For the past 131 years, all Brooks saddles have been made of leather, and thus irrelevant to vegans, except as objects scorn or guilty envy. No longer! The Brooks Cambium saddle is available for preorder. They’re nearly “all natural”–made mostly of rubber, organic cotton, aluminum, and steel, and the parts are all replaceable or repairable. At £145 (about $225), they’re not cheap, but plenty of Brooks leather saddles cost just as much. And they’ll presumably last longer than you or the rest of your bicycle.

If you want to try one, but aren’t ready to buy one, it looks like they are still registering testers, as they add new models to the Cambium line.

If you like limited editions, note that there’s an “initial limited run of 500 pieces. Each saddle has its number etched to the nose rivet. There are a further 500 in this series (numbered #501 to #1000) which will be made available as soon as the first 500 are gone. And when all one thousand pieces have found homes, the C17 will go on general sale.”

It could take a while to actually get your hands (or, should I say, your scranus or vulvanus) on one. As the Brooks shop says, “beware that it could take up to 3 months before you get your CAMBIUM Saddle. Only 300 Gents and 100 Ladies CAMBIUM Saddles will be delivered within the end of July, the rest are going to be produced and dispatched in September after our dear workers return from their summer holidays.” Yeah, they’re made in England by people with vacation benefits and all that good stuff.

This is a really commendable step for Brooks, and a huge improvement over their “eco-friendly” organic leather saddles from a couple years back (each “marked in such a way that we can identify the exact cow from where the leather came” *shudder*).

Let us know if you’ve tried a Cambium, or if you’re planning to buy one!

Vendors include:

• Alchemy Creamery – Cool down with a sampling of gourmet ice creams like Dark Chocolate Chai, Coconut Green Tea, & Cranberry White Grape! (gluten free)

• Heirloom Eatery - Get snacky with homemade classics like Meatball Heroes, Steak Sandwiches, Kale Chips, and Sriracha Cupcakes!

• Treeline Cheese - These sell like hot cakes, so buy early! Outstanding aged Cashew Cheese Wheels in Smoke or Pepper, and silky Scallion Cream Cheese! (gluten & soy free)

• Lael Cakes – Find your sweet tooth through beautiful Coconut Rum Cake w/ Passion Fruit Icing, Lemon Poppy Cake w/ Lavender Rosemary Icing, and Mint Chocolate Chunk Cookies! (gluten, soy & nut free)

• Heat Sweets - Try the brand new sweet ‘n’ spicy Jalapeno Mango Carrot Fruit Leather! Plus pick up specially priced gift sets of mini hot jellies and relishes!

• Monks Meats – You won’t go hungry after Mushroom Pepper Steak Sandwiches, the ultimate Lasagna, and Stewed Pot Roast Hot Pockets! Not to mention all 4 flavors of seitan sold in half pound containers.

• Gone Pie – Get stocked up on the best of the best like Vanilla Macaroons, Chocolate Almond Tarts, Choc-Covered Tahini Cookies, Carrot Cake w/ Caramashew Cream Cheese Frosting, Brownies, and more! (gluten free)

• Vegan Bodega – Check out their new products like Jerky from Morels The Vegan Butcher and Coconut Bacon from Phoney Baloney’s!

• Green Pirate Juice Truck - Not only can you score the most amazing, healthful drinks around like Walk The Plank(a superfood green juice) and Monkey Vibes(banana berry coco choco smoothie), but you’re gifted 15% off any 3 or 5 day Juice Cleanse Package when you sign up this Saturday!! Not to be missed!

And that’s just a wink of the findings you’ll see this Saturday! Let’s not forget Donuts from Cinnamon Snail Food Truck, Fresh Juice Ice Pops from Monster Haus, Ethiopian Brunch by Bunna Cafe, and Raw Cookie Confections by Sweet.!

You can also bake for them! Lots and lots of details are on the Facebook page.

You can even ignore the baked goods and just buy some shoes or whatever from Moo Shoes; they’re donating 10% of the day’s sales to Sea Shepherd.

Vegan Valentine’s Shop-Up
Saturday, February 9th
12- 5pm
Pine Box Rock Shop
12 Grattan St.
Bushwick, Brooklyn
FREE!

We have a full list of lusty and talented vendors, both new and old! Visions of heart shaped cookies, glittering bon bons, sweet scented gift boxes, and charm filled chocolates will deck out Pine Box Rock Shop on Saturday, Feb. 9th, from 12-5p. Don’t forget, it’s also happy hour!

Handspun yarns + gourmet nut cheeses + tea blends + grooming products + seitan + yogurt + specialty cinnamon rolls + eco-clothing + cake truffles + kombucha + gluten-free goods = YOUR BEST DAY EVER.

Come on out for a day of celebrating, munching, sipping, hanging, nuzzling, winking, snacking, sweethearting, and just plain fun having. Thanks for <3 ‘ing us enough to be around this long. This year we’re trying something new and bringing you a Shop-Up EVERY MONTH!”

Because Valen-times may evil, but seitan is delicious!

And did you see that at the end about the Vegan Shop-Ups happening every month?!

Plant Based Solutions founder David Benzaquen

Plant Based Solutions is a new consultancy offering sales and marketing advice to vegan food manufacturers, and also helping businesses that buy, sell, and serve food to offer more and better vegan options.

Some food manufacturers PBS is working with include The Vegg, DF Mavens ice cream, Treeline Cheese, and Chicago Vegan Foods. You’ll get to try products from those companies and more at the Plant Based Solutions launch party along with a great menu (details below) from the always excellent Chickpea & Olive.

The launch party will be held from 6-8:30pm on Saturday, January 12 at  Metropolitan Community Church of New York,  446 West 36th Street, between 9th & 10th Avenues, NYC.

Plant Based Solutions founder David Benzaquen is a long-time vegan, and  has worked as a lobbyist and political organizer for various organizations, including three years at Farm Sanctuary. (Do you remember a guy who used to show up at Vegan Drinks dressed in a cow suit? That’s David!)

I asked him a bunch of questions about PBS and Saturday’s event.

