(I am way, way behind in my cookbook reviews and I’ve been getting more and more to review — three just last week! — so this is the first in what I hope will be a frequent series of catch-up reviews.)

With so many great vegan cookbooks on the market, it’s easy for some to slip under the radar and get overlooked. Lacey Sher and Gail Doherty’s You Won’t Believe It’s Vegan! is one of those books surely due to a poorly chosen title that not only infers inherent poor quality of vegan food but also brings to mind stacks of overstocked, generic $5 cookbooks in a bin in front of Borders.

But guess what? This book is anything but generic. In fact, it’s often downright inspired.

Sher and Doherty may be known to vegans in the Northeast as the owners of New Jersey’s Down to the Earth, an organic vegan restaurant that they ran until 2006. Their 2008 reprint of their 2007 Down to Earth Cookbook falls neatly between an accessible everyday vegan cookbook and a gourmet cookbook like The Artful Vegan. The recipes are all within the reach of most home cooks, but combine to make dishes with an impressive complexity that isn’t always immediately obvious.

Our family’s tried a number of recipes so far. Among them, two soups: a filling Mediterranean Lentil Soup and an amazing Potato-Leek Soup with Lemon and Dill that far surpasses any other Potato-Leek soup we’ve tried. From the salad section, we enjoyed both the easy-but-satisfying Chickpea Untuna Salad and the Quinoa Salad with onion, peppers, and corn. Also, thumbs up for the tasty Tofu Hot Wings with Ranch Dressing. They definitely bring the flavor.

The most interesting dish we’ve encountered is the “Love Bowl,” a giant dish of layered brown rice, black beans, greens, and marinated tempeh, topped with scallions and sesame seeds. The recipe says “serves one,” but it’s huge bowl that is hearty and filling for two people, easy. (My notes for this one indicate it could have also been titled “A Bowl of Things Ryan Would Never Have Eaten Ten Years Ago.”)

The only not-so-great recipe we tried was the falafel, whose texture and flavor were off and not what we were hoping for. Thankfully things like the pizza and easy Raw Cashew Cheese recipes made up for the one subpar recipe.

You Won’t Believe It’s Vegan! features 200 recipes divided into breakfasts, drinks/juices/smoothies, sides, soups, salads, sandwiches/wraps, appetizers, entrees, raw/live foods, desserts, and there’s even a section for kids’ food. Beyond what we’ve tried already, I look forward to trying out their Chickpea Socca, Tortilla Torte with Creamy Pumpkin-Seed Pesto, and of course the entire dessert section.

Sher and Doherty’s book is a pleasant surprise that proves the old adage, don’t judge a book by its title. Or something like that.

You Won’t Believe It’s Vegan!
Lacey Sher and Gail Doherty
Da Capo Press
978-1-60094-070-5

Scientific American’s 60 Second Science recently featured another interesting animal story titled “Birds Bop to Beat.” Reporter Karen Hopkin describes how some birds, especially parrots, may be able to groove to music, suggesting that “neural circuits for vocal learning may also enable moving to the beat.” Below is the transcript.

Forget “Polly wanna cracker.” Polly wants to boogie. Or so say scientists in a pair of papers in the April 30th issue of the journal Current Biology. They found that some birds, especially parrots, can bob their heads, tap their feet and sway their bodies to a musical beat.

It’s long been thought that dancing is a uniquely human hobby. Chimps don’t move to the groove. And when was the last time you saw Fido or Fluffy shake their furry booties? But Snowball the cockatoo is another story. That bird’s got rhythm. Researchers found that Snowball can adjust the tempo of his dance moves to coincide with the speed of the music. In this study, the tune was “Everybody” by the Backstreet Boys, one of the cockatoo’s faves.

But Snowball’s not the only bird who likes to boogie. In a separate study, researchers searched YouTube for videos of dancing animals. Of the 1,000 they turned up, only 15 critters actually moved in sync with the beat. Fourteen of those were parrots, one was an elephant. Pachyderms, parrots and people are all vocal mimics. So the neural circuits for vocal learning may also enable moving to the beat.

Of course, I always knew that birds could get down.

Also interesting, an article linked below the podcast, “Bird Brains: Are Parrots Smarter Than a Human Two-Year-Old?“

I was getting really tired of the old template, so I installed a new one. There’s definitely tweaking to be done, so let me know if anything looks particularly awry.

Sunday marked the sixth annual Poplar Spring Run for the Animals. I’ve run this race each year, the first one just a couple of months after I’d started volunteering at the farm. I look forward to the race, hills and all, every year.

