Where was I?

Oh right community. As I entered into day 3 of VVC, it was with a list of people I was stilly dying to meet in person or speak to a little more (Sayward of Bonzai Aphrodite, Joanna of Yellow Rose Recipes (or so it was previously called), Crissie of Run Crissie Run). Fortunately, I had a chance to speak with all of these ladies on Sunday, either over the VVC lunch or throughout the day. But first, there were panels.

The morning started with the activism panel, which was led by Jasmin and featured Isa Chandra Moskowitz, Sunny Subramanian from Peta2, my girl Leigh-Chantelle, Ryan Patey from T.O.F.U. Magazine, and Chelsea Lincoln, who writes the blog Flavor Vegan. I’m going to hold off on giving too many details from this panel, because I really want activism to be the focus of tomorrow’s post. For now, I’ll say that the major questions at hand were:

• How can I be an activist in my home town/community?
• How do I foster activism when there aren’t many other vegans in my area?
• What do I bring to the table as an activist?
• How can I merge activism for animals with other issues I care about?
• How can I be an activist without alienating others?

All fantastic issues to discuss. More on them soon.

The next panel I sat in on was led by Terry Hope Romero, the gorgeous, sassy, and whip smart author of Vegan Latina. Meeting Terry, who’s work I’ve read for so long, was certainly a weekend highlight. Terry, who is, like me, a former publishing maven, spoke about food writing as a narrative craft, and blogging as its vehicle. Her speech was full of amusing anecdotes, and one of the major take-home lessons was that, as bloggers, we’re empowered to take any and all life experience and craft it into something readable. Having spent so many years in the world of writers and editors, I don’t always enjoy writing seminars, but this one was great fun.

JL and I really wanted to go hunt down some green juice, but given how little time we had before lunch, we opted to gossip by the pool for a few minutes instead. All that hard work allowed us to build up an appetite for the second #vidavegancon lunch spread!

It was taco day. Well, taco and hummus, that is. Tortillas were laid out, along with giant lettuce leaves for the raw foods lovers in the group (hooray!). And I was tickled pink to see that Janessa had given my raw zucchini hummus recipe to the cook to copy! What a giant honor.

I was also really impressed with the giant tray of raw walnut “taco meat,” which was spiced to perfection and made tangy and rich with sundried tomato. Great, great recipe:

I made some raw tortillas with the taco meat, the hummus, guacamole, and salsa as my fillers. Each got a generous topping of nutritional yeast, which was left out by the bowl near our table. A conference with bowls of nooch sitting around for the taking? My kind of place.

After lunch, I stole some time to work on the blog and respond to emails. Soon enough, it was time for my final panel/class: specialty diets.

My co-panelists were Kittee Berns, author of the wonderful Cake Maker to the Stars blog and author of Papa Tofu Loves Ethiopian Food, Fran Costigan, the reigning queen of all things vegan dessert and chocolate, and Susan Voison, whose Fat Free Vegan blog is home to some of the best low-fat vegan recipes on the web.

Kittee eats gluten free: though she does not have celiac, she used to suffer from fibromyalgia, and eating gluten free helped her to manage/conquer her symptoms. Susan eats a low-fat and no-oil diet, though she does allow for some nuts and seeds in her recipes, along with avocado. She feels that avoiding added fat has helped her to lose and maintain a healthy weight, and is intuitively certain that it’s the best way of eating for her body. Fran, meanwhile, subscribes to no specialty diet in particular, but takes a whole foods and local approach to everything.

There was a ton of curiosity about GF cooking in the room: Kittee passed around Authentic Foods’ superfine brown rice flour, which she found to be a life-changing addition to her GF baking. Then we all shared our best “specialty diet” cooking tips. Susan mentioned that mixing non-dairy milk and vinegar creates a great, “buttermilk”-like texture for salad dressings that are oil free (good to know, as I’m one of those people who really struggles with salads that aren’t dressed with a good amount of fat). For my part, I gave the same advice I usually give about starting off with raw food: don’t think of a complex entrée you like and try to make a raw version in the dehydrator. Make every simple raw (soups, salads, veggie sides, dressings, dips) and cook the rest. At least at first. I also mentioned (in response to an audience question) that raw potatoes are not the place to start.

I believe my exact quote, elegantly phrased, was “raw potatoes are gross.”

It was a really fun panel, especially since I got to see Fran (the ultimate hip NYC lady, and always a joy to be around) and Susan (whose blog I worship). I’d never met Kittee, but she and I have a friend in common, and it was really wonderful to connect with her after admiring her work for vegan MoFo and her blog for quite some years now. Incidentally, if you’re a vegan who’s just gotten a celiac diagnosis, or you’re GF and wondering if you can be a vegan: fear not. It’s absolutely possible to be both vegan and GF! Kittee’s newest brainchild, XGFX, shows you how.

After that, it was time for closing remarks from Isa and from Terry. As these two beautiful and spicy women took to the stage to bid us farewell, I felt a little verklempt: it had been such a lovely weekend, and I was already feeling sad to say goodbye to Laura, JL, Lisa, and co. Isa and Terry mentioned what a joy it had been to celebrate a shared sense of purpose within the vegan blogging community, and noted that, even in this digital age, nothing compares to the power and pleasure of face-to-face conversation. I couldn’t agree more. I love the internet, but sometimes a hug, a peal of laughter, or a shared glance is far more powerful.

I bid the wonderful conference organizers, Janessa, Jess, and Michele, a warm adieu:

They deserve heaps of credit for making such a huge conference run so smoothly. From food to event planning to the actual “flow” of the day’s schedule, these ladies were totally on-point at every turn. I marvel at their organizing skills.

That night, it was time for one more dinner in Portland. To be honest, I’d loved my simple green goddess bowl at Blossoming Lotus so much the night before that I was hankering for a repeat.

For all of my love of socializing, and in spite of the fact that I consider good conversation a pleasure on par with great food and great sex, I have to admit that I get really exhausted from relentless group time. Maybe it’s the only child in me, but I’ve always needed quite a bit of “me” time in addition to time with my friends. For this reason, I was grateful to have an intimate and quiet dinner planned: just me, JL, Lisa, and Nicole, whom I’d never met before, and who is lovely. We unwound with laughter and compared notes from the weekend. And we all dug into this:

A fabulous and generously sized bowl of white bean and pesto spread. This was fantastic; I’ve had (and made) many a white bean dip, but there was some herb in here (we couldn’t ultimately place it) that elevated the dip to true originality. It was also steaming and warm and drizzled in fruity olive oil, and generally a pleasure.

As I ate, I sipped on this:

A “make your own” cocktail of celery, cucumber, kale, lemon, ginger, and apple. And for my entrée, as planned, I repeated the goddess bowl (raw and cooked greens with quinoa, avocado, and two dressings):

Once again, it was filling and delicious. Not so filling, however, that I couldn’t polish off Nicole’s bowl when she was too full to finish. JL and Lisa (who’d gotten lasagna and raw pizza, respectively) looked on with amusement.

After we parted ways, it was back to my hotel for some reading, blogging, and much-needed rest. The next morning, I woke up with the sun for a run in some gray and moody weather, taking time to enjoy riverbank sights as I went. Then, to my delight, I realized I had just enough time for a final Portland food outing. I found a bakery close to my hotel that featured a vegan menu, and hurried over there for some food.

The Black Sheep Bakery boasts not only a full display of vegan muffins, scones, and treats, but also some warm vegan breakfast items (such as vegan frittata, or toast with vegan cream cheese) and lunchtime sandwiches that are 100% animal free.

I was really impressed with the selection, the service (my server was so kind and helpful with recommendations), not to mention the cozy ambiance. Torn between granola and oats, I hesitated, until a shiver ran through me under my hoody and reminded me that it was a rainy day in the Pacific Northwest, and hot food would probably taste really good. Oats it was: or rather, the bakery’s “fruited oatmeal.” This is actually a big like warm muesli: they toast dried apricots, raisins, oats, and agave, and then they re-heat it for you with almond milk.

