Alan Roettinger reminds me of an editor I once worked with. The fashion editor in question longed for the days when men and women dressed as if they gave a damn—not just for special occasions, but for going to the grocery store, doing laundry, whatever—instead of just throwing on jeans and a T-shirt. Private chef Roettinger has the same wish, except his centers around food: Even if we’re pressed for time, he believes, we should still be able to create elegant, flavorful dishes. To that end he wrote Speed Vegan: Quick, Easy Recipes With a Gourmet Twist. I asked the recent vegan about his inspiration for the book and how plant-based life is treating him.

Roseann Marulli Rodriguez: Hi, Alan. Thanks so much for speaking with SuperVegan.

I love the idea behind your book. I think most people get lazy and make the same dishes over and over just because they’re easy. I personally eat way more frozen meat analogs than I should probably admit to in public. What gave you the idea for the book?

Alan Roettinger: After my first book, Omega 3 Cuisine (vegetarian, with small bits of egg and dairy, but mostly vegan), Book Publishing Company and I were eager to work together again, so I asked for a project. After some deliberation, they handed me Vegan Quick—recipes that could be made in 30 minutes or less. If you’ve read my introduction, you know this was a little unusual for me; I normally spend as long as it takes to make fine food. It was a good exercise for me!

Roseann: When you started the book you weren’t vegan. So why a vegan cookbook?

Alan: As a private chef, my job has always been to work within the parameters of my clients’ diets and preferences, and I took this on in that spirit. It was a project involving food—I was born for this!

Roseann: Just before printing you started eating vegan and were feeling great. Congrats! Have you stuck with it?

Alan: Thank you! I have stuck with it—commitment is like that. I’d done considerable reading about factory farming even before the idea of writing a vegan cookbook came up, and of course I’d been eating all the food that eventually became the recipes in the book. While the book was in the last stages of the editorial process, I read Eating Animals, an exquisitely written book by Jonathan Safran Foer, which struck me as much by what was said as by what was not (no moralizing, no judgment). The decision occurred in my doctor’s office, when he was insisting I start taking statins to lower my cholesterol, which was on a steady upward trend. I’d been eating quite well by American standards—no fast food junk, no refined carbs, mostly plants, organic, etc.—and getting a lot of exercise. I’d also tried natural alternatives (oats, red yeast rice), but the numbers kept creeping upward. So I told my doctor I was going to go on a strict vegan diet and train to run the Pikes Peak Ascent the following year. I’d never been a runner. He was dubious. I never looked back. In six months my cholesterol fell from 289 to 130. And I did run the Pikes Peak Ascent. Ha-ha!

Roseann: Good for you! How’d you do?

Alan: I ran it in 5 hours 20 minutes. To be honest, most people don’t run all the way, especially above tree line. I was never out of breath, though, which is pretty important to note, since the conventional non-wisdom figures the lack of red meat in my diet would result in a lower red blood cell count, meaning less oxygenation. What slowed me down was the cramping in my legs and feet—damn things wouldn’t stay on task. I did run across the finish line, though, which ain’t bad for a guy 57 years old. My (younger) brother-in-law, who’s been running the Ascent every year for 20 years, beat me by only 10 minutes.

A plant-fueled Roettinger crosses the Pikes Peak Ascent finish line. Go, vegan!

Roseann: That’s pretty impressive! How do you feel now?

Alan: Fantastic, thank you for asking.

Roseann: So are you going to stay vegan?

Alan: I should make one thing clear at this point: I’m a human being. Human beings are by nature omnivorous, meaning we can eat anything we want. I’ve been steadily refining my choices throughout my life according to what works for me. Right now I’m eating strictly plant-based foods because I feel much better this way (and part of feeling the way I feel is because I’m not killing anything). But I haven’t stopped the refining process. I know vegans who aren’t very healthy, in part because they don’t eat very well—their focus is not participating in cruelty to animals, which is noble, but their choices are perpetrating a form of cruelty to their own bodies. So I find that it’s paramount to stay focused on life’s ultimate purpose (joy) and goal (to awaken). What I eat will change according to my needs and what I learn about health and what works; my purpose and my goal have not changed since I was born a human being. That said, I will add this about continuing my vegan diet: I have no reason to go back.

Roseann: So has it changed the way you look at food?

Alan: No, I still love food, and I love making food that thrills the palate. It has changed the way I look at farm animals, though.

The Peanut Sauce for the Tempeh Sticks—coconut milk, cilantro, Sriracha sauce, ginger, agave, lemongrass, salt and dry-roasted peanuts—is ridiculously delicious! It’s amazing over the pan-fried tempeh and great on its own—I couldn’t stop dipping my finger in the bowl and sucking it clean. My husband, not normally a fan of sweets, said the sweet-spicy flavor would probably pair well with dark chocolate. Hmm…

Roseann: Each recipe should take under half an hour to prepare. Does that include prep time? Why 30 minutes?

Alan: This was the challenge set before me: 30 minutes or less, all prep included. The only exception is that some recipes include what I refer to as “Jump Starts” in the first section, which are a few preparations that make it quicker and easier to turn out interesting fare in the allotted half-hour.

Roseann: They might be quick, but your recipes have a more dressed-up feel to them. Was that intentional?

Alan: Absolutely! I do this for a living. My preference is always to do my best to present food in the most pleasing way possible. This doesn’t always mean complicated or laborious; it simply means going to whatever lengths are necessary to create a pleasurable eating experience. We only go around once (that we know of).

Roseann: They also have a very Asian flare. Is that your specialty?

Alan: My specialty is rich people—whatever they want, I make it look good, smell good and taste good. I also try to make it so that good health results, which isn’t always possible when the client is bent on eating things that are destined to fall short (to put it as generously as I can). I do lean heavily in the Asian direction because I love the complex flavor profiles and the variety of textures, but in this book I also favor these cuisines because they naturally incorporate a lot of vegetables and plant-based protein. It’s a no-brainer.

The Tofu and Soba Noodles With Hot-Sweet-Sour-Pungent Sauce was tasty and satisfying. At first I thought I should have gone a little lighter on the tomato puree, but the longer the flavors sat, the sweetness of the tomato mellowed, and the dish’s perfectly balanced seasoning revealed itself.

Roseann: Will you continue to cook whatever your rich people demand?

Alan: In my view, compassion begins with the self and must be shown to all living things in order to be genuine. Although I no longer eat animals, I do understand that everyone is at a different point in their own personal evolution. No one forced me to eat the way I eat now; I came to this on my own. So yes, if my clients want prime rib, lobster and caviar, my job will be to present those creatures in a way that does justice to their sacrifice. If this strikes anyone out there as a compromise on my part, then I would humbly request that they help find me some wealthy vegan clients.

Roseann: We’re on the case!

Now, I thought I knew my way around the kitchen, but you incorporate ingredients I’d never heard of. Take Sriracha sauce, for example. Why so far off the beaten path?

Alan: The beaten path is, well, beaten! I’ve never wanted to stay in one place or follow the herd, so to speak. I grew up in Mexico, lived for a time in Europe and traveled to every continent. Why would I not want to reach out with my palate and skill to include as many different options as possible? When I finally moved to the United States, in the ’70s, I was shocked by the monoculture, the lack of fresh, varied produce. You couldn’t get a decent cup of coffee or a decent loaf of bread, let alone anything that vaguely approached what I’d become accustomed to. Now, fortunately, we live in a global village, so a lot of what one had to travel around the world to find is within the average city dweller’s reach. Sriracha sauce is catching up with ketchup as the condiment of choice. How cool is that?

Roseann: Very! So what’s your favorite recipe from the book?

Alan: I’m not the one to ask which is most popular; I don’t have the data to answer with any authority. And they’re all my favorites—if they weren’t, they wouldn’t have made it into the book! I made a bunch of things that didn’t make the cut.

After the Chocolate Pots de Crème set in the fridge, they have a solid, mousse-like consistency. I don’t usually add basil and black peppercorns to my desserts, but the flavors that really sing through are the orange zest and chocolate. Yum!

Roseann: There are a lot of salads in the book. Is that your go-to meal when you’re pressed for time?

Alan: Salads are actually fairly labor-intensive compared to many other things. I think they’re my go-to meal most often because they are what my body loves the most. I can almost hear it singing to me, thanking me and praising my wisdom when I eat fresh, succulent, beautiful salads. Mmmm.

Roseann: You incorporate some tofu and seitan, but most of your dishes are vegetable-centric. Are you anti-meat substitute?

Alan: I try not to be anti-anything; it limits my ability to understand. I just don’t feel the need to substitute meat. If I want it that bad, I can always just go ahead and eat it. The way I see it, if you’re going to leave something behind, it makes no sense to bring it with you. The world is full of interesting, exciting, highly gratifying things to eat. So why try to fool myself into thinking I’m eating something I now find repugnant?

Roseann: Understood. So what’s next for you?

Alan: I’m writing a third cookbook, due out in 2012. And of course, there’s the promotion of Speed Vegan, which has been a hugely enjoyable experience so far; I look forward to meeting and speaking with more and more people. I also hope to get my blog started, finally, by the middle of December.

Roseann: Great! We’ll keep an eye out for all of that. Thanks so much for chatting with us, Alan.

Alan: No! Thank YOU!!!

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

Ricki Heller wants you to have your cake and eat it too—just without a lot of the ingredients you generally think of when you think about dessert. I took some of the recipes from her cookbook, Sweet Freedom, out for a spin, then asked Ricki to fill me in on how it all began.

Roseann Marulli: Thanks so much for speaking with SuperVegan, Ricki. How did Sweet Freedom: Desserts You’ll Love Without Wheat, Eggs, Dairy or Refined Sugar come to be?

