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.

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.

I spent the vast majority of this past weekend holed up in a hotel at 18th and Market in downtown Philadelphia for the annual National Lawyers Guild Convention. You know who we are. We’ve been around since the late 1930s—the radical alternative to the American Bar Association—but now you see us on CNN wearing fluorescent green hats while legal observing at the Occupy protests throughout the country. (We also run the Green Scare Hotline—1-888-NLG-ECOL—among a larger menagerie of projects.) So, yep, a bunch of vegan lawyers, legal workers and law students spent our days in panels and workshops and nights relaxing with (many) adult beverages. Little sleep was stolen. But, somewhere amid this panoply of activity, I found time to ride my bike every day to Blackbird Pizza on South 6th near South Street to consume their pitch perfect Philly Seitan Cheesesteak.

What makes this vegan version of the city’s namesake sandwich so appealing? First up: UPTON’S SEITAN! The seitan is just damn good. Now imagine it sliced incredibly thin and generously piled in ribbons on a chewy baquette. Add strings of grilled onions and green peppers, the cheese (it’s Daiya) and mushrooms, and you’ve got an incredible sandwich.

Here’s a pictorial that documents the evolution of my love for this sandwich (and Blackbird) over the course of three days:


Friday (I was so enthralled I almost forgot to take a picture.)

Saturday (Oh, the pizza is amazing, too!)

Sunday (I was so sad to leave Philly and my close proximity to Blackbird.)

Blackbird Pizza is located at 507 South 6th Street, Philadelphia.

Make it a point to learn more about the National Lawyers Guild and its support of the Occupy movement! In NYC, Guild members have been providing mass defense and other legal support (all FREE of charge) to activists since the late 1960s. Know folks who have been arrested at Occupy Wall Street? Tell them to visit www.nlgnyc.org or call 212-679-6018.

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

I have never been a fan of people, places, or things that are dumb on purpose. That said, I have just returned from a weekend in Las Vegas. If you’ve never been, imagine a city on the surface of the sun where fountains are a legitimate form of entertainment and you’re half way there. But, amongst the oddities, perversities, and electricity is a shocking amount of vegan food. Pink’s has a vegan dog! Ronald’s has vegan donuts! And thanks to quite possibly the world’s richest vegan (and one of Keith Olberman’s “Worst Persons In The World”) Steve Wynn, you can blow all your gambling winnings on Gardein™ products because every restaurant in the Wynn and Encore hotels has at least one vegan option courtesy of Collaborating Chef Tal Ronnen (Vegan Chef To The Stars Who Gets No Restaurant Of His Own). Vegans infiltrating Vegas? Super!

After perusing all the drool inducing vegan menus online, I was really excited to try some vegan fine dining (though there is also some vegan fast food but be forewarned, it closes at 3pm). After a “oh my god I want to eat at them all!” crisis I tried to get a reservation at Bartolotta, an Italian seafood restaurant. Sadly, they couldn’t seat us in time to make our 9:30 fountertainment, so I went to Plan B: The Country Club, a new American steakhouse. Chick’n Chimichurri? Gimme! Saltily, they are closed for dinner on Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays and apparently, that’s what day it was. Plan C was Botero, a modern steakhouse with a dress code, a $60 five-course vegan tasting menu and a lot of art by the restaurant’s Columbian namesake. Our waiter was a lovely New Yorker who let me create my own 5 course vegan tasting menu and even brought me some vegan margarine for the bread basket. Here’s what I had:

1st COURSE
Pistou Soup with fregola and summer squash
Watery, oily and lacking in flavor, this soup needed salt, pepper and CPR. I gave most of it to my date, who was not a prostitute, but ate like one. On the slot machine scale, I give this dish a bar, and two empty spots.

2nd COURSE
Grilled Broccoli Salad with marcona almonds, corn and polenta croutons
This was prettier than it tasted. The polenta croutons, while good tasting, were mushy and hot, not crispy like the word ‘crouton’ implies, while the broccoli was ice cold, making for a weird combination. There was no discernible dressing, which is better than being overdressed, but naked is embarrassing in public, too. I give this dish a 7, cherries, and a bar.

3rd COURSE
“Creamed” Spinach
The description of this spinach sounded so good it’s what convinced me to go rogue on the tasting course. Cooked in cast iron with a homemade cashew cream? Who doesn’t love cashew anything?But this was a major disappointment. It wasn’t as hot as forged metal suggests, wasn’t creamy even a little and tasted like it had just been boiled or steamed. I had two bites and folded. 1 bar, a lemon and an empty.

4th COURSE
Semolina Crusted Gardein™ Chick’n with corn pudding and chanterelles
Somewhere in-between the bread, courses 1-3 and 4 I managed to become painfully full, which is unfortunate because this was the best dish so far. Even then, it didn’t live up to my expectations. It was good, but not mind-blowingly awesome. I couldn’t taste the corn pudding, which just looked like a decorative sauce the Chick’n was resting on, the crust on the Chick’n kept separating, and the mushrooms were tough. Red seven, lemon, black seven.

5th COURSE
Blueberry Peach Crumble with Toasted Almond Ice “Cream”
This dish was my motivation for picking the tasting menu, as it was not on the regular menu. It sounded so delicious– homemade creamy ice cream on top of a hot fruity crumble? What they should have told me though, was that they were out of said ice cream. Instead, there was a dollop of fruit sorbet on top. Who wants a third tarty fruit on top of a dual fruit cobbler?! That said, the cobbler was bowl scraping good. Lemon, lemon, bonus.

While it didn’t live up to my vegan hopes and veggie dreams, I did eat enough to make me have to waddle off into the brightly lit night, glad that I wore a stretchy dress and swearing I’d never eat ever again. That in itself is pretty awesome.

The next night I found myself back at the Wynn (or was it the Encore?) at Sinatra, a restaurant with, you guessed it, a full-on Frank theme. And, shocker, it was Italian. Still full, broke, and disappointed from the night before, I had a dirty martini and let it set aside all my pre-conceived notions. I ordered the most expensive thing on the Vegan Menu: Gardein™ Marsala (gardein™ chick’n breast, forest mushrooms, marsala sauce, potato gnocchi) and nothing else. I debated with myself over the “caesar salad” — I want to try it! I’m too full! It sounds so good! It costs more than my shoes! I just couldn’t do it. One of my table mates ordered the regular marsala, and I was excited to be able to compare. What do you think? I was impressed, they looked pretty similar, and then I took a bite … it was incredibly insanely delicious! The chick’n was tender and moist and thick like an actual cutlet– way more accurate than the flat frozen stuff you get at the supermarket. The sauce was full of flavor; rich and creamy but not too heavy. The gnocchi were small and soft and buttery and perfect. I cleaned my plate! Sinatra was a wonderful surprise and confirmed how mediocre Botero was, but both did it “my way”. I doubled down and got red seven, red seven, red seven!

Vegan bloggers, UNITE! And get ready to tippity type away with joy this weekend, August 26-28, at the first annual and *sold out* Vida Vegan Conference! A vegan blogging buffet where workshops, panels, speakers, and special events are up for grabs, and I am going to absolutely engorge myself! Figuratively. But also literally! Because it’s in Portland, and I’ve never been there, which means I have to taste the whole city. Lick the sidewalks and such. Mmmm.

In addition to the above mentioned conference-y stuff, there will be goings-on a-plenty: a sneak preview of Vegucated Thursday night followed by a post-screening Q&A with director and creator Marisa Miller Wolfson; a VegNews-sponsored cupcake reception Friday; and the Galarama, a fancy shmancy party and silent auction to benefit Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary, on Saturday. (The Galarama is open to the public, so bring your friends! Con attendees’ admission is included with Con tickets; everyone else can still buy tickets here.) For a full schedule, check the con’s fantabulous agenda.

Oh, and hey, is that my name on the list of speakers? Why yes it is! Jason Das and I are attending as speakers on the Travel, Group & Community Blogging, and Dating & Mating panels with a bunch of other super cool vegans. We will try our very best to bring you first-hand accounts from the Con, but if we don’t, we know you’ll look at that schedule and understand.

Vida Vegan’s organizers told me how y’all at home can catch a glimpse of the conference (and watch your loving SuperVegans!), and shared a few other helpful tips for conference-goers and admirers alike.

SuperVegan: How can people at home follow the conference?

Vida Vegan Con: LiveStream, Vida Vegan Blog, Facebook, and Twitter. And we’ve heard rumors of some our attendees liveblogging. We’ll be sure to point you in their direction.

SV: I want to attend every single session, but my clones are busy this weekend. Will the classes and lectures be recorded for us to view when we get home?

VVC: As a first-year conference, we won’t be able to stream and record every single class offered, but we’ll happily link to all recordings posted by attendees. And check our Livestream for select classes – some total, some partial.

SV: Is there one item every attendee should pack? I’ve never been to Portland — or a blogging conference!