Jason: Why start Plant Based Solutions now? Is the U.S. more ready for than this than we would have been, say, 5 years ago?

David: 2013 is the breakout year for veganism. The last few years have seen a huge jump in flexitarianism with the success of campaigns like Meatless Mondays. Now, as meat and dairy prices skyrocket, and Americans are becoming more aware of the impacts of a plant-based diet on health, the environment, and animal protection, veganism is on the rise like never before. Just weeks ago, the Values Institute at DGWB, a national consumer research institute predicted veganism to be one of the top 5 health trends of 2013. In their release, they said, “Last year’s rise of the flexitarians is foreshadowing a trend toward meatless eating and outright veganism, vegetarianism’s older brother. Look for herbivore-accommodating menus at restaurants on both coasts to start migrating to mid-America in 2013.”

In addition, the market for vegan businesses has blossomed in recent years with major financial backers (like venture capital giant Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield, and Byers) flooding the industry with funding for meat and dairy alternatives.

Why are you the guy to start this company?

Growing up in a family surrounded by people working in finance, I learned from an early age how to speak and think like a business person. I then was fortunate to spend years building friendships with hundreds of compassionate and strategic leaders in the animal protection and vegan food worlds. As someone with a background in lobbying (ethically) and community organizing, I know how to sell the purest product: ideas. Plant-Based Solutions is about helping to sell fantastic products and telling a story of a world in which doing good is good business.

Do you have any initiatives underway you can tell us about?

We are so fortunate that we can work with both larger, more established companies, and smaller businesses that are just launching. In the next few months, we’ll be working on some exciting product rollouts that take quality to another level in vegan cheese, desserts, and more.

We are also working with some chain restaurants and food service providers that are hungry for opportunities to meet their customers’ demand for vegan foods across the nation. All I can say for now is to stay tuned to PlantBasedSolutions.co to hear more!

OK, that’s vague, but I understand you can’t  give away too many details yet!

What’s your advice to our readers who have a relationship with an institution that should have more vegan food (a school, workplace, restaurant, cultural institution, etc.)?

Ask for it! Businesses depend on customers. As ethical consumers, our buying power is our vote for good, but we can’t vote if we don’t ask stores to put our favorite products on the ballot!

So many stores and restaurants I’ve encouraged to carry vegan products tell me that doing so was the best business decision they’ve ever made and that they just wish someone had introduced them to those products sooner.

Are you dealing with food only, or also animal-product alternatives in other industries?

Right now we are focusing on food and we are excited at all the opportunities to keep us busy there. Time will tell what we do in the future.

I was psyched to see Chickpea & Olive is doing the food for your launch party. What’s on the menu?

I’m psyched too! The folks at Chickpea & Olive really prove how great vegan, organic, local food can be. They are also among the nicest people I have the pleasure of working with and I’m thrilled to have them catering the event. The mouthwatering menu featuring some of the hottest vegan foods is:

• Caesar salad lettuce cup
• Bruschette three ways
  • Portobello mousse
  • Butternut squash escabeche with dandelion pesto
  • Treeline black pepper cheese
• Raviolo fritto stuffed with Treeline cashew cheese and beets, with a lemon-caper hollandaise sauce (sauce made with The Vegg).
• Arancini stuffed with Gardein vegan chicken breast, Teese coconut cheese mozzarella, and marinara sauce
• Portobello steak spiadini with cauliflower, dandelion greens, and a polenta fritter
• Chocolate ganache tartlet with DF Mavens mango ice cream

Yum! I hope lots of SuperVegan readers can make it to the event to eat that food.

Congratulations on the launch, and I’m looking forward to Plant Based Solutions making this a more vegan world!

The LA SV HQ packed-up the ol’ Prius and headed north for the holidays. We ate a lot of truly delicious things along the way. Here’s our foodiary:

First stop was Sunnyvale, CA. We celefeasted at Great Vegi Land, whose owner stayed open late just for us, so we ordered half the menu! This is the kind of vegan restaurant that also abstains from onions and garlic, two of my favorite things:

Top row: Hot & Sour Soup, Tofu Clay Pot, Mao Pao Tofu With “Fish”
Bottom row: Dry Salted String Beans, Veggie Beef With Black Pepper Sauce, Kung Pao Veggie Chicken

We sandwich’d at Ike’s and then tweeted with the man himself about getting a location for ourselves in LA:

Vegan Captain Kirk, Vegan Pilgrim, Vegan Chocolate Chili Banana Cookie From Cake Monkey

We ate until all the food was gone at Merit Vegetarian, my fav:

Spicy Delight, Mocha Chocolate Cake, Strawberry Cheese Cake, and Vietnamese Crepe

We left Sunnyvale and continued north to Hiouchi, where the food paled in comparison to the trees. We went on a hike through Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park and found Grove Of The Titans, a secret trove of trees the size of skyscrapers.We actually had a couple other dishes, but they were so good I forgot to photograph them!

That’s SV mascot Argon, a XL dog.

Then our pilgrimage to vegan Mecca began: PORTLAND!

We had sweet and savory vegan waffles from The Heart Cart:

Chocolate, Peanut Butter, Banana, Coconut Waffle, The Heart Cart, Gravy & Kale Waffle

We were Hungry Tigers Too!:

Spicy Wings, Corn Dog Basket and Portland Scramble with Biscuits and Gravy

We had Chili Pie at The Bye And Bye:

And a Brussel Sprout Bowl, too.

We had approximately 4 doughnuts each at Voodoo Doughnut:

Check out some video of their revolving doughnut display of doom!

We finished-out 2012 with two exceptional meals, the first was at Blossoming Lotus:

Potato Leek Soup, Crispy Thai Wrap, Whiskey Ginger BBQ Sandwich

And the second was at the dimly lit and hard to photograph Bamboo Sushi:

310 Roll (marinated fried tofu, roasted peppers, cucumbers, asparagus and yamagobo wrapped with avocado and sweet shitake glaze), PDX Roll (tempura shishito pepper, smoked pickled asparagus, pickled shitake, pickled red onion garlic tofu aioli and shitake glaze– so hard to photograph, so delicious to eat), Coconut Panna Cotta in a Yuzu Sour Cherry Reduction and a Sesame Granola Tuile.