Ricki Heller: Sweet Freedom is an outgrowth of my baking company, Bake It Healthy, which grew out of my cooking classes. I’d been selling muffins, cookies, bars and cake slices in health food stores across Toronto for a few years when I realized I just didn’t have the physical stamina to keep the bakery going anymore. I was responsible for all aspects of the business, so between baking, wrapping and labeling, and delivering the goods, I was working 16-plus hours a day. When I decided to close the company, in 2007, many of my customers asked if I’d consider private catering because they didn’t want to give up their weekly muffins and cookies or custom birthday cakes. I did cater for about a year but then decided that the best way for people to continue enjoying the treats was to have the recipes themselves, so I began to convert them for the home cook—and Sweet Freedom was born!

Roseann: You’re a registered holistic nutritionist. Why is it important that your desserts be healthy? Do you ever cheat with something “bad”?

Ricki: I got involved in holistic nutrition because of my own health issues, and I found that the only factor that really made a difference long-term was changing my diet. Back in 2008, when I began to slip up and revert to some of my previous eating habits—desserts with white flour and white sugar—I came down with systemic candida and had to return to a more stringent way of eating that I’d followed 10 years earlier. Now that I’ve been on a strict anti-candida diet for almost two years (it’s vegan, no gluten, no sweeteners except stevia, no mushrooms or other sources of mold, no sweet fruits, no alcohol or anything fermented—I could go on), I can honestly say that no, I don’t cheat. I think I’ve learned my lesson! I feel 100% better this way and am almost back to my old, healthy self. I’ve worked too hard to regain my health to mess it up by eating something sugary.

Roseann: Your dishes are free of additives, colorings, artificial ingredients, refined sugar, wheat and animal products. Why?

Ricki: As a holistic nutritionist, I learned that what we ingest can affect our health. It makes sense, that our cells are literally built from the substances we eat, drink and breathe—there really is nothing else that affects our physical being more. Given the many toxins in the world over which we have no control—the air outside, the many technologies that give off electromagnetic pollution, food packaging, and so on—I prefer to eliminate as many food-related toxins as I can. As someone who’s working to build a healthy immune system and a healthy body in general, I don’t want to fill my cells with artificial colorings, chemicals or refined ingredients, which contain almost no nutritional value—and sugar depresses the immune system! I originally cut out animal products as a way to decrease the toxic load on my system, but to be honest, I never really ate many animal products anyway. I consider myself someone who is naturally inclined toward a vegan diet, as vegan food is what appeals to me most, and by eating it, I feel most comfortable and energetic. I continue this way both for my own health and for the health of the animals.

My Mother’s Cheesecake is infused with lemon juice, lemon extract and lemon rind, and the crust is good enough to eat on its own. Even the skeptical omnis at our Thanksgiving meal gobbled it up!

Roseann: What was the biggest challenge you faced in baking without all that extra “stuff”? Did anything just not work and not make it into the book?

Ricki: The soy-free whipped cream was a huge challenge and probably the most-tested recipe in the book—over 50 tries! For the cookbook version, I simplified the original recipe that had appeared on my blog. The final cream is a wee bit heavier and less airy than the blog version, but it also has about 28 fewer steps! I also tried a meringue and failed miserably. That’s one texture that’s just very difficult to reproduce without white sugar.

Roseann: Was anything that succeeded a surprise?

Ricki: The gluten-free pastry cream was a bit of a surprise because it didn’t start out that way—I was attempting a baked pudding. But popping the mixture in a blender produced the most velvety, smooth, rich-tasting cream. It’s one of my favorite recipes now!

Roseann: You’ve had a pretty busy year! You received an Honorable Mention in the 2010 Cuisine Canada Culinary Book Awards, and your cookbook is one of the few listed on Ellen DeGeneres’ Books Ellen Reads page. Congrats! How did Ellen find out about your cookbook?

Ricki: Thanks so much! My blog readers and twitter followers are the most amazing people, and I’d say they’re mostly responsible. Back in April, I posted a blog entry about how much I wanted to be on Ellen’s show to bake for her and Portia, since they’re both vegan and refined-sugar-free, exactly the kinds of recipes in my book. I also tweeted during the day, and many of my twitter followers began to retweet the messages and email The Ellen DeGeneres Show, endorsing my book and recipes. Somehow Ellen found out about it and checked out my book. Next thing I knew, my book was on her page! It was an incredible surprise to see my cookbook listed next to Alicia Silverstone’s and Tal Ronnen’s. I’m still floating!

The Girl Scouts have nothing on Ricki! Her Classic Peanut Butter Cookies smell as good as they taste.

Roseann: That’s amazing! How is the book being received in general? Do you have any favorite stories?

Ricki: I’ve been really gratified by all the fantastic reviews the book has received so far, and I’m thrilled that so many people like it. It always delights me to receive an email from someone who made one of the recipes and enjoyed it. My favorite story remains one I’ve told before, about a mom who made a birthday cake for her eight-year-old daughter’s birthday. The young girl couldn’t eat wheat, eggs, dairy or refined sugar, so my stuff was perfect; there’s a great agave-based frosting recipe in the book that works beautifully for decorating, piping, etc. This family had eaten my frosted cupcakes before, so I knew they already liked my stuff. After the party, the mom called to tell me that the cake had been a hit with all the kids and their moms. Then she went on to say that it had also been the first time in her daughter’s life, in eight years of parties, that her daughter had been able to share in her own birthday cake with everyone else at the party. I still get a bit teary thinking about that, because I was so touched to be able to give that kind of gift to that little girl. It makes me incredibly happy to know that people who’ve felt deprived of their favorite sweets for a long time can once again enjoy them through my recipes.

Roseann: What are the most popular ones? Which is your favorite?

Ricki: Anything chocolate seems to be pretty popular! The Ultra Fudgy Brownies and Butterscotch Blondies With Dried Cranberries and Chocolate Chips are a big hit, as are the gluten-free, grain-free Coconut Macaroons. The most popular muffin was always the Sweet Harvest, which has hidden carrot, zucchini and spinach and offers up a full serving of vegetables in every muffin. My own favorite chocolate-based recipe is the Chocolate Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies; and my favorite non-chocolate one is the Spiced Pumpkin-Millet Pudding.

Roseann: I made your Classic Peanut Butter Cookies, My Mother’s Cheesecake and Chocolate Caramels, and when I started taking pictures, I realized I’d chosen three beige dishes! Regardless, they all looked and tasted great. I brought the cheesecake to an omnivore’s house for Thanksgiving, and everyone LOVED it!

Ricki: My Mother’s Cheesecake is probably one of my favorites, though I like the Chai Cheesecake, too.

Roseann: And the Peanut Butter Cookies are amazing—my husband won’t let me share them with anyone else! As far as the caramels go, though, I fell into the overcooking trap you mentioned, so it became hard like brittle instead of chewy. It was still spot-on taste-wise, though! And I drizzled some chocolate on top just because. How long did it take for you to get it right? Is the secret using a candy thermometer, or is there another trick of which I’m obviously not aware?

Ricki: Sorry about the brittle! It took quite a few tries to get the texture just right without a candy thermometer—honestly, the trick is just to make it enough times that you recognize the right texture. As I recall—this was two years ago now—it also depends on the burner, since “low” or “medium” on one stovetop isn’t the same as on another, as well as on the pot; the mixture in a smaller, deeper pot will cook more slowly than one in a larger, wider one, and timing is everything with that recipe. All this to say that if you don’t have a candy thermometer, your best bet might be to undercook them a bit and, if necessary, make caramel cups instead of firm caramels. That’s what a friend of mine did. She had the opposite outcome—her filling was too soft, so she made the cups. When I wrote the book, I really wanted anyone to be able to make the recipes, even without special equipment. But if I do a second edition, I think I’ll just say to use a thermometer.

I overcooked the Chocolate Caramels and ended up with something resembling brittle instead. But break off a piece and let it melt on your tongue, and it’s caramel yumminess all the way!

Roseann: Why did you include some raw desserts? Do you eat raw often?

Ricki: I do try to include raw foods at least 50% of the time in my daily diet, and I love raw cuisine. Since some of my favorite desserts happen to be raw, I thought I’d include them. They’re also great for people on a cleanse or a gentle detox who still want to indulge in something sweet.

Roseann: What’s next for you?

Ricki: My recipes always reflect where I am in my own life, so my current creations are all based on the anti-candida diet. I’m working on a cookbook with recipes that are all low-glycemic, gluten-free and sweetened with stevia, yacon syrup, coconut sugar or agave nectar. I’ve really enjoyed learning about gluten-free flours and gluten-free baking and can’t wait to share some of the desserts I’ve created with them. This time I’ll also be including some savory recipes—even I have to eat something other than dessert once in a while!

Roseann: Best of luck with the new book, Ricki! And thanks again for chatting with us.

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

The best thing Laura ever ate on Thanksgiving was this Fiery Sweet Potatoes recipe. (Photo and recipe from the New York Times.)

We wish all our readers a wonderful and joyous Thanksgiving! Hopefully you’re sharing a superb vegan feast with friends and family. (If you’re in NYC and looking still looking for a place to go, check out our Thanksgiving restaurants round-up.)

What’s the best thing you ever ate on Thanksgiving? We asked that question of ourselves and here’s our answers.

Deborah Diamant: My favorite edible item ever is my grandmother’s apple pie. Every important event of my pre-vegan life involved a bunch of brown-sugar-soaked granny smith apples between two layers of perfectly flaky dough. The last thing I knowingly ate that was not vegan? My grandmother’s apple pie during Thanksgiving 2001. The best thing I’ve eaten during a Thanksgiving meal? My aunt’s vegan version of my grandmother’s apple pie, which made its first appearance at Thanksgiving 2002. Thank you, Mom-Mom and Aunt Leda!

