Vegan Blog Tracker - Vegblogs!

Am I the last person ever to learn about RSS and newsfeeds?

Apparently so.

And to remedy that, I have added a feed (top, right, friendly-looking orage icon!) to Cackleberry so now you never need to miss a post!

Why? I hear you ask.

Well, I would very much like to be included in the blogroll at Vegblogs.com among such vegan luminaries as the Vegan Freaks (Bob and Jenna!), Fatfree Vegan Kitchen (Susan!) and A Vegan Ice Cream Paradise (Agnes!) so I have added my feed and will wait to see what happens!

To check out Vegblogs.com yourself, click on this link or visit via my blogroll to the right, 'Blogs of Note' ->

A Life Connected.

I think I shared this link with a few friends, but it bears wider publication.

From NonViolenceUnited.org....

The question isn't whether or not you can make a difference. You are making a difference. But what kind of difference are you making? What kind of difference do you want to make?

Each of our choices in the past built the world we live in today. And each of our choices from this moment forward will build the world we live in tomorrow.

We will build a world reflective of our values when our everyday choices are aligned with those values.

A Life Connected, Pt 1: For the People



A Life Connected, Pt 2: For the Planet



A Life Connected, Pt 3: For the Animals



It all speaks for itself.

Stay Vegan, Friends!

Changing the world, one animal at a time.

Hot on the heels of my post about Peaceful Prairie comes another sanctuary-related snippet. I have just discovered a wonderful place out in Wyoming which cares for and rehabilitates animals rescued from research facilities. The Kindness Ranch is a new and developing resource - the website is pretty basic but it's heart-warming to see the images of the residents. I would have liked to know more about their individual backgrounds, their stories and how they made their way to the ranch.

Intriguingly, the site does allude to the difficulty of getting research establishments to give up their animals alive: 'Obtaining the release of any animal is never easy, and in many cases, it's not free!' and scientists 'for reasons of economics or policy, have traditionally euthanized animals when they are no longer useful'. But this is vital work and the ranch needs and deserves our support. If you can help financially, their basic adult membership is just $25 and they accept donations by all the usual means.

And if you are ever out in Wyoming, it certainly looks like an awesome place to stay!

Rhubarb Rhubarb.....

I have enjoyed the best weekend! Yesterday morning, My Beloved and I managed to rouse ourselves from bed early enough to get to the local farmers' market from which we succeeded in purchasing a whole host of lovelies. Among them was a bunch of fresh rhubarb. OK, so those who know me probably know that I am not exactly gifted in the 'what to do with rhubarb' department but, on this one occasion, I had the perfect recipe.

I recently came into possession of a copy of Sarah Kramer's 'How It All Vegan' and on page 127 I stumbed across a recipe for rhubarb bread which goes like this.

You will need:

2.5 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
0.5 tsp baking soda
0.5 tsp salt
1 tsp powdered ginger
egg replacer equal to one egg (I used 0.25 cup of silken tofu)
0.5 cup of sugar
0.5 cup canola oil
0.5 cup orange juice
1.5 cups fresh rhubarb, finely chopped

And here is how it all goes together:

~ Preheat oven to 350 (more on this later!) and lightly oil a loaf pan.
~ Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and ginger.
~ Stir in the egg replacer (in this case tofu, but I think applesauce would work really well too), sugar, oil and rhubarb. Mix until combined - note that the mix will be really thick and heavy and you'll be tempted to add more liquid, but you must resist! :)
~ Plop the mix into the oiled loaf pan and bake for approximately 40 minutes. I needed to leave mine in for an extra 10 mins, but that is due to the fact that my oven door doesn't close properly (again, more on that later!)
~ Cool at least 10 minutes before setting onto a wire rack for full cooling.

And this is what it looked like.....


The inspiration:



The raw materials:



....which became....



And yes, the mix does look thick and stodgy in the pan:



....but look what it turns into.....



The 'bread' itself is very moist and cakey with a dense crumb. It pairs very nicely with a cup of tea and I think it's one of the finest things I have yet done with rhubarb. I encourage you all to try it! Oh, and if you *do* try it and love it, buy the book!