As usual, I BYOB’ed (brought my own banana’ed).

So, so, so good. Sweet, but not sugary, warm, dense, filling. Loved every bite. And for the road—knowing I’d have a long day in airplanes before me—I picked up a vegan multigrain cranberry muffin:

I was glad I did, though I did manage to find some good airport food. Among other things, a big salad, a cup of veggie crudites, a Pure Bar (mine) and even some hummus:

Not bad, given that my biggest complaint about flying is usually that I can’t get enough green in.

And then, suddenly, I was back at the Hobbit House, where I found crickets mating and feasting on bug carcasses in my shower, and a few lady bugs throwing a party on my quilt. Home sweet home. Did I really just spend a week in NYC? Had I really gone all the way to Portland? Am I really going back to NYC this weekend for a lavish wedding? Yes. But right now, as I dig into some raw comfort food and start reading up on my biology, it feels almost as if it was all a dream.

An awesome dream. Thanks, VVC, for a fantastic three days. It gave me a lot to consider (expect a thought post on activism later this week), to cherish, and to remember. Can’t wait for 2013.

Final announcement: today is your last chance to vote for me for best blog and best column in the 2013 Veggie Awards! The award is a huge honor in the vegan community and would mean the world to me. With that said? Any kind of competition after this weekend of vegan blog love seems in poor taste. So if you’d like to vote for another great blog–Our Hen House, for instance–rock on. And thanks.

xo

xo

Thanks for such wonderful responses to my recap of day one and dinner at Portobello! I’m happy that you liked my on-screen presence, and most of all, I’m grateful for your celebratory thoughts on coming to terms with celebratory meals post-ED. Gracias!

It’s now day three of Vida Vegan Con, and day two actually feels like a week ago—not like yesterday! But I’m still having a fantastic time, and can’t wait to start recapping Saturday’s events for you. Most of you already got a sneak peek of my interviews from the conference yesterday, but if you haven’t—and if you’re curious to hear about the mistakes I made while going raw, my definition of health, and whether I get yearly bloodwork, check ‘em out here.

Day two at Vida Vegan began with a generous and crowd-pleasing spread of breakfast food, which included chia seed pudding, roast potatoes, tofu scramble, gluten free pancakes and apple cobbler, fat free biscuits, fruit salad, stumptown coffee, and tons of So Delicious creamer. Awesome! I must say, I’m so impressed with how hard the organizers of Vida Vegan have worked to accommodate the wide array of eating styles here at the conference: they’ve had tons of gluten free options, lots of low fat ones, and Janessa even emailed me privately, weeks before the conference, for some feedback on raw options. I think that are sometimes left out at conferences—even vegan ones—so I was really touched. For breakfast, I ate some of the fruit, a banana I had brought (can’t start my day without one!) and the chia pudding.

I wolfed this down as I watched my resident girl crush, Laura Beck, open the conference with some moving words about the meaning of vegan community. Laura spoke about her experience with Kris Carr’s CSD program, and even referenced my nutrient dense salad post! Most importantly, she talked about how, time and time again, the vegan blog community has inspired her, picked her up, calmed her down, and generally enriched her life. I couldn’t agree with that sentiment more.

My first panel of the day was a photography panel with Susan, Isa, and Hannah. Holy starstruck, Batman! These are three of the vegan bloggers who inspired me to go fully vegan when I was still in “I’m practically vegan but can’t stop eating Greek yogurt” mode. They also inspired me to blog myself. It was a fabulous and informative panel, even if I still can’t figure out the black/white balance on my camera.

Next was my very first panel as a panelist: a nutrition panel with Bryanna Clark Grogan, Ginny Messina, and Wendy Gabbe Day. Another starstruck moment here: I’ve admired Ginny’s work for ages now. If you haven’t read her blog, The Vegan RD, please do: I consider it required reading for vegans who want responsible, well-informed, and scientific responses to the many health questions we all invariably get. I don’t always agree with Ginny on everything, and certainly we have some dietary differences, but in spite of that we actually see eye to eye on nearly all major vegan nutrition questions.

Ginny’s main interest right now is to combat the tendency that many vegans have to become overly restrictive in what they eat: they go vegan, they give up gluten and soy, they go raw, they give up beans and grains, then they give up fats, nuts, and end up with a diet of kale, lemon, and fruit. Of course, if you do have food allergies or health conditions that demand such modifications, you should honor them, and I’m not suggesting that there’s anything inherently wrong with being selective; neither is Ginny. I think her point, which I agree with, is that there is no reason for a healthy vegan to feel pressured into winnowing down his or her diet to nothing but watery vegetables and juice. In fact, such patterns may create health problems, and turn that person against the lifestyle (and hurt the public perception of veganism).

Grant Butler, who moderated our panel, knew from the start that Ginny has sometimes expressed skepticism about raw foodism, but that she also does advocate a lot of raw fruits and vegetables. He also knew that, in spite of being a high raw foodists with tremendous belief in the power and fun of raw foods, I’m also strongly in favor of a well rounded vegan diet that includes some grains, legumes, and high quality soy foods. So I think he sensed that there would be discussion points on the panel, but a fundamentally unified point of view.

And so there was. It was a great talk: I spoke about my objection to raw foodists turning the diet into religion. Bryanna spoke about how important it is to make healthful food delicious, so that no one is forced to sacrifice pleasure for well being. Wendy spoke about keeping one’s diet simple, avoiding packaged food, and shopping from bulk bins. And Ginny cautioned against excessive restriction. She also spoke openly about the no fat/no oil craze in the vegan world, with which she and I both take serious issue with (we both agree that heart disease has been reversed on extremely low fat diets, but we also agree that there’s compelling evidence to show that it’s saturated fat, not all fat, that’s the main factor in chronic disease prevention, and also that there’s evidence in favor of the health benefits of olive, flax, and hemp oils in moderation). I was relieved and impressed to have her response.

This was such a fun panel for me! And the audience questions were really intelligent, too.

Yours truly, gesticulating wildly.

At the very end, Grant asked us all to list our favorite go to super foods. I think that our responses were fun, and they spoke to our personalities as eaters in a nice way:

Gena: Hemp

Wendy: Cooked, mixed whole grains (including her favorite, amaranth)

Bryanna: Quinoa cous cous mix

Ginny: Tofu scramble

Thanks to my fellow presenters for such a great panel!

After the panel, a special friend who’d come to watch me speak also treated me to lunch. The gorgeous Sarah, of Peas and Thank You fame!

There she is, in an adorable sundress.

Our lunch spot of choice was Prasad, a vegan and raw joint nestled into a nearby yoga studio.

I’d checked out the menu online and was super excited to eat there; I even knew what I wanted! I started with a green lemonade:

I also ordered a large house salad with garlic tahini dressing, hoping the garlic wouldn’t be too strong. It was, but actually, it was so tasty I didn’t mind:

I also ordered a raw collard wrap with pesto, raw hummus, sundried tomatoes, and veggies. The flavors were great, but I must say that, having just spent the morning exonerating oil, it was far too oily for me—dripping with oil, even. The outside was even covered, as you can probably see:

Because the taste was good, I really wanted to enjoy the wrap, so I did something I never do, and I patted and wiped the oil off with a napkin. It’s a little impolite, I know, and I associate it with high school girls mopping the oil off slices of pizza, but it actually made the wrap edible. Good enough for me.