Samantha Cohen: Honestly, I don’t have a single Thanksgiving food memory that isn’t wrapped up in “[Generous family member] made this and LOVES me!” sentimentality so I warn you, you can’t trust a thing I say! But in the interest of answering this question: The first Thanksgiving I was vegan I ate a Tofurky my mom bought and loved it. Not sure if A. it was truly delicious, B. I was starving for a meat substitute, or C. I’m having a nostalgia party over glutenous foods I can no longer eat. Whatever. Tofurky all the way!

Laura Leslie: The best thing I ever ate on Thanksgiving was the Fiery Sweet Potatoes recipe I found in the New York Times. I wasn’t expecting much, but it was super easy to make and absolutely delicious–the coconut milk, Thai red curry paste, and brown sugar are the perfect combination to go with the creamy roasted sweet potatoes.

Roseann Marulli Rodriguez: I think the best thing I ever had on Thanksgiving was something I made from Veganomicon: Isa’s Caramelized Onion-Butternut Roast With Chestnuts. I can eat chestnuts until I explode, and roasted with the squash, onion and cannellini beans–wow! Sweet and savory and absolutely delish. Root vegetables and the like don’t play all that well in the Sunshine State, though, so I’m at a loss for what to whip
up this year…

Cat Clyne: One year I had the fortune of having the Now & Zen un-turkey, seitan wrapped in fake skin and stuffed with yummy stuffing. With gravy. But the company doesn’t exist anymore. It was so awesome. I got it frozen at the Park Slope Food Coop. It was savory and we added potatoes and onions I think, which roasted along with the un-turkey thing. Also, on a goofy note, I do love Thanksgiving potlucks because you never know what you’re gonna get. But with vegans, it is always awesome.

Jason Das: I am annually greatful that my family discovered this Cranberry Chutney recipe in the November 25, 1987 New York Times. Obviously, these days we substitute a vegan sweetener for the honey. (And actually reduce the amount of sweetener overall–it doesn’t need much.) While it contains some counter-intuitive ingredients (dried apricots?!), this stuff is really delicious. It’s far more interesting and nuanced than standard cranberry sauce, while still packing plenty of cranberry taste and tang.

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

Carol’s Pie, Thanksgiving 2009

I had the honor of interviewing Carol Adams, author of the highly influential feminist critical theory The Sexual Politics of Meat, for SuperVegan earlier this week. You’ll see the full interview in December. Of course, being vegans, we talked about food. And Carol revealed that for her and her family it just isn’t a holiday without a pecan pie. To celebrate all things MoFo and as a teaser for the upcoming interview, Carol shared her favorite recipe.

Pecan Pie

This is a veganized version of a luscious pecan pie found in Miriam Kasin Hospodar’s Heaven’s Banquet: Vegetarian Cooking for Lifelong Health the Ayurveda Way.

Use your favorite pie crust; prepare it, put in a vegan buttered 9-inch pie plate and put it in the freezer till you are ready to put the filling in.

3/4 cup unbleached white flour
3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons arrowroot or cornstarch
3/4 teaspoon baking powder

6 tablespoons vegan margarine (like Earth Balance)
2 cups pecan halves

1 cup water
2/3 cup rice syrup

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Mix the flour, sugar, arrowroot or cornstarch, and the baking power together.

Cut the margarine in small pieces and add it to the flour mixture, mixing it thoroughly. It should look like cookie crumbs. (I use a food processor.)

Add the pecans to this mixture.

Combine the water and rice syrup together. (I use a blender.)

Put 1/2 of the flour mixture in the pie crust. Pour 1/2 of the water-rice syrup mixture over the flour mixture.

Add the rest of the flour mixture and the rest of the liquid. Stir this very gently a few times, moistening the flour mixture, but don’t over-mix. It will seem to look strange, but have faith.

Put a rack underneath it and place it in the oven. Bake it about 50 to 60 minutes. The crust will be a golden color and the top will a golden brown.

Note: the pie needs to cool at least a few hours before being served. It will solidify as it cools.

You can learn more about Carol at: www.caroljadams.com.

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

Every year, Dr. Michael Greger, the director of public health and animal agriculture for The Humane Society of the United States, peruses untold numbers of medical journals for the newsiest of food news. He then presents the most notable findings in a quiz show format DVD. I dropped the good doctor a line and asked him to explain some of the more curious revelations from his newest releases, the 2009 and 2010 Latest in Clinical Nutrition.

Roseann Marulli: Hey, Dr. G! Long time no speak. Thanks for chatting with SuperVegan.

There’s a lot of information jam-packed into your nutrition DVDs. Some of it’s a no-brainer, like the fact that artifical colors are harmful and that having a cat or a dog is protective against cancer. (Well, we all knew companion animals make us happier, anyway.) But there were a few surprises, too. What was the most shocking thing you learned from the medical literature in the last two years? The most yawn-inducing?

Dr. Michael Greger: I continue to be amazed by our bodies’ ability for self-repair. Like, if you bang your shin on something it gets better—unless you keep banging it in the same place day after day. That’s what smoking does, daily lung injury. But when people stop smoking, their lung cancer risk after enough years approaches that of a nonsmoker! Isn’t that amazing? Our body can get all the crap out of there and heal. Same thing with the lining of our arteries getting injured day after day from unhealthy diets. All you have to do is stop it and your body will heal. Our bodies want to be healthy, if we would just let them. That’s what these new research articles are showing: Even after years of beating yourself up with a horrible diet, your body can reverse the damage, open back up the arteries—even reverse the progression of some cancers. Amazing! So it’s never too late to start exercising, never too late to stop smoking and never too late to start eating healthier.

The yawns come mostly from the cascade of studies touting the benefits of foods like berries and greens. I don’t even cover them anymore in my DVDs. Been there, done that.

Roseann: You’re always reminding vegans to take their vitamin B12. Now it turns out that a B12 deficiency can lead to schizophrenia. Does it make you nuts when you find out we’re not taking our supplements? Ba-dum-bum!

Dr. G: No, B12 deficiency can give you paranoid psychoses, which can be misdiagnosed as schizophrenia (though thankfully it may be reversible). But either way, take your damn B12.

Roseann: I’m all for natural alternatives, but they often don’t seem to work. As the research has borne out, homeopathy doesn’t do us a damn bit of good. On the flip side, though, coconut-derived shampoo kills lice better than pesticides. (Thanks for making me itchy, by the way.) Why is that? What other remedies were tested?

Dr. G: For the lice thing, it was just a study of that particular shampoo, and it doesn’t really have anything to do with diet. I just find myself debunking the claims of the multibillion-dollar natural-supplements industry, so I like to give props when I run across something that actually works!

Roseann: Those of us who like to eat our weight in food will be saddened to learn that caloric restriction improves memory. Equally dismaying for the sedentary among us is the fact that 30 minutes of exercise a day can reverse minor cognitive impairment. On the positive side, though, soy not only protects memory but also inhibits fat uptake. Skip the exercise, pound the soy?

Dr. G: Do both! Well, actually, eating soy while jogging might present a choking hazard, so maybe not. :)

Roseann: New products boasting health benefits come out all the time, but many of them end up being bunk (like mangosteen juice—which is also ridiculously expensive bunk). So while green and black teas are health-promoting, studies have shown that yerba maté can actually increase your cancer risk. How could a little old beverage be so dangerous?

Dr. G: One word: carcinogens.

Roseann: And unfortunately for a lot of our readers, there was no change to the findings that kombucha, spirulina and chlorella are harmful. What else is at the top of your “Get this out of your pantry now!” list?

Dr. G: I also talk about a bunch of things you can overdo, like natural licorice. In fact, the safety window is so small, it may be better to just stay away from regular consumption altogether.

Roseann: Another bummer: Not only are white potatoes less nutrient-rich than even Iceberg lettuce, they increase our risk of kidney cancer by 50%. Um, that’s a lot. White potatoes cooked using any method? Why?

Dr. G: Yeah, it wasn’t just fried taters. I can see why they wouldn’t be particularly health-promoting, but actually increasing disease risk? That was a surprise. Same thing with refined grains. I would have expected things like white rice, bagels, etc., to be just useless, but they can actually increase disease risk. Choose the grain, the whole grain, and nothing but the whole grain.

Roseann: Oh boy…

The vegetarians among us will be dismayed to learn that half an egg a day increases the risk of cancer. And members of the 420 club will be saddened to learn that smoking just one joint is the equivalent of smoking 20 cigarettes—an entire pack!—when it comes to lung cancer. But what I found really shocking was that just a spoonful a day of kimchi can increase your breast cancer risk twofold and your risk of prostate cancer 10 times. Cancer, cancer everywhere. Why?

Dr. G: Because people are ingesting, inhaling and generally being exposed to carcinogenic substances. We live in a pretty toxic world. Let’s not make it worse by going out of our way to add to our bodily burden.

Roseann: Other fun facts: Farmed fish are fed cow brains, beef is injected with ammonia to kill bacteria, and arsenic is added to chicken feed. Why would anyone in their right mind continue to eat animals?

Dr. G: Uh, have you seen McDonald’s advertising budget lately?

Roseann: Speaking of fun, your DVDs are peppered with corny jokes, cute animal photos and plentiful poop references. The Bristol Stool Scale actually illustrates what healthy feces should look and feel like, with vegetarians and vegans coming out (ahem) ahead of omnivores. When you go to cocktail parties, do you ask people to rate their stool as based on the Bristol Scale?

Dr. G: Let’s just say “Would you look at my mole?” is one of the more benign things I’m dragged behind closed doors to inspect at parties.

Roseann: On the positive side, just two teaspoons of vinegar with food lessens the blood sugar spike we feel after eating—and it’s calorie-free. And date sugar topped out as the healthiest sweetener on the planet. I love dates! Why are Hallawi dates in particular so healthy?

Dr. G: The healthiest date is the one you’ll eat the most of! But if I remember correctly, Hallawi just had a particularly high antioxidant density in the study I presented.