An amazing way to ring in the new year!

We started 2013 off right with some pizza at Sizzle Pie:

Apocalypse Dudes Slice, Spinal Tap Slice, Caligula Salad

And a new pair of kicks! Some Movmt sneakers while listening to MGMT courtesy The Shoe Store, which has a fabulous vegan footwear selection.

Sadly, we had to leave Vegadise (vegan paradise) and begin the long journey home. Don’t worry Portland, Jason and I will be back to eat the rest of you during the Vida Vegan Con in May! There was some emergency Taco Belling, but there was also this lovely Summer Harvest Salad (in the middle of winter) with oriental sesame dressing at the Black Bear Diner in Mt. Shasta:

And a tasty lunch at The Plum Cafe in Sacramento.

3 Baha Street Tacos, A Peanut Butter Creamy and an Entertainer, Award Winning California Burger and fries

And after approximately 80,000 hours in the car and one last run for the border, we made it home only to find that our waistlines hadn’t.

Eat anything amazing over the holidays? Let us know in the comments!

Get ye out to Bushwick this Saturday (December 15) or next (December 22) for the Vegan Shop-Up! It takes place from noon to 5pm at Pine Box Rock Shop at 12 Grattan Street in Bushwick, Brooklyn. (It’s right by the Morgan L train stop and in the cute touristy part of Bushwick, so if you’ve never been out there before, just go.)

They don’t seem to have posted the vendor list yet for the 15th and 22nd, but last week’s list ought to excite you plenty. Expect repeats.

While these are ostensibly for you to buy holiday gifts at (and you can certainly do that!) they are also an excellent opportunity for you to eat a lot of great vegan food. My advice: don’t go to brunch first. Just gorge on food from the Shop-Up vendors and one (or three!) of Pinebox’s ridiculous salad-in-a-glass Bloody Marys.

Heads up, Cheese Alternative Shoppers– you might be perplexed when looking for your favorite Galaxy Nutritional Foods product at the market starting later this week.

For some business-ey type reasons I don’t fully care to understand, Galaxy is renaming itself GO Veggie! (Yes, the exclamation point is included). I’m pretty sure this re-branding is going to make all the difference for them.

If you’d like to know more, go here and read on.

Hello all you compassionate people! Do you like vegan food, LUSH products, tripod dogs, massages, facials, world-saving jewelry, and videos of fatty puppies and kittens and sea lions? Come this Sunday to the Darwin Animal Doctors (DAD) Charity Pot Party by LUSH on the Upper West Side!

DAD is planning a December campaign in the Galapagos Islands, with a vet and two vet techs, to treat as many animals of Galapagos as possible before the Christmas holiday, and to spread as much humane education as possible. And before we embark on this trip, we’ll be supporting as many animals displaced or hurt by Hurricane Sandy as possible. To fundraise for all these efforts, LUSH is giving us a Charity Pot Party this Sunday.

Darwin Animal Doctors’ Spokesdog Piggy (left), taking care of Sneakers (middle) and Tobie (right), two displaced doggies from Hurricane Sandy

If you come, you can learn how LUSH helps to fund activism and causes like DAD’s humane education program in Galapagos, and watch videos of our work and humane education on the islands. Stay to get a massage for charity, enjoy a facial by LUSH, eat delicious bake sale items, meet our spokesdoggy Piggy, enter a LUSH raffle, and peruse our merchandise, including hand-made jewelry that locals on Galapagos have recycled from paper, plastic, and other waste on Galapagos. Proceeds will go to help fund our December campaign, as well as rescue efforts in post-hurricane NYC.

And most importantly, no one leaves a LUSH store or event without smelling AWESOME. See you there!

Where: LUSH, Broadway btwn W 76th and W 77th Sts.
When: Sunday, November 11th, from 1pm to 5pm
What: Massage chair (gas permitting transport of the chair), facials, LUSH raffle, sweet and savory bake sale items, hand-made Galapagos jewelry, merchandise with cute animals, and a tripod dog!
Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/events/125403100944403/?fref=ts

Attention Los Angelenos!

Whatever you have planned for tomorrow, scrap it in favor of this:

Melie Bianco Sample Sale

Via warehouseweekends.com “Shop the runway-inspired vegan handbag collection of Melie Bianco during the company’s Sample Sale on November 10th. At 70% – 90% discounts, prices will start at just $5 with nothing priced above $30. Download the flyer in the details section to receive a free iPhone case. CASH ONLY!!”

Saturday, November 10th 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM
9545 Brasher St.
Pico Rivera, CA 90060

Cause we like you to look goooood, Super Vegans.

By the time I got to The Seed: A Vegan Experience at 2pm (5 hours before closing) on Saturday, almost all of everybody’s free food samples had run out. So I guess they got a lot more people than certain vendors were expecting! Hopefully they will overcompensate for Sunday and those of you going will get to totally pig out.

You can get some pretty rad food without even going in. Parked outside is The Cinnamon Snail (pretty much the best vegan restaurant in NYC these days), and for those who prefer shorter lines, Mac’n, “Miami’s original vegan food truck”. Mac’n has some pretty darned tasty mac’n'cheese and battered-tofu sandwiches. They say they plan to stick around NYC a few months, so hopefully you’ll all get to try their tasty fare even if you can’t stop by the Seed on Sunday.

One of the best things about the Seed is that it’s big and varied enough that everyone will like something there. I happily ignored all the yoga and “nutritional” cleansing booths, but if you like that stuff there’s plenty (and you can ignore all the tables with free chocolate). The space at 82Mercer is really nice. Classic giant Soho loft with nice big windows and fancy amenities. It was plenty lively but never overwhelmingly crowded … surely one of the benefits of the $25 ticket price.

