Babeland's Jaguar Harness is now vegan, according to Shewired. No leather necessary for super good times!
The insanely timely hilarious geniuses at Vegansaurus gave us a recipe for a vegan version of KFC's heart-clogging, rotting body parts, media darling sandwich, the Double Down. Oh my god, Rudy, get your deep fryer.
As of this week, Mondays are vegetarian days in San Francisco, the Board of Supervisors declared in a resolution Tuesday. Yaaaayyyy! Whatever it means in practice, we like the theory and hope it means more delicious veggies for all.
Since life isn't all fried seitan and Meatless Mondays, and because you need something to show your friend who doesn't understand that egg farming causes suffering, we give you the Humane Society of the United States's latest undercover investigation, released Wednesday. Warning: you might puke.
In restaurant news, Souen on 13th Street will close for several months starting next week to renovate, so if you like your hippie food served in a hippie restaurant, go eat there right now, hippie.
'sNice Soho will open NEXT WEEK so get in a sandwich-y, coffee-y mood with me!
Oh, and in other 'sNice news! Two of their employees were stabbed last month (shocking and horrible, i know!), so 'sNice in the West Village is having a benefit to support them on Sunday, April 11, 6-9 p.m. $10 at the door. There will be vegan pigs in a blanket! And me! I will be there!
State Senate majority leader Dean Florez introduced a bill today that would require California animal abusers to list themselves in a registry, as is currently done with sex offenders and arsonists. Yay, public shaming of horrible, deliberately perpetrated atrocities!
According to the Animal League Defense Fund, who is supporting the registry effort with its new campaign, www.ExposeAnimalAbusers.org, the bill would include "violence (torture, mutilation, intentional killings, etc.), sexual abuse, and animal fighting as well as neglect (such as hoarding)."
"We operate shelters in the hopes of giving abandoned pets a second chance at a loving home, not subjecting them to lives of continued abuse and neglect," Florez, a Democrat and chairman of the Food and Agriculture Committee, said in a press conference this morning. "A registry of abusers would help ensure animals are not being adopted out to convicted abusers, end the cycle of abuse and increase the likelihood of finding these pets the forever home they deserve."
You can sign the petition to ask that your state force animal abusers to register.
Read more in the New York Times and watch Florez's press conference announcement below.
Susan Asasto's blue-ribbon-winning Apple Pie with Crunchy Pecan Topping
I'd like to nominate Susan Asato for Super Vegan status. This lady submitted several hand-cooked vegan creations to the Orange County County Fair and took home some distinctions:
Vegan Sun Dried Tomato Cornbread Muffins - 1st place Muffins, plus Division Winner for Quickbreads (muffins, scones, loaf pan breads, coffee cakes, etc.)
Vegan Chili with Beans - Honorable Mention, Chili Cookoff
Vegan Apple Pie with Crunchy Pecan Topping (recipe below!) - 1st place, Pie Contest
Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies with Pecans (recipe below!) - 2nd place, Chocolate Chip Cookies with Nuts
Keep in mind, these competed against "regular" foodstuffs, not in some "special needs eaters" category, so kudos to you, Susan, for raising the esteem of vegan cuisine!
Here are two of her award winning recipes for you to bake for me (double up and follow a "one for you, one for me" policy of vegan baking):
This May, Josh Hooten, owner of Herbivore Clothing Company, will ride his bicycle 600 miles from his hometown Portland, OR to Farm Sanctuary's West Coast headquarters in Orland, CA. The ambitious bike ride is both a celebration of his 10 year veganversary and a benefit for Farm Sanctuary. Hooten hopes his feat will inspire folks to make donations amounting to $10,000 to the 20 year old organization that has rescued thousands of animals, saves even more through education and advocacy, and largely influenced his own decision to go vegan.
Visit Josh Hooten's fundraising page to make a donation. (Josh encourages you to get drunk before doing this.) Once you've emptied your bank account, entertain yourself by reading his blog, which chronicles his transition from a regular dude to a cycling machine putting out a whopping 80 miles a day.
Dairy farmers slaughtered 30 percent more cows in January than in September and are sending the cows' remains to the meat market to cut losses, the Associated Press reports.
The cost of producing milk is now double the price to consumers and the industry is having trouble keeping up. "This could destroy our dairy infrastructure," Mike Marsh, CEO of the United Western Dairymen trade association, told the AP.
For a moment, imagine if the burden of Wall Street executives (and, hey, even that of dairy farmers) were alleviated using the same strategy farmers are using to lighten the self-imposed burden of their dairy cows. Those who proved to be worth much less than their paychecks could be sent off to slaughter and made into meat patties, or better, veal--us desk-tethered humans don't get much exercise--and sold to feed all the people who are furiously digging through their purses for a few more cents to afford a can of chicken noodle soup at Gristedes.
And dairy cows aren't the only bovines the farming industry is killing prematurely (by their standards). Bull calves shipped off to feedlots to reach a weight deemed appropriate for slaughter are also a liability to the cattle livestock industry; the costs of rearing the young cows are gaining on the returns. Farm Sanctuary is offering a $2,000 reward for information leading to the discovery of the party who dumped 30 bull calves on roads in San Joaquin County, Calif. Nearly 50 calves have been dumped on roads in that county since January.
The first Philadelphia Vegan Drinks will be on Thursday, February 19 (hey, that's today!) from 5:30 to 8:30 pm, in the downstairs lounge at Horizons, 611 South 7th Street in Center City.
The first San Francisco Vegan Drinks will be on Thursday, February 26th, from 6-8 pm, at Martuni's, 4 Valencia Street, at Market. They will be held the last Thursday of each month.
The first Twin Cities Vegan Drinks will be on Saturday, March 7 at 7pm, at Fast & Furless and ARC's shared space, 2615 East Franklin Ave, Minneapolis, 55406. Each month will feature a theme drink - March is cosmopolitans!
The next New York Vegan Drinks will be on Thursday, February 26, 2009 (same day as SF!) at Angels & Kings as usual.
...we're friends for the moment, at least until Thanksgiving...
Meet Novella Carpenter, Oakland, California resident, urban farmer and former vegetarian turned conscientious carnivore. In the new issue of Utne Magazine she talks about what it's like to both raise meat and farm in urban setting (appropriately title Blood & Guts) What's most telling about this piece is not about urban farming at all; instead it is her troubling views on her time as a vegetarian:
I think [my] philosophy was really juvenile. It's hoping something doesn't have to die. It's very Babe or Charlotte's Web. But the final, logical conclusion to being a vegetarian or vegan is that farm animals will cease to exist.
And on conscientious meat eating:
A lot of my vegan and vegetarian friends have told me, 'This is the only acceptable way for you to eat meat.' I think that's true. You see the conditions that [factory-farmed animals live] in. If it's this mindless thing where you don't know where the meat came from, you don't know how it died; to me that's kind of gross.
Could her example be a clear case against movements such as Proposition 2, the possible consequences brought on by the animal welfare movement and the push towards so-called "humane meat"?
Anyone who is given to gobbling up their share of the vegan blog-o-sphere will surely remember the kind of seismic reverberations Urban Houswife'sVegan Candy Corn had on the world of vegan food porn. If cruelty-free treats do anything besides send vegans into a dizzy tizzy, it's get them talking.
Since then, Melisser has transformed her blog from vegan mainstay to a definitive destination for baking aficionados of all stripes and has even blessed the San Francisco area by creating her own vegan baking company: Sugar Beat Sweets.