Roseann: More good news: Eating nuts can help us lose weight by increasing our resting energy expenditure. Not only that, it decreases inflammation and helps suppress cancer. Any old nuts, or some more so than others? The evidence in support of an inert lifestyle seems to be stacking up, yes?

Dr. G: Basically I’m talking about all nuts, except coconuts, chestnuts and betel nuts. Even peanuts, which, although they’re not technically nuts, can be considered part of the pack nutritionally.

Roseann: We also learned that what we eat can turn gene expression on and off, actually changing us on a genetic level, and that a healthy, plant-based diet can be as powerful as drugs and surgery, even better in many cases. So why are doctors and nutritionists still pushing animal products?

Dr. G: Mostly ignorance. Buy your doc my DVDs.

Roseann: Finally, in your DVD Flu Factories, we learn that the three primary threats to humanity are the global food crisis, climate change and pandemic influenza—all of which can be linked to industrial animal agriculture. Are we destined to eat ourselves to extinction, or is there hope?

Dr. G: I never thought I’d live to see a year where the number of animals killed for food would actually drop. Well, guess what? That happened in 2008, and again in 2009, with all the attendant nutritional, food safety, public, environmental and animal health benefits. We’re all part of a tremendous movement for change—it’s a very exciting time to be alive!

Roseann: I had no idea! That’s great news. Up with vegans, down with animal agriculture!

Thanks again for sharing your brain with us, Dr. G. Looking forward to next year’s installment!

Dr. Greger’s nutrition DVDs pack in more information than any mere mortal could possibly retain. Get them here, and 100% of the proceeds will go to The Humane Society of the United States. Or donate $30 or more to Mercy for Animals through
Nov. 30 and get the 2010 DVDs for free. You can also watch and/or purchase Dr. Greger’s presentation on swine flu and read and/or buy Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching, with all proceeds going to charity.

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

Or, that’s the ideal, right? And aren’t we always searching for a vegan gummy as delicious as a Sour Patch with the elasticity of a common, gelatin-based gummy worm? Yes, ma’am.

These Goody Good Stuff gummies come pretty close. I tried the Sour Mix & Match pouch of amorphous shapes that look kind of maybe like a very round, very tiny and cute dog biscuit. About a 4 out of 10 on the sour scale, slightly less sour than Sour Patch Kids, these guys are super sugary–23 grams of sugar in nine pieces–, and deliciously fruity without the fake fruit flavor. They’re vegan (obvious plus) and gluten-free (I can eat them!). But, alas, they’re not all that in the elasticity department. Sure, they’re gummy like sticky, but not gummy like bounces back on your fingers as you pull one end into your mouth. Matt accurately said they’re more like jellies than gummies, which, if you like that sort of thing, makes these just right for you.

For those craving a sour-ish, fruity, sugary snack, these are IT. For those looking to replace the Haribo gummy worms in their lives, look elsewhere. “Where?” you ask. I don’t know! Do you know, readers, where to find hard vegan gummies, sour and classic? Please clue me in.

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

I’m pretty lazy when it comes to cooking, but I love food, so every once in a while I pull out all the stops and try something new. Recently I test-drove some recipes from The Best of Vegan Cooking, the latest cookbook from animal protection organization Friends of Animals. And wow, was I impressed! Even my passable cooking skills couldn’t thwart these dishes. Pretty proud of my efforts and very well-sated, I caught up with FoA president Priscilla Feral and asked her to tell me more.

Roseann Marulli: Priscilla, thanks for speaking with SuperVegan. The Best of Vegan Cooking is a collection of recipes from a number of different chefs, each with their own style and culinary influences. How did you decide which chefs would participate?

Priscilla Feral: Trish Sebben-Krupka is an extraordinarily talented friend, and the same is true of Mike Behrend. I met and cooked with Jesus Gonzalez and Gonzalo Mendoza at the cooking school at Rancho La Puerta, in Mexico. Mary Lawrence lives in Connecticut, where I reside, and my friend and photographer Linda Long brought other chefs in to contribute their talent.

Roseann: From the dishes I’ve sampled so far, you made some very good decisions! What’s the most popular recipe? What’s your personal favorite?

Priscilla: I have favorites from the first book, Dining With Friends: The Art of North American Vegan Cuisine, as well as from The Best of Vegan Cooking. I have no idea what’s most popular, but I hear praise for Manhattan Vegetable Chowder; Butternut Squash Soup; Aunti Trish’s Pasta e Fagioli; Aioli Potato Salad; Himalayan Red Rice Salad With Cranberries; Asparagus and Spring Pea Risotto; Cauliflower Risotto; Butternut Squash, White Bean and Kale Ragout; Spaghetti With Eggplant and Tomatoes; Succotash; Mashed Potatoes With Celery Root; Blueberry-Pomegranate Sorbet; Vanilla Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream; Everyone’s Favorite Cinnamon Rolls; and Jumbo Apple Muffins.

My favorite? Cauliflower Risotto, or Linguine With Raw Nut Pesto and Tomato Sauce. Difficult question!

The aptly named Everyone’s Favorite Cinnamon Rolls, before frosting…

Roseann: Wow, I chose well! Two of the three recipes I tried were on that list. I loved the Butternut Squash Ragout—it made me feel like I was back home in the Northeast, between the root vegetables, the beans and the kale in the rosemary and garlic. And the Cinnamon Rolls—wow!!! Not too heavy, not too sweet, just absolutely delicious! I had one, and they were on my mind the rest of the night…

I also made the Spicy Barbecued Tofu Triangles. I’m usually a wimp when it comes to heat, but these were incredibly flavorful, not just hot—though don’t get me wrong, they were pretty darn hot!

My husband said he wishes I cooked like this all the time—sorry, not gonna happen. Well, the Tofu Triangles can definitely be worked into the rotation, but the Ragout and the Cinnamon Rolls are a lot more labor-intensive than dishes I’d prepare on a regular old weekday. That said, I’ll definitely be making them again at some point.

Priscilla: Yes, the recipes you mentioned are considerable work, yet the payoff is there. And the book is full of recipes for holidays, entertaining, special occasions and day-to-day living.

…and after. They require quite a bit of elbow grease (especially if you’re like me and don’t own a mixer or a rolling pin), but they are so worth it.

Roseann: The Best of Vegan Cooking just underwent a reprinting. Congratulations! How many copies sold before that?

Priscilla: 5,000.

Roseann: And do all of the proceeds benefit FoA? Do they go toward a specific program?

Priscilla: Yes, all of the proceeds benefit Friends of Animals. Some of the proceeds from books sold at Texas events benefit the primate sanctuary we manage, Primarily Primates, in San Antonio.

Butternut Squash, White Bean and Kale Ragout. Rosemary and root vegetables? This dish tastes as good as it smells.

Roseann: So the book satisfies both the foodies and the activists among us. Great!

TBoVC contains a lot of soups, salads, pastas and risotto dishes, but not a lot of entrees with a meat analog as the star. Why is that?

Priscilla: Two of my favorite tempeh dishes appeared in Dining With Friends, but I’m not particularly drawn to meat analogs. For Thanksgiving this year I’m likely making a Blackened Tempeh With Roasted Red Pepper Sauce or Tempeh With Wild Mushrooms. I love Grilled Tofu With Mustard Dipping Sauce; that’s also in the first book.

The Spicy Barbecued Tofu Triangles are not for the faint of heart—that one chipotle pepper packs a wallop! But there’s a lot more to their flavor than just heat.

Roseann: The Blackened Tempeh Dish sounds amazing! Count me in.

You’ve mentioned Dining With Friends several times. What’s the biggest difference between DWF and The Best of Vegan Cooking?

Priscilla: Dining With Friends is perhaps a bit easier, with more standards. The second book made me stretch and learn. There’s a chapter on risottos in the second book and a focus on sorbets and ice creams.

Roseann: Ah, so I learned to walk before I could crawl. That explains it!

Any plans for a third book?

Priscilla: It’s a toss-up between writing memoirs and a third cookbook. But Indian cuisine can be delightfully vegan, and I’m exploring it with gusto.

Roseann: We’ll keep our eyes peeled for the next one. Thanks again for speaking with us, Priscilla. Keep up the great work!

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

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.

It’s a bunch of New Yorkers sharing vegan food! (Courtesy of Long Island Food Not Bombs)

Let’s do this one old school style: the Who, What, When, Where and Why of Long Island Food Not Bomb‘s Vegan Thanksgiving Bonanza!

Who: Long Island Food Not Bombs volunteers will share a vegan feast with hundreds of delicious meals, desserts, treats and literally tens-of-thousands of pounds of vegan-friendly Thanksgiving groceries, clothing, books and other necessities with the community.

What: This year’s Vegan Thanksgiving Bonanza will be the biggest to-date and the largest Food Not Bombs ever. Upwards of 2,000 people are expected! Some of the area supporters sharing food for this event include Raw IceCream Company, 3 Brothers Pizza, Whole Foods and Golden Earthworm CSA.

The Vegan Thanksgiving Bonanza is also one of nearly a dozen events Long Island Food Not Bombs is organizing for Thanksgiving in Long Island and NYC. There are others food shares in Bed-Stuy (Brooklyn), Hempstead, Coram, Huntington and Farmingville.

When: Sunday, November 21st at 2:00pm! More event details can be found at www.lifnb.com.

Where: The parking lot adjacent to the Hempstead Long Island Rail Road Station at the intersection of W. Columbia St. & Station Plaza, Hempstead, NY 11550. Take the Long Island Rail Road or use your MetroCard on the bus to Hempstead Bus Station across the street.

Why: The international Food Not Bombs movement believes food is a human right and if all the money spent on war and occupation were redirected to food, no one would go hungry. Thanksgiving need not include the cooking of a turkey. Vegan meals bring together folks of all dietary preferences, promote compassion and use far less resources than the meat or dairy industry.

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

Look at that face. Vegans are weird for not wanting to kill her? Sponsor Kima or another turkey at Farm Sanctuary’s Adopt a Turkey project.