After lunch, it was time for my second panel: warm and fuzzy blogging. This was a panel featuring Janessa, me, Christa, and Leigh-Chantelle (such great ladies!!), and our goal was to talk about positivism in blogging. WhenI was asked to join this panel, I was a little surprised: I try to inspire and empower, but I often find my voice to be a little tough minded, even snarky. As we planned the panel, I realized that our true goal was to show our audience that positive doesn’t have to mean “saccharine sweet” or upbeat: there’s a way to tackle dark and serious content while also having a positive message:

We got a ton of wonderful questions from audience members, ranging from “how do you talk about a bad day without complaining?” to “do you feel bad writing negative reviews of vegan products?” to “how can I write about animal rights and factory farming without turning my blog into a litany of despair?” (my paraphrasing). These were all so provocative; to that last question, Leigh-Chantelle made the excellent suggestion that one show positive footage of animal sanctuaries or rescues as well as footage of abuse and/or farming.

Christa said that it’s a question of tone: write about things honestly, even when the topic is bleak, but do it with a gentle and hopeful tone:

And then there were broader questions about blogging, such as “how do you handle negative comments?” My advice to any audience on this one is simple: unless a comment is downright cruel or outrageous (in which case I suggest you delete it), try to answer calmly, graciously, and in a way that allows you to keep from getting overly engaged.

Janessa, who is ever a model of grace and optimism, said that she always tries to assume that others are coming from a positive place, and if they’re not, that they’re doing the best they can. I’m not always able to exude this kind of generosity, but I do love it in my friend, and think it’s great advice (particularly in the blog world):

A really fun and interesting discussion!

I was getting a little tired by the time we finished, but I did manage to make it to the mating and dating panel, which was moderated by Grant Butler, too, and featured Janessa, some of the minds behind SuperVegan, and others. I found it entertaining, though I did find it discouraging that the upshot seemed to be that it’s really tough for a vegan to date a non-vegan. That’s true, of course, because even when habits are constructed to be accommodating, a certain world view isn’t shared. That said, I do think it’s possible for such relationships to work, so long as there’s a lot of mutual respect in place.

And if not, there’s “dating as activisim,” to quote the witty panelists. I believe I used to call that (all in good jest) “date and convert.”

After a long and informative and educative day, I was ready to unwind a bit. I didn’t have much time between the conference and dinner, but I did manage a quick change and the start of a blog post. Then, it was off to meet my lovely and vivacious local friend Ami for some dinner. Our spot of choice? The amazing Blossoming Lotus.

I’d been warned that I would fall in love with this place, and oh boy, did I ever. An amazing whole-foods vegan menu with abundant raw options and a juice menu? Oh yes.

I started with an all green juice (second of the day, but it was a long day):

And I moved on to the amazing goddess bowl, which is a mix of steamed kale, raw greens, quinoa, roast garlic balsamic and smoked avocado dressings, and I topped mine with avocado slices. Simple and absolutely divine:

Look how beautiful it is, all mushed up:

Ami got the beet and curried cashew salad, along with a side of quinoa:

I thought the food was really superb. Obviously, there’s something extraordinary about a fine dining experience like my dinner at Portobello the night before. But in some ways, it’s food like this that really makes my heart sing: simple, abundant, wholesome. Yum.

After some animated chatter, it was off to the Vida Vegan galorama for dancing and celebration. There was a vast array of food there:

…and a spectacular build-your-own-sundae bar. But in truth, new to PDX as I am, I was glad to have explored a local restaurant.

Over the course of the evening, I got to hang out with my perennial girl crush, Ms. Laura:

And I got to meet Jill and John, the lovely co-founders of Vegan Cuts. I had no idea that this invaluable website is run by only two savvy young businesspeople. Check it out, if you haven’t: what a team!

I also spent some time with Lisa, who makes grace and kindness look easy. I’ve never met anyone who’s quite so generous, caring, and sincere—all without seeming the least bit sugary. Lisa, I’m in awe. Sorry our photo is blurry.

There was a photo booth that takes 7 seconds of continual photo frames so that you can turn them into a flipbook. At some point, I’ll have to show you JL’s and mine, which is borderline scandalous. Instead, I’ll show you photos of JL tearing up the dance floor:

It didn’t take me long to peter out: I’m still on NYC time, and I was pretty beat. But before I left, I checked out some of the awesome silent auction prizes. My favorite were t-shirts from Herbivore:

Tomorrow or on Monday, I’ll say a bit more about what the vegan community has meant to me in terms of activism. Last night, as I was falling asleep, what I really couldn’t stop thinking about was what the vegan community has meant to be personally. I’ve been reading vegan blogs forever, and some of the women who write them are no longer blog personalities to me. When I need to vent about anything, I often turn to JL for some sass and some wisdom. When I need to be inspired, I look to people like Jasmin, who fights tirelessly for animals. When I want to dish about anything scientific, I email with Sayward. When I got dumped via text message last year, Laura was one of the first ladies I dished to. And when I need to look on the bright side, I always can count on Janessa.

I hope that many of my fellow bloggers feel that they can count on me for similar kinds of support. Blogging is an individual endeavor, of course, and it’s a business. But it’s also a chance to find community and shared vision. And that’s what Vida Vegan is all about.

From PDX, I wish you all a great night. Stay tuned for my wrap up posts in the coming days!

xo

Hello from PDX, everyone! What an unbelievably eventful (and fun) day I’ve had so far, exploring Portland a little and getting to know some of my absolute favorite vegan bloggers. As someone who’s attended a couple of conferences now, I’ll say this: sometimes, you look around the room and realize that the only thing you have in common with everyone else is that you all write blogs. Here at Vida Vegan, we hail from different parts of the country, have different jobs, are different ages, and eat different sorts of vegan diets. But we all share a similar world view, at least in so far as our reverence for animal life and passion for activism goes. It’s a powerful bond, and I’ve so enjoyed experiencing it.

Most of my closest blogging buddies started out by reading healthy living blogs (like Eat Like Me). I got sucked into the food blog world with vegan blogs and vegan bloggers. So this weekend, when I met Jess, Janessa, Bryanna, Colleen, and Isa, it felt like a starstruck homecoming to me.

Add to that meeting JL, whose blog I adore, and for whom I wrote one of my most personally meaningful posts. JL, who writes about body image and self-love, food, fitness, and the variety of life experience, is one of the smartest and sassiest bloggers out there, and you should all check out her “stop chasing skinny” series. She is truly awesome:

I also got to meet Bianca, who is a former CR guest poster and my favorite southern belle:

This all happened at the champagne reception last night. There was nut cheese in abundance:

And, after over eight hours of travel and not much food (I packed badly for these flights) I ate a lot of it:

There were also vegan cupcakes:

And this amazing, amazing white chocolate nut butter from the lovely Amber, the chef behind Almost Vegan, who’s got a cool book in the works:

That’s us with Janessa.

And then, I stumbled on a table manned by the woman who turned it all around: Jenny Brown of the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary. It was her Thanksliving event, oh so many moons ago, that transformed my veganism from a personal journey—something I was doing solely for me—into a choice I was making for the sake of other living beings (and which I happen to love, too). She was representing the farm with all sorts of good gear:

We chatted for a bit about pre-med life, and how strange it feels to leave one career you love (which we both did) for another that feels too urgent to ignore. She’s such an inspiration to me.

As cocktail hour drew to a close, I departed for the next stop in the evening’s lineup of delight: dinner at Portobello with my VegNews family.

As you all know, writing for VegNews is a big part of my life: I look forward to my “raw done right” columns with such anticipation, and I find that writing the column is an essential creative outlet for me as I move deeper and deeper into a left brain course of study. Beyond that, the VegNews staff really does feel like family: Elizabeth, the magazine’s managing editor, is a good friend:

And Colleen Holland, the magazine’s associate publisher, is not only a fearless leader, but also a supporter and champion of her writers’ work. I can’t tell you how much it meant to me when she recently let me know that she (and the other staff) are thinking of me in the post-bacc program. And then there’s Laura, columnist extraordinaire, who we all know is my big girl crush.

I’d heard only the most marvelous things about Portobello, our dining spot, but had no idea that we were all to be treated like royalty last night.