Now, back to the issue of the oven. Here in Taxachusetts - er, sorry Massachusetts - we are gearing up for a once-per-year-mega-event: the 'sales tax holiday'. For just one short weekend, sales tax on items less than $2500 (I believe) is suspended, in order to bolster wilting mid-August sales. And so, My Beloved and I - having endured 6 years frustration with the 30-year old stove which came with the house - have decided to spring for a new oven. Hurrah! One that has more than one shelf inside and a door that closes properly will be a real blessing! Given that we don't exactly live on takeout but actually cook and/or bake every evening, it seems like we have done our time with the old Kenmore. Oh, the luxury of a door that closes - I can scarcely believe it!

Now, if we were planning on staying in this house, we would buy the 'range' that we so badly want....something with 2 ovens and 6 burners, from Viking perhaps? But as it is, we are hoping to trade up at some stage, so buying that sort of 'dream range' is out of range really. So we made a quick circuit of the big box stores and have decided - somewhat tentatively - upon this one:



I can barely wait!

Other news from this weekend related to jam thumbprint cookies. Yes, I can almost *hear* you wondering what could possibly be newsworthy about this, but here's the deal. My Beloved and I - having shopped til we dropped at the farmers' market - decided to indulge ourselves in a large cafe au lait (soy, in my case) in the sunshine in Pulaski Park. It was a wondererful sunny day and we stretched out on the grass and watched the world go by, as we sipped our coffees. My Beloved was feeling nibbly so bought a jam thumbprint cookie from the coffee shop but, since they had no vegan ones, I refrained. And oddly (I am known as a bit of a greedy guts, it has to be admitted) I felt no compunction whatsoever to even *try* this thing: it just was no longer food to me.

Fast forward to when it was time to bestir ourselves and get moving....My Beloved crumpled up the bag and declared that the cookie was overall 'a bit dry' and not as good as I make at home.
Now, given that my decision to go vegan was initially met with naked fear and desperate whimpering 'But, what am I going to eat????' on the part of My Beloved, this was validation in itself. In less than a year (my vegan-versary is Sept. 9th) my cooking has changed so much that he prefers my vegan baked goods to those of the non-vegan pros!

Nice.

So to celebrate I made him a batch of chocolate-rapsberry thumbprint cookies, as pictured here:



No chicken's eggs, no cow's milk...just delicious!

And now I'm off to nibble one so Stay Vegan, Friends!

Do you wish what she wishes...?

If I am ever fortunate enough to find myself out in Colorado there is a place I am desperate to visit: Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary. I've been 'visiting remotely' for some time now and the dedication and smarts of the folks there never fail to astound me.

And today I came across some of Joanna Lucas' new outreach materials and two of the pieces really struck me as excellent and worth highlighting. Since they are Flash files, I can't reproduce them here, but click on over and see them for yourselves.

I Am Someone

Being Someone

Please take a look.

And Stay Vegan, Friends.

Is there no limit...

...to the depravity?

According to The Telegraph's (hideously newly-styled) website, Gordon Ramsay has plummeted to new depths in his quest to be the most sensational chef on TV.

On a trip to Iceland, Ramsay indulged in "sky-fishing", catching puffins in the net of what looks for all the world to be a large lacrosse stick. As the Telegraph states:

He caught one puffin in a net - viewers saw it bite his face as it struggled to get free. A hunter then snapped the bird's neck before Ramsay pulled out its heart, which he ate raw. The Michelin-starred chef later rustled up a dish of barbecued puffin with cucumber salad.

Interestingly, Ramsay seems to think that this is acceptable.

But I suppose he doesn't really see it as being any different from raising and slaughtering any number of other birds - chickens, turkeys, ducks etc. And, from my perspective, the fact that the rest of the world sees the distinction is also interesting. The article continues by saying that the

Media watchdog Ofcom is to investigating (sic) the programme after receiving a number of complaints from viewers, and animal-lovers have protested via the Channel 4 website. Previous shows have seen veal calves, pigs and turkeys being slaughtered.

So what, in the eyes of the general public, makes puffins instrinsically different?

Why should they be shielded from the barbarism perpetrated on their 'domestic' kin - the approximately 9 billion chickens raised and slaughtered for food every year in the US alone?

Let me just repeat that statistic: nine billion sentient creatures become so many burgers, nuggets, hot wings, casseroles, pot pies and pizza toppings.

I am not sure.

I fail to understand the selective compassion of the many: no, we can't catch and eat puffins, but yes we can confine, mutilate and slaughter 9 billion chickens.