New York is the best city in the world to be a vegan. Case in point: Thanksgiving. I dare any other city to match the number and variety of vegan options we have.

Here’s SuperVegan’s round-up of where to eat vegan in NYC for Thanksgiving. Make make your restaurant reservations quickly; these places fill up fast!

Angelica Kitchen is offering a five course prix fixe menu for $55; BYOB to save money. Thanksgiving is the only night Angelica takes reservations, so folks won’t have to queue up in the cold like usual. The dinner will also be available for take out from the juice bar if you’re not able to make a reservation.

Place orders early for seasonal specialties from Babycakes. They’ll have spelt apple pie, apple crumb cake, pumpkin cupcakes, cornbread, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin bread for all your gluten-free and agave-sweetened needs.

Blossom and Café Blossom are offering the same four-course menu for $68.

Candle 79‘s four course prix fixe is available from 2pm-9pm and costs $72, while sister restaurant Candle Cafe gives you four courses for $55, plus a la carte options.

Caravan of Dreams will be offering a three course prix fixe from 1-9pm for $45.

Champs Family Bakery will be offering seasonal specialties such as pumpkin muffins with cream cheese, pumpkin pie cinnamon rolls (with pie crust baked in), and sweet potato cinnamon rolls (with candied pecans and marshmallow). Place orders by Monday 11/22 at the latest for pick-up on Tuesday or Wednesday of Thanksgiving week.

Counter‘s got seatings from 1pm-9pm for their $50 four course prix fixe, plus an optional $25 wine pairing.

Curly’s will be serving a prix fixe menu from 11:30am-5:30pm for $28.95 which includes pumpkin-lentil pate, soup or salad, roast soy turkey or maple-glazed sham, drinks, dessert, and coffee or tea. Their regular menu will also be available.

LifeThyme Natural Market will have a complete vegan holiday dinner option for $49.95. It includes a roast made from organic vegetables and tofu, along with two pounds of yams or mashed potatoes, two pounds of mixed bread or cornbread stuffing, two pounds of grilled mixed vegetables, a pint of gravy, and a pint of cranberry sauce.

The Grammercy location of One Lucky Duck will be offering raw options for take out from 9am-10pm. You’ll want to call ahead to place your order and schedule a pick up time. If you want a sit-down meal, check out their sister restaurant Pure Food and Wine, below.

Organic Grill will be open from noon-8pm with a special Thanksgiving menu in addition to their regular menu.

Peacefood Cafe will have a $30 three-course prix fixe menu available from 1-9pm.

Fulfill your most extravagant raw food desires with Pure Food and Wine‘s four course prix fixe for $72. They’ll be open from 3pm-9pm.

Red Bamboo will be serving their regular menu and a three-course Thanksgiving prix fixe menu for $21.95. The New York City Vegetarian Meetup Group will be meeting here at 12:30pm; click for more information and to RSVP.

Sacred Chow will be offering a four course prix fixe for $50. Check out the menu on their website.

‘sNice (West Village, Soho, and Brooklyn) are all closed Thanksgiving day, but we recommend you stop by in the days before or after to try their awesome Thanksgiving Leftovers sandwich.

Terri will be open from 7am-3pm on Thanksgiving. They’re not sure yet if they’ll have any special options, but their Thanksgiving-themed sandwich is worth checking out year-round .

Veggies Natural Juice Bar will be giving away vegan soup on Thanksgiving Eve, Wednesday November 24.

Order by Tuesday, 11/23, for the WholeFoods $19.99 Field Roast Vegan Dinner. It includes four courses and can be combined with a vegan bakery package for two.

If you love to cook, want to save money, or just want to skip the formality of dining out, host a potluck! Hit your local farmers’ market for ingredients, or check out one of NYC’s vegan-friendly grocery stores. You’ll find recipes everywhere from VegWeb to the New York Times.

We’ve also got more mass-produced entree options that ever before. In addition to the time-honored Tofurky, you might look into Match Meat’s Vegan Stuffed Holiday Roast, Gardein’s Savory Stuffed Turk’y with Gravy, Five-Star Foodies’s Vegan Harvest Roast,
Vegetarian Plus’ Vegan Half “Chicken,” or Field Roast’s Celebration Roast, Hazelnut Cranberry Roast, or Smoked Tomato Loaf. Don’t forget the Tofukey and Gravy Jones Soda!

If we’re missing anything good, please let us know!

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.

Vegan poster-girl Alicia Silverstone told UsMagazine.com that on occasion she might eat a piece of cheese. “If I was at a party and there was a tray of cheese sitting there and I had had drinks, then I might have a bite. …It’s human. It’s a really good reminder that sometimes you need to have what you remember is this good thing. Because then you have it, and you’re like, ‘Actually that wasn’t better than the recipes in my book,’” Silverstone told Us.

And that’s a problem. But not because Alicia sometimes might occasionally/accidentally/drunkenly/whateverly eat a piece of cheese.

Listen, I’m no purist. If you tell me you knowingly scarfed down a pack of Linden’s cookies on a seven-hour flight, I won’t be all, “YOU ARE NOT A VEGAN, MILK-FAT CONSUMER!!! AND HEY, WHAT ARE THOSE SHOES MADE OF? DO I DETECT LEATHER?!” In fact I’m high-fiving everyone, including Alicia, whose lifestyle is mostly vegan or moving in the vegan direction, and mostly not supporting needless suffering, environmental destruction, and the decline of individual and public health. But as vegans trying to proliferate veganism into the mainstream, it’s our responsibility to make clear to an overwhelmingly ignorant public why veganism is the best choice, not treat the subject all willy-nilly-let’s-go-eat-some-mozzarella-sticks. The masses love to pick at what they perceive as inconsistencies in the behavior of people who want to convince them of real, hard facts. I can just imagine some insecure meat-eater saying, “Hey, even Alicia Silverstone indulges in delicious, inimitable cheese! That means she’s not vegan and she hates cows, and therefore all vegans are hypocrites, so let’s pour cow fat on them, light a match, and celebrate by eating steaks wrapped in bacon!”

Alicia, please don’t make us all look like floozies. As a celebrity with wide influence, you more than any of us mere mortals have to make veganism look good and sensical. Do you really need to eat cheese to remind yourself of why you don’t? (When I’m having a weak moment I just pick up Skinny Bitch or visit PETA‘s website and mosey over to the dairy cows section.) Or, hey, if you really need to eat cheese once a month–and I bet you don’t–, how about you just do it in the privacy of your own home where you’re not setting a bad real-life example for other humans who take cues from you like you’re still Cher and not tell a national magazine about it in a poorly veiled attempt to promote your book?

The best figurehead for conscientious eating will keep in mind what’s best for farm animals, the environment, and the vegan movement, and that means making it look easy and right. Alicia, I want you to continue to be that person, so please, bring some Daiya to the next cocktail party. Or maybe a dish made from a recipe in this great vegan cookbook you might have heard of, The Kind Diet.

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.

Watercolor by Jason Das.

New York City is a mecca for vegan food, a place where you can find abundant ways to fill any craving. Today, let’s zero in on the many ways to fulfill your desire for ice cream!

Lula’s Sweet Apothecary (100% Vegan)
They’re a good spot for the soy-averse as most of their ice cream is nut-based. All Lula’s ice cream is house-made and they have an array of daily rotating flavors that would make Ben and Jerry jealous. Soft-serve, egg creams, malts, shakes, and sundaes are also available, along with a slew of classic ice cream toppings.
Also available at: Cafe Blossom, Foodswings, and John’s of 12th St.
Must try: Cake Batter Soft-Serve

Stogo (100% Vegan)
A nice choice for those averse to nuts or refined sugar as most flavors are soy- or coconut-based and sweetened with agave. All the ice cream is house-made and they have a wide assortment of flavors laid out like a gelato stand. They also carry Babycakes‘ cupcakes. This is a good place for something light or something rich, with choices ranging from fruit sorbet to rich hemp-based flavors.
Also available at: Caravan of Dreams
Must try: Salted Caramel Pecan

We New Yorkers are lucky to have these two 100% vegan ice parlors, but there are dozens of other places in town serving vegan ice cream or ice-cream-like stuff. Read on for a comprehensive list.

Klein’s Ice Cream House
Klein’s has two storefront locations, one in Borough Park and the other in Midwood. Klein’s has their own lines of both Kosher dairy and certified-vegan soy-based ice creams, reminiscent of Baskin-Robbins—think bright green mint chip ice cream. The shops also have a parve/dairy-free toppings bar, homemade waffle cones, pre-made and custom-order vegan sorbet or ice cream cakes and ice cream confections, such as chocolate eclair bars, magic shell ice cream bars, sundae cups, and Viennese cake.
Also available at: Vegetarian’s Paradise 2, Red Bamboo, Healthy Nibbles, Vegetarian Palate, Natural Blend, Scoops, Soy and Sake, and Zen Vegetarian House.
Cakes and confections also available at: the Kosher Marketplace, Pomegranate Grocery.
Must try: Get a vegan waffle cone coated with dark chocolate and nuts with the ice cream of your choice, topped with parve peanut-butter fudge and sprinkles.