Chef Aaron, who is a marvel, prepared a special seven course tasting menu for us. When I arrived and saw what was in store, I was flabbergasted:

We began with a champagne toast. One of our servers kindly prepared a non-alcoholic grape juice+soda combo for me, and it was great:

I also ordered one of the restaurant’s signature “mocktails” (love mocktails!!), which was a mix of cucumber juice, shredded cucumber, mint, lemon, and lemon kombucha. Absolutely amazing. I loved it!

Our first course was a melon amuse bouche with aged balsamic, which I stupidly forgot to capture on film, But I didn’t miss the second course: a gargouillou of summer fruits and vegetables in the style of Michel Bras. I have no idea what a gargouillou is, or who Michel Bras is, but gosh these were great. The mushrooms and nectarines blew me away! All with a drizzle of oil and some sea salt:

Next up came our soup course. Three chilled soups: spicy cucumber, tomato consomme, and grape-almond gazpacho:

Amazing. Amazing! The spicy cucumber wasn’t too spicy, but it was creamy and subtle and delicious. The tomato consomme actually made me like consomme, which I never have before. And the grape almond? Divine. So creative and rich. I cannot wait to try my own in the Vita at home!

Next was our vegan charcuterie plate: beet tartare, cashew cheese, mushroom rillette, and mustard. It was fabulous. My favorite was the tartare, which I also want to create at home now:

The next course managed to send the entire table of seasoned foodies and tough vegan critics into a state of disbelief, punctuated with groans of pleasure and the occasional declaration of astonishment. It was the potato gnocchi with three sisters and pepper corn vellutata, roast squashes, heirloom peppers, and pole beans, all with a scallion purée.

People, I don’t even like gnocchi. And this was insane. So good that Elizabeth, seated next to me, actually licked her bowl dry (E, sorry to overshare). It was incredible. At this point, I thought it couldn’t get any better. That was until our next course arrived: the portobello roast with polenta and salsa verde.

It’s a stuffed portobello with a caper pesto on top, leaning on a chard wrapped bed of white polenta. The polenta was mild and creamy, and the mushroom flavorful. The caper pesto united the dish with tang and texture. A really stunning dish (and presentation).

Finally, as we went into various states of pleasure-induced shock, out came dessert: a lemon cream and strawberry jam tart. Plus, trays upon trays of Italian cookies, truffles, and chocolate. At this point, I was wondering if I’d entered vegan heaven:

There really are no words to sum up how good this meal was. In my own personal annals of fine dining, this may be the ultimate and unsurpassed highlight. Sure, there are other kinds of meals that rank above or along it: grilling vegetables upstate with Chloe in the summer; big, heaping bowls of raw kale with cheesy red pepper hemp sauce; puts of quinoa and greens and simple drizzles of tamari. Those are the kind of comfort foods that keep me happy, and the memories that intersect with my food. As far as gourmet dining goes, though, this was tops. Period.

But if anything could rival the food, it was the company. I sat across the table from Jasmin Singer, who’s been a hero of mine for a while now. Jasmin is one of the creators of Our Hen House, an interactive and varied animal rights site that features fantastic and creative podcasts. Jasmin is a bold, wry, intelligent, and honest voice in the AR community, and she’s equal parts funny and thoughtful in person. Plus, she’s an NYC gal, and she’s really into her green juice. What more could I ask for in a new friend?

When Jasmin told me (upon my stammering “I love your site!!!”) that she loves my “work” too, I thought “wait, I have work? What work?” Then I was simply flattered she knew who in the heck I am, especially since I’m new to AR. Jasmin, you made my night.

So did the presence of Allison, who is the cheery, wise, and elegant creator of Allison’s Gourmet:

I have tasted Allison’s brownies, so I know the woman is a genius chef. But I had no idea she’s also so lovely to chat with. Nice to meet you, Allison!

We thanked the restaurant’s staff for basically granting us all the best meal of our lives:

And made our way home. In my case, it was back to this cozy hotel room:

With my fab view:

Except it was night when I got home, and straight to bed for me.

Since we discussed some of the challenges and triumphs of eating out post-ED last week, I thought I would throw in my own personal reflection after this sumptuous dinner. In the past, meals and events like this troubled me a lot, not because I actually felt bad about what I’d eaten (though that was sometimes also true), but because people at multi-course meals tend to talk and joke a lot—all in good spirits—about how stuffed they are, how much they’ve eaten, how they need to go running the next day, and so on. For them, it’s all in good fun: for me, these are triggering sentiments, and they used to make me very anxious indeed. Wow, I thought—if people with normal food histories feel like they were gluttonous tonight, how should I be feeling?

Last night, I realized how far I’ve come as an eater when the few odd jokes about being “stuffed” or unable to get up from the table flew by, and I didn’t feel phased at all. I was thrilled with the meal, and felt grateful simply to have experienced something so rare and so good. And in fact, the portions had all been perfect, so that I felt just as full as I wanted to be: no more, no less. Because I felt great, and because I’d enjoyed every bite, the idea that other people might be stuffed meant nothing to me. I went home happy. And this is a new set of feelings, for me, when experiencing a multi-course dinner. Here’s to personal growth.

Tomorrow, I will recap day one of the conference proper, which was a total blast. But I’m guessing you’d all like a sneak peak, and you’re entitled. Here are the video interviews with yours truly that the lovely Jeff and Amber (both fellow high rawbies!) made. I am, as usual, kind of awkward. But if you want a sense of how happy I was to be at Vida Vegan today, this’ll show you.

Enjoy. And now, to bed. The fun continues in the morning!

xo

Hi from my last night in NYC (for now). I’m wistful about leaving, but terribly excited to blog to you tomorrow from Vida Vegan Con!

My last few days in NYC have seen lots of time with friends, lots of time with my Mom, and even a few hours of sleeping in (gasp!) and reading for pleasure (double gasp!). As I move between neighborhoods and activities, my mind is always at least halfway devoted to what my next meal will be, and where. I’ve had a few good meals at home now, but I’ve mostly been eating out. A few recent highlights:

Yesterday, I met my friend Tom for a quick lunch at Soy Café, a new-ish lunch spot that features sandwiches, salads, soups, and soy milk coffee and steamed drinks. I’d taken a peek at the menu online and found it really charming, and the place itself proved as cheery and welcoming as its website. Lots of people studying and reading in cozy, midday light. I went for a half sandwich and salad combo:

I think it’s pretty cute that they a) cut the half sandwich into two quarters, so it feels like a whole, even if you only asked for a half, and b) they cut the crusts off the multigrain bread.

My sandwich was hummus, cucumber, a heap of fresh dill, and a light spread of soy mayo. Delish! Tom got himself a chicken curry crepe, unpictured; I love that this spot has options for both vegans and omnis to eat comfortably together.

After our lunch, I took a West Village stroll and stopped into Integral Yoga’s fabulous health food store, which has a juice bar and tons of raw and vegan groceries:

I picked up a green juice and some chunks of energy, which make great snacks.

The day before, I had lunch in NYC’s other village, the east village, at Angelica Kitchen. Angelica is, as you all know, one of my favorite restaurants here in New York. It’s so unbelievably wholesome and healthy! I started my meal with a bright veggie juice: mixed veggies, ginger, and watercress:

For my lunch, I got the “picnic plate,” which is a choice of four cold dishes:

My choices were the semi-raw lentil walnut pate, the special salad of the day (which had mesclun and asparagus and some sprouted quinoa), the simple salad (basically a coleslaw mix) and the hummus with crudites:

I topped it all off with some tahini dressing. The rice crackers were sort of unnecessary, but aside from that, the meal was absolutely divine. I shared the crackers and licked the plate clean. My friend Kevin got some sort of tempeh sandwich with ruby slaw, which was really tasty, too:

In the middle of lunch, the famous earthquake struck NYC and DC. I have to admit, I didn’t feel a thing: supposedly the New Yorkers who felt it most were all in taller office buildings. But most of them assumed they were having some neurotic dizzy spell, and were embarrassed to mention it at first. (How very New York of them.)