VVC: Look for a blog post up on our site soon! Of course, for a vegan blogger’s convention in Portland, there are a few necessary things–a camera (don’t forget your charger!), layers (rain knows no boundaries here, though it is supposed to be nice), and an extra bag to take home all your swag.

SV: There’s a wonderful list of donors supplying auction items for the Galarama Saturday night. Can you give us a taste of what we’ll be bidding on?

VVC: So many generous folks are coming forward to help support Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary–more stuff shows up every day! We’ve got a Shiraleah Amelie satchel from Alternative Outfitters, some handcrafted items from Kittee Berns, Panda With Cookie, and Late to the Revolution–plus gift certificates, books, wine, and a ticket to Vida Vegan Con 2013!

First there was the cookbook. Then they expanded to Los Angeles. What’s the latest news from Babycakes? A brand-new store in downtown Disney, that’s what!

Okay, this might be a little more exciting for me than it is for you, because since I left NYC for Fort Lauderdale almost a year ago, let’s just say I haven’t been eating as well. So if Babycakes is headed my way, it’s time to celebrate! But it’s also a coup for the good guys: When’s the last time a monolith like Disney decided to kick out Mickey D’s and bring in not just a healthier option but a healthier vegan option? Can’t think of one? Neither can I.

So bring on the agave-sweetened cupcakes, brownie bites, biscuits with jam, corn bread, doughnuts and double chocolate crumb cake—I’m ready! But their phones aren’t working yet, so if you need a fix right now, drop Emily a line.

Florida just got a little bit sweeter!

This is one of Supervegan’s posts for Vegan MoFo 2010.

If you go to Key West, make sure you don’t miss out on Green Republic.

If you’re planning a vegan vacation, the Conch Republic might not sound like your kind of place—as the name suggests, seafood abounds there. But I’ve been to Key West twice this year, and we actually had a lot more options than Happy Cow led me to believe we would.

Upon arrival both times, we headed straight to The Cafe, a vegatarian restaurant on Southard St. with lots of vegan options. The restaurant’s really cute, with paintings by local artists on the walls and crayon drawings by its customers everywhere else. My husband’s not an edamame fan, so both times we started off with the Un-Wing Dings with BBQ sauce—breaded logs of tofu, kind of like what you’d find at Kate’s—which were just spicy enough for me and maybe just a little too much tofu for him. From there we moved on to the Kung Pao Tofu and Veggie Burger, both of which were really good and really substantial. The Kung Pao sauce was incredibly flavorful, and the burger really hit the spot, and not just because it was enormous. Next time we go I’d like to take their Seitan Pepper Steak with jasmine rice for a spin.

If you go to the Cafe, bring an appetite, because the portions are huge!

We missed Help Yourself, on Fleming St., the first time around, but I’m really glad we made it there this trip. HY prides itself on serving food that’s as natural as possible, and it is closer to hippie food than anything else we had in KW (not that there’s anything wrong with that). The restaurant itself isn’t much more than a counter with some benches outside, but that was perfect for lunch. I got the Hummus Wrap bursting with quinoa, veggies and sprouts, and my husband had the Mighty Marinara bowl, with whole wheat noodles and lots of veggies. I would have had a smoothie for dessert, but the wrap was so huge, I ended up saving the rest for the trip home. Delicious as it was the first time around, it tasted even better after sitting in the fridge and marinating for another day and a half.

Help Yourself, as close to vegan hippie heaven as Key West gets

When we strayed from Happy Cow’s guidance, we found a bit of mixed bag. Our first night there this time around, we had some of the worst Mexican food in history at Old Town Mexican Cafe, on Duval St. What a disappointment—the chips were soggy, the guac was tasteless, and while my husband’s burrito was okay, my nachos were bland except for the ridiculously hot peppers piled on top, which set chips they’d barely touched ablaze (and I’m a wimp when it comes to heat in my food to begin with). But that was the one truly low point. Even at a place like Fogarty’s, which definitely isn’t designed with vegans in mind, we ate well. We ordered the Lettuce Wraps minus the chicken, so they loaded us down with extra veggies—I’ve never seen so much food on one plate—and we asked them to leave the cheese off the Bruschetta. Between that and the french fries, we were pretty stuffed. Another shot in the dark that turned out well was La Trattoria. We started with the Insalata Paesana minus the gorgonzola—who needs it when there are all those lovely pecans, red onions, apples, tomatoes and figs in your salad?!—Spaghetti Aglio e Olio (olive oil and garlic might not be innovative, but it was delicious) and Penne Arrabiata. The food was great, and the restaurant, which is a little upscale, was most definitely romantic.

Also on the I’m-so-glad-we-went list is Café Solé, on Southard St. CS has a separate vegetarian menu, with the vegan dishes clearly marked, but the chef is happy to substitute tofu or tempeh for the meat in any dish. Now, tofu gets around, but when was the last time you saw the word “tempeh” on the menu at an omni resturant? Turns out the owner was raised by vegan hippies who traveled cross-country by caravan before settling down on a commune in Tennessee, so this man knows his meat alternatives. My husband and I shared the Ingram’s Salad minus the blue cheese (pears and pecans!), Virgin Tomato Pasta and Stir-Fried Veggies. The food was really good, and if we’d had room for dessert we would have tried their homemade fresh fruit sorbet. Next time, because we’ll definitely be back. And not just for the food: The ambiance was amazing. We had a candlelit table in a quiet little nook off the main room, and the layout gave you the feeling you were eating in someone’s house…which made sense once we found out that the restaurant had, in fact, been a residence in its previous life.

One of the best meals we had was at Origami, in Duval Square. We’d planned to go to another Japanese restaurant, but thankfully we asked a few locals first, and hands down everyone recommended Origami. The restaurant’s decor is nothing to write home about, but it was gorgeous out that night, so we sat out in the courtyard, which was amazingly quiet and beautifully lit. We started off with the Avocado Sashimi, which was basically a salad with onions and huge slices of tender avocado…very simple but absolutely delicious. The Vegetable Tempura—not battered in egg!!!—was incredibly tender and flavorful, just the right balance of veggies and batter. And we had not one but two orders of Vegetable Rolls—’nuff said. The food was exquisite, one of the all-time best meals we’ve had in Key West, and our waitress was super-sweet. We’ll definitely be back.

Breakfast and brunch were tougher to do well, no surprise there. But we ended up doing okay despite the lack of real vegan options. The Banana Cafe couldn’t offer us much besides potatoes, baguettes with jam, fruit salad and a lovely window seat, but never question the happiness a warm length of baguette can bring.

Eating at Blue Heaven is like hanging out in someone’s backyard…

It was a little more of the same at Blue Heaven, on Thomas St., except the atmosphere is amazing: You dine outdoors in what feels like someone’s backyard, while chickens, roosters and cats hang off roofs and speak their minds. BH has more options for lunch and dinner (black bean and gumbo soups, tofu stir-fry, tortillas with tofu, black beans, brown rice and avocado), but the cozy atmosphere just screams brunch. The food was really good, just not very exciting from a vegan point of view: roasted potatoes, fruit salad, granola with soymilk, and toast with jam.

…if that someone’s yard has cats, roosters and chickens hanging from the rooftops.

Another beautiful place to eat with limited breakfast options is Hot Tin Roof, the restaurant at the Ocean Key Resort & Spa, where we stayed when we eloped. I’ve had toast and fruit salad before, but it never looked like this! And my husband’s steel-cut oats was a delicious work of art, complete with tropical fruit chutney, candied pecans, berries and brown sugar. (Sorry for the lack of evidence, he dug in before I had a chance to get a photo.)

When’s the last time your fruit and toast looked like this?

If it’s nice out and you don’t want to be even semi-indoors, you can always opt for a picnic. The morning we decided to go DIY, we headed over to the Sugar Apple on Simonton St. for supplies.

Sugar Apple is part grocery, part apothecary, part cafe.

The cafe wasn’t technically open yet, so we kept to the grocery section and loaded our electric car up with mangoes, bananas, toasted whole grain bread (the cafe’s one concession to our pleas), vegan cream cheese, soy jerky and banana bread, and headed over to Smathers Beach, where we’d gotten married the day before. Aside from the ants that were determined to join us, it was a perfect lazy morning with a delicious assortment of treats and an incredible view.