Little Lad’s Basket
Vegan ice cream in the Financial District, say what? Step into the New York outpost of this Maine-based eatery to try their original Nice Cream. You can choose from classic flavors or try their vanilla with homemade pie blended in. Nice cream is available by the cup, as a sundae, or in pints from the freezer in the front.
Must try: Cherry or Blueberry Pie Nice Cream

Maze’s Creamery
House-made vegan ice cream in Staten Island! They offer ice creams based on soy, hemp, and coconut milk, as well as unique sorbet flavors served on a rotating basis. Alas, this shop also serves dairy. All products are available in take-home gallon or four-liter pans and can be ordered in cups, cones, and sundaes.
Must try: Hemp Maple Walnut

Simply Peeled
They serve house-made Fruizo, a soft-serve creamy fruit in seasonal varieties unlike anything else in NYC. All flavors are vegan, free of gluten or corn syrup, and less than 100 calories. Fruizo is available by the cup, shake, or in a take-away pint.
Must try: Fruit Salad Sundae—3 flavors of Fruizo topped with fresh fruit

NYC ICY
NYC ICY has a storefront in Brooklyn and a stall in the East Village with a rotating roster of around 200 flavors, 20 available at a time, of which half are labeled as vegan sorbets.
Must try: Cotton Candy

Ciao Bella
Ciao Bella has ice cream stands at Grand Central Station, on the UES, Nolita, and at the World Financial Center that serve dairy ice cream, but more importantly, offer a rotating menu of 22 unique flavors of vegan sorbet, all sweetened with evaporated cane juice. You can buy it by the scoop or by the pint.
Must try: a scoop of Blackberry Cabernet with a scoop of Dark Chocolate

Like it raw? House-made raw ice cream is available from Bonobos, One Lucky Duck, One Lucky Duck (Chelsea Market) (available by the pint), Pure Food and Wine, and Quintessence.

Looking for a milkshake? Give Foodswings, Café Blossom, ‘sNice, Terri, or Franchia (seasonal tea milkshakes topped with whipped cream) a whirl. You can even grab a frappucino at Starbucks—it’s vegan as long as you get it made with soy milk and no whipped cream.

Want a sundae after dinner? If you’re looking for a place where you can eat dinner and get a scoop of ice cream, try Blossom, V-Note, Wild Ginger, Vegetarian Ginger, Buddha Bodai, Sacred Chow, Josie’s, Organic Grill, Candle Café, Dao Palate, or V-Spot.
If you want it made in-house with your meal try Kyotofu’s soy milk soft ice cream, Pure Food and Wine’s raw sundae, or Candle 79’s divine cinnamon ice cream!

If you’re looking for something cold and tasty off the beaten path, try Tease’s Baltimore Snowball-shaved ice (available with tapioca pearls), Popbar’s organic house-made sorbet popsicles, or Atlas’s Tofutti “Blizzards” with tons of mix in options.

Check out the ice cream category of our NYC restaurant directory for a map and more info on the places mentioned.

What’s your favorite ice cream stop? Tell us about it below!

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

Keepin’ it real with Food Fight! Vegan Grocery

Get yourself to the new and improved Food Fight! Vegan Grocery website STAT! Our favorite brick-and-mortar vegan convenience store recently relaunched its online store with a greater selection of the products you once could only buy in its Portland storefront. The site boasts a slew of new features, such as “kosher,” “gluten-free” and “organic” search options, user-generated ratings and wish lists that you should populate and share with your family and friends in the days leading up to the winter holidays.

Here’s a shortlist (in no particular order) of the Food Fight! Vegan Grocery items available online that we’re loving as of late:

1. Butler Soy Curls
2. Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut Butter
3. Tartex Organic Pâté
4. Shikai Biker Soap
5. Food Fight! Chico Bag

Food Fight! Vegan Grocery is open 24/7 at www.foodfightgrocery.com and from 10:00am to 8:00pm every day at 1217 SE Stark St., Portland, OR 97214.

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

This gal has the right idea. (Credit: clipart.com)

I don’t know about you, but I’m always secretly excited when the fall weather starts rolling through. Summer in New York can be brutally hot, sticky, and stinky, so it’s definitely a cause celebré when I can finally bike around without sweating through my clothes and smelling like hot garbage juice. But there’s another reason to be excited about cooler temperatures: warm drinks and warm clothes. Here are some of my favorite (vegan) things for the Autumn months. It’s true, I’m sort of like the Vegan Oprah.

Allison’s Gourmet Drinking Chocolate: There is nothing more perfect after a long, cold day of trudging through the city than a mug of hot cocoa. I got a pouch of Allison’s Gourmet Drinking Chocolate as a housewarming gift recently, and I have been drinking at least a cup of the stuff every day. Throw in a handful of Dandies Candies Marshmallows, and you’re lucky if I actually eat dinner that night. It’s like childhood in a cup, complete with sugar rush.

Scarves and Mittens: Seriously, I do a little dance when I get to bring all my winter gear out of the closet. I love wearing cute hats and scarves, and it’s even better when they actually serve a purpose (i.e. keeping my fingers from freezing). This year I’ve discovered a bunch of great vendors on Etsy, including xmittens, who crafts gloves and scarves out of recycled fleece, and ScarecrowOrganics, who creates gloves and overcoats from organic cotton and bamboo fibers.

Baked Goods: When I think of fall and winter, I always think of the scent of vegan baked goods filling my kitchen. Not only is this delicious, but last winter, when my apartment had no heat for a month, turning the oven to 350F to bake a batch of muffins was a surefire way to generate a little warmth. You can, of course, peruse your favorite vegan cookbook or recipe website (I love VegWeb, for example), or for the truly lazy busy among us, companies like Wholesome Chow offer a variety of vegan baking mixes. Just add water, and voila, instant holiday fare.

Vegan Winter Boots: I’ve been rocking the same pair of vegan Earth Boots for a couple of years now, but the holes in the lining are telling me that it’s definitely time for an update. I couldn’t find any vegan boots on the Earth Shoes website (boo!), but I bought a pair of vegan cowboy (cowgirl?) boots from Novacas a few months ago and am totally in love. As it turns out, they also make winter boots, so you can bet I will be indulging in a pair before the first snow falls.

What are your favorite tell-tale signs of Autumn’s arrival?

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

It’s Melisser’s book’s cover!

Our favorite Vienna-based urban housewife, Melisser Elliott, is celebrating the release of her first book, The Vegan Girl’s Guide to Life, with a trio of book signing events in the New York metro area this month. She will be at Mooshoes (Manhattan) on November 12th from 7pm to 9pm, Champ’s Family Bakery (Brooklyn) on November 20th from 7pm to 9pm (disregard any flyers you see with a different time for this event!) and Go Lightly Eco Store (Montclair, NJ) on November 21st from 1pm to 3pm.

Earlier this week, Melisser took a much-deserved break from packing for her book tour to answer a few questions for SuperVegan.

Deborah Diamant: Am I allowed to mention that I read a PDF version of the book, or will your publisher give you the silent treatment when it finds out?

Melisser Elliott: Sure, why not? Besides, silence is golden.

DD: Okay, so, I read the book already! Congrats on producing an exhaustive introduction to veganism and a user’s manual for those already vegan! I don’t think any vegan-related topic went untouched except for the vegan chocolate-covered malt ball. Why doesn’t the vegan chocolate-covered malt ball exist?

ME: It does! Here in Europe, we have something similar to Whoppers, but with dark chocolate and spelt. They’re a bit healthier, I suppose, but still have that delicious crunch with a chocolatey outside!

DD: Ugh, Europe wins again! So, now for the hardball questions: Why a vegan girl’s guide? What about old men, toddlers and the genderless?

ME: Last I checked, I’m a childless female, so I thought I should stick to something I know about: veganism from a female’s perspective. That being said, I do address children in the book and I think an old man would also learn a thing or two from reading it.

DD: Who do you think will become the main audience for your book? Transitioning-to-veganism folks, newly vegan folks, veteran vegans?

ME: I’m hoping it will be picked up by people curious about veganism and make a solid case for them to join us, but I do feel like a lot of current vegans are expressing interest in it.

DD: What section of your book would you expand if you had an additional 50 pages to insert?

ME: All of them? No really, I would have loved to feature more vegan women in the book or talk more about animal rights.

DD: As an ethical vegan working to enlarge access to affordable housing and protecting civil rights through my day job, I love that you mention more than once that “You don’t have to be a single-issue activist.” Tell me about your non-animal-rights-related activism.

ME: While I can’t deny animal rights are the focus of my activism, I have also worked with charities benefiting humans through the San Francisco and East Bay Vegan Bake sales such as Food Empowerment Project, the Housing Rights Committee of SF, and Cycles of Change. Sugar Beat Sweets [Melisser's bakery] also organized a bake sale for Haiti that raised over $6,000 and I have worked with Food Not Bombs.

DD: You feature many profiles of fierce vegan women throughout the book. What criteria did you use to select these awesome folks? (Also, thanks for featuring the woman who helped me go vegan nearly a decade ago, Emiko of Food Fight! Vegan Grocery!)

ME: There’s so many amazing vegan women out there, it was hard to narrow them down! I wanted to show a range of ages and locations, so I could show that veganism is not for one type of person, but something that can work for everyone. Everyday I run across another woman I wish I had featured, which I think is a great thing!

DD: I love that the book has a conversational tone and consists of several primers on the issues most important to the ethical vegan. Do you think vegans need to turn themselves into experts on the issues to be effective advocates for animal rights?

ME: While I don’t think there’s any required reading for vegans out there (just kidding, buy my book!), I do think an ill informed vegan does us all a disservice. Unfortunately, much of the general population is looking for a hole in our stance and will throw a lot of questions at you about your lifestyle. I tried to tackle some of those in the book, but there’s a lot more vegans can learn about.

DD: You recently left San Francisco for Vienna. Is your book an appropriate gift for the vegan woman living beyond the U.S. border?

ME: Definitely. While there is some U.S. specific information in the book, most of the information is pretty general and can apply to the entire world. I tried to keep a lot of the ingredients in the recipes easy to get, so everyone can cook from it as well.

DD: I want to eat something dangerously decadent tonight. Which of your recipes should I make tonight?

ME: Banana Bread French Toast with Strawberry Syrup! It’s a bit time consuming, especially compared to the rest of the recipes in the book, but it’s a decadent treat you’ll want to make to impress friends.

