting enough to make me want to move to Austin. But really it was the food. We ate there for dinner and then lunch the next day. Each meal included soup, salad, raw veggies (like cut carrots, broccoli florets, etc.), brown rice, beans, root veggies, kale or other green leafy veggies, basically a huge amount of food. The best deal of course being lunch because you get the same amount of food for half the price of dinner. I also bought cookies each time (almond butter and ginger snap). The ginger snaps helped me survive my incredibly difficult and stressful flight back (weather canceled my first flight, the next day the airline canceled my flight!) This was all great inspiration to make it to my local (Oakland) macrobiotic restaurant, Manzanita. It was fabulous in the same way that Casa de Luz was. Now if only someone would open a place like this in SF. (Please!)

Rice Krispie Treats

Rice Krispie Treats were a favorite from my childhood. When I became vegan I thought I had lost the chance to enjoy ridiculous marshmallow-y sweetness. I mean, yes, there are vegan marshmallows. I've used them for making S'mores around a campfire, but I'm not sure they should really be used for anything else. They are a bit odd texture-wise, and god only knows what's actually in them. As a macro-vegan I'm much more concerned about what's actually in the substances I eat than I am about just eating a vegan version of something. I have since found the most amazing recipe for these kinds of things that will make even omnivores think they are eating the real thing (or at least ask for the recipe!) Plus these are super simple and easy to make which should be the point of rice krispie treats anyway. This recipe is from The Hip Chicks Guide to Macrobiotics, a truly wonderful book that everyone should read. It has some great suggestions if, like me, you are a sugar addict and some great ways to move into macrobiotics slowly and smoothly. It also has some women-specific advice which I found very helpful. In fact, I loaned my copy to a friend many moons ago and need to get it back!

Here's the recipe (pictures to follow later tonight):

1 cup brown rice syrup
2/3 cup almond butter
dash of vanilla
dash of umeboshi vinegar
Puffed cereal (I like this Puffed Kamut variety because it holds up much better than the rice ones do.)

Put all of the ingredients except the cereal into a small pan over low heat, stirring frequently. Once the almond butter and rice syrup have melted together and you start to see small bubbles, take it off the heat and pour into a large bowl. Add the cereal and stir until well coated. I also like to add chocolate chips (dark chocolate, so they're vegan) at this point. They mostly melt in the heat of the mixture but occasionally there is a whole one which is fine as well. This makes the treats even more of a treat, because, duh, chocolate! Pour the mixture into a greased pan and press it firmly to all the edges. Let cool for a while (or as long as you can wait). Then cut with a sharp knife.

I have taken these when traveling or camping because they hold up much better than cookies do (no crumbs!) and sort of work like little energy nuggets. I highly recommend them.

Under Pressure

Have I mentioned yet our new pressure cooker- "the Mercedes Benz of pressure cookers"? I was skeptical for a long time. I mean, really, how much difference can a pressure cooker really make? Yes, you can cook things faster but that's never seemed like a deal breaker before and damn, they're expensive! But now that I have one I am totally sold. It takes 15 minutes to cook garbanzo beans! Hummus is finally a reality for us without paying 5 dollars per container! (Damn you Wildwood for raising your prices! $4.99 for hummus is freaking ridiculous!) Not only does everything cook faster (which is so amazing- brown rice in 20 minutes!) but it tastes better too. I thought I was doing fine on the cooking front, especially as far as taste is concerned. Things tasted great to me, no complaints from friends or family either. SO what's the big deal? The pressure cooker makes them taste better. I can actually taste carrots and they taste great! Not boring and carrot like. They have life to them that is really exceptional and amazing that I've never had food taste like this before.

So tonight for dinner we had little time and motivation but felt the need to cook. Tomorrow night will be busy so we might end up eating out and twice in a row can be a bit much. Butternut squash with carrots (4 minutes), broccoli and kale (3 minutes), and brown rice and lentils (15 minutes). A miso-tahini-lemon sauce (mixed together in about 2 minutes). The squash was very well cooked as was the broccoli so maybe next time we'll go for an even shorted amount of cooking. It was fabulous- time-saving, tasty, and like a Mercedes Benz.

In the news

I'm sure some of you have seen this already but I found it rather fascinating. A NY Times op-ed piece by a farmer in Iowa, I think, talking about how hard it is for him to simply grow organic fruits and vegetables. Thanks to our subsidy of other commodity crops he actually had to pay a fine for growing food. Local, organic food! This is what people will pay ridiculous amounts of money for at their local Whole Foods, though admittedly Whole Foods may not be pushing actual locally grown produce. Instead the majority is grown by the Big Organic (as Michael Pollan calls them) companies in California. Even out here where the growing season is optimal and the hippie farmer markets ubiquitous it's hard to find actual local, organic produce. Thanks to our weird and twisted laws that help someone who is growing mono-cultures of something we put in our cars. Since when does gas count as food?

And did anyone else see this almost hysterical article about vegetarianism from a Russian newspaper? I think the title was "Vegetarianism proves to be perversion of nature". Wow! I knew I was perverted but didn't think it was because I ate vegetables. Reading this is like being transported back to the 1950s, when eating the roast after church on Sunday was just what you did and no one else did different. I mean, this article actually claims that vegetarians are wasting away with dystrophy, heart disease, and spindly weak legs and arms. If it weren't so ludicrous it would be funny. It's a little scary though that there are still places in the world where vegetarianism is not ok, let alone something out there like vegan-ism or macrobiotic-ism.