One of the nicest things about my visit so far has been a spell of dreamy weather; a little reprieve before Irene storms through the streets of Manhattan. So on Monday night, when my dear friend Nelly and I grabbed a movie and dinner, we chose to get something to go at Whole Foods, and sat outside the fountain at Lincoln Center:

Lincoln Center is one of my favorite places in the world, for so many reasons: personal memories, the scent of live performance in the air, its proximity to my grandmother’s place. I was so happy to sit there for a little while, and get excited about the fall season at the Met:

I got a big green salad of spinach, kale, guac, mixed veggies, and edamame:

And a brown rice and avocado roll:

Tasty and conveniant!

And last night, in the crowning moment of my NYC dining adventures, I had a spectacular dinner at Pure with my good friends Eric and Cherry. The lighting in the restaurant was really too dim for me to take photos, but it didn’t much matter: I was way too focused on conversation to mind. And on my way home, I stumbled upon something I new you all would love:

The Soft Serve Fruit Company! This place is taking banana soft serve nationwide, in four flavors: raspberry banana, mango banana, blueberry banana, and banana banana. And it comes right out of a soft serve dispenser: dairy free!

I’d already eaten a chocolate mint napoleon for dessert at Pure, but…I couldn’t pass this up! Raspberry banana it was:

Very tasty. Fair warning to my soft serve loving friends: this stuff tastes fare more like sorbet than actual banana soft serve, which is richer and creamier. When I asked about ingredients, they said it’s banana, the other fruit, water, and a touch of cane sugar. You can taste the sugar, for sure, but in fairness I didn’t find it to be overwhelming.

I often get tweets and emails telling me that other people are posting or talking about banana ice cream, and aren’t I mad, because wasn’t it my idea? I’m super flattered, but to be fair, it wasn’t my idea! I just posted about the stuff. Bananas ice cream has been a staple among raw foodies for ages now. And even if it had been my idea, it’s really just a technique, not a recipe, right? And isn’t it better for more people nationwide to enjoy it, than less? The more people spreading the word, the better: that means more healthy frozen treats, and a shift, I hope, away from dairy-based ice creams.

Thank you, Soft Serve Fruit Co! I hope you guys arrive in DC soon.

Finally, tonight, I enjoyed my final NYC dinner of the week by stopping in on my friends at Candle Cafe for some takeout (and a nice chat with Mark, the tireless and thoughtful manager). As I sipped on a giant green goddess juice, I ordered the “good food plate,” a diner’s choice of several sides. I opted for quinoa, simple salad, marinated veggies, and arame and carrot salad, all topped off with a creamy herb dressing:

When I got it home and dug in, I think Mom was jealous.

And that, friends, is how you eat your way through a vegan paradise in six days. Of course, I’ll have some amazing food photos and stories to share from Portland, too—you can be sure of it! But in my mind, NYC really is the high-raw vegan’s dream city. So many options, and all of them so wholesome. In many ways, I’m glad I moved to DC, because the bounty of food in my home town has never felt more precious to me.

Tomorrow, I’ll be posting a late day smoothie recipe with a hidden vegetable star. I’ll be attending a fabulous, six course meal in PDX with some dear friends, and on Saturday, I’ll be telling you guys alllll about it. I can’t wait.

xo

On Wednesday morning, I arrived at Penn Station, after a character-building summer in D.C.. I was enveloped into the foliage of the Upper West Side:

…and into my Mom’s arms.

For the next five days, I get to enjoy the culinary, cultural, and social treats of NYC. It all began on Thursday night, when I had some time with my good friend Cassie, and then trotted over to Quintessence for some takeout dinner.

As I was leaving, Cassie mentioned that Quintessence is her favorite raw restaurant in NYC. She’s even more of a raw connoisseur than I am, so this is high praise. When it comes to high quality, tasty raw food, Quintessence is hard to beat. Where else can you find a raw bagel and cream cheese that’s actually soft and warm (rather than the brick-like crackers that masquerade as raw bagels most of the time)? Or what about the delicious kamut bread? The raw nori cone rolls, or the manicotti? Everything at Quintessence is top of the line, but, true to form, the thing I order most often there is their Buddha bowl, which is simply a giant salad, complete with a generous list of potential add-ons.

I cannot tell a lie: what makes these salads so extraordinary is the house dressing, which is a rich, herb-filled mix. What you taste most is fruity olive oil (and possibly some flax, too) and basil, but it’s a lot more complex than that, and I’ve never really replicated it properly. I also love how Quintessence packs curly kale into the salad base, and offers spiralized zucchini, raw “onion rings,” nut cheese, guac, and seaweed as toppers. A far cry from the typical deli offering of cherry tomatoes and conventional canned beans.

I got myself a mix of extra kale, spiralized zukes, sundried tomato, cherry tomato, cucumber, sea veggie mix, and house dressing. And when I got home for a long evening of cuddling with Mom, I topped this giant bowl ‘o plants with some leftover millet salad, which I’d brought on the train from DC (that recipe is to come).

Some of my conscious omnivore friends say that they treat meat as a “special treat” that appears in small portions when they sit down to eat. It occurred to me some time ago that that’s typically how I treat my cooked grains and beans: they provide a lot of the density and nutrition in my diet, and yet they usually take up a third or so of my plate when I’m eating a raw/cooked mix. The raw veggies are always the bulk of what I’m eating.

I also had a side of the restaurant’s veggie bread, which had an odd, coconut flavor (not my past experience). Maybe coconut oil as binder? Anyway, it was strange, but I enjoyed it well enough:

On Friday, I enjoyed a walk throw Washington Square park and a trip to Shakespeare and Co (an essential NYC destination) with my friend Jim, and then a late night chat and juice with my friend Allison. Throughout the day, I stopped into some of my favorite NYC spots, including Liquiteria for a morning juice break:

And Stogo, my fave vegan ice cream spot, where I picked up some late afternoon coconut key lime ice cream:

Last night, on my way to meet my friend Gabi for a night of girl talk, I stopped into one of my NYC dining homes, Candle Café, for some nourishing and flavorful fare. As always, I was so happy I walked across the park. Can’t you see the sigh of “ah, finally” in my face?

As I sat at the bar and dug into some midcentury male rage (Hannah, to answer your question, I just finished St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, which is amazing, and now I’m catching up on my Rabbit Angstrom novels), I treated myself to the amazing summer rolls (cilantro, avocado, seared tempeh, raw veggies, peanut sauce):

The market salad of the day, a mix of roast summer veggies, toasted cashews, organic greens, and a creamy basil dressing:

And the house quinoa-veggie pilaf, which has touches of Mexican spice:

Having licked all three plates clean, I also treated myself to an oatmeal carob cookie, and thanked the restaurant’s staff for such wholesome and tasty fare.

All the food is great, but what’s been most meaningful about my trip so far is the chance to connect with old friends. I left New York in a spirit of determination: I would make the move work, I would build a life in DC, I would experience and appreciate Georgetown. This was necessary, but I also overlooked how hard it would be to separate myself from a close circle of longstanding friends and confidantes. It’s good to jump right back into the rhythms of these relationships, which are so dear to me. As much as I would have loved to see some other good friends at the HLS this weekend—and I missed Anne, Valerie, and Melissa like crazy—I’m also really glad I opted to come home, enjoy more time in New York, and rest a little, too.

On that note, it’s back to a day of family time with my Mom and her boyfriend. We’re having dinner at Josie’s, which is a fabulous UWS restaurant I’ve never given a proper review, so I’m excited to share that. And if you missed yesterday night’s “ABC’s of Me” post, check it out. The trivia is fun, and if you’re like me, and had no idea what a “meme” was, the comments section should be a good little primer.

