Vegan Genius

A well-written introduction to Veganism by Biz Stone, Genius.

You’ll notice on the right sidebar, there are now dynamic news headlines from Moreover. The keyword search that brings them up is: vegetarian OR vegan -”las vegan”. If you want to see more headlines, use the “Veg*n news headlines” link that tops off the “General Links” category.

The Secret of Life

The people of the island of Okinawa, Japan have the longest life-spans in the world. In addition to averaging a five-year longer life than Americans, they also have a higher percentage of inhabitants over the age of 100. And of 32 of those centenarians surveyed, only four were living in a nursing home.

“Generally, people have genes that should be getting them to their to their mid-80s. … In our country, we live about 10 years less than that on average because of terrible health habits,” explained one American doctor. The longer life spans are connected with the very limited part that meat plays in the Okinawan diet as well as the high-carb, low calorie nature of it. They eat a good amount of soy, Omega-3’s, and at least seven servings of vegetables a day.

Today I met up with Alex (who loves to see what’s he’s eaten posted on my blog) at the Sunflower Cafe, a vegetarian (95% vegan, actually) restaurant in Vienna, VA. We split an order of the fried “chicken,” which I had heard and read a lot about. Folks: it lives up to the hype. Though it’s a tad salty, this stuff has the consistency and flavor of fried chicken. From what I’ve read, this is what they recommend that the non-vegetarians start with.

Alex went on to order his usual: General Tso’s “Chicken.” It was excellent (as I stole a few from him). I decided to jump in feet first for my inaugural visit to the restaurant and got the Macrobiotic Tofu dish. Boy, that sounds appetizing, eh? It included a number of ingredients I didn’t recognize (but which were, fortunately, cross-referenced to an index in the back of the menu), but it turned out to be a good dish. I swear the tofu multiplied in front of my eyes, though. (More on macrobiotic cooking)

Of course, making the trip out to Vienna also meant I got to go to my favorite tea shop, the Coffee Caboodle and pick up a couple of new teas. I got some China Young Hyson green tea (which I’ve never tried before) and China White Mutan as well. I’m especially stoked about the new white tea, since I’ve only had Sow Mee and Silver Needle. My first cup of this $40/pound gem (I only got 1/4 pound, don’t worry) was, for lack of a better term, exquisite.

When I got home a few hours later, I was going to cook something up for dinner but felt lazy. Unfortunately, all the restaurants in my town were closed by 7pm, so I made a trip to the supermarket and tried out “Curried Tempeh and Rice” from Simply Vegan. Total preparation and cooking time was about 25 minutes and the end result was a chewy, flavorful (but not overpowering) blend of organic tempeh chunks and frozen peas stir-fried in olive oil, onion, tamari, curry powder, garlic powder, and freshly grated black pepper served over basmati rice.

Now that you know my full dining habits for the day… :)

I’ve also been experimenting a bit more, especially with pasta dishes. In the past week, I’ve had two improvised dishes making use of orzo, freshly grated Pecorino cheese, garlic (lots of garlic!), and various herbs and spices. One recipe was good enough that I submitted it to VegetarianRecipe.com. If it’s accepted, I’ll link up to it. Otherwise, I’ll post it here in a few days.

One of the blogs on my daily reading list (I forget which) linked up to this edition of “This American Life” about people who perpetrate hoaxes so deeply that they end up believing the lies themselves. Of particular interest is the story of one guy who claims to be vegetarian to impress friends. Very strange.

At my cousin’s wedding, they served “lite fare” for dinner: basically three items served to each table and people could pick and choose for themselves. I couldn’t have the crab cakes or chicken (obviously) so I had the fried green tomatoes. I was a little leery at first, though, because it said that they were cookied with “garlic aioli.” I didn’t know what aioli was, neither did any from my table, and neither did my aunt. So, I had the tomatoes, and fortunately, they were safe.

Last night’s experiment was the relatively easy Butterfly Saffron recipe from Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant. It was a bit heavier of a dish than I usually like for my pasta (it used butter and heavy whipping cream in addition to freshly grated Pecorino cheese), but the end result was nice and creamy and had just a hint of the saffron flavor. I have a feeling I’ll return to this one again and I think it would make a good dinner party-type dish.

On Friday I tried out this falafel and cucumber sauce recipe. It took a lot longer than expected (because of a number of mistakes and lack of foresight on my part), but the end result was very tasty. The cucumber sauce was excellent and surprisingly easy to fix and would work well with a number of other dishes. The falafel took some work, but was worth it.

The one major change to the recipe is that step 4 should be step 1—the cucumber sauce should be chilling in the fridge for about 20 minutes before you even start to make the falafel.

As I’ve said before, sometimes I agree with PETA, sometimes I don’t. But articles like this make me yawn every time.

Vegetarian wedding fare pro and con

Since I’m in the midst of wedding planning right now with my non-vegetarian fiancee, this clip from Ann Landers was interesting.

My take on the subject: if the bride and groom choose to serve a vegetarian meal at their wedding, they have the full right to do so. While taking your guests’ preferences into account is important, there are plenty of ways to satisfy guests’ appetites with non-meat meals. In our case, we compromised: we’re having a couple of chicken/fish dishes but will also have a good vegetarian option. We’ve also spoken with the cook and she’s willing to make a couple of the vegetarian meals vegan by leaving out the dairy and eggs.

The most interesting quote, I found, was this: “Many meat-eaters see vegetarianism as a moral judgment on their own dietary choices.” And I think that’s true… but if somebody else serving you a vegetarian meal makes you feel like you’re being judged, then doesn’t that indicate that you’re not comfortable enough with your own dietary decisions?