Eat Me.

Anything you can do we can do vegan.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Kitchen Rental

I was totally unaware of this but you can rent a kitchen space to prepare foods that you want to sell. Since the health department sort of limits the food you bake at home to at girl scout bake sales this makes a lot of sense for personal chefs and caterers that don't have their own kitchens.

I also read this interesting article in the Chicago Reader about a women renting out a space in a recently abandoned candy company (Chicago was once the candy capital of the world after all) to produce her own line of caramels. Not vegan unfortunately...

I am so so jealous of all the creative people out there that can effectively translate their passion into something profitable. The caramel woman was employed at Kraft for years working on their Ranch Dressing with Bacon and other gross sounding products so she has definitely put in her dues.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Photographs

I am totally smitten with these photographs on etsy by Irene Sochocki. I just signed up for an account today - we will see if I ever actually get around to doing anything with it!

Landscapes... in cheese.

During my daily scan of the architecture job boards I found an article about this one night architecture competition on archinect. Of course it wasn't very vegan because the medium for the models? Cheese. Yes... cheese. I can't disagree that cheese wouldn't be a great medium to work with. Malleable, meltable, easy to use. It sure would beat foam core.

I could go off on a diatribe about how I wish there were more events like this in the architectural community and discuss the effectiveness of these events at doing whatever it is they are trying to do. But I lack motivation and writing skills and have a top-tube pad to knit.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Monday Night Update

We finally ate the rest of our homegrown shitake mushrooms. They were really good cooked up in some soy sauce, rice vinegar, basil, and mirin then served over whole wheat pasta.

I also talk about my friend Sasha a lot but have not even linked to her blog about her new life in San Fransisco! If you want a glimpse of the good life through the eyes (or keystrokes) of a great gal check it out.

And um... nothing else to say tonight except this article was linked on her site and it made me really angry. Why in the world would you ever pay for animals to be abused? Uggh so frustrating.

Friday, March 21, 2008

Raw Brownies

I made the raw brownies from 28 Cooks on Monday and they were awesome! (I brought one to my dad yesterday when I met him for lunch and he loved them too! Katie loves them! Amos loves them!) I couldn't help but compare them to another recently discovered favorite food item - Lara Bars.

Diana turned us onto Lara Bars and at first I thought it was going to be like the first time Amos tried to get me to eat a Cliff Bar (which I now love - well the chocolate flavored ones anyway...). So at any rate it seems like raw food is coming full circle in my life. I definitely going to try and make another batch modeled after my favorite Lara Bar - Chocolate Mint. Which reminds me of the mint carob snowball I had last time I went to Karyn's.

All this to say - yo it is Purim and here is an interesting article on some Lara Bar taste alike goodness - not vegan.... still an interesting quick read.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Biscuitphile


Some biscuits Amos sneakily made and I slathered with peanut butter and jelly.


Monday, March 17, 2008

VEE-guhn: a 2 syllable word

It is snowing outside. SNOWING. Ick. I didn't want to do anything fun today anyway. Yeah.

Tonight: French onion soup and raw brownies!

Since I don't have much to say I am going to pass on wordsmith's word of the day email.

Guest wordsmith Matt Ball (veganpa at comcast.net) writes:

Growing up, I was a big fan of Carl Sagan, and I dreamed of exploring the
universe, expanding the frontier of human knowledge and vision. I started
my college to become a rocket scientist, with the plan of working for NASA.

But fate intervened on the first day of college when I met my roommate,
a big, strong guy, who was not shy about explaining his vegetarianism or
what hidden realities my eating meat supported. After a false start, I went
vegetarian -- I simply found the cruelties of meat production too severe
to continue to rationalize away.

Shortly thereafter, I met Jack Norris and started learning more about animal
exploitation in this world. I decided I needed to do more than be a
vegetarian. With ten other activists, Jack and I held a three-day Fast for
Farm Animals in front of a Cincinnati slaughterhouse (three days being the
amount of time farmed animals often go without food before slaughter). After
the fast, Jack and I formed a group which eventually became Vegan Outreach,
dedicated to preventing the most suffering possible.