Banana Bread French Toast with Strawberry Syrup (by Melisser Elliott)

Photograph by Hannah Kaminsky

While this can take a bit of time, if you make the bread and syrup the night before, you’ll have French Toast in no time the next morning. The banana bread is a good on its own, but it’s really designed to be battered and fried for maximum deliciousness! If you don’t want to make the syrup, this is just as good with maple syrup.

Banana Bread
2 cups ripe mashed Bananas
1/3 cup Canola Oil
1 Tbsp Molasses
1 cup Sugar
1 1/2 tsp Vanilla
1 1/2 cups All-Purpose Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350. Lightly grease a 9×5 or similar sized loaf pan. In a stand mixer or with a hand mixer, blend the bananas until mainly smooth. Add the oil, molasses, sugar, and vanilla, and mix to combine. Stir in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon, and then pour in to the prepared pan. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.

Allow the bread to cool completely before making the French toast and slice it in to 3/4 inch pieces.

French Toast Batter
1 cup Non-Dairy Milk (if using unsweetened, add 1 Tbsp Sugar + 1 Tbsp Vanilla)
4 Tbsp Flour
1 Tbsp Chickpea Flour
1 Tbsp Cinnamon
A pinch of nutmeg

Mix the flour, chickpea flour, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a bowl. Add the non-dairy milk slowly, whisking as you go. Heat a pan over medium heat and lightly coat it with oil or vegan margarine. Dip the bread in the batter, allowing the excess to fall off, and then add it to the pan. Allow the bread to brown on each side, about 5 minutes per side, then serve warm with strawberry syrup or other topping of choice.

Strawberry Syrup
1 pound Strawberries, hulled and diced finely
3/4 cup Turbinado Sugar
1/4 cup Lemon Juice
1/4 tsp Lemon Zest

In a saucepan, combine all the ingredients and then bring to a boil over medium heat. Lower the heat and simmer until the strawberries are soft, about 20 minutes. Mash the berries in to the syrup, and then either serve as is, or strain the berries and return the syrup to the heat and reduce over medium for 10 minutes.

Learn more about Melisser and The Vegan Girl’s Guide to Life at www.vegangirlsguide.com.

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

Kevin with Lorraine

Vegan cooking classes are happening at Catskill Animal Sanctuary for the next few weekends. Check it out: Beans & Grains (11/7), Breakfast & Brunch (11/13), Comfort Foods (11/14), and Vegan Desserts (12/4).

It’s part of CAS’s visionary Compassionate Cuisine program. CAS is currently the only farmed animal sanctuary with a culinary program taught on-site.

Kevin Archer is the Director of the program and teaches the classes. Kevin is a Certified Vegan Chef who trained at the School of Natural Cookery in Boulder. He cheffed at the Tree House Cafe in Santa Fe before he was selected to run CAS’s Compassionate Cuisine program through a national search conducted last year. Kevin answers some questions about the program and, of course, discusses the most important topic: food!

Cat: Tell us about the Compassionate Cuisine program at Catskill Animal Sanctuary.
Kevin Archer: The program contains several components: vegan cooking classes, onsite organic gardening (a first for CAS!), public appearances (festivals, fairs, etc.), and soon-to-come iTunes podcasts. We are constantly seeking new outreach methods.

For the cooking classes, who’s your intended audience?
The intended audience consists of: anyone! Okay, to be more specific, there are a lot of folks who would reduce (or eliminate) animal products in their diets if they just knew what to cook instead. I want to teach them that vegan food can be satisfying and sustaining. Others that we hope to reach are new vegans who need ideas; more established vegans who need new ideas; anyone who wants to learn more about healthy eating, regardless of what they call their diet. A lot of us cook from habit, and can always use a fresh approach or learn to cook with new ingredients.

What’s the teaching facility like?
The kitchen classroom is in the old farmhouse that was part of the original farm. In fact, the house predates the American Revolution! It’s cozy and has a great welcoming feel with plenty of room for all to put on an apron and participate. We also cater our own events out of this kitchen, so it is quite capable and efficient.

What’s your definition of comfort food?
Ah… a good question! And it depends upon the season, of course. There’s no comfort like a fresh garden salad in the summer, with a little flax oil and some lemon. But with the winter coming on, I’m thinking about Roots au Gratin, or even Green Chile Risotto. Regardless of the season, I want the same effect: I want it to balance out the way I’m feeling. You know, when you have a bit of a chill and you dig into some vegan mac-and-cheese? Now, I also require my comfort food to be healthy, so I that I’m comfortable in the long run, too.

Do you have a slam-dunk Thanksgiving menu that satisfies both vegans and non-vegans alike?
No one has ever walked away from my Winter Squash Tart or Wild Rice Pilaf with Pecans and Cranberries. Add a hearty helping of Seitan Roast with Onion Gravy, and everyone is satisfied. What people want more than anything, I believe, is to be delighted on a holiday. So with that in mind, I’ll roll out some Bread Pudding and a Pecan Tart.

Oh my… How did you get hooked up with Catskill Animal Sanctuary?
I found their listing on the internet last autumn. It was the most unique opportunity I could imagine: come to an animal sanctuary, build a culinary program, establish a garden (I’m a long-time gardener), and support a truly noble and far-reaching cause. Once I came up to meet everyone–animals included–I was sold!

Who are your favorite critter buddies at the sanctuary?
My most recent favorite was Lorraine, a gamehen that had been here for about two years. She fell into ill health, so she came to live with me in the farmhouse. Her condition worsened after a few weeks, so Abbie (animal care director) and I gave her a peaceful send-off last week. She was a remarkable spirit. You can read about her at www.chefkevinarcher.com (look for “Lorraine” in the blog postings). Abbie also posted a short video on youtube.

Classes are $60 each and run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Call (845) 336-8447 to reserve your spot. More info here.

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

A few of our favorites.

When I went vegan fifteen years ago, the quest for a good vegan lip balm occupied quite a bit of my time. I’d either find no vegan lip balm at all, lip balm that tasted like crap and melted in the tube, or lip balm labeled “Vegan!”… with “beeswax” as the first ingredient. (Note to cosmetics companies: yes, bees are animals.) But today we live in happier times—a quick survey of the SuperVegan blogger team revealed more beloved vegan lip balms than I knew existed.

Cat Clyne: I use Ecolips—in my experience, it doesn’t cake or dry lips. I can’t live without it; it’s even more important to me than creamer for my coffee. I have the lemon/lime-y one that works wonders.

Cathy Resler: I love Lollibomb Beauty, a local vegan, SLS- and paraben-free cosmetics company that makes the first vegan chapstick I’ve tried that actually works and doesn’t dry out my lips. I keep a Lollibomb chapstick in my backpack and in all my purses.

I also like Desert Essence Lip Tints when I want a subtle color with lots of glossy shine. The flavors include coconut, raspberry, grape, and vanilla chai and make for lots of lip licking so I always need to reapply throughout the day. I’m also fond of Kuumba Made Lip Shimmers; they moisturize and add a lovely tint that provides a hint of color but not too much.

Deborah Diamant: I go into a slight panic when I can’t find a tube of Merry Hempsters Peppermint Vegan Hemp Balm in my bag. Yes, it seems to last forever, but sometimes you do need to reapply! I can feel it working, and it doesn’t have an offensive taste like the Mandarian Orange balms that I’ve been known to purchase in an emergency. Every now and then, someone who doesn’t know how awesome the Merry Hempsters vegan lip balm line is will make fun of me for using a “hemp” product. Yeah, I saw Phish in high school more than once. I also saw Minor Threat as a kid. (Okay, that last one is a lie.) But the Merry Hempsters have yet to make a hippie out of me.

Jason Das: My favorite these days is Sprout Wellness. The cinnamon and peppermint are a little tingly, but never sting. All the flavors smell good, but as they’re cocoa-butter based, it helps if you don’t mind a chocolatey undertone. It goes on smoothly and lasts well. It doesn’t separate or crumble in the tube like some other brands. It’s locally made and organic. The graphic design is hardly attractive, but it’s so bare bones it doesn’t bother me.

My second-favorite is Peacekeeper EcoSensual. The name makes me cringe, but the packaging design is clean and modern rather than hippy-dippy. The stuff smells good and keeps its consistency well.

Jenna McDavid: Karma Gloss is my vegan lip gloss of choice. As someone who otherwise wears no makeup, I find Karma Gloss to be subtle but just enough to add a little sparkle to my day. Bonus: it’s not super-sticky, so I never end up with bugs or leaves stuck to my face after riding my bike all over the city.

Laura Leslie: I’m addicted to Crazy Rumors—they have the most wonderful tea, coffee, soda, candy, and ice cream flavors. I particularly love Amaretto, Mocha, and Earl Grey, but my absolute favorite is Orange Creamsicle. They’re also the first vegan lip balm I’ve found that feels like it’s moisturizing my lips really well and doesn’t have any kind of odd aftertaste. I keep a different flavor in pretty much every location where I could possibly need lip balm.

Roseann Marulli: My vote goes to Merry Hempsters Spearmint Vegan Hemp Balm. Once upon a time they had only one vegan option, which always perplexed me. But now there are a handful of flavors, and Spearmint is my favorite. It smells exactly like a really good gum: slightly strong and pretty sweet. I always want to eat it!

Readers, did we miss anything fabulous? What’s your favorite vegan lip balm?

(Yeah, we know lip balm isn’t food, but since all these things are flavored like fruit, drinks, or candy, we figure it’s close enough for MoFo.)

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

What is the definition of a superhero? Here’s one: A superhero is someone who has unnatural, absolute life-or-death power over other beings and chooses to use that power for good, to correct injustice or stop cruelty.

I was inspired to think about this when I saw this charming restaurant review, “Celebrate World Vegan Day by becoming a Super Hero,” which explains that some people go vegan “because they want to save our endangered world as Superman does.” I love that notion.

On Halloween night I heard my sister-in-law greet a little trick-or-treater dressed as Spider-Man with the noble credo “With great power comes great responsibility.”