Till soon…

xo

1) Why does my Mom’s freshly brewed coffee taste so much better than mine?

My mom makes her coffee in a simple drip. I make mine in a fancy French press, and I spend a lot of time trying to perfect it. And you know what? Without even trying, my Mom has me beat.

2) Why on earth don’t I travel with my Tribest Blender more often?

It makes homemade smoothies a cinch, whether one happens to be home or not.

Also noteworthy: I traveled this weekend with samples of the Garden of Eden “raw” protein. A bit bland and tasteless, but a good nutrition profile and neutral enough that my mom didn’t detect it.

3) Why is it that salads and sandwiches so often taste better when other people make them for you?

I was in a time crunch at lunchtime on Friday, and didn’t have a chance to run back to mom’s to make a salad of my own. I wandered into Energy Kitchen, a chain I sometimes poke fun at because it’s the sort of 6-egg-white-omelet-no-oil-no-fat-no-salt-no-taste place that markets to the muscled set. But, just like The Pump (which is one of my favorite places in NYC), Energy Kitchen is also heavy on the produce, and it labels dishes honestly, which is great for vegans.

I got the “very veggie” salad, which was broccoli, corn, tomatoes, edamame, cukes, romaine, and guac. Good guac, too! Garnished with lemon, this was a big hit with me:

And we know I’m pretty picky about my guac.

4) Why is it so much fun to freak my mom out with raw food?

Peeking out from underneath my fresh fruit is bright green chia seed and chlorella pudding.

And this right here is a giant salad with some of my raw carrot falafel, which mom was eyeing with suspicion.

When I arrived at my mom’s, it was with a few key travel items: raw snack bars and trail mix, some collard greens that I was hoping to save from fridge perishing in DC by sneaking them on the bus to NYC, some chia seeds, some of my raw juice pulp crackers, some of my raw falafel, and lots of organic pink lady apples. She stared at the chia seeds and crackers and declared, “I’m not quite sure what this is.”

One day, mom, some of my weird food will look normal to you. I promise.

5) How does Café Blossom manage to make raw sweet potato taste so good?

That’s the café’s “raw autumn sweet potato rolls,” stuffed with jicama, scallions, avocado, young thai coconut, and served with almond butter dipping sauce.

I have made every imaginable effort to enjoy raw winter squashes and raw yams, but it’s to no avail. Blossom, however, has perfected a yam slicing technique, and marinates the paper-thin layers in something a little salty until they’re totally palatable. Delicious every time.

6) Why is pressed juice so much more awesome than the regular stuff?

There is just no way to say this nicely, but pressed juice kicks the derriere of regular old centrifugal juicer juice. I will go on the record as stating that we should all use our juicers at home as often as we possibly can. But I’ll also say that, as soon as I can get my hands on the stuff that comes out of a Norwalk juicer, I will.

7) Why must it be true that I should always listen to my mother?

On Friday night, I came home to find a sparse fridge and got flustered about what on earth we should eat. My mom, who has the patience and grace to calm me down when I get super hungry and cranky about wanting dinner, NOW, suggested we order from a modest local Japanese spot. Not being a huge lover of global cuisine, and with a vision of a more spectacular NYC vegan feast in mind, I scrunched up my nose at the idea. But when my dinner arrived—a wonderful brown rice, avocado, asparagus, and cucumber role, paired with a papaya salad and all veggie summer rolls, I was blown away:

What a fresh and delicious (and rather high raw!) meal this was. Mom, you are always right.

Why won’t Peacefood Café open up a DC outpost?

With it’s user friendly menu, it’s fabulous raw sushi, it’s generous salads, its fresh juice bar, and it’s enormous array of vegan baked goods, this place is a neighborhood gem. Oh pretty please, Peacefood, follow me south!

9) Why are flea markets, coffee shops, and new health food stores so fun to linger in on a beautiful Saturday afternoon?

East Village, NYC.

West Village, NYC.

Greenwich Village, NYC.

10) Why is it so hard to leave NYC?

Those are my questions of the day. What are yours?

xo

Good morning, friends. Thanks for all the enthusiasm about the Kathy and Gena show, episode 1! I’m glad you want to see more.

You may recognize the photo above as the telltale sun dappled brownstones of Manhattan’s Upper West Side, one of my favorite neighborhoods, whence I write this post. New York City is sun-soaked and dry and beautiful this morning, and the last three days have been like a drink of cool water after a drought.

OK, that’s icky hyperbole. But there really aren’t any words to describe how good it is to be home. As well as (I hope) I’m adjusting to DC, this little sojourn has made me feel so refreshed, and reminded, somehow, of who I am.

My first priority upon arriving in NYC on Thursday night (after a brutal 2 hours trapped in Weehawken), was to soak in a few of my favorite things. These included friends, time with my Mom, great vegan food, some yoga, and some of my favorite juice spots. It’ll take me more than a single post to wrap up the weekend, but I thought I’d start you off with the first thing I did when I got to NYC: I made my way to one of my favorite restaurants, Candle Cafe to see one of my favorite people, my friend Melissa.

And as I waited for her to arrive (and chatted with Mark and Benay, the gracious Candle team) I replenished my travel-weary body with a giant green goddess juice. Fresh fruits and vegetables have never tasted better:

The dearth of juice bars in DC is a sad and sorry topic I’ll get to in a dedicated post later this week, but let’s just say that having a plethora of juice options at my fingertips is one of the many reasons I <3 NY.

Green juice, while exciting, was soon eclipsed by the Candle Café menu. I started with the summer rolls:

That’s avocado, carrots, cabbage, marinated tempeh, and black sesame seeds, all with a peanut sauce that is to die for.

Next, and at the recommendation of our friendly waitress, I got the Aztec salad:

Black beans, corn, toasted pumpkin seeds, grilled tempeh, greens, avocado, and a cumin vinaigrette that was outstanding: I have to make this at home!

Melissa went with a “good food plate” (you mix and match simple sides) of steamed veggies, tempeh, greens, potatoes, and two dipping sauces:

This is all the kind of simple, brightly flavored, and honestly prepared food that I go crazy for. Eating at Candle really does feel like coming home!

After dinner, I made my way back to Mom’s, where we watched my favorite movie. You guys know what it is, and no, I never do get tired of it:

The following morning, I woke up with a grin on my face. It’s impossible to quantify what makes us love a place: so often it’s not one quality or feature, but rather what that place evokes in us. When I wake up in New York, I wake up excited.

And when you have yoga at your favorite yoga studio to look forward to, who isn’t excited?

Source

I’ve been spending a lot of time at new yoga studios lately, as I get to know my new home. D.C. really is a yoga lover’s dream! But I have to confess that no studio has captured my heart quite the way this one does. It’s the perfect mix of hippie chanting and togetherness coupled with a vigorous and challenging workout: it’s warm and fuzzy, but it’s not cutesy or cloying, either. The teachers present you with challenges, but not for the sake of being stern, as it so often seems in other studios (ahem, Jivamukti). I have a bigger yoga post coming up (dedicated to my new fave DC spots) but for now, I’ll just simply give Laughing Lotus my heartiest thumbs up.

After yoga, I was off to one of my favorite NYC places: Grand Central station, with its exquisite windows and its tacky, yet loveable, constellation ceiling. I like to pay homage to my birth month by gazing up at the twins:

I sat at Grand Central and had coffee with another one of my favorite people, my friend Jim, who made time for a get together in spite of the fact that he was dashing off to CT for the weekend and that hanging out meant shouting over the din of a group of French teenage tourists. Jim, you are a trooper.

And yesterday, after breakfast at my Mom’s, I met my friend Nelly for coffee at my favorite coffee shop in NYC: Joe’s.