I’m going to keep this post as positive as I can—only focus on calling out stuff I liked. But I do have to include one big honkin’ putrid-grapes negative. The first booth I get to when I walk in is Yelp’s. An inevitably boring table, but whatever—they were a big sponsor so they get a prime table. They had some freebies out … ball-point pens (sure, I’ll take one), lip balm (what?! free vegan lip balm! Go Yelp!!) and one last remaining tin of mints. So I take a look at the Yelpstick, curious which brand of lipbalm they were rebranding, and read the ingredients and, whaddyaknow: beeswax! It’s not vegan after all. So, fuck you, Yelp, for distributing oodles of free non-vegan lip balm at the first table in the door at an event aimed at veg-curious and new vegans. (And I guess I took that as a warning that maybe the Seed organizers weren’t trying too hard, but I know that most vendors were there specifically to be vegan, and Yelp’s careless stupidity was likely an anomaly.) Oh, and the mints had calcium stearate, so maybe vegan, maybe not.

OK, back to the positive! I’m omitting many worthy exhibitors (genuinely too many to list), but also all the bad ones, so it’s worth it. Consider this a rundown of some stuff that I happened to get decent photos of.

It was great to see Herbivore Clothing Company, always nice when they make it over here to the East Coast. They’ve long had the best collection of vegan and pro-animal graphic tees. But now they have some serious competition on that front from the Connecticut-based Compassion Company. Here’s Compassion Co’s Andy with some of their hot gear:

Oh, and Yelp totally made me buy Compassion Company’s “Honey belongs to bees” badge.

Not to be confused with Compassion Company, Compassion Couture set up shop in a big way. They say they’ve been getting a lot of requests to start carrying menswear—I’m looking forward to that! Meanwhile, look at their overflowing ladyswear:

All the seats were full for this cooking demo and all the other presentations, too. I didn’t make it to any of the presentations, panels, or films. There were certainly some good ones, though, and there’s more on Sunday. I managed to keep plenty busy with tables and socializing.

Kopali Chocolates do a great job coating various things (banana, mulberries, cacao nibs, goji berries, espresso beans) in single-origin organic fair-trade Peruvian chocolate. My only request to them is to take a lesson from Life Savers and offer a variety pack—why should we have to choose just one of these flavors?

Dan Mims of CLLCTV keeps hydrated in between bouts of explaining how to pronounce the name of his exciting new local deals site (where you could’ve, for example, scored some cheap tickets to the Seed!).

The Vitamix table was seriously mobbed. People really want to see those cashews get puréed by a $500 blender.

These raw pizza wedges from Gingersnap’s Organic tasted excellent:

In related raw-food sample news, One Lucky Duck‘s macaroons were perfectly delightful.

I think it’s genuinely great that the Seed thought to include some art and live music, but it felt like an afterthought with just three artists total. Maybe they can get a few more next time. I suspect there’s literally hundreds of worthy vegan artists in the NYC area. Here’s Emily Pavacic‘s seed (hah!) drawings and creepy sculpture, and Elizabeth Glushko playing her loopy cello.

Sea Shepherd‘s table looked really great. They’re doing a superb job with the merch.

MooShoes‘s table looked real nice, too. They’re not selling shoes there (well, except for a few special models), though many are on display. They were selling lots of bags, which I neglected to photograph.

Here’s Leanne Mai-ly Hilgart of Vaute Couture. I’m jonesing for one of her waxed canvas coats:

Regal Vegan‘s new Basilicotta was friggin’ delicious. The best thing I ate at the whole Seed. Look for it in stores whenever it gets there. Seriously delicious, and safe for those of you confused/upset by the name of their flagship Faux Gras.

Will Vegan Bodega ever open a permanent store? They’ve gotten so good at surfing these pop-ups, maybe they don’t need to.

There was a show-within-a-show of 20-some tables doing an all-vegan version of the Bust Craftacular. A lot of it was totally nice little jewelry, but I wasn’t in a jewelry mood. I was more in the mood for the spectacle of the Bat Owl + Kookla = Spooky Fruits booth or the pattern overload the batik-inspired Djuna Shay.

Lovebug Kitchen was in the Bust zone too. They’d sold out of everything but the bacon-chocolate milkshake, so I enjoyed one of those! Also, in Bustland, Viridis Aurum makes totally delicious Sicilin-style olives.

On the way out, it was nice to catch up with Jill and John from Vegan Cuts. Do you like buying vegan stuff online? If you do and you’re not subscribed to Vegan Cuts, you’re doing it wrong.

Vegan Shop Up is totally kicking ass with the flyers these days.

When it rains, it pours and all that: This Sunday, June 10, we have not only the latest edition of the Vegan Shop Up, but LivLuna and Compassion Couture are hosting Save the World in Style NYC Eco Fashion Sample Sale.

Compassion Couture and LivLuna only sell products from environmentally and socially responsible brands: all cruelty-free, eco-friendly materials, fair-trade, and sweatshop-free. Some of the brands they’ll be selling at cost at the sample sale in Soho include omgirl, ecoSkin, Beyond Yoga, Threads 4 Thought, Toggery, ALO, Popomomo, Prairie Underground, stacia, skunkfunk, Beyond Skin, Dialog, Hearts of Darkness by Cri de Coeur, Kailia, Matt & Nat, Neuaura, Novacas, olsenHaus, Reveal and Susan Nichole. (Probably not much for us menfolk, sadly, but we’re used to that.) The sale will be at 580 Broadway, 2nd Fl (in the Virayoga Street Studio) from 11am to 3pm.

Over at NYC’s excellent (and now air-conditioned!) vegan bar, PineBox Rockshop, at 12 Grattan Street in Bushwick, the Vegan Shop Up promises at least 30 vendors (some food, many not) from noon to 6pm.

Heck, why not go shop at MooShoes and Vaute Couture, too, on Sunday, and complete a most excellently vegan one-day evisceration of your bank account.

Do we have other totally vegan (non-food) brick-and-mortar shops in NYC?

My friend Insufferable Vegan, the only person I have ever been responsible for helping, in any part, grow Vegan, who has only been Vegan for a wee 20 months, and is already more Super of a Vegan than I am, took me on a Vegan Field Trip.

