The Long Island Food Not Bombs (L.I. F.N.B.) chapter gets sh*t done. They coordinate three food shares (Hempstead, Huntington and Farmingville) each week; redistribute clothes, toys and books; and many L.I. F.N.B. activists also carve out time in their busy schedules to volunteer with the Food Not Bombs chapters (Bed-Stuy, Bushwick and Manhattan) in New York City.

Naturally, L.I. F.N.B. did not balk at the prospect of redistributing a 2,000 pound donation from Soyatoo. So, if you want to see what 2,000 pounds of vegan whipped cream looks like, get thee to Long Island this weekend for the start of "Long Island Food Not Bombs Thanksgiving Bonanza"!

The third installment of Veggie Conquest took place this past weekend and it was another smashing success.

In case you missed the introductory blog post, Veggie Conquest is an amateur cooking competition similar to Top Chef... except that it's not televised. Oh yeah, and it's ENTIRELY VEGAN! The event is held monthly, and you can buy a chef ticket in order to be part of the competition or a taster ticket for an excuse to stuff your face. There are generally about six chefs participating and sixty-five tasters in attendance. One week prior all ticket holders are notified of the "secret ingredient" and course to be prepared so that menus and taste buds can be primed.

This time around it was cranberry dessert and the submissions were incredible. Though not normally a big fan of cranberries, I was surprised to find how sweet and delicious they were incorporated into such delights as "Double Cranberry Cinnamon Oatmeal Nut Bar," "Almond Crusted Chocolate Cranberry Mousse," "Cran Velvet Cake," and the inventive (and winning) "Rice Crepe with Cran-Ginger Sauce." I was not as much of a fan of the raw submission, "Cranbanapple Parfait"; the texture was too much like a runny pudding for my taste. Neither was I impressed by the "Swedish-Style Charoset," submitted more as comedic performance art than recipe contender.

As most vegans know, the biggest thing to hit our culinary universe this year is Daiya. It's a totally yummy vegan cheese that melts and shreds just like dairy cheese. (Check out SuperVegan's love-letter, er, review.)

We thought we'd take a look behind the curtain and find out more about the wizards behind this new Canada-based cheesy phenomenon. Here they are, the Daiya Dudes. Andre Kroecher is the mad-scientist inventor of Daiya, and co-founder of the company with business-savvy Greg Blake.

SuperVegan: Why did you set out to create vegan cheese and what were your main criteria?

Andre Kroecher: I have always really loved dishes such as pizza, lasagna, quesadillas, burritos, which typically have cheese in them. Being a vegan though, I found that simply removing the cheese from these left me terribly disappointed. I tried replacing the cheese with extra salt and olive oil, but to me the taste and texture is just not nearly as satisfying.

Having a background of more than 10 years experience as a product developer, I had a real passion for trying to invent a vegan cheese that might actually have the properties of real cheese. I also love imported exotic cheeses and other European cheeses like havarti, so I decided to just start experimenting to see if I could make something that would satisfy me more than the other [products] out there. I tend to naturally approach things in an unconventional way and this yielded some unexpected results. Eventually, I developed a block of something quite like a soft havarti style cheese.

Greg Blake: When I tried the havarti style cheese Andre made I was convinced that it had commercial potential, but what would be even better would be to create a cheddar and mozzarella style vegan cheese that actually tasted, shredded, sliced and melted like dairy-based cheese.

Writer Jonathan Safran Foer's been getting a lot of media attention lately for the just published Eating Animals, his first book-length piece of nonfiction, which is very much against the eponymous activity. I haven't read it, and I don't expect that I (or most SuperVegan readers) will learn much from it that we don't already know about what's wrong with eating animals. This is not a book written for vegans. But it's a book that vegans ought to have some understanding of.

For better or worse, an established literary novelist like Foer can get people to pay attention to what's wrong with factory farming in a way that more academic or of-the-movement authors such as Peter Singer or Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson cannot. And Foer is relatively folksy and accessible (if not artless) compared to someone like J.M. Coetzee, whose arguments in defense of animals are unapologetically over most people's heads, and who isn't about to do a bunch of press interviews.