There’s a lot of great espresso and plenty of frothy beverages floating around Manhattan, but I am firm in my opinion that Joe’s drip coffee is the best the city has to offer: bright, bold, and always brewed to perfection.

I have missed my morning Joe, as it were, now that I don’t live across the street from it, though I’ll admit that my wallet is glad for the distance! I got a small cup and savored it over a long, leisurely conversation on a bench in Central Park—which happens to be one of my favorite activities.

And weaved into all of these last few days have been quite a few jogs around the Central Park Reservoir, which is one of my favorite runs:

Source

So many favorite things in such a very short time. Lucky girl, I am.

What are some of your favorite places? Favorite yoga studio? Favorite movies? Favorite books? For whatever reason, I’ve always enjoyed the picking and choosing of favorites, if only because the game is so inherently flawed. Try picking out a favorite book, and relish the pointlessness. But it’s a fun reminder that our lives are populated by a lot of adored stuff.

On that note, it’s time for me to enjoy lunch with the madre. More recapping of my NYC trip tomorrow!

xo

Evening! I’m drafting this post from quite a few miles high in the sky, as I make my way back to NYC. I’m happy you all enjoyed the weekend recaps—especially my thoughts on vegan dining in a non-vegan city.

I woke up this morning bright and early, and hit Chloe’s elliptical once again for a pleasant indoor workout. Some pushups later, it was breakfast time. I’d had my heart set on a smoothie—in fact, I’d frozen some bananas accordingly—but alas, I forgot that I was nearly out of almond milk. Blogger fail #2. No biggie, though: I opted for the same sort of oat bran breakfast I had yesterday, and it was delish:

Oat bran with banana, blueberries, chia seeds, and Justin’s peanut butter. Con café:

It may sound silly, but little moments like this—switching around breakfast plans because I’ve run out of something—make me grateful for how far I’ve come with my rigidity about meals and meal planning. I remember days of yore in which the slightest detour to my meticulously calculated meal plans (if we can call them that, since they were heavier on planning than they were on actual meals) would send me into an anxious tailspin. I’ve managed to preserve an organized attitude toward my meals, and I’m excellent at planning grocery runs, recipe prep, and so on, but I also know how to go with the flow when my almond milk is close to empty. And it feels great.

Chloe and Knud spent their morning meeting their future companion animal—a baby girl puppy with black fur and big, sweet eyes, whom I later got to meet via photos and video—but I had to hang back and master some calculus homework in preparation for the week ahead. Bummer, but I got it done with a little time to spare. In that time, I went out for one last, long walk around Chloe’s neighborhood. There are lots of things I love about NOLA: diversity, a rich cultural fabric, a great live music scene, and lots of history, to name a few. But what I might like best, at least for selfish reasons, is that it’s a walking friendly city, and I’m big on walks

I had a warm stroll to Audubon Park and back, and by the time I got home, I was in a time crunch to depart for the airport. I wanted veggies in my body ASAP, so I threw together a giant salad of romaine, white beans, peppers, carrots, mushrooms, an avocado dressing I’ll be writing about soon, and the last of my raw mashed potatoes. I may not have kept my eye on the dwindling almond milk, but I did a good job of estimating how much of the raw potatoes I’d want. It was a great, filling lunch:

And with that, it was off to MSY for a wistful parting with Chloe. On my way from NOLA to Charlotte (hi twins! Sorry I couldn’t delay my connection and hang wit u) I snacked on some of these nuts and dried fruits that were offered to me from the kind folks at Flanigan Farms some time ago:

I got two flavors of individual snack packs, and I’ve used both frequently as snacks on this week of travel. The nuts and seeds aren’t all raw, which is a bummer, since I prefer nuts that way, but they’re without added sweeteners or salt, and they’re packaged in 1.0 and 1.5 oz. bags, which I LOVE. It’s so hard for most consumers to eat a reasonable amount of trail mix—one handful becomes two, three, and ten—and the larger bags are really designed to keep us munching. Good for Flanigan Farms for putting aside the bottom line and packaging only so much as is a reasonable portion.

My flight to Charlotte was delayed, and I was pretty nervous about catching my flight back to NYC, but I made the connection with about two minutes to spare (some comical sprinting was involved). Once settled on my flight, I made myself an in-flight dinner:

That’s a) water, b) apple slices, c) raw, massaged kale salad, packed and brought from Chloe’s, and d) a Vega Vibrancy Bar – my favorite of all the commercial raw, vegan snack bars. Vega bars aren’t too sweet, the texture is ideal, and they’ve got a decent amount of protein:

The apples weren’t organic, and they had some preservatives in them, but I’d known that salad and a bar alone wouldn’t do, and it was either the snack pack or some really terrible looking red delicious apples, drowning in wax. The snack pack won, and actually didn’t taste bad:

As for my raw kale salad…well, when isn’t it awesome?

You know, I usually hate to eat on planes. There’s nothing less fun than being trapped to a seat on a very long flight as you digest, and moreover, it feels unromantic to eat on the go. Even so, we all have to do it sometimes—I’m not about to start missing meals when I travel—so make the best of it by laying out my food, appreciating each and every component, and packing stuff I know I’ll want to eat ahead of time. One of my strongest eating habits is to always try to make my meals ceremonious: back in my 9-7 days, if I was trapped at the office for dinner, I’d actually set down a little napkin and light a candle at my desk as I worked; nowadays, I’ll try to do similar things with my student meals on the go. (Lord knows what I’ll need to do when it comes time for clinical rotations one day.) No one’s perfect, and I have my share of slapdash meals on the go, but I do my best as often as I can.

And now, the plane is nearing my beautiful city, so it’s about time for me to put the netbook away (Ian, I use a Dell, and I love it). I’m so happy I made it to NOLA this weekend: my life has gone through such upheaval since the fall that I’ve felt a little unmoored lately. It’s rare that I get to spend time with friends, but the time I do have with them always seems to buoy me again.

And now, the smell of NYC streets and some long overdue phone catch up with M–whom I’m missing like crazy–awaits. Night!

xo

Happy Saturday, friends!

Glad you enjoyed yesterday’s post! I love these diary-like chronicles of traveling. To answer many questions about my hair: yes, my hair is naturally curly, and it will vary from loose waves to ringlets depending on humidity. I don’t wear it that way most of the time because I actually prefer it straight (hence the customary blow drying), but I have to admit that student life is giving me less motivation to keep it straight lately: I’m just too busy. And there’s certainly no point attacking it with a blow drier down here, where the Louisiana climate will quickly curl it up again.

I woke up this morning craving oat bran, so oat bran it was:

Oat bran cooked with chia seeds, flax, almond milk, and topped with banana, berries, and Justin’s chocolate almond butter. Delicious, and devoured quickly in Chloe’s elegant dining room, with its perfectly appointed vases and frames and upholstered seats. My bestie has such a talent for homemaking: when we lived together, I felt so grateful for her organized mind, her meticulous neatness, her knack for decorating, her appreciation of artwork. I think I do a good job of keeping my cozy little apartment in good order, and certainly I’ve mastered the culinary part of the domestic arts, but my talents pale in comparison to hers.

I sat down to draft a special guest post I’ve got on the lineup, and then it was time for a morning run. It’s a gorgeous day here—a gray morning gave way to a sunny afternoon—but I knew that if I waited any longer, I’d end up being pummeled by the afternoon sun. I set out for a breezy and warm loop around the Tulane area of Nawlins. The highlight was a long stretch along scenic St. Charles, with its stately homes and trolley car tracks:

(Sorry for the cell phone pics!)

I even found a street with my name—sorta. Only one “n,” like me, though it’s the “J” spelling of Gena:

I definitely spent the majority of my run listening to Chloe’s and my famous road trip playlist from 2004, which appears to be an interesting mix of Led Zeppelin, Rage Against the Machine, Courtney Love, and…the Dixie Chicks. Hmph.