Indeed. As the supremely dominant species, we humans have unnatural, absolute life-or-death power over all fellow creatures and the health of this planet. Like most superheroes, none of us asked for this dominance. Still, with this power comes great responsibility.

Every time you put food in your mouth, you are making a choice to either reduce suffering or create it. A superhero acknowledges his or her power and makes the moral choice to use it for good.

Just think: Ninety-five. That’s the average number of animals spared each year by one person’s vegan diet. What would you do to save 95 fellow beings? I’ve been vegan for over twenty years, that’s almost two thousand animals! Whoa!

It’s really not hard and the lives saved are very real. We don’t have to fly around the earth multiple times or be in accidents with radioactive stuff or catch bullets with our bare hands. It’s easy: just think.

We vegans are saving the world one bite at a time. All we do is think before we eat, making us superheroes every single day.

Happy Vegan Month of Food!

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

SuperVegan is proud to be participating in VeganMoFo 2010. For our purposes, that means we’ll publish at least one food-related post for every weekday of November. “MoFo” means “month of food,” after all. (We also did this last year.)

Are the other 585 (and counting!) participants doing the same thing? Let us know once you’ve checked out all their blogs. Or, even better, join us! You have until Wednesday, November 3 to register your own blog for VeganMoFo 2010.

We kicked of MoFo 2010 with a bumper crop of three posts, Roseann Marulli’s Chi-town Vegan Cheese: An Interview With the Creators of Ste Martaen, Rudy Relic’s The Boston Vegetarian Food Festival Was Crowded, and Jenna McDavid’s Top Ten Ways to Celebrate World Vegan Day, November 1st. Enjoy!

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

A Few of My Friends Came Along

The Boston Vegetarian Food Festival reminds me of an arena rock concert: Loud, crowded and filled to the brim with (a fair share of) rude clueless people. More importantly, you go, complain the whole time but come back every year. Here’s what I brought back from Saturday’s event.

– Each year the crowd gets bigger and the event space seems smaller. I’m chin-checking like NWA up in this Mutha…

– Each year the people from May Wah ask me “Do you live in Boston now?”

– Josh Hooten from Herbivore was tabling this year. (He wasn’t around last year) He’s one cool dude and Herbivore kicks ass!

– I’m so over vegan cupcakes. Is that bad?

– Hipster girls with vegan shirts are way cuter than Hipster girls without one.

– Lula’s is better than any of the ice cream / soft serve I had here. NYC Represent!

– My amazing ability: I will put a sample in my mouth without knowing what it is, where it’s from or why I should care. “Oh it’s vegan? Meet mouth!”

– Old Dude Wandering Aimlessly: Please don’t walk into a vegetarian event eating a real piece of chicken. It makes me want to punch you.*

– Overheard at BVFF: “Oh Muh Gawd! Look! It’s Roberte Cheeke! He’s so hott! A lot smaller than I thought, but still hott”

– Free vegan (Teese) cheese samples turn any veg event into a mosh pit.

*I would never punch an old man; unless it was in a vegan cheese mosh pit.

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

It’s the great American love story: Vegan boy meets vegan girl, vegan boy gets vegan girl, vegan boy and vegan girl move to Chicago and create line of vegan cheeses. Nahum and Laviyah St. Martin took a few simple ingredients and turned them into sliceable, meltable versions of Colby, Muenster, Smoked Gouda, Olive and Pepper Jack. I caught up with the veggie entrepreneurs and got the skinny on their story.

Roseann: Laviyah, you’re from Brooklyn—I am too—and Nahum’s from Jersey, which is where I met my husband. Do you think the Brooklyn-Jersey connection is the key to a happy vegan marriage? What led you to Chicago?

Laviyah: Ha! Nahum had a totally opposite upbringing than I did. I’m a Brooklyn girl through and through! I like city life. I like going out, museums, free concerts in the park, hole in the wall restaurants with amazing food—everything my home city is known for! However, having lived in both the city and the suburbs, I do appreciate peace, quiet and solitude. Nahum is the perfect balance to my personality. I’m a people watcher and kind of a loner; he’s a people person, always cooking up big meals and inviting friends over. There must be something to this Jersey-Brooklyn chemistry! I was a Brooklyn girl longing for life in the country, and he was a Jersey boy longing for life in the big city. Chicago isn’t as dense or as expensive as NYC; it’s a good mix of big city life with quick and easy access to the lakefront (I love water). It’s not a final destination for us, but it’s given us an excellent opportunity to build our business and our brand.

Roseann: What gave you the idea to create your own vegan cheese line?

Laviyah: A friend shared a cheese recipe with me that she found on the Internet years ago. For years when we had potluck dinners, people would request that I bring “the yellow cheese.” They were crazy about it! But I didn’t create it, and unfortunately I don’t have the original source of the recipe I started with and made my own. However, that recipe (or variations of it) can be found if you Google cashew cheese recipes. There are also cookbooks out that are specific to making vegan cheese. We got the idea to do an olive cheese from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook. My husband really wanted to do that once he saw it in the book. That’s when we moved from four cheeses to five. We basically took the yellow cheese and added sliced olives to it. People love it!

Roseann: It’s one of my favorites! So when did you start working on the cheeses as a business idea?

Laviyah: We were talking for months about doing a vegan cheesecake product, but I lost my original recipe for it and wasn’t really feeling making dessert just yet. I kept telling my husband, “Let’s do the cheese.” He got the recipe from me one week and tried it, and after that he was sold. At this point he’s tweaked it so much that I have to ask him for the recipe! He produces all the cheese, and I do the website work.

Nahum: Back in April 2009, I was managing a restaurant in Chicago but really wanted to do a venture of our own. I quit my job and began tinkering with the cheeses. It probably wasn’t the best time to start a new venture, since my wife had just given birth to our little girl in February. However, she believed enough in me and I believed enough in her creation that we both moved forward without hesitation. So far it has been a good decision.

Roseann: Nahum, you’re a self-taught chef. What other innovations have you cooked up?

Nahum: I’ve always loved to cook but really started putting more effort into it over the past five years or so. I wouldn’t say I’m an innovator. I’ve been vegan for 18 years and always thought good food was achieved through the addition of spices and sauces. I don’t know many people who love the taste of raw beef or chicken or tofu; it’s how they’re cooked, the sauces, that make them mouthwatering. So I figured I could play with different spice combinations from popular meat dishes and veganize them. With this concept, I’ve developed tofu enchiladas, lasagnas, cream sauces, etc. The most popular post on our website is the Vegan McPizza, which is my vegan adaptation of a crazy pizza recipe we saw on the Internet.

Roseann: That is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen!

So how did you come up with the formulation for the cheese? Was it a challenge to get the right consistency without adding oil or emulsifiers?

Nahum: The formulation was just trial and error, but the ingredients are very basic. I’ve found that simplicity typically yields the best results. Adding oils was unnecessary. Our goal was a great-tasting product, which I believe we’ve achieved. The addition of oils is only necessary if you’re trying to imitate the high fat content of dairy cheese, which causes that stretchy, gooey visual. We’re okay with the fact that our cheeses don’t stretch. We want your mouth to be happy, not your eyes.

Roseann: Mine definitely was, and stretchy or not, your cheeses melt! That gets a big thumbs-up from me.

Is creating a healthy product important to you? Is that why you made your cheese soy- and gluten-free?

Nahum: We didn’t set out to be soy- and gluten-free. But a healthy product was key to us. As a parent to five children, I will not serve to the public anything I won’t feed my family. My oldest daughter is 16, and she’s been vegan her entire life, as have our other four children. Promoting healthful lifestyles through veganism is our main objective.

Laviyah: What I always liked about the yellow cheese is the fact that it was its own product—I would bring it to a potluck, serve it on a platter and open a bag of crackers. I like the simplicity of the flavors. Although our cheese is delightful in grilled sandwiches, we adore it as is. That was the goal: a vegan cheese that tasted good straight from the package. The fact that we’re soy- and gluten-free is an added bonus.

Roseann: We made amazing tacos with the Pepper Jack and grilled cheese sandwiches with the Muenster, Colby and Smoked Gouda. When he tasted the sandwiches, my husband said your cheese kicks Daiya’s butt! Who came up with the flavors, and what’s your favorite?

Laviyah: My husband came up with them. The yellow cheese became Colby, and my husband took it from there with the others. He wanted something spicy and something smoky; I was happy doing just two or three flavors. I love them melted down into nacho cheese sauce and poured over tortilla chips.

Nahum: The names of our cheeses are more names than exact vegan copies. Most of the vegan cheese alternatives are mozzarella and American styles. We wanted to stand out, hence our different names and flavors. Me being part French, the Muenster was a natural fit—it’s my favorite. It goes so well on sandwiches, and I’m a big sandwich eater.

Roseann: Right now your cheeses are available locally in Chicago and by order online. Any plans to expand to retail locations nationwide?

Laviyah: One day. We just want to make sure the product keeps its integrity as we expand.

Nahum: Absolutely! I’m ready. Investors, please call.

Roseann: What’s next for you—something new like cream cheese or grated cheese?

Laviyah: We’re happy with the flavors we have and will continue to tweak the recipes to improve the flavors and extend shelf longevity.

Nahum: Our next line of products will be my wife’s desserts. This will include a chocolate mocha mousse pie, pecan pie and tofu spinach quiche. Also, we’ve partnered with Chicago’s oldest vegan restaurant, Soul Vegetarian, and will be doing a vegan food truck. The truck will offer Soul Vegetarian favorites like mac ’n cheese, greens and BBQ Delights, which are like vegan short ribs, plus some of Ste Martaen’s gourmet vegan desserts and entrees.

Roseann: Sign me up! Thanks to both of you for talking to SuperVegan, and please keep us posted about your dessert line (samples welcome!).

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