Foer finds lots of problems with industrial animal agriculture, and with eating meat in a general ethical sense, but he does not come down against non-meat or non-food animal products. This is a book about meat. That's got a lot of vegans understandably perturbed--an influential guy sets up a strong argument for many tenets of veganism, yet fails to go there. Mainstream media may not care, but it's important for us vegans to understand why Foer isn't vegan, and how he feels about veganism.

Josh Hooten of Herbivore attended a talk by Foer last night at Powell's Books in Portland, OR. Hooten is the right kind of vegan, and he wrote a great report/defense on the talk (which he posted on Facebook, and graciously allowed me to republish here.) Here's the first and last sentences, and you can read the whole thing below.

Foer isn't an animal rights person, he is coming from outside our community and perhaps that is why he is getting the attention he's getting for his new book Eating Animals.
...
As a messenger getting people to think about this stuff for the first time, I think he's amazing.

As readers know, October was the third annual Vegan Month of Food. Started by celebrity chef Isa Chandra Moskowitz, vegan mofos everywhere posted daily blogs in celebration of our favorite subject — food! Vegan Month of Food kicked off with World Vegetarian Day and ends with a bang tomorrow at the Boston Vegetarian Food Festival. In addition to this sandwich of events, here is a completely subjective roundup of things that made October one mofo of a month!

In the Mainstream

Vegan for the Animals
Author Jonathan Safran Foer made a big splash with a taster from his new book Eating Animals, published as a feature article in the NY Times Magazine's Food issue. After reading Eating Animals, actress Natalie Portman went vegan and announced her reasons in her essay "Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals Turned Me Vegan" for the Huffington Post (that counts as a MoFo blog, right?). Blink 182 drummer (and rehabilitated puppy-juicer) Travis Barker has once again seen the light. He says he's back to being vegetarian and "almost full blown vegan now."

Vegan for the Environment
We've been saying it all along but it looks like we may finally be arriving at a tipping point. Even mainstream sources and enviro orgs are agreeing that eating meat causes global warming and going veg reduces your carbon footprint. Omnivore's Dilemma author and foodie darling Michael Pollan stuck his foot in it by stating: "A vegan in a Hummer has a lighter carbon footprint than a beef eater in a Prius." Then retracted the statement the next day. I thought it was fuzzy math to begin with (here's an interview with one of the original researchers and number crunchers), but I hope his blunder doesn't cloud the issue, which is that vegans have a substantially lighter overall effect on the environment than meat-eaters. Duh. Joining the bandwagon, the WorldWatch Institute's latest magazine asks the question, "Carnivorism and climate change: Is it worse than we thought?"

People in this town are convinced they are bagel experts. They know the best shop, the appropriate hour to stop in and what combination of toppings rounds it all out. What makes a NYC bagel better than the ones in other cities? It's not the water, it's the attitude.

The gluten-tolerant SuperVegan staff members want to help you locate the best bagels in the bagel capital of the world:

Deborah Diamant insists that Bergen Bagels (473 Bergen St., Brooklyn) toasts her whole wheat everything bagel before applying a liberal layer of scallion tofu.

Jason Das can be found eating a whole wheat sesame bagel with scallion tofu, cucumber and tomato at Bagel Bob's (51 University Pl., Manhattan).

Olivia Lane, who buys her bagels at Earthmatters (177 Ludlow St., Manhattan), thinks bagels are best nude, like all great things.

Patrick Kwan loves Bagels On the Square (7 Carmine St., Manhattan) where he orders a toasted sun-dried tomato bagel with sun-dried tomato tofu for an über tomato kick.

Tod Emko keeps it simple at Bagels & More (331 Lexington Ave., Manhattan) with plain tofu on a whole wheat bagel.

Our vegan accountant, Kim, is a fan of Terrace Bagels (224 Prospect Park West, Brooklyn) and thinks toasted plain bagels with sliced tomatoes is a tasty, economically sound meal.

What's your favorite bagel, Dear Reader?

This is one of Supervegan's posts for Vegan MoFo 2009.

Today's was, in all likelihood, my last — and I have to say, best — meal at Madras Café, the beloved East Village kosher vegetarian Indian restaurant (that beats the pants off the 6th Street cluster). Reviewer evelinemater tipped us off to the restaurant's closing, which could happen any time, says owner Manny, and could be as soon as Saturday — eep! If you're hankering for one of their dosas, a garlic paratha, or some channa saag, get thee to Madras immediately! This is your last chance!