A little while after returning home, I threw together some lunch food: a big kale salad, topped with a a some Ezekiel toast and the last of my raw mashed potatoes:

After that, it was off to the Quarter for some strolling, shopping, and people watching. It was, as usual, a lot of fun:

While strolling around, we happened upon an exhibit of Al Hirschfeld’s drawings of over six decades of Tennessee Williams’ work, on display at the Historic New Orleans Collection.

Hirschfeld was a champion of Williams’ plays, and their most incisively lighthearted scribe. It’s a great show, and it was made all the more fun by the fact that Chloe and I are both huge Hirschfeld fans, and I’m a Williams fanatic. We had a lot of fun playing “find the Nina.”

When we got home, my friends Nat and Meredith joined us for a cocktail before our planned dinner at a local restaurant, Dante’s Kitchen. I had been duly warned by Chloe that this wasn’t a vegan spot by any stretch of the imagination, but I’d also peeked at the menu, and noticed the many local vegetable selections, so I was hopeful. When we arrived at Dante’s, I was indeed excited to see the huge chalkboard listing of what veggies are local and in-season:

That image is actually courtesy of Jason over at Off the Broiler. Why? Because I stupidly left the memory cards for my camera at home. Blogger FAIL. I was fretting about this, and trying to figure out how I could get my blackberry to take non-horrifying photos, as we began to examine the menu, and I began my customary (polite) interrogation with our waiter: what could be veganized? Was he sure the carrots had no butter on them? None at all? Was the rice cooked in chicken stock? Etc.

As it turned out, my camera wasn’t needed tonight, because the menu—while very local and very seasonal—wasn’t very vegan. There was a vegetable platter prominently advertised, which was promising, but I’ve done enough restaurant dining to know how to probe, and probing revealed that it was sautéed in butter. Our lovely and kind waiter momentarily thought that he could have the dish made without butter, but then the chef said it couldn’t be. Which means that I was left with an arugula and beet salad (goat cheese omitted), some carrots, and some mashed yams with molasses and cinnamon. Given that Dante’s prides itself so heavily on its vegetables—in fact, I’d say that the overwhelming emphasis is on the produce selection—I thought it was too bad that it was so hard for them to veganize various items.

Even so, I was delighted that Chloe, Nat, and Meredith loved their meals as much as they did. And when Chloe mentioned that she was a little “annoyed on my behalf,” and complimented me on being friendly in spite of the restaurant’s limitations, I appreciated the sentiment, but also responded that I wouldn’t have it any other way. I look forward to a day when all restaurants accommodate vegans and omnis with equal graciousness and effort, but for now, I know what I’m getting into when I dine out. It won’t always be easy, and there’s no point being a diva: one meal is just one meal, and I’m capable of savoring a night out with good friends in spite of sometimes limited food options.

Tonight was a celebration of Chloe’s new blog and fledgling career plans, my return to school, and the fact that Nat is a soon-to-be FSG novelist!! (I’m only sorry that I won’t be around to torment him with copyediting queries.) That’s where my head was at: I wasn’t focused on what I could or couldn’t eat. As much as my life revolves around food, and as passionately as I love all things culinary, I realize that the whole experience of dining with friends goes far beyond what’s on my plate: it’s about company, conversation, and shared pleasure. And in fairness to Dante, the dishes I did order were totally delicious, and I filled my beta carotene quota for the day.

(Side note: in spite of this upbeat message, I’m really glad I followed instinct and had a hefty afternoon snack. Vegan travelers, if you’re not sure how well a restaurant can accommodate you, err on the side of caution, and snack well before your meal. You’ll almost never regret it.)

And with that, another day of friendship, food, and frolicking along the bayou concludes. See you back here tomorrow.

xo

Ah, student life. Study groups. Finals. All nighters. Coffee (lots of coffee). New textbooks.

Loans.

Of all the many things that characterize the joys of living the life of the mind, living on a budget is perhaps one of the most ubiquitous. This is true of graduate and undergrad life alike, of course, but as I prepare myself for a new semester, I like to think that I have better financial planning skills than I did when I was eighteen. I’m also a much better cook, which means that I’m determined to make as much homemade food as possible this semester, and not to squander my funds on campus dining when I’m between classes. Let’s begin with snacks.

No matter how many times I vow to make my own snack bars, I continue to fail. I’m not sure why—I’m so disciplined about making my own food in other instances. But for some reason, I can’t stop dropping dough on Larabars, Pure Bars, Vega bars, and other favorites. Now, though, is the time to stop. I have buckwheat groats. I have a food processor. I have dried fruit, nuts, chia seeds, hemp protein, agave, spices…in short, there’s nothing else I need to make awesome homemade energy bars happen. After all, the thing I like most about my favorite raw snack bars is their simplicity. Larabars—the flavors I like, anyway—have three item ingredient lists. Vega bars, as my friend Brendan will always tell audiences at his speaking engagements, were designed to replicate the snack bars he was making at home in his own kitchen. These bars aren’t supposed to be impossible to replicate.

With this in mind, I took a crack at one of my first raw snack bars a few weeks ago. With Vega bars in mind (they’re probably at the top of my raw snack bar list, due to the flavor, the great nutritional profile, and the absence of excess sugar), I decided to use a base of buckwheat, dates, cashews, and Vega Whole Foods Optimizer in the vanilla chai flavor (this is my personal favorite). If you don’t have Vega, that’s fine. You can omit it altogether, or you can substitute hemp protein, Sun Warrior, or another vegan protein powder of choice.

The best thing about these bars is that, even though they’re raw and vegan, they require zero dehydration. Simply mix, shape, refrigerate and enjoy.

Buckwheat Chai Energy Bars (yields 12)

1 cup soaked and dehydrated buckwheat (follow instructions from my buckwheat cereal post)
1/3 cup pumpkin seeds
1/2 cup cashews
1 cup dates, pitted
2 tbsp agave nectar
1 scoop Vega vanilla chai
1 tbsp flax oil

1) Grind the dehydrated buckwheat, pumpkin seeds, and cashews in a food processor coarsely (i.e., not so much that they start to look like powder).

2) Add all remaining ingredients and pulse until the whole mass starts coming together and adhering. You may need to turn it out into a bowl and use your hands, but it should stick together easily.

3) Turn the mix out onto a flat, smooth, clean surface, and flatten it into a giant rectangle, making it as neat as you can. You can also use a baking dish for this!

4) Press the mixture down, and then use a sharp knife to cut it into 12 bars. Wrap in saran or tin foil, and store in fridge.

These make wonderful snacks. They’re even a decent solution for a meal on the go. Now that I spend every other weekend on the BoltBus to DC, I eat quite a few lap lunches. Here’s a shot of Friday’s meal: salad, an apple, and the very last bite of one of these bars:

Delicious and nutritious raw, vegan dining on the go. I suspect these bars might be a good standby for days with hectic class schedules in the upcoming semester, too! One thing to note is that these do get overly crumbly after a week or so, so you’ll want to eat them within 7-10 days.

Snack foods tend to be some of our nation’s least healthy. Check the label on any conventional granola bar, snack “cake,” cookie, or even trail mix, and you’ll be horrified by the nutritional stats. This is too bad, because snacks and on-the-go meals are the ones we need to be most nutrient rich—after all, aren’t we counting on them to get us through busy times? Rest assured, then, that these snack bars are chock full of nutrition: protein from the buckwheat, nuts, and Vega, healthy fats, simple sugars that help to fuel you for immediate activity, and a touch of Omega-6 fatty acids from the flax oil. They’re a perfect solution to the junk-food-as-snack-food dilemma.

Hope you get to try these soon, and that they’re as simple and rewarding for you to make as they were for me.

What’s your favorite snack bar—commercial or homemade? Have a recipe to share? What other on-the-go foods do you love?

Stay tuned for a big event recap tomorrow. Happy Sunday!

xo