Post Punk Kitchen Forum

going in to get my post gym cup of fair trade decaf resulted in sampling vegan bean soup from the cafe who said they never had vegan stuff! i said more vegan stuff please! also the wine bar we dig is starting to add vegan stuff to their menu after i requested it and got a few likes via fb!

Discovering places in my city that are super happy to accommodate vegans! There's a nice crepery down the street from me, and I recently wrote to them on their FB on a whim to see if they could do vegan crepes. They said YES, they'd be happy to do egg-free, milk-free crepes, and that if I call in advance they'll make them for me! YES.

I'm going on a trip with a friend of mine who isn't vegetarian. I know she is vegan friendly because we like to meet once in a while at a vegan restaurant and she said she loves their food. Anyway, I started looking into restaurants for the trip and she pointed me to restaurants I wasn't even looking at! They look really good. I'm excited about our trip in general, I was nervous about leaving my husband for a weekend but I'm sure he'll survive :)

Co-organized a mindfulness/yoga lunch for the PhD's in my grad programme. The other co-organizer is also veg., so we decided to ask the cafe made a pure veg lunch for us (50% veg, 50% vegan). All the vegan sandwiches were gone first aaaaaaaaaaaaand the cafe staff were so easy to work with, and so happy to make veg food. Reading the feedback forms, it sounds like the other grads were stoked about the vegan sammiches too. Awesome.

Hot damn. I'd love to discover a cafe over here willing to make vegan crepes at the drop of a hat!

I came back from a (mostly terrible) business trip and my partner had waiting for me THREE boxes of Girl Scouts Thin Mints...VEGAN.

He was really proud of himself. He is so sweet.

Also on my crappy trip, I did meet another vegan. He is vegan for (mostly) enviornmental reasons. We had some interesting conversations. Most vegans I meet are vegan for health reasons (I am for #1 animals, #2 enviornment then health and other stuff). Really interesting perspective I got from this guy.

I took the cucumber cashew dip from vcon to a very very omni potluck and everybody loved it! I didn't even get any because it went so fast. The icky ranch dip next to it had plenty left though. One vegan victory!

^^^ Yes, that dip is a winner!

Last night I made the Massaman Curry from Vegan Eats World (again. love that recipe) and everyone in my office is drooling over the smell.

I was kinda worried because it is smelly. GOOD smelly. But some people react badly to curry-smells.

They all pretty much know I am vegan, so this is a win.

I've had wins with that curry at work too. I barely get to eat any for myself because everyone wants a taste. I love sitting in the lunch room and over hear people in the corridor saying "what smells so good?"

once again my bf's family is so thoughtful. This weekend his sister had a bday thing at their house, and they ordered pizza from a place that has vegan cheese and got a special pie for me. and his brother, who works at Whole Foods, brought me two pieces of vegan cake so I could have dessert along with everyone else.

It was my office mate's birthday the other day and she brought muffins today. She had asked me for recipes to make something I could eat as well, and she baked them all vegan! She made the lower fat banana chocolate muffins and the lemon poppy seeds ones. And everyone is raving how good they are.
Yay!

I signed up for the office retreat today and put vegan in the dietary requirements. This is only my second retreat with this firm and the last one I attended was at a different place but the food was good. Quite impressive in fact, and other events have had just as good food so I am hopeful. (Bringing my clif bars etc. just in case)

My Safeway randomly started carrying Double Rainbow soy ice creams. I don't eat a ton of ice cream, but Double Rainbow is my fave (other than the TJ's coconut ones). I'm so stoked that I can conveniently grab something to go with pie or birthday cake that doesn't taste like beany sad.

Someone just delivered a surprise box of St. Patrick's day treats to my doorstep for V and me, AND made sure everything inside it was vegan! Wowowowowow.

So, I got an e-mail from the friend who's getting married and she said that I'm going to be the only vegan there (all the other non-meat eaters are vegetarian) so she was letting me pick the meal. These were the choices:

- Vegetable & Tofu Stir Fry over Rice
- Stuffed Pepper with Five Beans
- Vegetable Pad Thai
- Chickpea Vegan Cake
- Rice Pasta in a Primavera Tomato Basil Sauce

She said that the sides will be vegan versions of honey glazed baby carrots and asparagus with lemon butter, and roasted garlic mashed potato, so I went with the Chickpea Vegan Cake.

How awesome is my friend?!

score!

That is awesome. Five bean stuffed peppers sound good too.

That is awesome! (and I would also have chosen the chickpea cake) It's kind of the opposite of the wedding I went to last year where my friend emailed me to say I was the only vegan so could I suck it up and eat the vegetarian meal! Just make the vegetarian meal vegan, dude! He's an ex-vegan too, which makes it even worse.

I'll never understand this. Vegetarians can easily eat a vegan meal. (I was always thrilled to get a vegan meal even when I was ovo-lacto.) Why not make the most inclusive choice?

So I was at a catered event on Saturday and I had asked for a salad with no cheese and they got me one, and then I stepped away from the table to talk to some old friends elsewhere and when I came back they were serving entrees and the people at my table had told the server I was vegan and they were making me up a vegan meal! How awesome is that? I mean it was bucket o' veggies, but it was actually good!! (you know, grilled portobello topped with veggies over a balsamic reduction kind of thing) And I thought that was so nice of them to look out for me like that. (These were wives of my husband's coworkers at our table)

Had a potluck at work, and my co-workers are American Standard Diet omni's with exactly 1 adventurous eater who is always ready to be a taste tester for the food I make. I didn't want to send them running, so I thought that Isa's cashew queso and the chocolate bundt cake recipe she recently posted would be safe. Man, they scarfed that stuff down. Most made a point of coming up to me, complimenting the food, and asking the "what kind of vegan voodoo magic is in there?!? Its awesome!" Several asked for recipes as well. It was a good potluck day. (Thanks Isa!)

I went to a vegan friendly place for my birthday dinner. They serve all organic/sustainable food, and have a seperate vegan and GF menu. Fancy place, really nice wine list too. It was just going to be me and my honey, but then unexpectedly my siblings and some others wanted to come.

They tried some of the vegan stuff and were like, astonished that it was good (they are VERY skeptical of my diet, they all think vegan food is gross and I will die of malnutrition. They are big foodies and my bro is a doctor. So yeah..no)

Best part was, I found that my server was vegan, and we shared some tips on making Seitan. He makes his own Tempeh! I told him about the PPK, maybe we will see him around here. He said that a LOT of the staff is vegan, and all their wines are vegan too.

Vegan birthday dinner win.

The pescatarian at work borrowed my copy of AFR today.

Every day this week at work people have come up to the tea room to ask what the nice smell was. It was my lunch as usual.

A coworker noticed last week that I was reading VCTOTW, and today he brought in a book about vegan food substitutions that he had at home to share with me. I know he's not vegan, but it is a very nice gesture.

I just emailed the coordinator of a poetry-workshop-festival-thing I'm attending about the catered lunch with a polite note that I'm vegan and it would just be nice to know what lunch would entail so I can plan accordingly. Turns out she's vegetarian and gluten free and she's going to see to it personally that they have something vegan for me. Nice people are the best!