Smathers Beach: not a bad place to picnic

On our way home this trip, my husband, a fairly recent vegan, was getting the blues—not because our vacation was over, but because we were headed back to Fort Lauderdale, where we wouldn’t have as many tasty options. So we decided to stop at one more place and bring dinner back with us. I can’t tell you how glad I am that we did! This was our first time at Green Republic, on Fleming St., and we both regret not having found it sooner. The vegetarian founders are on a mission: “Wouldn’t it be nice to enjoy flavorful American and island comfort foods although meatless (plant protein based) that had the same texture and taste as the real counterpart?” Um, yes, it would! And boy, do those guys deliver. Even after sitting in the car for four hours, being refrigerated and then reheated that night, their sandwiches absolutely astounded us. My husband had the Classic Cuban, while I had the Meatball Parm. Wow! Both sandwiches really hit their mark, and my husband swears that GR’s Cuban would put any other to shame, even those with “real” meat and cheese. (GR does serve dairy cheese, but you can ask them to substitute Teese instead.) For dessert we had cupcakes: chocolate peanut butter for him and lemon chiffon for me. They were on the smaller side, but they might as well have been twice their size, that’s how rich and dense and delicious they were. Green Republic won our undying love that day, and we will definitely, absolutely be back.

Green Republic, the vegan mecca of Key West!

Have you been to Key West and had vegan chow that we need to know about? Please share in the comments!

This is one of Supervegan’s posts for Vegan MoFo 2010.

Jean Paul Peanutier, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways…

I hit a bit of a snafu a few weeks ago—I was eloping and had planned to have a Peanut Butter Bomb shipped down for the occasion. It’s my absolute FAVORITE dessert, and even my husband craves it, he of the decided lack of sweet tooth. Our hearts were set on it, and I was determined to deliver. But you know what they say about the best-laid plans. So with hope in my heart, I contacted Vegan Treats and was told by a couple of different people that (a) they didn’t ship cakes anymore, and (b) they did but they didn’t know if they could ship to Florida. About a week before the wedding, amid a flurry of emails back and forth, I was finally told that they could ship a PBB to us, but between the overnighting, the ice packs, etc., it would be pretty expensive. Um, who cares? Just send the damn thing! But then of course—thank you, Murphy’s law—VT ran out of boxes and didn’t know when they’d be getting more in. Seriously? You ran out of boxes??? So now I had a cake topper and no cake to put it on. Great.

Perplexed and disappointed, I contacted Cocoa V, progeny of my favorite NYC restaurant, Blossom. Turns out they make a chocolate-peanut butter tart, which isn’t on their online menu. Yay! Um, except that they don’t ship cakes to Florida. I was starting to get a complex.

Now desperate, I did a search for local bakers with vegan offerings—not an easy task down here. But I found a few. Bunnie Cakes seemed promising, but the owner didn’t get back to me in time. Peace a’ Cake did, in fact, have a chocolate-peanut butter cake. But for some reason, their PB treats are the only ones they make that aren’t vegan. (Does that make sense to you?) Finally, as a last resort I tried Cupcake Couture in Delray Beach. CC makes some of the most beautiful confections I’ve ever seen, and I was told they could do vegan vanilla, chocolate and red velvet cupcakes. I’d been striking out pretty badly and had zero expectations. But it was our wedding, after all, so I had to ask: Could they possibly make their Jean Paul Peanutier—a rich chocolate cake with delectable peanut butter frosting, just velvety and sweet enough to be habit-forming but not heavy or overwhelming—vegan, and as a cake, pretty please and with sugar on top? Hell yes, they could! And hell yes, they did. And it was amazing! And so it was that we got our chocolate-peanut butter wedding cake, and it was delicious, and we lived happily ever after. All hail Cupcake Couture!

What’s your favorite sweet indulgence, readers? And to what lengths would you go to acquire it? Share with us in the comments!

This is one of Supervegan’s posts for Vegan MoFo 2010.

The Chicago Diner rocked my taste buds!

Honestly, Chicago had never been on my radar. I don’t know why, maybe because I’m from New York—who needs the Second City when you hail from the First? But now that I live in the culinary wasteland that is South Florida, Chicago was just what the doctor ordered this Labor Day weekend!

My fiancé and I got in too early to check into our hotel, so we headed straight over to the Chicago Diner. Wow, less than a year outside New York and already I’d forgotten what it’s like to have an entire menu at your disposal! And now that the boy is vegan, Chi Di’s offerings made him realize just how deprived we are down here. So we made a feast of it: We started off with the nachos, piled high with black beans, seitan chorizo, chopped tomato, jalapeños, black olives, cheddar Daiya, guacamole, sour cream and salsa—and holy crap, were they good! We didn’t have room for much else, but I was determined to stuff down as much as I could while I had the chance. So I had a French Vanilla Soy Shake and the Avocadonnaise Cheezeburger (half of which made the trip home and doubled as lunch on Monday), and he had the Philly Cheeze “Steak.” He’d been having residual cheese cravings and was hearing the siren call of deep dish pizza, but that Cheeze “Steak” was apparently so good—better than most of the ones he’d had when he ate meat—that the subject never came up again.

For dinner we went to Karyn’s on Green, which was upscale, modern and a little too brightly lit, if you ask me (though eventually they dimmed the lights). We started off with two mocktails, the Blueberry Mint Fizz and the Chairman’s Cobbler—a kind of virgin mojito with raspberries, and quite possibly my favorite part of the meal—and the Aged Raw Cheese Plate. The dish was elegantly arranged, with raw crackers, pear relish, super-thin grape slices, flourishes of agave and four wedges of cheese. (Sorry for the lack of pictures—we were too busy eating.) Now, I’m pretty sure this was an assortment of Dr. Cow’s cashew cheese: original, Brazil nut, dulse and crystal algae. But I love Dr. C’s and can’t find it down here, so that was fine by me. For the main course the boy had the Fra Diavolo (whole wheat pasta with a mildly spicy sauce), and I had the Chicken Legs. Think three sugarcane drumsticks, without the sugarcane but covered in a sweet barbecue sauce instead, accompanied by sweet potato hash and swiss chard. Yum!!! The portions weren’t very big, but that was okay because it left room for dessert: Chocolate Terrine, a deliciously dense chocolate cake with a side of strawberries, raspberry coulis and raspberry sorbet (a little tart for me), and a pot of Golden Jasmine Black Tea, whose flower unfurled as the tea steeped.

Mouthwatering French toast at Handelbar!

Sunday morning we went to brunch at Handlebar, a cute little biker (as in bicycle) joint. This was the most exciting part of the weekend for me, because it’s so damn hard to eat breakfast or brunch well when you live outside of vegan civilization! At our waiter’s suggestion we got the Fried Pickles, which were salty and battered and all kinds of delicious. (And what a sad statement that they made me think of Snooki…) The boy loved his Buffalo Chicken Wrap, while I scarfed down as much as I could of my French Toast (amazing!) AND Vegan Diablos With Avocado—two corn tostadas, seitan chorizo and cubed tofu (though the menu called it scrambled) covered in chipotle sauce, with a side of beans, rice and avocado (I apparently have a hollow leg when it comes to good vegan food). Delish!

The sideshow-loving Earwax Cafe

For an afternoon snack we went to Earwax Cafe, which was covered with Coney Island banners and bathroom wall tags telling the local hipster scum to fuck off and die. From our super-ornate, colorful, birdcage-like booth, we checked out the inked-up patrons and waitresses, and I wondered, between Earwax, Handlebar and the streets of Wicker Park, was I the only clean canvas in Chicago? But back to the food. Always a purist, I had the Vanilla Soy Shake—not as thick as the one at Chicago Diner and without the whipped cream (which I don’t like anyway), but just as delish—the boy had a Soy Chai Latte, and we shared the Buffalo Wings. They were tasty and just a little too spicy, kind of like the wings at Kate’s but denser, and they looked more like faux boneless spare ribs. I really wish we’d had time to go back because there are a bunch of other things I want to try there. But unfortunately, our trip was almost over.

An everything-but-the-kitchen-sink shake at the Chicago Diner

For dinner, our final meal in Chi-town, we went back to the Chicago Diner because the boy just HAD to have a Reuben. This time we went straight for the entrées: Sweet Potato Quesadillas With Avocado for me (as unbelievable as it sounds) and the Radical Reuben for him. Again, he said it was better than most of the ones he’d had when he ate meat, and to prove it, he made quick work of his sandwich, wearing a huge grin as he ate and not leaving a crumb behind. We ended up pretty full even without appetizers, so we went for shakes instead of full-on desserts. Or so we thought: Those shakes pack a wallop! I had French Vanilla again, thick and creamy and delicious, and the boy had what our waitress called “the shake that’s meant for the Reuben”: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough-Peanut Butter. Pretty much a meal in itself, it tasted like a blended peanut butter cup and was way too thick for one little plastic straw to handle—only a metal spoon would do! Needless to say we left very, very happy.

So what have we learned, boys and girls? Lesson 1: Never move from a vegan mecca to culinary Siberia. Lesson 2: Two days is definitely not enough time to eat your way through Chicago! We never even made it to Sweet Cakes Bakery, Sprinkles Cupcakes, Soul Vegetarian East or Karyn’s two other restaurants. Not to mention the places our very cool waitress at Earwax recommended: Pick Me Up Cafe, Flying Saucer, Victory’s Banner and Green Zebra (high-end and more vegetarian than vegan, but I’m intrigued).