I am possibly one of the last people to defend Ramsay, but his actions - and the public's reactions - do at least serve to throw the spotlight onto a terrible, endemic, insidious, creeping hypocrisy.

To read the full article, click here.

Oh, and if you are in the UK and want to register your reactions to this 'quality entertainment', you can call Channel 4 on this number:

Phone: 0845 076 0191 (lo-call number)

otherwise do click on through to Channel 4's comment page here and let them know just how much you appreciate the show!

Stay Vegan, Friends.

Close to Callaloo...Close to Heaven!

I arrived home this evening amidst a rainstorm so furious that I couldn't see the road in front of me. The ferocity of the downpour was quite unbelieveable and I really feared I would get home to find My Beloved manning the mop and bucket, squeegee-ing the basement dry. Fortunately, nothing could be further from the truth...although I had to do a 'double take' when I saw what he was up to......

...making Callaloo!

Always one for trying new and perhaps exotic dishes, My Beloved found a recipe called 'Close to Callaloo' in Robin Robertson's Vegan Fire and Spice. When he discovered that callaloo is not only the vegetable (of the green leafy variety) but also the name of the dish itself, he just had to try it. Widely used in Caribbean cuisine, callaloo sports multiple broad, darkish green leaves along a main stem and, when roughly chopped and set on simmer, it wilts like spinach, thickening and adding flavour to the dish. This is what it looks like:



The creaminess comes from the addition, right at the very end, of unsweetened coconut milk which really tempers the soup. It's thick and hearty and perfect when you really can't face another summer salad. Yes yes, vegans can get tired of salad too, right?

So we enjoyed it this evening with a fresh crusty sourdough bread and some homemade hummus and watched the rainstorm outside.

Here's the recipe - and if you like it, go out and buy the book!

You will need:

1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 sweet potato, peeled and chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
1 hot chile, minced
1 can (14oz) diced tomatoes
1 bunch callaloo, roughly chopped
1 bunch swiss chard, roughly chopped
3 cups veg stock
1 can (13oz) unsweetened coconut milk
salt/pepper to taste

Here's what you do:

Heat the oil in a large pot and then add the onion, garlic, sweet potato, bell pepper and chile. Cook 10 mins until softened. Drain the tomatoes and add them to the pan along with the callaloo and swiss chard. Bring to gentle boil, and then reduce heat and simmer until the vegetables are soft (use the sweet potatoes as a guide - if they are done, everything is done!).

Add the coconut milk and salt/pepper and warm through. Serve with crusty bread to your sweetie.

:)

Just one more way to enjoy your green leafies....

Stay Vegan, Friends! :)

Lost: One Vegan Mojo....

...if found please return to owner. Reward.

Today was really messed up. I lost my vegan cool. My v-Wa was thoroughly disturbed. It could be said that my Zen-compassion was thrown out of whack.

And whack I wanted to....most people in sight.

OK, so today was a bad day and, in good faith, I cannot really link it in any way to Matters Vegan, so I'm just going to let off some steam and and ask you why, oh why, all the crazies come out on the same day??? Is it the heat? It was 97 degrees at one point this afternoon so it might be safe to assume that it had effects on people.

My Beloved and I went to the local shopping mall to purchase a garage door opener. The story of the garage door is hardly scintillating, I'll admit, but here it is anyhow. Having lived through 6 (can it really be 6????) freezing New England winters with a 'leaky' garage door (old-style wooden with huge cracks all over), we finally (FINALLY) decide to spring for a new one - vinyl, fully insulated, nicely fitted and secure. This is particularly important as the garage in question is an 'under-house garage' so - unlike in Vegas - what happens there does not stay there. It permeates into the rest of the abode.....

Anyway, the garage door is now installed and - what is more to the point - it comes with its own, pre-nibbled mouse exit in the bottom left corner. Who knew this could be possible???? Or, at least, this is what I asked myself when I came home on Day One and found a mouse-shaped hole in the seal edge....

Now OK, I know we all just have to 'get along' and I know that Micky (or Minnie) was probably here before I was and that I should respect his/her inviolate right to live his/her life just as I would have others respect that self-same right for me, but we just paid close to $1K for this door (sans opener) and already someone of a furry, four-footed persuasion has made their own entryway and let themselves back into the garage. I sighed a heavy sigh and, amidst none-too-vegan thoughts, dusted off the Have-A-Heart trap.....

