Oh, Hello!

Are you still here? Sorry about that. I've got two important things to talk about today.

Thing the first: PIE. Yes, pie. Vegan Pie in the Sky is due out next month and it's amazing. If you have tastebuds, you should go preorder it. Go on. I'll wait.

Got it? Good. You're welcome. All the recipes are delicious, most of them are easy and some of them are fast enough to make after work (maybe with a bit of advance prep work). Here's a small sampling of the ones I tested. Do not judge them by my photos, because if there's anything I'm worse at than baking pretty things, it's photography.

Blueberry cheesecake

Read more »

Hey Look!

More cookies!

Vanilla and chocolate thumbprints from The Vegan Cookie Connoisseur.

Read more »

Tis the Season

For cookies!

This week, I attended a cookie swap and reading for the Zinester's Guide to New York City (which everybody with any kind of interest in NYC should pick up), featuring pieces (and a whole vegan section) by Melissa Bastian. Sadly, she and I were the only people to bring vegan cookies (and someone brought - and wrote a song about - bacon brittle), but that didn't keep us from eating a whole hell of a lot of them.

Read more »

Cookie Time!

If you've read any part of this blog ever, you know I'm really awful at making food look good. I can't do pretty plating or decorating or anything like that. I'm lucky if I can make food appetizing enough to eat. So I don't really bother trying to model my food after cookbook photos. And I certainly would never dream of trying to copy a cover photo. Until now.

Hypnosis Cookies from The Vegan Cookie Connoisseur

Read more »

Get a Life!

The Vegan Girl's Guide to Life, that is.

I had the chance to hang out with Melisser and pick up her book (and Kelly Paloza's The Vegan Cookie Connoisseur) at their signing at Champs Family Bakery, a few weeks ago. Yup, NYC got another vegan bakery. I sampled a small fraction of what they had on offer and while I didn't LOVE everything, I really liked most things (hellooooo pumpkin cream cheese candied nut other crazy business crumb cake!), which is more than I can say for most places.

Check out VGGTL's 3-bean chili:

Read more »

The Unphotographable

That's my lunch from Madras Mahal. It's delicious, but the photos came out so poorly I'm not even going to bother posting them. They're even terrible by my standards. Here's a picture of a guinea pig instead:

Read more »

Build a Better Bagel

If everything goes according to plan, this entry will post itself on Thursday. Happy Thanksgiving to the people who celebrate it! I'm not cooking Thanksgiving dinner this year and I have my blog posts set up in advance, so my Thanksgiving writeup will happen one day next week, probably to close out MoFo.

If I had a nickle for every time someone getting ready to visit or move to New York asked me where to get the best bagel, I'd have...at least a dollar. I spent most of my life confused by the idea of the "best" bagel because I grew up in Brooklyn, where (as far as I knew) all bagels were pretty much the same. And by "pretty much the same", I mean "the best thing in the world". In fact, I didn't even know bad bagels existed until I was in my 20s and working in midtown Manhattan. So instead of tips for finding the best bagel, here are a few ways to avoid shitty bagels:

• Don't buy them from street trucks.
• Don't buy them from (inter)national chains. This includes Starbucks, Tim Horton's and Dunkin Donuts. They may taste fine, but they're still not the same as a "real" New York bagel.
• Actually, to simplify, don't buy them any place that doesn't have the word "bagel" in the name. Or at least in big letters on a sign in the window. Or, failing that, carry at least eight different kinds and clearly does the bulk of its business in bagels.
•  Don't buy them if you're really far from NYC. Make your own, instead. It's not nearly as difficult as you'd think.

 This bagel breaks the first part of the third rule, since it's from Milk 'N Honey:

Read more »

These Boots are Made for...

...eating! We're continuing Midtown Manhattan week with pizza from Two Boots:

Read more »

So Much Food

I think I should point out that the meals you're seeing here aren't all that indicative of what I usually get for lunch. I almost never get dessert and I often get soup or a sandwich, but rarely both. I want to present a good sampling of what these places have to offer, though, so I'm splurging a bit (and sometimes finishing lunch for dinner).

Today's Midtown Manhattan lunch came from FreeFoods NYC.