This year, my cheering squad was in Charlottesville for my brother-in-law’s graduation from UVa (congrats, John!), but I had the distant cheers of many generous sponsors in my head. We managed to raise $500 for the farm, so big thanks to Bahar, Barabara, Brandi, Chris, Deb, Katherine, Leeann, Mary, Michelle, Natala, Sunil, and Mom and Dad for the support!

I finished in just under 25 minutes, averaging about 8 minutes a mile (official time was a few seconds more), which for me was a big win. I’m not a hardcore runner and the course itself is really hilly, so I’ll take that time any day of the week. It was more than a minute faster than my previous best for this race, which was good enough to place to me 55th out of 320.

It was another great event for the farm — over 300 runners (plus quite a few walkers), great vegan eats after the race, and it was by far the greenest race I’ve ever run.

Race results are here and a few photos have been posted.

• High Protein Vegan Diet For Diabetes | Diet, Nutrition, Exercise for a Healthy Life.
  Officially the worst article on veganism ever written. According to this, we "often" do not eat eggs though we do eat dairy products. (via Mary Martin)
  (tags: stupidity)

Here in Virginia, the Democratic primary for the state’s gubernatorial race is underway. We have a few candidates running, including former DNC chair Terry McAuliffe. I was initially considering throwing my vote his way, despite his campaign’s irriating calls multiple times every week, but after a mailing I received yesterday, there’s no chance. If you don’t want to open up the PDF, take a look at the video instead:

As a vegan, I cannot justify supporting a candidate who wants to turn animal waste into energy. Why would I reject an option that, in theory, doesn’t hurt the animals? Especially one that helps clean up the environmental mess that’s a result of their intensive confinement? Because it’s just not that simple…

• Agribusiness doesn’t deserve the money. As an ethical vegan, why would I want to support factory farms (because, believe me, ain’t enough waste coming from farms like the imaginary one in the video to support McAuliffe’s plan)? Using chickens’ waste doesn’t solve the real environmental problems of overconsumption and factory farming. Rather, it financially rewards those causing the problem. Let’s look at another by-product of meat production: leather. The argument is that leather is just a by-product and the materials would otherwise be wasted and discarded. But, a USDA report states that animal skins are “the most economically important byproduct” of the meatpacking industry. It’s not just an afterthought, it’s an essential part of the operation of slaughterhouses and the poultry waste used for energy could potentially become nearly as essential.
• It’s not proven to be environmentally sound. If it ain’t clean and sustainable, why is it even a topic for consideration? This Washington Post piece points out a number of criticisms of the chicken waste-to-energy concept:
  

  Environmental groups have been largely critical of efforts to generate energy from waste products such as garbage or droppings. Often such plants produce harmful emissions.

  In addition, critics note that raw poultry waste already brings in top dollar as a fertilizer — more, sometimes, than the energy it can produce.

  …

  “It does not make sense to try to solve a waste problem as an energy solution,” [Mike Tidwell, director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network] said. “It is an unproven technology that is going to serve only to delay and confuse the real solutions in Virginia, which are energy efficiency and true renewable energy like wind and solar.”

• Fibrowatt. Fibrowatt is a Pennsylvania-based company aiming to build a power plan on the Eastern Short of Maryland that would run completely on logging and poultry waste. There has been a lot of opposition to Fibrowatt and “poultry litter incineration” in North Carolina, calling the process “dirtier than coal, more expensive than wind, and litter incineration as an economic threat to farmers” (Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League).

Where do the other candidates stand? Brian Moran supports it in a passing comment, but:

Jesse Ferguson, a spokesman for Moran, criticized McAuliffe’s fixation on chicken waste. “He’s made it seem like chicken waste is the solution to the problem, and we’re not even sure how much of an answer it is,” he said.

I couldn’t find a stated position for Creigh Deeds. I’ve sent him an e-mail and a note on Twitter and am awaiting a response.

While I’m sure none of the candidates are going to completely satisfy my lefty political desires, I can definitely say that I will not be voting for a candidate that so enthusiastically and aggressively supports plans like chicken waste-to-energy. We shouldn’t be putting more money into the pockets of factory farms while diverting attention from real solutions like reduced consumption, energy efficiency, and clean technogies like solar and wind power.

(Update: Creigh Deeds replied to my inquiry on twitter: “Great potential in poultry waste, and other ag waste for that matter.” Sigh.)