That aside, today was the day for purchasing the opener. So My Beloved and I set off, parked up near to Sears and went in search of the recommended opener. Now, what happened next could be interpreted in two ways depending upon whether you are a 'glass half full' or a 'glass half empty' kind of person. Me myself, I am a 'well, that depends on whose glass we're talking about' kind of person....

Having located said opener in record short order, we realised it was rather heavy and, it being 97 degrees outside, we opted for 'Merchandise Pickup', whereby you simply bring your car up to the curb and someone with a dolly delivers heavy items directly to you. No schlepping across a baking parking lot; no sweating it out with a half-ton, half-horsepower chain-driven door GDO (as those in the know term it)...hurrah. So I sent My Beloved straight back out again into the heat to bring up the car while I made payment and then we were off to get some more bits and pieces. At least that was the plan....

A few minutes later, My Beloved reappeared looking flustered and the following conversation (approximately) ensued:

Me: What's up? (naively)

My Beloved: He had a pair of pliers.... (bewilderment)

Me: Who? (distractedly)

MB: The guy. The guy who was letting down our tires in the parking lot.

Me: WHAT?????? (now with full attention)

MB: There was a guy. I got to the car and I could hear a hissing noise. And he was crouched down besides the tire with a pair of pliers jammed in the valve. (glasses fogged with bewilderment and incredulity...or perhaps fierce in-store air conditioning...)

Me: WTF? Did you ask him just what the (bleepety bleep) he thought he was doing? (now red in the face and sweating profusely despite the AC)

MB: Er...yes, He said we'd almost hit him so he was letting the air out of out tires. (matter of factly)

Long story short....the guy was evidently crazed as we'd not been anywhere near him. My Beloved said as much (the last part, not the crazed part) to which the guy claimed mistaken identity, tried to shake My Beloved's hand and then sauntered off. Cool as a cucumber.

That was the big thing that happened today and now it's all in print it doesn't seem so terrible. But at the time it left us both - unaccustomed as we are to conflict and confrontation - like a schizoid martini: quite shaken AND stirred. So much so that we both just wanted to get the heck out of Dodge and retreat to the sanctuary we call home. Which we did, albeit not before seeking a medicinal pint or two at the local brewery - just to settle our nerves, you understand.

OK, so in no way is this story or this post at all really vegan-related. I guess I *could* claim that My Beloved's 'measured' reaction to this hostile act of vandalism was due entirely to the absence of animal-fat fogging his brain and clogging up his arteries. That his fundamentally placid and non-aggressive stance in the face of a certain level of provocation was due to his having opted out of the violence and sadism that permeates - indeed underpins - the meat and slaughter industries. That his effective and peaceable handling of The Crazy was a direct result of his peaceful and compassionate diet.

But that would be stretching a point.

Stretching it a long way in fact.

Especially so as My Beloved is not 100% vegan.

I am.

But if *I* had gone out there and found The Crazy at work....well, suffice to say, I would have had some decidely un-vegan things to say. And that is how I would have lost my Vegan Mojo.

That's it. That's all I've got.
Stay Vegan, friends, and well, welllllll away from The Crazies........

Tofu in Paradise

I have been offline for the longest time with no real excuse except for life having become busier than ever and then My Beloved and I...went on vacation. Nothing particularly blog-worthy about that, I guess, except that this was my first vacation - out of the country, in fact - as a vegan.

I was nervous. Ready to be surprised. Worried I'd go hungry. Pleased that I might be forced into losing a little more weight, a little more quickly. Anxious that I would find myself faced with the choice of an endless stream of salads or a beheaded bovine on a bun.

I had cause to worry. And at the same time I should have trusted in people's inate goodness and reluctance to let me starve. At least, on their watch.

Grab yourself a nice cup of tea and a vegan mojito muffin and let me back-track a little....

My Beloved and I are scuba divers. Here we are, in fact:



I am the one in the extremely fetching blue mask.

Now divers are a strange bunch, I have to confess. We - I use the collective plural, not the 'Royal We' - love, love, love to spend time with our piscene little dive buddies and then what do we do? Grill 'em for dinner!

Where, I ask you, is the logic in that?