Read more »

Lazy MoFo

That's me! The last week or two have kind of kicked my ass and I'm currently pet sitting, so even though I'll be cooking, I just don't have the patience to make sure it's all themed and photographed and blah blah blah. So this week's theme is Midtown Manhattan. It's considered one of New York's least vegan-friendly areas, but I'm going to prove you can eat lunch here for a whole week without going crazy. Photos will be taken at my desk, using my cameraphone, so don't expect anything spectacular. But to make up for that, there will also be pictures of the furballs I'm  hanging out with. Good deal?

OK, then. Let's start with Zen Palate.

Read more »

Three Strikes

And I'm out. I've tried to make this recipe three times and ruined it every time. The first two were totally due to my own carelessness, I realized it when it happened and I never even got to taste this stuff. The third time, I thought I finally had it, but as you'll see below the jump (the photo is so gross I can't bring myself to put it before), I still botched it.

Today's plant: Sea Moss
Used in: Sea Moss Punch from Caribbean Vegan

Read more »

This Post May Be a Lie

And if it is, I apologize. I have an open bag of wakame in my pantry but have no idea what I used it for. I made this soup so long ago that even though I remember how to make it (basically) and how it tasted, I don't remember what sea vegetable was in it (and don't currently have access to the recipe). Process of elimination: the wakame went in this soup. I may be wrong. It may be nori.

Today's plant: Wakame
Used in: Manhattan Glam Chowder from Appetite for Reduction

Read more »

Coo Coo for Cou Cou!

One of my closest friends lives in Barbados. I know very little about the Caribbean, so when we first met, she'd tell me all about their culture and (more importantly) food. She told me about her national dish, cou cou with flying fish, many times, but I just couldn't get a mental picture of it until I made it myself while testing for Caribbean Vegan. Please note this is one of the few recipes in the book that works better with special equipment: a cou cou stick. I got mine when I visited my friend in Barbados, but if you can't find one anywhere, you can also use a big wooden spoon.


Today's plant: Nori
Used in: Cou Cou and Tofish from Caribbean Vegan

 

Read more »

Kelp!

I need somebody!

Sorry, that was a terrible pun. I would say I'll try not to let it happen again, but if you've been reading this blog for a while, you know that's a total lie. Anyway, it's still Sea Life Week over here, so let's move on:

Today's plant: Kelp
Used in: Chesapeake Tempeh Cakes from Vegan Brunch

Read more »

Welcome Back!

We meet again, MoFos. We're back with a new week and a new theme: Sea Life. Five days, five dishes, five sea plants for us to get to know a little better.

Today's plant: Hijiki
Used in: Hijiki Chickpea Salad Sandwich from Vegan with a Vengeance

Read more »

The End!

Good morning, my Field Roasts of doom.

I briefly dreamed of writing a cookbook the way I speak. There would be instructions like "Add wet ingredients to dry and knead the shit out of it for 3-5 minutes" and descriptions like "Makes one metric assload." We should all be thankful Warren Ellis beat me to it. Sort of. Mr. Ellis doesn't write cook books. He writes comics. And novels. And essays. And a webcomic. And Tweets. And a blog. And all sorts of entertaining and educational (depending on your definition of education) things. However, a recent edition of his novel, Crooked Little Vein, contained recipes, a playlist and an interview with Warren Ellis. I decided to use that as the inspiration for today's post.

Read more »

An Epic Post of Epic Epicness!

Hey there! It's time to check out one of my favorite comics and the best movie no one saw this summer: Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim!

Read more »

Just Chew It

Good day to you, MoFos! It's still Comic Book Week all up in here and today's post is a giant shout out to Rob Guillory and John Layman's CHEW. CHEW tells the story of Tony Chu, a guy I think it'd be best to just let the creators explain in their own words (and pictures):

Read more »

Open Letter to Bruce Banner

Dear Bruce:

May I call you Bruce? No? OK, then. Please calm down, sir.

Dear Mr. Banner:

It was recently brought to my attention (by my little brother) that you've gone vegan. Congratulations on making the compassionate choice! I'm sure you'll find the vegan lifestyle to be satisfying and fulfilling for both your ethics and your taste buds. However, he also pointed out the following incident, which occurred while you were living under the name Bixby:

Read more »

Sweet Tooth

Welcome back, MoFos. Did you have a nice weekend? Do anything fun? Eat anything interesting? I took a little walk. It was pretty awesome.

It's a new week, so I've got a new theme. This week's theme is comic books. Yup. I'm going to write five posts about food inspired by comic books and it's going to be just as nerdy as you expect it to be. Oh yes. Let's kick things off with Jeff Lemire's Sweet Tooth.

Read more »