In other news, I made a split pea soup in our new pressure cooker. I'll have to post pictures of that soon. As well as steamed broccoli with a miso/ tahini/ lemon juice sauce and quinoa. I have learned the secret to making great quinoa. Take a skillet and heat up some oil and then brown some onions. Once the onions are on their way, add the amount of quinoa you want to use and saute it before you add any water. This cooks off the crazy toxic layer that surrounds the quinoa grains without subjecting you to many, many rinses. If you make quinoa the normal way (similar to how you might make rice) you have to wash it, and wash it, and wash it with a really fine mesh strainer to get rid of that waxy layer. This way you don't have to, i.e. faster, and it tastes great!

I scream, you scream

Today was a beautiful, sunny 70 degree spring day. We almost never get weather like this here in SF because of the fog issues. Basically if it's really warm in the central valley (which it is for most of the summer and other times of the year) that warmth will pull the cold air from over the ocean inland towards the East Bay and Central Valley. That causes fog leaving SF shivering and gray in the height of summer. So our good warm times of the year tend to be spring or fall, when it's not so hot in the central valley and we can build up our own warmth. Today was one of those days. Luckily today was also a Sunday so I got to spend the day with D. We made vegan sourdough pancakes for brunch and then went outside to test the weather. We determined that a bike ride was necessary but our usual destination, Ocean Beach, was bound to be chillier than where we are now. New destination: Maggie Mudd's Ice Cream in Bernal Heights. Maggie Mudd's is an amazing ice cream shop because they have the most delicious vegan ice creams you will ever find. They are not full of wacky weirdness and are satisfyingly fabulous. Examples of flavors that were on the board today (but that I did not try): Chocolate cardamom, black sesame, coconut pineapple, Memphis mud pie, and strawberry tequila. You can also get vegan ice cream sundaes, "milk" shakes, and banana splits. Heaven for vegans with an ice cream craving! I went with green tea and dark chocolate. Happiness!

Vegan with substitutions

I bought a new cookbook today. I'm a total cookbook addict so it's not a huge surprise. I spent the gift certificate that D. had given me for my birthday last week on "Vegan with a Vengeance" by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. She's one of the authors of the vegan cupcake book I have that I used for my cupcake party. I debated for a long time between this one and her most recent one called "Veganomicon". It's essentially a Joy of Cooking for vegans. Looks great and has some nice coding of recipes so you can find ones that cook quickly or don't have soy or something. But I found that this one (Vegan with a Vengeance) has a more personal voice to it. I don't always like that but in this instance I think I like her personality so it works for me.

Once bought of course I felt the need to make something out of it. So tonight's dinner will be "Coconut Rice with Toasted Coconut", "Jerked Seitan", roasted root veggies, baked butternut squash, and sauted greens. Well, it won't be exactly that. Those are the names of the recipes I'm using but alas I've had to make some substitutions. I think substitutions are the nature of cooking and a sure sign that you've transformed your cooking into a higher art. I didn't actually have the jasmine rice the "Coconut rice" recipe called for so I'm using short-grain brown rice. There is a brown jasmine rice (and I thought I still had some left in the pantry) but this was not worth going back to the store. It also calls for finely grated lime zest. No limes, sorry. I don't even think I will put the toasted coconut on it at this point. Too much effort.

I also couldn't find seitan at my local market (even though they had some a mere few weeks ago! Damn you Real Foods!) So tofu it is, as a fine substitute. I didn't have enough dried thyme for the marinade either so I added oregano. And I'm going to omit the green pepper. So my real question is this: at what point does someone else's recipe become your own? Copyright people, can you let me know? I have to deal with a lot of permissions issues at my job. I'm curious about how it works for cookbooks. One ingredient different- is that enough? Different amounts? What about classic recipes, a la Joy of Cooking?

Food Fight

I haven't been in a food fight in a long time. And I'm certainly not advocating that anyone start one, especially when I'm around. I'm more of a slow-food-ist. I like to appreciate and enjoy my food, often because it takes me a long time to make it. It's usually very tasty so it's worth the time, in my opinion.

Someone sent me this video of a "food fight". It's actually stop-motion animation of modern warfare methods using food. The scary thing being how many of those methods you recognize easily. What's wrong with our world that I'm more likely to recognize the bombs than the sausage they are made of?

I've become obsessed with food

Since I've made it my focus I might as well make my blog focus on it too. I will try to post some photos of the dish-delish macro-vegan food that I end up making most nights. Lately it's been take-out and my life is sad. I'm also still living off of the five kinds of vegan cupcakes I made last weekend for my birthday: chocolate, spicy chocolate, dulce sin leche, gingerbread with lemon cream cheese frosting, and green tea. I think the green tea was the most disappointing because the cupcakes sank. The recipe called for soy yogurt and I think the variable amount of moisture in yogurt was the culprit. Though I have no proof of that. I like the gingerbread the best myself. For one because it included crystallized ginger pieces in the batter (which I swear just melted into the cupcake) and because of the cream cheese frosting. That frosting is the only reason I like carrot cake and to be able to make a vegan version is very exciting. My carrot cake life can live on! (Technically I never make carrot cake so this is a short lived life in that respect, but it's nice to know I could if I wanted to.) All these recipes came from the book "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World". Highly recommended for the beautiful cupcake photos, if nothing else.