At 10:30 am my anonymous friend collected me. He even showed me a sweet shortcut in my own neighborhood I never even knew which was good because there were several detours along the way: We had some french fries with little plastic red forks at a K-mart in Covina that has a Nathan’s in it and hung out with the other people that frequent the Kmart Nathan’s at 11 am on a Thursday. Surprisingly, they didn’t seem to be on a Vegan Adventure.

I bought an actual record album at Rhino Records in Claremont where I also photographed these orange flavored chicken suckers that are not orange chicken flavored.

We randomly spotted Covina Tasty, which claims to be the very first all vegetarian fast food in America, (there might have to be a showdown with Orean’s for the title). Though it was a compelling argument for a lunch break, we kept on keepin’ on.

We did need to eat (again) though, so we sought out The Press Restaurant in hopes that their veggie burger would be a contender in the VegLympics. It was a pretty good full-size specimen of the Garden Patch variety, but not deserving of it’s own full-length post.

Obviously we needed to have dessert so we got ices at Handel’s in Upland. Check out this mountain of Sour Green Apple and Watermelon-ness!

Then we actually finally really made it to our destination: Viva La Vegan Grocery, the Earth’s largest most amazing all-vegan store. This place is so amazing it’s uh-mazing. It has just doubled in size, too, so it’s about to be twice as uh-mazing, making it uhh-maazing!

VLV has everything from fresh produce to frozen fish hams (what is a vegan fish ham?!) and I bought a hundred dollars worth of it.

I got a cupcake that was eaten before the night was over, half a chicken, three kinds of Dillos, farro, a Halo S’more bar, candy bars x3, two different kinds of TVP, Justin’s peanut butter cups, drumsticks, butterscotch chips, butterscotch pudding, three different Dr. Cow’s cheeses, a Dr. McDougall’s Asian entree , two wedges of Daiya, three different Stonewall’s Jerquee’s, English Toffee, an Upton’s Tamale, some Healthy Top, and Bacon. Y’know, all the important stuff.

We shopped so hard for so long, that not only did we not make it out in time to make it to our last stop on the tour, but we got all sorts of insider scoop and samples from the lovely staffers there. I can’t wait till they open one or two more stores closer to me (lookin’ at you Loz Feliz!) so I can get fat and bankrupt! In the meantime, 3,000 more products are about to hit their new shelves, so you might want to clear out your cupboards and go, or ask Mr. Insufferable, who is quite tolerable, to take you.

Rasta Nectar Sandals: I want these!

I’ll start by disclosing that I’ve worked at Sustainable NYC for years, but that’s all the more reason I’m glad the green boutique has stepped up its vegan shoe game. It was kind of a bummer to have a generous employee discount but only a few measly pairs to choose from.

Finally, entirely animal-friendly shoes outnumber those with leather soles or accents. I visited this morning and counted 20 pairs of vegan sneakers, sandals, flip flops, and dress shoes crammed in the small shops’ shoe department. The new brands include Earth, Saucony, NeuAura, Novacas, Olsen Haus, Sanuk, and Feelz Goods priced from $25 to $156.

My favorite pair in stock is the olive green Sanuk Rasta Nectar flat sandals ($47). I love the coconut button accents! I also thought the flip flops made from recycled yoga mats (women, $32) and beer cozies (men, $38) were novel.

Psst! I scoped a few pairs of older sandals from Acorn and Simple tucked in a corner and discounted 25%. Sizes are very limited though.

Did you know we have a NYC Vegan events calendar here on SuperVegan? Well, we do. Here’s a list of some exciting happenings coming up this week.

• See US Premier of “Cages of Shame”, a film documenting Animals Asia’s rescue of 10 bears from a bile farm in China. Q & A to follow. (Sat 4/14, 6-8pm. Rubin Museum of Art, 150 W. 17th Street, West Village.)
• Stretch your compassion at Yoga for Bears, a yoga class, lunch, and fundraiser for Animals Asia. (Sun 4/14, 12-3:30. Jivamukti Yoga School NYC, 841 Broadway, 2nd Floor, Union Square.)
• Visit Vegan Shop Up to buy ethical edibles and other goodies from local artisans. (Sun 4/15, 12-5pm. Pine Box Rock Shop, 12 Grattan St., Bushwick, Brooklyn.)
• Drop in on Vegan Book Swap 3.0 to snatch up some vegan cookbooks or AR reads and support Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary. (Mon 4/16, 6:30-8:30pm. Sustainable NYC, 139 Ave A, East Village)
• Be heard at 2012 NYS Humane Lobby Day. Chartered buses and carpools make it easy for you to get your rear to Albany and encourage your elected representatives to put animals on the agenda. (Wed 4/18, 11am-4pm. Empire State Plaza Convention Center, Albany, NY)

Photo courtesy of Leanne, by Melissa Schwartz of scwartzstudios.

Remember how we mentioned that the very first Vaute Couture store, Vaute Here, is opening on Sunday in Williamsburg?! YEAH ya do! If you’re half as psyched as I am, you’ll want to read all about owner Leanne Mai-ly Hilgart’s adventure in opening her first shop — how she chose the space, what she learned about creating a store, and what you’ll find in the shop when it opens (it’s more than coats! Yay!). Read on for a little Q-and-A between Leanne and me.

Leanne Mai-ly Hilgart is the founder and owner of the New York-based vegan clothing company Vaute Couture. She’s been featured on Oprah.com, has an MBA, and is a model. (To quote a movie, she’s “so hot it’s like looking through a shimmering jet engine.”)

Samantha Cohen: What has it been like to set up your first shop?
Leanne Mai-ly Hilgart: This has been one of the most fun things I’ve ever done. Unlike what most people probably think, my (or any other designer’s) life is usually full of logistical and operational details and processes, with design being about 2 percent of what I normally get to do. As a bootstrapped, self-funded venture, I’ve been working nearly all by myself, besides the occasional intern or amazing confidante to help during the craziest times, for the past three and a half years. That’s operations, production management, marketing, sales, customer service, design, finances, and product development.