What are your favorite veg haunts in Chicago? Any to add to the list for next time? Because there will be a next time, and it definitely won’t be for just two days!

I flew into Portland on Friday to attend this year’s National Animal Law Conference at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, OR. I visited the “Brooklyn of the West” to make my jeans fit tighter and attend conference sessions on issues relating to the criminal prosecution of animal cruelty, the link between domestic violence and animal abuse, the intersectionality between animal rights and human rights, and so on and so forth.

But, in honor of Vegan MoFo III, you want to hear about the food, right? For the first time in a very long time, I received a vegan meal on the plane. I stopped requesting them long ago, but my Continental Airlines frequent flyer profile still lists me as a scary, radical vegan. Much to my surprise, about an hour into the flight, a box containing a vegan soy patty with cheese on a whole wheat English muffin appeared on my tray table. It was surprisingly good. A partially frozen fruit cocktail, a Sara Lee “bagel”, Smart Balance (the vegan kind) and a packet of Mrs. Dash, which I’m still not sure of its intended use, accompanied it. Continental gets thumbs up on the English muffin sandwich and for getting me to Portland on time.

My first stop in Portland was La Bonita for some of the tastiest black beans to pass through my digestive track. For only $6.95, I procured a large plate with two soft tacos, a heaping mound of rice, a liberal portion of beans and chunky guacamole. Good job, NE Portland.

A few of my friends then piled into a car and we headed off to Seattle for the night. Inappropriate dinner conversation was shared at Teapot in the East Capital Hill neighborhood. I am pretty much a pro at consuming vegan Pan-Asian food, but Teapot introduced me to the Mandarin Crispy Tofu, a thickly battered soy fillet fried to golden brown perfection. Where can I find this in NYC, East Coasters?

The food at the National Animal Law Conference never disappoints. Coffee flows freely. As do the pastries, breads, Tofutti and Earth Balance. (Mom, yes, they serve fruit, too.) During the conference sessions, the snack room provisions are replenished by a mighty team of caterers. Saturday’s lunch included a choice of sandwiches (gluten free option available!). I opted for the butternut squash and caramelized fennel on a baguette, a fitting combination of flavors as we move further into the best season ever.

Equally as important as my attendance at the conference was spending time with my family of Portland friends. On Saturday night, we filed into Portobello, which is currently my favorite Portland restaurant. Chef Aaron makes the kind of Italian food that reminds you that pasta need not be relegated to a lazy weeknight dinner. Take one bite of his lightly pan fried gnocchi or pumpkin cappellacci smothered in cashew cream sauce and hazelnuts and you will become a believer, too.

Saturday nights in Portland should include a trip to Whiffies and Potato Champion. After standing in the carts’ lot at SE 12th Avenue and SE Hawthorne for about an hour whining about how full we were from our Portobello feast, someone who will remain nameless said to herself, “screw it,” and ordered a cone of always-perfect fries with satay sauce and Vegenaise from Potato Champion. Quickly, all of her friends became “a little hungry” and helped her finish the fries. Then her friends carried her home and put her to bed.

After grazing on more pastries and a faux bánh mì mushroom sandwich during Sunday’s animal law conference sessions, I rode a bus to the vegan minimall and filled my bag with such revered vegan staples as Tartex, Dandies marshmallows, Go Max Go’s Jokerz candy bars and Leahy’s Mac and Cheese sauce at Food Fight Vegan Grocery. I snuck into the all-vegan Scapegoat Tattoo and chatted with the über talented Brian Wilson while he made permanent markings on some guy’s back. (You are a strong dude, Scapegoat customer.)

Following a pit stop at Voodoo Doughnut to procure a small selection of vegan yeast donuts for the trip back to Brooklyn, we worked our way through gigantic, thin crust slices topped with seasoned tempeh at Bella Faccia Pizzeria. We then arrived at the counter in Back to Eden, the Alberta Arts District’s newest vegan bakery boutique. I ordered a cup of Temptation soft serve with white chocolate chips and homemade caramel sauce. One of my nicer friends permitted me to try a bite of her cheesecake, which was delicately flavored with Chai tea and thoroughly refreshing.

With less than half a day of non-conference time to spend in Portland, I think I made a valiant effort to visit the best new eating experiences, as well as the perennial hits the city has to offer.

And so, the 17th National Animal Law Conference has come to a close. I’m a little wiser, a little heavier, and a whole lotta motivated to run the loop in Prospect Park this week.

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

…essential

Living in New York City, I often take the ease of being a vegan for granted; the sheer multitude of options is definitely the impetus for my obliviousness. Every so often, a tour, a road trip or vacation will act like a bucket of water and splash me back to reality.

It’s in those rare moments when I do come across some grub, that I truly appreciate vegan food in all its glory. Even a short trip can lead you spiraling towards a vegan dead zone if you’re not careful.

So, while on a quick jaunt to Nyack, NY recently, I was pleasantly surprised to find not only an option, but a deliciously viable vegan option to boot!

Main Essentials is a relatively new edition to the Nyack Area. It’s Rastafarian fare with a Dominican flare. Owner Enrique Almonte incorporates his Dominican Roots into every Ital dish that he creates and the results are great; slow cooked creations bursting with flavor and texture. The food is buffet styled (much like many of NYC’s Rasta haunts) and fresh juices and Smoothies round out the menu.

Mr. Almonte and Mr. Relic

Sweet BBQ Soy Chicken, Curried Fava Bean Stew, Brown Rice and Collard Greens

The star of the show, Soy Chicken Empanadas

crispy crunchy outside; creamy curry soy chicken inside

Main Essentials is at 145 Main Street, Nyack NY 10960. About 45 Minutes from Manhattan.

Photos by Dodai Stewart

Foxy and Hoover, two rescue puppies from Galapagos who need homes in the US.

Both puppies are ridiculously friendly and well-tempered, both love people and dogs and cats, both are trained easily, and both have endured some of the worst tragedies and tortures that no living creature should ever have to. They both greatly deserve loving homes to make up for their awful childhoods. Anyone interested in the pups can email me at tod@supervegan.com.

Here are both their stories:

Hoover’s Story: Experimental Surgery

Hoover was a hungry street puppy, and the Galapagos city pound picked him up. Friends adopted Hoover from the pound one day before the pound was going to put him down, but by policy, the pound must spay or neuter any dog they adopt out. Now, as important as that policy is, the Galapagos city pound unfortunately does not have trained medical staff to perform this surgery, so an untrained employee neutered Hoover.

During the entire surgery, Hoover was completely awake, he was not numbed at all, and he was watching himself get operated on as he howled and slammed his head against the metal surgery table. Over the course of the two hour operation, Hoover howled so loudly that people outside the building shuddered from it.

Hoover, right after his crippling surgery.

After the surgery, Hoover’s medical ordeal escalated. Due to complications from the botched and dirty surgery, Hoover suffered horrendous infections, indescribable pain, and a life-threatening heart arrhythmia from improperly dosed surgical medicine. To make a long story short, multiple local veterinarians we worked with had to give Hoover almost daily emergency treatments to keep him alive for the next nine days. The amount of pain and visible suffering he went through during this time was heartbreaking.

It’s been weeks since Hoover’s surgery, and thankfully he’s almost fully recovered, he’s quite happy and playful, and he gives loads of affection.

Hoover, now. He has a Scottish Fold thing going on with one of his ears.

We don’t know his exact age, since he was a street dog, but he’s lost at least three baby teeth since his surgery. He loves to play, run, wrestle, and snooze with the puppy who has become his sister, Foxy.

Foxy’s Story: Eaten Alive

Foxy is an optimistic, whimsical, friendly puppy. But she started off as a tiny, hungry street dog with a severe parasite problem that seemed almost unreal.

Foxy did have normal ticks, although she had such a severe case of them that she had multiple ticks on her eyes. She also had a not-uncommon island fungus infection, although it was visibly uncomfortable for her, and it was making her head bald.

Her most serious issue, however, was intestinal parasites. They weren’t just in her intestines. If you looked at her underside, you could actually see the parasites under her skin, burrowing through her.

Foxy, post-treatments. She most often says “Huwah?” as you can see here.

After all her treatments for these issues, however, you couldn’t tell that she ever had a single health problem. Spry, bouncy, and almost impossibly happy, she loves to follow people around and sit on their lap.

Any Takers?

The two pups are a joy to have around, but in Galapagos they would face hard times long term. Locals have warned us repeatedly of factors like the terrible busy Galapagos traffic that wreaks havoc on local dogs.

Foxy and Hoover sharing a dog bone for the evening.

They’re flying to the US from Galapagos in August, and they will be in NYC on August 9th. We’re looking for any responsible owner in the US who would like to pamper them and keep them safe.

We’d ideally like to keep them together, although we understand they may have to be separated if that would give them the best chance. We’re currently trying to secure transport cages for both animals (it will also cost a small fortune to get all their travel details in order, so if anyone wants to help, I have a PayPal link at www.toastedpixel.com).

