•
Good news for Chickens! KFC in Pacifica closed on Oct 21, 2006!
Activists stand up for chickens and protest cruelty at KFC in Pacifica, CA., every month from August 2004 until Highway 1 closed in April 2006.
Please join us as we stand up to protest cruelty to chickens at other KFC Cruelty protests in San Francisco and Palo Alto.
Next KFC protest –
Where: SF – 2101 Lombard St (at Fillmore)
When: 10/29/06 Sunday, 12:00 pm – noon
•
I was going to blog yesterday. And it would have gone something like this:
I had a great day in San Francisco today, a day in the life in my vegan bubble world. I used evite to organize a vegan brunch at Herbivore restaurant as part of the Veganauts. I personally enjoyed it — I got to talk to someone who had newly committed to going vegan, someone becoming more interested in becoming vegan (from vegetarian), as well as others interested in leafleting with me next month to pass out vegan Thanksgiving recipes. All the stuff that makes a vegan like me happy.
Oh, and yeah, all the above happened as I was stuffing my gob (British slang for mouth) with a breakfast burrito, filled with a beans, tofu scramble, salsa, & guacamole, with hash brown potatoes on the side.
Then we went to vegan baking class. This was a first for me. I’m just a couple of years shy of two decades of happy vegan living, and I had never been to class specifically about vegan baking. I’ve baked before, and I’ve enjoyed my baked goodies. And so have the other folks when I’ve brought them to Vegan Food Parties. My baking is usually cakes and muffins. I grew up in a family that baked cookies, but it never appealed to me. Maybe all the work with the dough and then making individual cookie balls. The one time in the last 9 years that I did make cookies .. they were good, although slightly thin and crispy, but devoured quickly. Fresh cookies is a novelty in our kitchen!
Anyways, everything that I thought I knew about vegan baking was blown away. Christine’s vegan baking classes, which she describes as The Secrets of Vegan Baking, is one of the pages that I developed on our website. I’d been adding the feedback from participants from earlier classes, and I’d picked this one to highlight.
“After we tasted the cookies and cake at class we knew we found something special. It seems to me that you have a rare gift and I hope that you continue to experiment and find ever more wonderful desserts that vegans can enjoy and feel proud to serve their non-vegan friends.”
Well, I’ve got to agree with everything that person said and say it was really unbelievable how good these desserts were. And it all looked so incredibly easy with Christine explaining every single step, explaining the ingredients, which brands she had tried and why she preferred specific ones, talking about the “science of baking” (the science!?) — it was an incredible palate-pleasing afternoon spent listening and tasting, and being inspired to bake.
I would not do justice to try and describe how delightful I found the desserts that she presented: Cinnamon Swirl Bundt Cake, Oatmeal Raisin Cookies, and Chocolate Peanut-Butter cups.
Maybe I should just say instead that we’ve already bought the baking paraphernalia necessary for the Bundt cake and the peanut butter cups.
And I wonder if she knows how to make a French Apple Tart …. Eric ( a French vegan chef ) made this outstanding French Apple Tart. I was only able to have it once, because he closed the restaurant and moved to Oregon.
So, a vegan day of brunch and baking, yeah, Saturday was a happy day in my vegan bubble world.
•
That’s the title on the handwritten pages that Pam sent me, demystifying the magic and mystery of the vegan casseroles that she’s been bringing, and I’ve enjoyed, in some form or fashion, for over a decade now.
I remember the first vegan potluck that I ever attended. It was circa 1990 most likely, in Berkeley, at Mitch’s house. There was probably at least 20-30 people there, and my favorite dish was the sushi that the host prepared with these little mushroom caps that peeked out the ends. There was an Indian guy with a video camera that had people stand around in a circle and answer questions about vegetarian travel. Later, as I got to know more people in the vegetarian community, I realized that the film maker was Das, who would later establish the “Bay Area Vegetarian Restaurant Trek” aka BAVRT that ran from 1993 – 2003.
Anyways, what follows is Pam’s recipe, in her own words. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have over the many potlucks and vegan food parties.
I like casseroles, or one pot dishes, as they are fast, use up what’s around and feed many people.