This past fall I barely made it out alive, working from morning until past midnight, nothing but work, to keep up with this insane third season. (Not that I’m complaining–I’m very, very grateful to do what I love and have the best customers in the world, that is for sure. I just want to give an idea of why building the store was so wonderful for me.) After I took my first vacation in two years this January, I started hiring my first team to help with operations and customer service, while building the space.

So, getting to create and design so much for the store has been like being 5 again! I was always the artist in the class growing up, but I never thought I’d get to do art again in my life, especially after I went to school to become a school principal. So these past two months, I was giddy; so many creative projects, so much fun to be had! I loved watching the space take shape, and create its own personality.

I loved discovering salvaged pieces that no one wanted and giving them a new life, watching them come together in a new space to add up to something that had all my favorite things at once. I found that I had to abandon ideas I previously had for the store (name, colors), to make way for the colors and the name that the store grew to have. I realized that when you give up preconceived ideas, better ones are waiting. Things speak to you, and you just have to let them become what they are supposed to become. I sound like such a hippie! But it’s true. (SC: Take the briefest glance at Leanne’s coats and you will see she is a refined lady, not a hippie.)

SC: Best/worst parts of putting the store together?
LMH: Hm, I think I’ve already mentioned some of the best parts… worst parts were of course how much it costs! Whew! Besides rent, the renovations and materials (while salvaged) were quite a lot, especially for this self-funded venture. But, of course every risk I’ve taken has been no risk at all because there was a momentum here that I couldn’t ignore. And when life takes you somewhere, the only thing you can do is let go and trust yourself and that no matter what you’ll make it happen.

(Cliche incoming!) The biggest risk of all is not taking any, but I really mean that. I find that when you put your all into something because you know it just has to be created, it just has to be put out there into the world, and when you do this without any guarantees or expected outcomes, that so many other beautiful things come that you never could have dreamed. The harder you work, the more the stars align. (And this is a gazillion times truer when the work you do is for others.) Okay, I’m on a hippie, sappy tangent, clearly, sorry!

SC: What will customers find in the shop when it opens on Sunday?
LMH: A custom-made photobooth (an actual vegan one! Most aren’t vegan, with gelatin in the instant photo processing), a starry lightbox fitting room, all the casuals stacked in salvaged lockers (complete with farm animal pinups and love notes in the doors), and a weekly VOTE, where we get your input on new designs, colors, etc.

Oh, you mean clothes? We’ve got our coats and casuals, and winter accessories, too. And the new spring line (printed dresses, jumpers, overalls, tunics), plus a bunch of new things like HSUS and Sea Shepherd jewelry pieces, new charm necklaces, totes, knits, and art soon to come. (SC: OVERALLS!)

SC: How did you choose the location?
LMH: I was stressed out of my mind overworking on Thanksgiving weekend, and I thought, “What can I do that would be productive but good stress relief?” And I decided to look on Craigslist for a spot in Williamsburg that I could daydream about opening my first store at. Two days later I was making appointments to just start my research, when one store, located on the same street as THREE of my favorite Wburg restaurants (Food Swings, M Shanghai, Caracas) told me they had to give their landlord notice by that Thursday. It was Tuesday. There was no way that the first spot I ever looked at could be THE store, let alone could I decide this in two days!

But I went, that rainy night, to take a peek with my guy James. We stepped up to what I thought was the space, when I noticed the store next door and said “Wow…what’s that? Awesome neighbors.” Just then, the leasor came out of THAT store and said, “Leanne, THIS is what I’m renting out.” I walked in, and it was just better than I could have wanted. The leasor told me she’d hold off her landlord for one extra day so I could look at other places for comparison.

That Friday I looked at other stores until I told one about this space. The agent stopped, shook my hand, and said “Congratulations. WHAT are you doing here?” I walked back to the space, and signed it then and there, the first spot I’d seen, less than a week after I had found it on Craigslist. I felt like it had been handed to me. And I absolutely love it. It’s my safe haven, my bliss. This space is the ultimate comfort for me.

Happy, attractive people flock to the Vegan Shop-Up! (Photo courtesy of VeganShopUp.com)

We’re excitedly counting down the days until we can shop with abandon at the February 12th Vegan Shop-Up at Pine Box Rock Shop in Brooklyn! To take our minds off how to balance being in our favorite bar in such close proximity to sweets, savories, wearables, washables and other assorted odds and ends, we sent Sarah Peltier, the founder of Vegan Shop-Up, our ten most pressing questions! In turn, Sarah sent us her ten best answers! Feel free to read out loud to your loved one(s).

Deborah Diamant: You’re a year old! How does a vegan pop-up shop celebrate this achievement?
Sarah Peltier: We plan to celebrate our first birthday with lots of freebies for everyone! Some of the best vegan-friendly companies around have donated treats: VegNews, Babycakes, Terri, MooShoes, Foodswings, and Babeland.

DD: Why do you think pop-up shops have gotten so popular the last year or so?
SP: They’re the perfect low-risk venue for companies without a regular location to reach the public. They’re an enticing shopping experience and a great way for smaller businesses to get noticed.

DD: How many vendors were at your first shop-up, and how many do you expect this weekend?
SP: We had a whopping five vendors at the very first Shop-Up last February, and now we are at 32! It grows more and more each time around.

DD: The rumor is that you keep Pine Box Rock Shop really packed during your event. Do you have plans to move to a bigger space?
SP: Perhaps if the right space came along we’d consider it. But, of course, we’d hate to leave Pine Box Rock Shop, which we really love and appreciate. It’s a possibility we could span the event over two days next time, too. Our eyes and ears are open!

DD: Are vendors vetted in any way? What do you require from your vendors? Have you had to turn any vendors away?
SP: Vendors have to be local and produce quality vegan products. We shy away from having too many of one thing and love variety. We’ve been turning vendors away from a lack of space! The next Shop-Up is in April and we will have a better approach to accommodating all of our vendors.