Once again, anyone interested in the pups can email me at tod@supervegan.com. Thank you!

One of many families of whales we saw in range of the Japanese whaling fleet.

This is the tenth and final blog post in the series documenting the February to March 2008 leg of the Sea Shepherd anti-whaling Antarctic campaign. Previous posts in the series are here. This last post is about observations and discoveries that came after the ship docked back in Melbourne, and facts about these discoveries that interested people would hopefully find useful.

(A donations page, if anyone wants to help me pay for plane tickets to my next Sea Shepherd campaign)

After our ship came to port in Australia again, I had a lot of interesting encounters and discoveries about my trip. For instance, when I was finally able to get onto the internet on land again, I found that Japan had an entire webpage devoted to identifying us “terrorists” and demanding more military action against us.

The sign on the Nisshin Maru whaling factory ship says “Do not come aboard without captain’s permission.” And for a good time, see the icrwhale.org website.

And I met a lot of people while walking through the streets of Australia, while I was still wearing my Sea Shepherd crew uniform. Most people were in favor of Sea Shepherd, and some hated our guts and almost brawled with me because of it. But the most interesting thing I’ve gleaned from all my experiences coming back to land, is that almost no one in the general public, whether it be the anti or pro-whaling public, seems to understand the whaling issue that well.

I found that a lot of people who are even in favor of Sea Shepherd’s campaigns, didn’t know that whaling is illegal. And I found that people who were in favor of whaling had completely incorrect notions about international laws. To shed some light on the facts, I thought it’d be useful to finish this Antarctica blog by relaying a conversation that I had after coming back. The conversation was a typical exchange on the whaling debate’s facts and fictions. So after having given you tales of sea battles in past posts, hopefully this last post will also help fans and foes of Sea Shepherd know what they’re talking about when it comes to whales from now on.

Here’s how the conversation started. I went to a party recently where I met a Japanese person who was in favor of whaling. He put his hand behind my head and pulled me in front of his face and started saying loudly, “MMMM! Whale burgers, you should try one they’re GOOOOD! MMMM! Try a WHALE burger!” He obviously wasn’t trying to start an argument, he was simply trying to start a fight. In fact, my Japanese friend who was next to me (and whose party it was) started screaming back at him. The pro-whaling guy started giving the usual pro-whaling arguments, like it’s Japan’s tradition so they have a right to keep doing it, and my friend started yelling at him that Japan traditionally gives women no career options but some customs are damaging to its people and the world they try to live in. The pro-whaler would scream back that Americans are judgmental, and both sides would continue screaming at each other.

However, the screaming match was obviously not for a good reason, as it was to goad me into a fight, so I told the guy I actually wanted to hear his reasons why Japan has the right to whale. It took a while to get him to actually speak his reasons, but his answers were the usual answers I’ve heard in favor of whaling. Here are those usual reasons, and I’ve included my usual responses to them.

Reason #1: There are no actual laws against whaling.

Response: Tons of international laws make whaling illegal. The UN World Charter on Nature, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, the International Whaling Commission (IWC), and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) all protect whales from commercial whaling.

On top of that, Japan is doing its whaling in the Australian Antarctic Territory, and Australia has passed a high federal court order outlawing whaling in that Territory. The Antarctic Treaty also says the Antarctic is a demilitarized zone, and Japan brings armed military with them as part of their whaling fleet, violating the demilitarized zone.

Here are the specifics of the IWC regulations that Japan is breaking, as outlined by Captain Paul Watson:

1. The Japanese are whaling in violation of the International Whaling Commission’s global moratorium on commercial whaling. The IWC scientific committee announced it does not recognize Japan’s whaling activities as “research,” and thus Japan is not exempt from the commercial whaling ban.
2. The IWC doesn’t just ban commercial whaling, the IWC specifically bans whaling in the Southern Ocean Sanctuary where Japan whales.
3. The Japanese are in violation of IWC regulation 19. (a) The IWC regulations in the Schedule to the Convention forbid the use of factory ships to process any protected stock: 19. (a) It is forbidden to use a factory ship or a land station for the purpose of treating any whales which are classified as Protection Stocks in paragraph 10. Paragraph 10(c) provides a definition of Protection Stocks and states that Protection Stocks are listed in the Tables of the Schedule. Table 1 lists all the baleen whales, including minke, fin and humpback whales and states that all of them are Protection Stocks. The main ship in the Japanese whaling fleet is the Nisshin Maru, the whaling fleet factory ship, which allows the fleet to kill 1,000 whales a year at sea at a time.
4. In addition, the IWC regulations specifically ban the use of factory ships to process any whales except minke whales: Paragraph 10(d) provides: (d) Notwithstanding the other provisions of paragraph 10 there shall be a moratorium on the taking, killing or treating of whales, except minke whales, by factory ships or whale catchers attached to factory ships. This moratorium applies to sperm whales, killer whales and baleen whales, except minke whales.

A typical sight in the Southern Oceans. A whale couple brings their calf to see the humans, and they swim alongside our ship. Whales have an innate trust and love of humans; most will try to their dying breath not to hurt a human, even when threatened by aggressive people. This has unfortunately been the whales’ undoing.

Reason #2: These laws don’t apply to Japan and it’s not fair to say they do, since Japan has been whaling for a long time. For you to sit on your high horse, and wave your foreign laws over Japan, is just judgmental and you have no right to say such things. And furthermore, they’re whaling in International Waters, as Australia has no claim to any territory in the Antarctic.

Response: If America and a few other countries decided to bully on Japan and say “stop your whaling! We deem it bad and thus you’re not allowed to do it either!” Then yeah, you’d have a point. However, Japan is a signing member of these laws. Japan is a charter member of CITES. Japan is a member country of the International Whaling Commission.

And, whether you or I think Japan is violating Australian waters is moot, since Japan is also a signing member of the Antarctic Treaty. Thus, Japan itself has agreed that it is in Australian waters and a demilitarized zone.

If you sign a law, saying you’ll abide by it, and then you break it, you’ve broken the law.

Reason #3: Well, I consider it the way I do the Kyoto Protocol. A bunch of countries signed that but no one really cares if a country doesn’t pay attention to it all the time.

Response: Over a hundred countries have signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol with the intention to participate, but the signing countries have no obligation beyond monitoring their emissions, and reporting the results. Individual sovereign governments can decide their own level of participation. The Kyoto Protocol is a framework, with a set of principles. The principles are often specific, and refer to payments and international relations, but the Protocol does not require any country to obey these principles as laws.

Bans on commercial whaling aren’t “protocols,” and the IWC is not a set of principles. The IWC is an actual legislative Commission on whaling regulations. A Commission’s regulations are laws that its members must follow.

However, let’s say they’re all just trade treaties, rather than legislative Commissions that create laws that signing members need to follow. Then, your assumption is that it is ethical or right, to simply break an agreement with other countries that you’ve signed. But is that true?

The crew of the South Korean long-lining vessel In Sung No. 2, stare at us defiantly as we filmed and photographed them illegally poaching Patagonian toothfish. A lot of countries and businesses believe it’s their right to decide their level of law compliance.

Reason #4: But if Japan is a sovereign country, and you’re just some guy thousands of miles away and not even a Japanese citizen, you have no right to say “I think you should follow this law if I disagree with your national policy!” and engage in illegal acts to stop them. You’re eco-terrorists.

Response: We don’t engage in illegal activities. I have the right to stop illegal Japanese commercial whaling, and so do you. The UN World Charter for Nature gives every individual on earth the right to stop poaching and the destruction of nature that breaks UN conservation laws. You have the right to stop it if you are able to do so, and if you’re not in a jurisdiction that forbids your specific actions.

You may think that blocking whaling vessels and tossing chemicals onto their whaling decks so they can’t use them is illegal. But if you want to take Japan’s side, they themselves have declared that they’re whaling in international waters, and have announced they thus have no legal recourse against people (like us on Sea Shepherd ships) who interfere with their operations. They’ve thus simply lodged complaints against Australia for allowing us to use their harbors, since there is nothing legal they can do against us directly. They have threatened to extradite me and put me on trial in Japan for being a pirate. But I was never worried that they’d even actually try, since they have no legal claim against me or anything I’ve done. Japan has an extradition treaty with the US they could exercise at any time if I did do something illegal. If what Japan says is true, and I’m somehow a terrorist pirate who is a threat to their security, do you think they’d simply say, “Eh, terrorism and threats to our national security isn’t THAT big a deal, let’s not bother exercising that extradition treaty even though we said we would.”

While their soldiers fight us, their crew film us to gather any evidence of illegal activity to bring criminal charges against us. They are never able to get any such evidence or bring up any charges, however, no matter how much they try.

Reason #5: Regardless of the international community’s opinions, Japan has a long-held tradition of whaling. It would be wrong to expect them or ask them to give it up, since it’s their culture, regardless of which Commission or UN Charter they’re members of.