My usual casserole is a combination of rice, beans, textured vegetable protein, onions, peppers, tomatoes, corn tortillas and spices. I mix them up in whatever order appeals to me, but the basic recipe is something like this.
Have about 3 cups of old rice, white or brown. Rice that has been cooked and sitting in the refrigerator for at least a day is less sticky and more easily combined with other ingredients.
Chop one onion and cloves of garlic to taste. Saute in small amount of canola oil until onion translucent. You may also add 1 tsp cumin and or chili powder. Salt & Pepper to taste
If you have bell peppers of any color and want to use, chop and saute with rest of mixture until soft. Then add rice with a can of chopped tomatoes. You may also add some bottled salsa for more flavor.
While cooking rice mixture, hydrate enough TVP (I use slivered sytle) to make about 1 cup moistened TVP (about 3/4 cup dry). Drain excess liquid and combine with a can of black or pinto beans that have been drained.
Toast tortillas until crisp and break into small pieces.
The TVP and beans may be kept separate to use as a layer in this dish or they may be combined with rice. Either way, divide rice into two parts. Put one part in bottom of 9″ x 11″ pan and then cover that with salsa and tortilla bits. Then add beans & TVP if not in rice mixture.
Put second part of rice on next for theird layer and then finish with salsa and more tortilla bits on top. Cover dish with foil.
Bake for about 45 min at 350 degrees then remove foil and bake another 15 minutes.
•
There is no shortage of places to find vegetarian food in and around the San Francisco Bay Area.
With almost 100 vegetarian restaurants, including over 30 vegan restaurants and an incredible array of choices regarding vegetarian products and locally grown produce, we believe that the San Francisco Bay Area is the most veg friendly region in all of North America.
And now .. until November 15th … you can vote to name the 2006 BEST OF VEG 2006 !
Last year’s winners included Millennium, Cha Ya, Herbivore — will your favorites win this year? Vote today!
•
There’s an idiom “let sleeping dogs lie”. It intent derives from avoidance of restarting old conflicts (i.e. don’t wake a sleeping dog, better off not doing it).
There’s no dogs in our households, but four cats, and they love sleeping in my room. Could be because I’ve outfitted most of the flat surfaces beneath the window with fleecy cat beds and it’s warm in my room.
I think only another cat afficionado can appreciate this, but they look so content/adorable and happy when they are all snuggled together and sleeping. We purposefully bought a big cat bed large enough for 3 cats. I’ve gotten more recent photographs of them asleep together and will upload those to the gallery.
On a sleep related note, I was working at my computer a couple of days ago and my concentration was distracted by this low noise…. it was a cat snore!
Knowing and loving these cats as I do .. each of whom was adopted .. it’s hard for me to fathom how, in the name of science, in the name of research, in the name of humanity, that there are others in this world who use cats for food or use cats for experimentation.
•
I spotted three vegans today in Pacifica, a little coastside community south of San Francisco.
Coincidentally, it seemed fitting since October is Vegetarian Awareness Month.
Chris picked me up at my bus stop and we were leaving to enjoy a vegan meal at one of our favorite veg*n restaurants in SF. As we exited the parking lot, I spotted the outline of a burger on a guy’s t-shirt, reminiscent of “Burger King”. As we drove closer, I told Chris, “Look, there’s Murder King”. He spotted that a female companion had a vegan message t-shirt also.
We stopped to talk to them, and found the burger-wearing Murder King was Bob Linden, the host of Go Vegan radio show, whom we’d met on a few earlier occasions. Happily, we found his companion was another coastsider and also vegan.
We found our third vegan on the way home. We spotted that the car in front of us had a license plate holder that said “Go Vegan”. Chris changed lanes until we were alongside the vegan car and I peered out the window into the neighboring car. We thought maybe it was the vegans we’d met earlier that day. Nope, it was a different woman. I smiled and gave her a “peace” symbol with two fingers and then Chris pulled in front of her. Our car has a veg message on the back and we could see the unknown vegan woman smile and wave as she read it.
So, although we live in a world surrounded by meat-eaters, the vegans are out there. We just need to be aware of our surroundings and spread the vegan word.
Perform a death-defying act.
Go Vegan.