DD: Do you yourself operate as a vendor during the Shop-Up? What’s your business?
SP: I have been selling for my own business as well, though it’s getting harder and harder each time as there is just more to do at the events now. I’ve had Woodside Bakehouse since 2009, and this Sunday we will be selling handmade organic vanilla extract and Peanutella, plus our signature El Conejo granola bars.

DD: Are there any success stories from the Shop-Up? Like, has anyone been able to quit their soul-sucking graphic design day job yet?
SP: Hmm, not that I’ve heard of, but I’m excited to see the day! There are a few vendors that sold with us early on but now are just too busy with their rocketing business to take part anymore. Sprout Skincare and Barry’s Tempeh are a few!

DD: Can you gauge what percentage of the items for sale are fair trade, organic and/or recycled?
SP: I’d say a good 70 percent are – it’s definitely a majority!

DD: I know you’re gonna tell me you don’t play favorites, but what vendors are you most excited for this weekend?
SP: YES, no favorites. Very important. Each and every vendor is worthy of your time and money, that’s why it’s so great! On that note: CakeBites (gluten-free cake truffles), Scintilla Microconfections (homemade sprinkles, etc.), Fresh to Death (nut mylk blends), Kitty Jones (handmade catnip mice), Clementine Bakery (soon to open vegan Bed-Stuy bakery)…

DD: Let’s close with a really hard question: What’s your favorite cocktail on the Pine Box Rock Shop menu?
SP: Spicy Virgin Mary! [Ed. note: We can't get enough of the "Sam in a Sweater" ourselves.]

Vegan Shop-Up is happening this Sunday, February 12th from 12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. at Pine Box Rock Shop, 12 Grattan Street, Bushwick, Brooklyn.

Image credit: Vegan Shop-Up

If you haven’t been before (I haven’t! Maybe my Valentine will go with me!), this first-birthday/Valentine’s edition of Vegan Shop-Up may be the most vendor-packed, shop-up yet, with more than 30 sellers. The market’s bloggers promise birthday surprises to be revealed at the event (Oooh, mystery! Intrigue! You’ve got me, Vegan Shop-Up.), a Valentine’s theme, and the reliable libations of vegan bar Pine Box Rock Shop.

Vegan Shop-Up
February 12, 12 to 6 p.m.
Pine Box Rock Shop
12 Grattan St., Brooklyn

A generous donor has offered to match every donation made to Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary through December 31st. This is a great reason to attend the 2nd Vegan/ Animal Rights Book Swap that I’m co-hosting this Saturday. It’s a fundraiser for the non-profit featuring a mini-bake sale and a raffle with prizes from Raganella, Owl & Thistle, Chavela’s, Terri, and Juice Hugger. Come collect books for yourself and those on your holiday shopping list.

If you need more than just books, come to the U.S. Veg Corp’s Green Holiday Festival on Sunday: “A one-day Winter holiday festival comprised of various green-minded gift vendors, non-profit information tables, live entertainment, and activities all in celebration of green living. For the first time, get all of your vegan and green gifts in one place!” Sounds fun! Also, leave the pepper spray at home people. There’s a $20 entrance fee so there will probably be more elbow room than there was at the NYC Vegetarian Food Festival.

• Not that you need an excuse to shop, but Mooshoes is celebrating its 10th anniversary this Saturday, Dec. 3, with a 15% discount on all in-store purchases, plus beverages and snacks from Blossom du Jour and Dun-Well Doughnuts.
• Veg Blog has released the third installment of its vegan business profile series, this time featuring cookbook publisher Heritage Press.
• On Wednesday, Dec. 7, head over to Pianos on the Lower East Side for some Freerange Nonfiction and listen while Hannah Tinti, Alison Espach and Alison Smith read from their animal-related books. The event’s $8 cover will directly benefit Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary. For more information on this and other happenings in New York City, check out our Events Calendar.
• Speaking of farmed animals, Mercy for Animals has uncovered yet more abuse, this time by Sparboe Egg Farms, the supplier of McDonald’s eggs.
• In other atrocities, the USDA released its 2010 Dairy Checkoff Report, and the results are, well, atrocious: In 2009, $108 million was spent promoting milk, while $283 million was used to push dairy products like cheese. Is this really how we want our tax money spent?
• On a lighter note: Sending out holiday cards? Be sure to order a book of PETA’s stamps featuring veggie celebs, now through January. The stamps, which can be purchased online, are available as of today and feature famous faces such as Woody Harrelson, Chrissie Hynde, Bob Barker and Morrissey, plus historical notables including da Vinci, Tolstoy and Pythagoras. Celebs aren’t always the most consistent carrot eaters, but they do help expose the mainstream to the cause.
• Maybe PETA will consider dedicating a stamp to five-year veghead Jessica Chastain. She’s not the only vegan to make people think the chicken she was chomping was “real.”
• For the young compassionate people in your life: The Vegetarian Resource Group is giving away two $5,000 college scholarships to vegetarian high schoolers graduating in the spring of 2012. If you know a senior who lives and promotes the veg lifestyle, make sure he or she applies by Feb. 20.
• The Clash’s Paul Simonon was arrested earlier this year while working undercover as a vegetarian cook for Greenpeace. He might not have been a vegan pirate cook fighting whalers, but protesting against Artic oil offenders gets a thumbs-up too.
• Jane Brody wrote about vegans’ favorite vitamin in The New York Times: Vitamin B12 Deficiency Can Cause Symptoms That Mimic Aging.
• Arms dealer Viktor Bout, the closest thing to a real-life James Bond villain, is demanding vegan meals in jail.
• Last, I’m sad to say that Marti Kheel has died. I had the privilege of hearing the ecofeminist and the author of Nature Ethics speak a few years ago, and her message was inspiring. RIP, Marti.

Now’s your chance to read all those vegan/AR books you’ve been hearing about!