So this year was the first in which I could look these wonderful little mites in the eye and honestly wish them no harm. It was an incredibly liberating feeling. At least, I think, until dinner time when, after the exertion of the morning followed by an arduous afternoon slumber in the hammock, I would be ready for just about anything that happened to wind up on my plate.

Or so I feared....

You see, for those of you who are not divers or who do dive but have immense, magnificent and preternatural (ohhhh, I just knew at some point I'd be able to use that word!) control over yourselves and your appetite, diving is an exquisitely hunger-inducing activity.

Much more so than - say - light sleeping....or extreme origami.

This is especially true for me as I am horribly seasick and rarely fail to delight the fish with my early morning 'offerings'. So by the evening, I am generally ravenous.

In years past, I have devoured more than my share of chickens' body parts smothered in a variety of sauces, of cows' behinds grilled over fire and, of course, of fishes hauled out of their world directly onto my plate. But this year was different. That was all off the menu to me now. And I'll admit to having a twinge of anxiety that my hunger might triumph over my ethics while on this tiny island, far from home, far from censure, in the Caribbean. (BTW: we stayed here and I cannot recommend it too highly - it was wonderful!)

So it was with trepidation that I was introduced to the resort's chef on checking in. As My Beloved struggled with our enormous dive bags, I was introduced to Chef Gregory who strode out of the kitchen to shake my hand. 'Here's our vegan!', exclaimed the receptionist breathily, and with a beautiful tropical lilt and the kind of inflection usually reserved for calming small children. Attempting to strike a particularly veganly pose, I flashed Chef Gregory the most gracious smile I could muster at such short notice and declared that - ah well, salads are always good...I could do with losing a few pounds of course! - and then felt extremely silly.

I had fallen into the trap already of apologising for my choices - what a twit. Oh well, as it was, it made no difference. Every evening after scanning the buffet-style food available to everyone else, I was treated to a wonderful vegan entree - each night a surprise, but uniformly delicious. So excited was I at the fact that they'd gone to the effort of getting tofu for me - and learning to cook it - that I couldn't focus my camera well enough to get a good picture. What follows is blurry but crucial evidence that people will bend over backwards if you state what you want. And if you state it ahead of time, preferably by email so that if your anxiety gets the better of you, at least the groundwork's already been done!

Feeling hungry, albeit in a salad phase:




A tofu-based confection:




Damn, this was good and pretty as a picture:




And on our last night there, I was treated to this wonderous creation:




As said, my pix do not do the dishes justice as I was so excited by the prospect of it all that I screwed up the focus somewhat. However, My Beloved's cool composure managed to capture the image that summed it all up:



One very happy vegan!

Remember: wherever you are in the world - with only the fewest of exceptions - there are always vegetables, usually rice and generally fruits. So really: don't worry - stay vegan, friends!

Don't Buy the Myth

This is probably all over the vegan blogosphere, but I haven't seen it yet so here goes....

Launched today is a terrific new website, humanemyth.org - dedicated to debunking once and for all the myth of 'humane meat', in the vegan community known derisively as 'happy meat'.

Living in New England - surrounded by pastoral charm - I know plenty of folks who subscribe to the happy meat idea, conscientiously seeking out and paying a premium for grass-fed, free-ranging, cage-free, organic cows/chickens/pigs which produce superior steaks/milk/eggs/whatever. And these folks universally believe that they are doing a good thing - contributing to the maintenance of the species, the general environmental well-being of the area and the good of the planet. These are the same folks who purchase a Prius and then cycle to work anyhow, who volunteer at the homeless shelter, who compost and recycle (often 'freecycle') and sport chic apparel made of hemp fiber or recycled plastic.

And they buy into the myth because it eases their conscience. It allows them to kid themselves that they are doing all they can while still indulging their culinary predilictions and not really changing anything. In the face of an increasing global population, strained natural resources, a rapid growth in countries like China and India of the economic 'middle-class' with their concommitant desire for petroleum and meat, the civil conflict that inevitably trails in the wake of scarcity and fear, they content themselves with 'free-range' chicken and an expensive hybrid car, all the while expounding the notion that their 'happy meat' choices are sustainable and sound.

Humanemyth.org is just the latest in a line of wake-up calls. How many more will it take to convince these folks to go vegan?

Stay Vegan, Friends.