In six days, I’ll be running the sixth annual Poplar Spring Run for the Animals 5k and this year I’m raising money for the sanctuary. I can guarantee you that your money will be used well and wisely, directly affecting the lives of the hundreds of residents of the farm. So, if you have a few dollars to spare for a good cause:

And if you need a little more convincing, hit play on this slideshow of photos I’ve taken at Poplar Spring and Poplar Spring events over the last 5+ years:

• Mothers Day Brunch
  Isa serves up waffles for brunch on KATU.
  (tags: isaforkingrules video brunch)
• vegantattoos.com | tattoos for, by, and on vegans
  I am tattoo-less, but can definitely appreciate some nice vegan ink.
  (tags: tattoos blog)

A couple of weeks ago, my wife, daughter, and I headed up to New York City. It was the first time in nearly four years that my wife and I had been there and Rasine’s first time ever. We were only in town for one day and one night, but we had an excellent time and can’t wait to go back. A few, quick impressions of our culinary experiences this time around:

Two Boots Pizzeria

Though not a vegan pizza place, the Two Boots listing on Supervegan indicated that they had a number of vegan choices, so we stopped by for a few slices.

When I stepped to the counter and asked if they had any vegan pizzas made, the guy indicated that they didn’t and gave off the vibe that he didn’t want to bother making one, either. I gave him a disappointed look and said, “Oh, you don’t?” followed by a pregnant pause. He then said, tersely, “OK, I’ll make one.” He didn’t ask what we wanted on it or anything, so we crossed our fingers and waited.

What we got was one of the best vegan pizzas we’ve ever had. It was cheeseless, but they seemed to have taken every possible vegetable from their kitchen (and maybe a few from next door) and threw it on a pizza. The result was a slice piled ridiculously high that seriously hit the spot.

Lan Cafe

We knew for sure that we were going to Lula’s Sweet Apothecary for dessert, so the next trick was finding a nearby restaurant for dinner. There were a few options, but we settled on Lan Cafe, a vegetarian (and very nearly vegan) Vietnamese restaurant that serves up veggie pho, half a dozen varities of banh mi sandwiches, vegetarian banh xeo pancakes, and every other traditional Vietnamese favorite you can imagine. The food was excellent, as was the company (we met up with a childhood friend of my wife’s that she hadn’t seen in 20 years). My banh mi with grilled seitan was perfect and my wife thoroughly enjoyed her banh xeo with mock pork. Rasine, as you can see below, dug the summer roll appetizer:

Lula’s Sweet Apothecary

If there’s any spot in New York that’s worth the hype, it’s Lula’s. The Supervegan page is one glowing review after another stating that the homemade ice cream is equalled only by the friendly service of the two proprietors. For those that haven’t heard, Lula’s is an all-vegan ice cream parlor (one of two in the city!) that looks like an authentic, old school ice cream parlor (and not in the kitchy way, at all). To get a good feel for the vibe, check out this excellent photoset.

As soon as we entered, the owners told us, “Let us know if there’s anything you want to sample.” And sample we did. I eventually settled on a malt (a MALT! REALLY!) made with cake batter ice cream. Huyen and Rasine split a simple, but tasty, mint chocolate chip cone. I’m pretty sure that on our next trip to the city, we’ll be coming here each night.

Yay for Lula’s!

As an added bonus, I was lucky enough to catch up with the world famous Brownbird Rudy Relic. It was great to finally meet him in person.

And while we’re at it, I thought I’d throw in a video of an amazing performance of his in Australia last December. Be sure to check out his entire set, available for streaming online.

(special thanks to Rich, Jason, and Deb for the help and suggestions with regards to restaurants and parking!)

Juniper the goat. Read her story (PDF).

In about a month, for the sixth straight year I’ll be running the Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary Run for the Animals. I started volunteering at Poplar Spring over five years ago and it’s always been a great source of inspiraton for me. When I started there, I was still lacto-ovo vegetarian. It didn’t take long (but longer than it should have) for me to go vegan thanks to being able to work directly with the animals and become a part of the community that works and volunteers at the farm. Others that I’ve brought to the farm have done everything from eating significantly less meat to giving up meat altogether after only one visit. It really is quite a place. Terry and Dave don’t waver in their commitment to the animals and have done an amazing job over the past 10+ years.

I’ve set a bit of a high goal for myself and I have a long, long way to go, so please, won’t you…

Also, my pal Josh is doing something similar. Except he’ll be going 596.9 miles further than me and will do so on a bicycle. It’d be cool if you helped him out in his effort to raise money for Farm Sanctuary by donating here and becoming a Facebook fan of the event. Do your thing, Josh!