Response: Do you seriously want to live in a world where no one obeys the law if it disagrees with things they’ve done in the past? Where people keep oppressing or killing against the law, their reason being “they used to do it in the past?” Do you aspire to a world where countries sign treaties with each other and form laws together, with no country having any intention of following any of the laws? Has the world become a better place since we stopped obeying Geneva Conventions, since we feel like torturing Iraqi prisoners now? We have a grand tradition of winning wars at all costs, so no one should expect us to act differently despite any silly Conventions or treaties we’ve signed, right?

Reason #6: I’m sick of every little environmental infraction compared to war crimes and other actual serious issues.

Response: Once again, whether or not we think they’re equivalent is moot. Whether or not we deem any international law as “important” and worthy of being followed, is moot. There’s no hierarchy to international laws. There aren’t some international poaching laws considered “misdemeanors.” The whole point to an international law is that countries of the world have deemed it a serious enough issue for our long-term survival to make a law about it.

Let’s say you disagree with that, and assume every anti-whaling law in the world is made by Japan-hating anti-whaling factions. Well, would you agree with countries that have long-standing whaling traditions like Japan? The IWC is the only Commission in the world originally made up of whaling countries that WANT a legal commercial whaling industry. This is an originally pro-whaling Commission made up of whaling countries, created to manage world commercial whaling. Yet, this pro-whaling Commission deemed the whaling problem so bad, that it has banned commercial whaling. Keep that in mind. It’s such a not-minor, serious problem to the people who are pro-commercial-whaling, that they themselves originally banned commercial whaling. Even though Japan has been wooing landlocked countries like Mongolia with monetary incentives to join the IWC and vote to legalize whaling again, they still don’t have nearly enough votes among IWC member countries to overturn the ban on whaling.

The pro-whaling guy I talked to at the party walked off in a huff after a while. His reasons eventually dissolved into statements like “Look, I have no idea, it just ISN’T illegal, ok?” And he got frustrated and left. However, he came back maybe an hour later. He came up to me saying, “I want to apologize. I attacked you and I shouldn’t have done that. I just had no idea of the other side of the issue. I think you guys are doing amazing work.” A big part of the point of this story is that, in addition to taking direct action to stop whaling, we need to know what we’re talking about, and be willing to open dialogs with people we find distasteful, if we really want to change minds and end the whaling faster.

Well, I hope these posts were able to teach you something you didn’t know before about what’s happening in the world of poaching. My next Sea Shepherd trip is to represent the crew at Gatecon in Vancouver in August. And my next anti-poaching Sea Shepherd campaign is in September. I shouldn’t really say much about that trip until I come back from it. But hopefully then I’ll have some more interesting blog posts, pictures, and anti-poaching facts for you all. I also hope that these posts encourage you to believe that ANYONE (ie you) could also stop poaching around the world; you have the right, and you have the ability. You just have to realize it and go somewhere you want the killing to stop. So you can go beyond simple veganism to help save animals. You can all be Supervegans and save the whales. :)

Humpback whales wave their fins as we pass by.

This is the ninth blog post in the series documenting the February to March 2008 leg of the Sea Shepherd anti-whaling Antarctic campaign. Previous posts in the series are here. The following post was an email I sent just under four weeks into the voyage. The next and final update will come Tuesday, July 29th.

(A donations page, if anyone wants to help me pay for plane tickets to my next Sea Shepherd campaign)

From: Steve Irwin Vessel
Sent on: 3/12/08 07:01:03 +0000

I’m on my way back to Australia now. The whaling season is coming to a close, and we’re running out of fuel, and the winter storms have been rocking us. A big reason whaling season is from December to March is because that’s the only time the weather here is calm enough for ships to exist here. As the season comes to a close, we’re seeing about five storms on the weather map battering the area.

Antarctic sunset. One of the rare days of good weather.

We constantly get hit by rogue waves, and I’ve been playing the zero g game, where we jump as the boat pitches and we hang in mid-air.

And you’re right, after a month of this lifestyle, all I want to do is figure out the fastest way to get back to it. If I learn Spanish, I can go to the Galapagos to stop poaching there too.

The waters get greener the closer we get to Australia.

At night, we saw the Aurora Australis, another phenomenon you can’t prepare yourself for. We had minor parties on the bridge at night while watching it. They often look like the silver lining of clouds that span the whole length of the sky, and suddenly the entire thing dances across the sky.

The Aurora Australis, perhaps the origin of Dust. (photo by ship’s official photographer Noah Hannibal)

There are only a few days left in the campaign, and we’ve seen live whales everywhere down here, even a rare Right Whale. Feels good having fought for them and seeing them alive in good numbers around us because of it.

-Tod

We stay alongside the Nisshin Maru to prevent the fleet from whaling.

This is the sixth blog post in the series documenting the February to March 2008 leg of the Sea Shepherd anti-whaling Antarctic campaign. Previous posts in the series are here. The following post was an email I sent 20 days into the voyage. The next update will come Friday, July 18th.

(A donations page, if anyone wants to help me pay for plane tickets to my next Sea Shepherd campaign)

From: Steve Irwin Vessel
Sent on: 3/5/08 06:34:53 +0000

We’ve been keeping up with the Nisshin Maru for a few days now. Yesterday, we were surrounded by a HUGE pod of dolphins, minke whales, pilot whales, and giant humpback whales, all swimming together! They swam alongside our boat to say hello, and we circled around them to keep them safe from the whaling factory ship. There were whales from horizon to horizon.

The Japanese fleet is unable to kill any whales while we’re in their midst. (photo taken by ship’s photographer Noah Hannibal)

It was such a good feeling to see all these whales, that would’ve otherwise been hunted, especially the minke whales which the Japanese whalers particularly targeted. As it was, the whalers couldn’t do anything while we were there. It seems that during this time, the whalers started to get frustrated. They even stopped their ship when all the whales surrounded both ships, even though the whalers couldn’t do anything or kill any of the whales.

Whales from all over the world converge in the Southern Oceans from December to March, which is why the Japanese whaling fleet hunts there during those months. Every day that we engaged the fleet, we also saw whales swimming alongside us.

The Japanese government has been spinning this week’s engagement with the Nisshin Maru to make us seem like bloodthirsty bar brawlers. We made sure that we only threw things onto unmanned whaling decks, so that no one would be hurt but they can’t do things on the whale processing areas. We threw two dozen bottles or so. However, the Japanese government (through newspapers like the Yomiuri Shinbun) is saying that we (33 of us crewmembers, none of whom were apparently driving or running the ship at the time) threw 2,000 bottles within a span of two hours, and that we also had a missile launcher, and that 4 of our missiles hit their Japanese crewmembers, causing them eye irritations. Furthermore, we apparently boarded their vessel and squirted acid into a crewmember’s face, and got into broken bottle fights with fully armed and armored Japanese marines and WON. We’re more macho than we thought!

One of the apparent unfortunate victims of the vegan death squad.

The factory ship has been trying to play cat and mouse games with us to get rid of us, but by now we’ve had so much constant experience with that game, dodging the Japanese military ship for so long, that they simply haven’t been able to shake us from their tail in any way. They’re also a gigantic ship that’s a huge blip on the radar and we moved away from all the ice berg fields, so it’s pretty futile for them to try and get rid of us.

I tried to explain The Dark Crystal movie to the captain, but he got fed up with it and left in the middle of the film. Sigh. We have Star Trek IV on board, though, so I may force the rest of the crew to watch it one of these days. Oh! Duty calls, be back later.

-Tod

We catch the Nisshin Maru

This is the fifth blog post in the series documenting the February to March 2008 leg of the Sea Shepherd anti-whaling Antarctic campaign. Previous posts in the series are here. The following post was an email I sent just over two weeks into the voyage. The next update will come Wednesday, July 16th.

(A donations page, if anyone wants to help me pay for plane tickets to my next Sea Shepherd campaign)

From: Steve Irwin Vessel
Sent on: 3/2/08 23:30:24 +0000

We just engaged the factory ship just now. As long as we’re on their tail,
they can’t do any more whaling. They had a group of soldiers on deck and ready for the engagement, but they’re in Australian waters breaking Australian law so what can they do? Shoot a boat full of Australians to prove they rule Australian territory?

The Nisshin Maru

The first battle begins. As we come into combat distance, the Japanese soldiers come onto the deck, and the Nisshin Maru uses its water cannons to try to repel us.

We threw acid and chemicals etc at their decks, so even if they lose us in a storm or something they can’t continue whaling operations. They tried to repel us with water cannons, but that did nothing. We threw everything we had, even some old vegan salad dressing that no one liked.

I was particularly happy that I hit their decks with my throw, because we had a butyric acid throwing contest a week ago to determine the teams, and I didn’t just throw badly, I threw so badly that everyone including me laughed. I threw like a disabled cat. So I kinda had to hit their deck during this engagement.

