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When the food is great, I love dining out vegan. But when ya get bad food, it’s the worst. I shudder to think how alienated a potential veggie person could be by bad food.
I recently ordered dinner crepes in a curry sauce at a local San Francisco vegan restaurant. When it arrived, the sauce was runny and the mashed tofu filling tasted just like mashed tofu. It was definitely blah.
So I politely shared this comment with our server, and ordered a replacement dish (grilled eggplant and sundried tomato sandwich). While I waited for my food to arrive, I watched Chris eat and stole bits of food off his plate. By the time my cold sandwich arrived, he was already done eating.
Rewind. Yes, the GRILLED eggplant sandwich arrived cold. But, by then, I was starving so I just ate it.
It reminded me of all the reasons why I dislike this particular restaurant. How cold it is in the winter. How the kitchen can be having an off day and literally shovel out bad food. Or how the wait staff can be inattentive. Either your food arrives cold because it gave off all its heat while waiting to be served, or you sit there steaming while you wait to order.
But, hey, at least I have the choice of eating at a vegan restaurant. So I can’t complain too much….
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I’m totally smitten with my new iPod, and it goes everywhere with me, so I was delighted to find this fantastic little addition that all you vegan ipod users must try.
Very simple to install (under a minute), but will prove invaluable to a lot of people.
I can hear all you PDA folks saying “So What?”, but these days I never carry my Pocket PC.
Thanks Thirty5.org and to HappyCow for organizing the original list.
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Just because it’s vegan doesn’t necessarily mean it’s all good. When it comes to “junk mail”, even if its “vegan junk mail”, I’ve learned to just say “no”. Let me share my story about my fight against junk mail and my successful strategy. Plus a few tips you might try.
Read more! »
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As a follow up to our last podcast on Activist Rights, the question came up about taking photos or recording video footage at events. I found this article on USA Today “New digital camera? Know how, where you can use it” and thought it worth sharing.
Some relevant links from the article -
Photographers’ Guide to Privacy
Journalists’ Right of Privacy Primer
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Effective Advocacy for Animals – Part II – Activist Rights for Animal Rights
Thea Langsam is a lawyer at Altshuler, Berzon, a small public interest law firm in San Francisco. She represents Vegan Outreach, challenging colleges that have illegally sought to bar Vegan Outreach volunteers from leafleting on campus. She also organizes the San Francisco KFC Cruelty protests and Letter Writing Parties for the San Francisco Bay Area Vegetarians, which typically happen on the 3rd weekend of every month.
GenerationV – Show #5
Duration: 00:29:15
Introduction 00:00:33
Thea – Activist Rights 00:01:30
End/Wrap up 00:25:00
References – Handouts, Links etc
Legal Questions About Leafleting
Gallery of pictures from the event
BAVeg Volunteer page
Also see Episode #4: Effective Advocacy, Part I – Activist Skills
Subscribe to the podcast
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I got an iPod video (5G) for Christmas – very cool surprise. Right off the bat I knew I needed a case, but finding one that was vegan and practical would be a challenge.
Read more! »
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I don’t think I’d had marshmallows since I was a kid, but last year a friend bought us a pack of Pangea vegan marshmallows. They didn’t last long and I was hooked. They’re not that different from non-vegan marshmallows – but your mileage may vary. Remember this is coming from a 12 year vegan that thinks that some of the vegan cheeses are ‘ok’. 
Last week I was ordering some stuff from Pangea and thought I’d give the “Irregular” Vegan Marshmallows a try, as they were only $1.39 for a 12oz pack vs $3.79 for regular pack which only contain 10oz.
They arrived yesterday and I can say that they’re every bit as good as the regular/normal vegan marshmallows.
They would not work for roasting on your next camping trip, but for the casual treat, they taste and feel the same in your mouth once you start chewing – maybe a tad more sugary.
I’ll definitely order more.
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Okay, veggie people, let’s get mapped!! We set up a map for Vegetarians on frappr (a free mapping service).
To get a better sense of where we’re at, and maybe meet some new folks near us, please mark yourself on the frapper Vegetarians map.
It takes only a couple of minutes to “pinpoint” your location; it’s based on zipcode and nothing else.
You can also send a ’shoutout’ (or greeting) when you do.
It’s kinda fun to see where everyone is at. So far looks like California is in the lead!!
Please ask all your veggie friends to map themselves too!
http://www.frappr.com/vegetarians
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Because I am active in the San Francisco Bay Area vegetarian community, I am subscribed to the news service for Google for the name of our group, “Bay Area Vegetarians”. It’s sometimes interesting to see what appears.
Sometimes it’s a story about fishing in the “bay” and it talks about restaurants that serve “fish” as well as food for “vegetarians”. Occasionally it’s actually a story that references our group and that’s really exciting!
Today it was a story about someone from the Bay Area who is vegan and starting a new site vegan411.com. It looks promising but very challenging.
With BAVeg, we maintain an online directory, which is an excellent resource, especially for folks who are new or aspiring vegetarians, or folks new to the Bay Area. Ours has become a widely used local resource. It’s full name is the Ultimate Guide to Vegetarian Living in the San Francisco Bay Area, called UG for short.
The hardest part of having a directory / database is keeping it current. We’re so fortunate that there’s lots of folks in the community that are our eyes and ears in keeping it updated with new businesses, closed businesses, change in hours or menus, etc. Happy to say UG has over 400 active business entries and nearly 800 customer reviews.
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We’ve recently received a few email on the topic of vegan tuxedos.
Some of you may remember our post on the search for a suit for me to wear to the PETA Gala last year.
We’ll I just realized that I never did followed up in text blog on the outcome, only the audio podcast.
Read more! »