• Still need to come up with another Thanksgiving side dish? How about our latest reader submission: Sweet Potatoes Caribbean.
• And Turtle Mountain has launched two brand-new holiday drinks: Coconut Nog and Mint Chocolate.
• Holiday fare often leads to excess weight gain (if you’re doing it right). Need to lose those extra pounds? Check in with Dr. Frank Sabatino for some plant-based weight loss ideas.
• Speaking of eating, if sandcastle cookies, fried pickles and kale chips spell holiday spirit to you, you won’t want to miss the Vegan Holiday Shop-Up, on Sunday, Dec. 4 from 12-5pm, at the Pine Box Rock Shop.
• Then on Dec. 10, join our very own Livi Lane in the County of Kings for Vegan/Animal Rights Book Swap for Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary 2.0. Stock up on all the tomes you’ve been dying to read, and grab some issue-oriented stocking stuffers!
• Speaking of Woodstock FAS, the Guesthouse is open for business! Well, almost. Make your reservations now: Rooms are available starting Jan. 6. I got a sneak peek during Thanksliving, and let me tell you, it’s a sweet place to stay!
• Thanksgiving is followed by Black Friday, which means holiday shopping is upon us. Want to be sure all your gifts come from cruelty-free sources? The Veg Blog just launched a series of vegan-business profiles, the first of which features Herbivore Clothing Company, and the second, jewelry maker McFarland Designs.
• Still haven’t made much of a dent in that list? On Dec. 11, head over to the Green Holiday Festival, an eco-friendly, cruelty-free shopping event. It’s $20 to get in, but part of that benefits For the Animals Sanctuary.
• For more information about these and other happenings in the NYC area, check out our Events Calendar.

Punk rock vegan wine.

Bottlerocket Wine & Spirit is a small, customer-friendly store just west of Union Square. They carefully choose their selection of affordable wines and provide as much information as possible—now listing which wines are vegan!

“Bottlerocket customers frequently ask which of our wines are vegan, so we posted a list!” explains Stephanie Miller, their PR guru.

Stephanie is a dear friend and I look to her for all things wine-related. She has trained as a taster and has worked in the vineyards and cellars of some of the premiere organic and biodynamic wine producers. When I want to know if something fishy (or eggy) has been used in a wine, she’ll know—or find out. So when she told me they investigated which wines at Bottlerocket were vegan, I was tickled.

“It is a great opportunity for us to talk with our customers, offer a bit of wine education and continually get feedback about what is important to shoppers,” she says.

None of the vegan wines sold at Bottlerocket have been processed or fined with animal products or produced with farming practices that specifically use animal products (such as biodynamic). One of their sources is the wonderful Barnivore website.

The store has a fun approach to educating consumers. Next to each wine is posted a card offering details such as region, taste (eyes, nose, mouth), farm production (organic, biodynamic).

Knowing that I like velvety French reds, when I was at the store recently, Stephanie suggested I try the Babiole by Andrea Calek. The huh..? I soon found out that it’s a blend of grapes including Syrah and Grenache. She also told me the story behind the wine. Andrea Calek is something of a punk-rocker of wine-makers. A former Czech soldier, he lives in a trailer amidst his rented grape vines in the Ardeche region of the Rhone. He produces wines that are “blatantly organic, unfiltered and unrefined.”

A punk rock vegan wine—what’s not to love? Dark and spicy, I highly recommend Calek’s Babiole ($24). It fabulously complimented the vegan Tuscan white bean and sausage stew I made and enhanced enjoyment of a dark-chocolate dessert.

The list of vegan wines is posted in the store (also pasted below) and will be noted on the cards soon. Just ask their friendly, knowledgeable staff and they’ll point them out. To get the full story behind the wines you purchase, be sure to ask for the flyers at the register.

If you know of other stores that list vegan wines, be sure to let us know, and feel free to encourage your favorite stores to do the same!

Note: each case (12 bottles) of wine (one kind or an assortment) receives a 10% discount. Plus, if you work or live within the neighborhood, they’ll deliver for free! Wines can also be bought online and shipped to your door.

Bottlerocket Wine & Spirit is located at 5 W. 19 Street, a few doors west of 5 Avenue. Tel: (212) 929-2323. (Tell ‘em SuperVegan sent ya!)

Vegan Wines sold at Bottlerocket

Whites
Alban Viognier
Albet y Noya Cava
CalNaturale Chardonnay
Gruet Brut
Hermann Wiemer Dry Riesling
Hermann Wiemer Gewurtztraminer
Lillet
Moet & Chandon Champagne Imeriale
Moet & Chandon Dom Perignon Champagne
Peter Michael Chardonnay
Pine Ridge Chenin-Viognier Blend
Trimbach Gewurtztraminer
Trimbach Riesling
Veuve Clicquot Brut Champagne
Veuve Clicquot Gold Label Brut Vintage Champagne
Vinos Ambiz Airen Young White

Rosé
Veuve Clicquot Rose Champagne

Reds
Alban Syrah Patrina
Alban Syrah Reva
Andrea Calek Babiole
Benmarco Malbec
CalNaturale Cabernet Sauvignon
Chateau des Rontets
Cline Zinfandel
Domaine des Gourbet Gigondas Cuvee Florence
Domaine du Castel Petit Castel
Paul Hobbs Napa Cabernet
Paul Hobbs Crossbarn Cabernet
Peter Michael Les Pavots
Red Truck
Tommasi Amarone
Vina Cobos Bramare Cabernet Sauvignon

Attention citizens of cyberspace!

Though I can not see you or feel your presence, I’m sure you like to eat every now and then. It is with this in mind that I urge you to click on this link, move both eyes over to the new window that opens, whip out your plastic, and purchase some $20 promotional certificates to Madeleine’s Bistro. Why buy $20 worth of food credit? Because it only costs $10. In other words, you get to eat at LA’s finest, most delicious, and infrequently open restaurant for half off of 100% aka 50% off. This makes one of the cities more pricey vegan restaurants way more affordable. I just bought two (2!) and I might go back for seconds.

Fine print via their facepage: No expiration, certificates are kept on file, redemption is limited to one certificate per customer per visit.

Don’t live in LA? This is the perfect excuse to start planning a visit.

Cause we love you.

This is one of Supervegan’s posts for Vegan MoFo 2011.