Me after hitting the Nisshin Maru with chemicals.

My friend Lawrence fighting the Nisshin Maru with butyric acid.

Lots to do since we’re still hot on their heels and the media keeps calling, so I gotta go for now.

-Tod

The Sea Shepherd vessel, Steve Irwin, on its way to Antarctica

This is the second blog post in the series documenting the February to March 2008 leg of the Sea Shepherd anti-whaling Antarctic campaign. Previous posts in the series are here. The following post was an email I sent on the second day at sea. Due to the holiday, the next whale blog post will be up next Monday, July 7.

(A donations page, if anyone wants to help me pay for plane tickets to my next Sea Shepherd campaign)

From: Steve Irwin Vessel
Sent on: 2/16/08 7:16 PM

Hello! Greetings from the middle of the ocean after two days at sea. It turns out the Australian government doesn’t like us since we’re pirates, even though we’re protecting their waters by engaging the Japanese whalers, but the individual citizens and cities love us. The Japanese fleet is actually invading the Australian Antarctic Territory to whale (against Australian law), so the Australians have good reason to love us and be pretty pissed off at the whalers. The locals at Melbourne gave us a hero’s sendoff when we left port in Melbourne two nights ago!

(photo taken by official ship’s photographer Noah Hannibal)

It’s been a lot busier than expected, as this isn’t your typical sit at your desk and use the computer type job. I’ve actually been doing a lot of hands on repairs to radar and other comm systems and keeping them running. And learning how to repair radar and other comm systems and how to keep them running since I’ve never seen any of this equipment before in my life.

The seas are tossing us quite a bit. My cabin is the forward-most cabin on the ship, and they call it the “zero-g” chamber. I didn’t know why they gave it that name until I woke up last night airborne off my bunk. There were like, maybe 10 people at breakfast. It seems like there’s almost no one on the ship because everyone’s in their bunk, sea sick.

I haven’t gotten sea sick, maybe because I play so many first-person shooter games on Xbox. Although being an OCD patient in the public bathrooms on the ship has been quite an experience. I wonder what happens if I run out of Purell to pour all over the bathrooms every morning.

And I finally got my pirate’s uniform! It has skulls and crossbones all over it. More news later.

-Tod

Photo taken by ship’s photographer Noah Hannibal

This is the first of many blog posts documenting my time serving on the Sea Shepherd vegan pirate ship, The Steve Irwin, and our mission to stop illegal Japanese whaling there from February and March of 2008. In light of the 2008 IWC Meeting finishing with the usual deadlock, and Sea Shepherd officially announcing its 2008-2009 anti-whaling campaign, Operation Musashi, it seemed a good time to show vegans what’s going on in the world of whaling.

These posts will document the ship’s journey from Australia to Antarctica for Operation Migaloo (the name of the 2007-2008 Sea Shepherd Antarctic anti-whaling campaign), and describe our sea battles there to stop the illegal Japanese whaling fleet. This will show what few people seem to know is happening to the whales, and what we can all do to stop one of the worst forms of poaching in the world.

Purpose of this whale blog: Like a lot of other people I know, I wanted to save the whales when I was a kid. But after I grew up, I didn’t realize that they STILL need to be saved, since whaling was illegal and all. And I’m starting to realize a lot of people don’t know that whales are still being hunted as if they’re not endangered. More importantly, it seems a lot of people have no idea that there’s something they can do to directly stop it. But there is.

Killing whales breaks six international laws, including that of the International Whaling Commission, the only international legislative body that has any modicum of direct control over countries’ whaling activities. However, the UN World Charter for Nature (pay close attention to sections 21-24) empowers us all to stop illegal poaching/whaling if we see it happening. Let me emphasize that again: the UN World Charter for Nature gives ALL of us, any individual on earth, the power to stop lawbreakers who poach or destroy nature. That means we can videotape their activities and turn the poachers in to authorities, we can get in poachers’ ways so they can’t kill whales and other endangered creatures, we can interfere with their activities and infrastructure, and we can even break their s%#t so long as we’re not in any jurisdiction that protects them.

One of the Japanese soldiers (who’s standing on the deck of the Nisshin Maru) that we fought

I recently went to Australia and got on a ship with 32 other people from around the world (like Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, South Africa, and Canada, among others). We all went to Antarctica on the Sea Shepherd vessel the Steve Irwin, to confront and stop the Japanese federally-funded whaling juggernaut that consisted of eight ships, hundreds of crew members, military personnel, guns, grenades, armor, military shields, and tear gas bombs. We were armed with absolutely nothing but one old, broken down ship, some beer bottles filled with rotten butter, some slippery white powder, and of course the authority to stop illegal poaching that you and I and all individuals on earth have under the UN World Charter for Nature. Sailing down there with a paltry arsenal and relatively few people who even ever served on a ship before, we defeated the whaling fleet. Even Japan eventually admitted we stopped them from harpooning 500 whales.

I’m a nearsighted computer geek who was making websites in a cubicle and had no prior ship experience, much less law enforcement or poaching interference experience. Yet somehow Japan labeled me a dangerous pirate that threatens the security of their country because of how successfully we stopped their illegal whaling. And if I’m that big a threat to massive poaching projects, what’s stopping any other person from being as effective in ending poaching or the destruction of nature? Anyone can pick an issue or a place dear to them on earth and make a remarkable difference; you don’t have to go all the way to Antarctica necessarily.

I want to put up a blog to show people the type of obstacles we had, the everyday type of people we are, the size of the beast we were up against, and how we could all still beat the bullies who shot at us from a ship eight times our size. Each blog post will be an email I’ve sent from the ship to friends in America, so they’ll speak conversationally about daily life and the interesting things that come up, and each post will be accompanied by some photos from the trip. The most important point to all this is that anyone can become a pirate and save a corner of the world; all they have to do is decide to do it.

I also put up a donations page, if anyone wants to help me pay for plane tickets to my next Sea Shepherd campaign.

Our next blog post (and first one written from the ship) will go up on Wednesday. In the meantime, here’s our ship, the day before we left Melbourne for the February to March leg of Operation Migaloo:

(photo taken by official ship’s photographer Noah Hannibal)

• I’m in Portland, Oregon for a while. It really is the clean, quiet, inexpensive, leafy, bicycle-and-vegan-friendly town they say it is, dammit. Anyways, if you’re at the Let Live Conference this weekend, say hi! They’ve finally posted the conference schedule (PDF), so check that out.
• One highlight of the conference is Isa Chandra Moskowitz‘s “How To: Culinary Activism” on Sunday afternoon. Isa was just profiled in the Portland Mercury. “America’s Favorite Vegan Cookbook Writer Now Calls Portland Home.” Sob.
• The vegan minimall (home to Food Fight!, Herbivore, Sweetpea Bakery, Scapegoat Tattoo) is even nicer than any pictures I’ve seen led me to believe. And certain amongst our readers will be pleased to know that Herbivore’s got almost nothing brown for sale these days.
• Elsewhere, apes got legal rights in Spain, a country with no wild apes or apes in laboratories. But hey, it may be a start towards rights for apes elsewhere, or for other species in Spain.
• Ram Singh Munda, a single dad in Orissa, India, was arrested for adopting an orphan wild bear cub. Now he’s's in jail, his six-year-old daughter Dulki was sent to a state-run boarding school, and Rani the bear is in an isolation cell at the zoo, refusing to eat. People for Animals is campaigning for Munda’s release and has promised him a job at a wildlife rehabilitation center.
• Tennis fans: Wimbeldon keeps some hawks around who keep most of the pigeons away, but got in trouble recently for shooting some pigeons who were “creating a health risk around the players’ lawn and a restaurant”. Awful of course, but any worse than killing rats and mice and ants and roaches like nearly every institution does?
• What else … oh yeah, Oprah Winfrey’s not vegan anymore. She pledges “I will forever be a more cautious and conscious eater. That’s my commitment for now. To stay awakened.” I wonder how long it will be before she’s enlightened enough to eat that grilled sea bass she’s been missing.

Not Shin Pond in Maine

Are you an innovative type who’s using your skills for the betterment of animals? If so, you can apply for residency at the Summer Retreat Program for Animal/Humane Studies at Shin Pond in Maine.

The program, which runs from June 1 through Sept. 30, is sponsored by The HSUS and is taking place on a 300-acre wooded sanctuary. Preferred residencies are from two to four weeks, and applications are being accepted now. Bloggers beware: There’s a phone line but no DSL or other high-speed Internet connection.

There’s no official form to fill out, but interested parties need to send in “a statement of interest that includes relevant information on the project he/she intends to pursue; the specific work product that will be produced during the retreat period; details of the likely outcome or application of the work undertaken or product produced at the retreat; any applicable scheduling concerns or scheduling preferences; and two professional references. Applicants may be asked to submit copies of prior publications.”