Or maybe not. Manny says he plans to reopen Madras, with the same menu, at some unknown location on Long Island (please be in Farmingdale, please be in Farmingdale). He owns another, non-vegetarian restaurant in Flushing that will remain open.

So tonight I say a tearful Farewell, Madras. Farewell to your creamy coconut korma, your succulent soy chunks, your veggie-packed biryani, your vegan lassis, your spicy coconut chutney, and even your fluffy white rice. Goodnight, Madras. Goodnight sweet Madras!

This is one of Supervegan's posts for Vegan MoFo 2009.

UPDATE, 11/13: Madras is still open with no update on when they will close. Why do they play with us so?

That's Oh My Gosh Cupcakes, and yes, they will make you shout their namesake phrase. This afternoon I sat down with a couple of friends to enjoy the goodies Andie and her crew baked and delivered (on time and beautifully packaged in corn-based plastic cupcake holders). Let's meet the edibles!

Carrot Cake
The first cupcake we tried, the carrot cake concoction, is my favorite, and I'll tell you why: it is perfect. I know you can barely stand superlatives so I have to explain myself the only way I know how -- with a list.
1. The carrot flavor is king to the raisin and vanilla peasantry.
2. It has a tight crumb without being too dense.
3. The sweet, decadent icing complements a cake that could knock a man down on its own.
4. Extra points for mini carrot decoration on top.
My only complaint is that it contains raisins, but I can't criticize it for that since most people like raisins and wouldn't call this carrot cake without them. If you like raisins, or even if you aren't hot on them, take it from a woman who usually can't stand 'em: you will love this cake.

Ikea restaurants are pretty great places to eat. The views are killer (at least in Red Hook and South Philly, the only Ikeas I've eaten at recently) and the food is dirt cheap. While they're not all that vegan-friendly, I'm quite happy with getting french fries, salad, coffee, and a veggie wrap, all for about $6.

I'd also become quite a fan of Ikea's dark chocolate, Choklad Mörk, which boasts all-vegan ingredients and a respectable enough 60% cocoa content, and is a pretty good deal at 100g for 99¢. After a year or so of eating Mörk, I took a closer look at the nutrition info and was shocked to discover 4mg cholesterol per serving listed in the nutritional information panel.

I always thought dietary cholesterol only occurred in animal products. Yet all of the listed ingredients are vegan. Is there some animal ingredient in the chocolate that is not listed, or is the nutritional breakdown incorrect? (I am assuming that the "may contain traces of egg and milk protein" refers only to shared manufacturing equipment and would not account for such a significant amount of cholesterol being present.) A bit of internet researching reveals that plants do contain a small amount of cholesterol. But it's a tiny amount.

The Curious Waveform blog cites a study in the Journal of Chemical Education which claims this is uncommon knowledge even amongst chemists, and points out that "the USDA does not state the existence of cholesterol when it is less than 2 mg/serving, which is the case with plant products."

I've got Peter Gabriel's song "Big Time" stomping through my head. Here's why: The all-vegan cookbook by Chef Tal Ronnen, Conscious Cook: Delicious Meatless Recipes to Change the Way You Eat (which was released on October 6), is now number three on Amazon's bestseller list and number two on Barnes & Noble's.

I'm on my way, I'm making it: Big Time!

Chef Tal is beloved by many, but perhaps the most influential in the Tal Fanclub is Oprah Winfrey. (I'm not one to really care about celebrities, but even I admit she's pretty big-time.) Conscious Cook was featured on her show yesterday. For those not in the know, Tal Ronnen was Oprah's personal chef for her 21-day vegan 'cleanse'. Check out today's headline on her home page under the Food section--there's a picture of Chef Tal and the headline: "Go vegetarian with recipes from The Conscious Cook."

Chef Tal is a vegan evangelist through food. Aside from being a creative chef who rubs elbows with the highest echelons of celebrity, Ronnen serves as an adviser to college and corporate cafeterias on veganizing their menus and has worked with major gourmet vegan restaurants (read his official bio). He also helped in the development of the new vegan meat-replacer Gardein (check out SuperVegan's reviews of Gardein).