Send applications to: Bernard Unti, The Humane Society of the United States, 2100 L Street, NW, Washington, DC 20037; fax 301-258-3077; or e-mail bunti@hsus.org.

Never has there been a worse time to be vegan than whilst in attendance at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. I went for fun and as a blogger for Mediabistro and with a group of 10 ladies that help make up the NYU Writer’s Lab West. We went for five nights and six days and I lost at least as many lbs (or were they stolen?!) and that might not seem like a big deal but when you’re li’l to begin with that could put you in the embarrassing position of currently weighing in in the double digits and that’s just not right or good for my arm wrestling challenging ways.

Now, the problem with group travel is always that your individual needs have a tendency to get lost for the greater good, but when you (and only you) have a complex set of dietary needs like any vegan does, this gets tricky. The particular problem with Sundance is that yeah, you see movies, but mostly you go to parties. These parties are usually in restaurants, or are catered by restaurants, or are catered by a bar. Most people can eat the free food and drink the free drinks so they see no need to obtain additional meal-age. I could not. This was sad for me.

I gladly passed up things like dates wrapped in bacon, buffalo burgers, buffalo chili, and buffalo stew, but when I happened upon the only vegetarian restaurant in Park City (it isn’t even listed in Happy Cow’s guide), no one would go with me and it wasn’t an option to dine alone because it was far enough away to warrant the rental car, and the car was for 5 people to share. Oof that smarts. I had never been in a situation before where I was so hungry, so under-fed, and so tired that if it looked like it could be vegan I ate it. No questions asked (lookin’ at you questionable bread and guacamole). I’m not proud of this, but in six days I ate maybe four meals, two of which were at a place called The Eating Establishment which was almost as good as it sounds, and I’m not sure any’d be considered complete by any grouping, pyramid or chart.

So, in conclusion, if I go again next year, I’ll have to better prepare for this culinary underprivilege because the malnutrition combined with the sub-zero temps and lack of sleep left me extra-vulnerable to contracting what I am calling Sundance Disease and has left me in bed for a solid week from where I laptop to you now.

PETA loves it some top-ten lists. They especially like to rank the veg-friendliness of places like colleges, ballparks or small towns. Places where you know the food is terrible but you want to be there anyway because maybe you have priorities besides dining. I find those lists pretty boring, but I’m sure they help PETA get written up in small town and college newspapers, so more power to them.

PETA’s newest ranking is a lot more interesting. Perhaps timed to coincide with Michael Vick’s being sentenced to 23 months in prison, they’ve announced the top-ten vegetarian-friendly state prison systems in America. When you’re deciding which state to get arrested in, check this list. Unlike college, you can’t go eat off-campus.

A lot of the food seems to be along the lines of “soy Salisbury steak,” “tofu ala king,” or “meatless sloppy joes,” so it’s still foodservice slop, just without the animals. It would be great if prisons always served healthy, wholesome foods, but like schools (which we use to keep people off the streets before they’re old enough for prison), the food is usually whatever was quickest, cheapest, and makes best use of excess government-subsidized foodstuffs. Luckily there’s lots of cheap soy courtesy of the Farm Bill.

If anyone can figure out why the states are ranked in the order they are, leave a comment. From looking at the info provided, I’d say Hawaii looks best, but they only come in at number 7.

Years ago, when my brother took it upon himself to move to the godforsaken place (if you believe in God), I sent him the chapter “Let’s Dump On Orange County” from Michael Moore’s Downsize This!:

A friend of mine says everything bad in the country always seems to come from California. And he doesn’t mean the earthquakes, fires, floods, and riots. His list is long and impressive: Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, John Wayne, all the major defense contractors, Disneyland, the John Birch Society, Congressman Bob Dornan, the anti-immigrant movement, Prop. 13, the anti-tax initiative, the Mighty Ducks, Charles Manson. I told him that, other than Manson, everything he mentioned actually has one connecting thread: Orange County, California, a massive sprawl of land and people between Los Angeles and San Diego. Nixon was born there, Reagan got 75 percent of the vote there, and a big statue of the Duke, who lived and died there, greets you upon landing at Orange County’s John Wayne Airport.

To be fair(ish), I don’t have a crush on Michael Moore the way I used to, and there was that show, but after spending yesterday in the O.C. I felt it necessary to report that not everything that comes from there is bad, and I’m not even talking about my nephew. My brother, in an up till now never-before-seen gesture of kindness suggested we meet for lunch at The Camp, which was not a room full of macaroni art supplies and archery kits for out-of-school kids, but rather a nicely designed complex of buildings where yuppies, hippies and ex-band geeks like my 90 year-old 35 year-old brother can spend their hard earned monies. My mind was blown.

We ate delicious amazing yums at Native Foods where my only complaint is that a not generous slice of the cheesecake cost over $5. Did you catch the “we” in that sentence?! My brother voluntarily ate vegan food (the Philly Peppersteak sandwich) and enjoyed it. If you have a brother that 16 years later still shoves every bite of his steak in your face as an offer to you before he eats it, you’ll understand 1) what a coup this was and b) how deliciously amazingly yummy this food must be. And I don’t wanna see a bunch of whiney vegan commentary about how he’s an asshole and how we’re morally superior for not eating li’l things and how I’m doing him a favor blah blah blah. F) he is an asshole, I’ve known this for 30 years, welcome to my world e) That’s not the way the world actually works and V) nobody likes whiners or assholes and most people don’t really like vegans.

Moving on, I shuddered as my brother told me about the 150-foot pine tree that he’d just seen spray painted green at The Mall because it wasn’t Christmas enough, walked out of Native Foods and found another place to buy some fashionable faux footwear! Humanitaire. Real footwear. Fake leathers. For those of you who read my last post and are concerned for my bottom line, you’ll be surprised to note that I did not buy a single thing as J) I was tapped out from that 5+ dollar piece of cheesecake, and Q) my 3 year old nephew kept it real by asking me, “Why do you need shoes Auntie Andeerah? But whyyyy?” repeatedly.

Honorable mentions also go to the Squash Festival going on outside and to Tanya, the Vegan Chef with serious skills who C) gave us bites of squash on a stick that tasted like candy and R) thought I was my brother’s baby momma.

I still resent the fact that I have to drive 45 miles to visit the only heir to my vegan shoe collection, but if the recent fires, oil spills and strikes aren’t a sign of the Calipocalypse… something Good exists in Orange County?! You might want to early withdraw your 401K, spend it on cake and start saying your goodbyes.

Rosetta’s Kitchen

My first stop was Rosetta’s Kitchen. Rosetta’s is one of those places that buys local, composts, and recycles… but unfortunately, they don’t seem to have put too much effort into the actual food. I got their signature dish, peanut butter tofu with mashed potatoes and kale. Everything lacked flavor, and the tofu was particularly egregious: plain cubes of tofu with some peanut flavor on the outside. Damn those hippies and their tofu cubes; I didn’t know anyone out there still ate like this. (On the plus side, the portions were huge, and their mac and cheese was quite good. But nothing makes up for those lame-ass tofu cubes.)

Laughing Seed Cafe

Next up was the Laughing Seed Cafe, which totally rocked. It’s like if you merged Angelica Kitchen and Candle 79: innovative daily specials, a mix of ethnic-inspired dishes, and fancy gourmet quality (plus, good selections of both caffeine and alcohol). I got the pakora appetizer (with ingredients that change daily), a delicious multi-mushroom soup, and the Pacific Rim Seitan entree. I seriously wanted to come back here every day and try the entire menu; unfortunately the prices were also at New York levels.

Early Girl Eatery

I was quite excited about the Early Girl Eatery‘s breakfast; I actually managed to drag myself out of bed by 11:30am in order to try their scrambled tofu. Unfortunately they seemed to have forgotten the “scrambled” part; they served me a mix of cubed tofu and green peas! I mean, it was spiced well, but on what planet does this count as “scrambled”? Is it a special New York innovation that we’ve discovered how to serve tofu in non-cube forms? Within walking distance of my apartment, Sacred Chow, Kate’s, Counter, Organic Grill, and Curly’s will all scramble you up some proper tofu; perhaps they should take this knowledge to Asheville and reveal to them the joys of tofu in its non-cube form? (Hint: scrambled tofu picks up flavors way better when actually scrambled!)

Just add beer.

Anyway, Early Girl has some tasty vegan sandwiches on its menu (I recommend the avocado and sprout), so all was not lost. Just watch out for those damned tofu cubes.

And finally, while it’s not especially vegan-friendly, I’d recommend a stop at The Bier Garden. They’ve got a great beer selection (plenty of which are vegan) and free Guitar Hero 2; seriously, what could possibly be more fun than getting drunk on good beer while rocking out to Them Bones?

I didn’t have time to check out every vegan option in Asheville, so if you’re planning a trip, make sure to check out AshevilleVeg.com. Let us know your Asheville vegan recommendations in the comments.