You can order a free copy of our Guide to Cruelty-Free Eating at:
http://veganoutreach.org/starterpack/

(This week's guest wordsmith Matt Ball is co-founder and executive director
of the non-profit organization Vegan Outreach.)


vegan (VEE-guhn) noun

One who does not consume animal products.

adjective

Made with no animal ingredients.

[Coined in 1944 by Donald Watson (1910-2005) to describe a "non-dairy
vegetarian"; formed from the first three and last two letters of the
word vegetarian.]

Today's word in Visual Thesaurus: http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=vegan

"Kitsch, lively and glamorous, Canadian food writer Sarah Kramer bucks all
the vegan stereotypes."
Leonie Cooper; The Garden of Vegan; The Guardian (London, UK); Feb 6, 2008.

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Enjoy being fit, healthy? Like guilt free eating? Make animals friends
and not your food. Check out http://stutigargblog.blogspot.com

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Fern



Our little staghorn fern that has survived living on it's own in our old backyard and moving across the country.

Cupcake Shoutout!


We didn't take a picture....

I totally need to mention that my little sister Katie made the most amazing cupcakes for my birthday from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World. I think she made the skinny vanilla cupcakes with chocolate ganache and a batch of chocolate cupcakes with cookies and cream frosting. Yeah!

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Art Hysteria

I get in these moods where I find one new artist on the internet that is so fantastic and inspiring who has links to other fantastic artists that I go on a three hour link to link web journey and get so inspired and crazy in my head I have to go sit in lotus position in the corner with my palms down to conserve energy rather than running to Walgreens and buying 80 pairs of rubber gloves and filling them all with sand leaving them in the middle of the street while simultaneously silk-screening the walls.

Amos sent me to a link of artist Clare Gill who does very fabulous tent and landscape paintings. From there follow the dots until you too are ready to renovate your life whilst making everyone you know new stationary and quilting.

CSA Box: Week of March 10th 2008

My sister and I went out for breakfast this morning at Victory's Banner and when I got back my CSA box was sitting on her doorstep! (Our building is a complicated system of foyers and back stairs with a confusing array of keys and nasty neighbors that throw your stuff away... so the CSA box lives there.)

These are the items that arrived:

4 Fuji apples
Lettuce
Tofu (made in Chicago!)
Kale
Garlic
Celery Root
Parsley
Onions (about 2 pounds - it was like Mary Poppin's purse and an onion field in that box)

I know this is really really exciting news to most of you. Even more exciting is it is 41 degrees outside!

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Interesting Tidbits


Edward Hopper's The Lighthouse at Two Points


What we have been eating:

Peanut Butter Pancakes at Pankakes - don't ask me for the recipe because Morgan just somehow made them - fantastic with raspberry sauce.

Most interesting article:

Sasha sent over this article from the New York Times about the blight that is modern development and the hope that is sustainable new urbanism.

Other assorted items:

It is going to be in the 40's this week! Long live above freezing temperatures!

We also went to the Homer and Hopper exhibition at the Art Institute not this past Thursday but the one before. Love Love!

Morning, Noon and Night

Since unemployment has struck my days have been separated into quadrants of time that - let's face it here - seem very similar. Early morning extends from when I wake up with Amos until I realize everyone else in the world is probably at work now and I am still in my pajamas wondering what the meaning of life is. I resist the urge to call my other unemployed friends, people in college and people that live on the west coast as all these people are still sleeping. Then I start to feel the urge to be productive at which time I bake something, practice yoga, clean the apartment, start a project I probably won't finish and check Craigslist and the AIA website for new job postings. I get really excited about something that probably won't happen. Then maybe I take a shower. This takes care of later morning.

Now it is noontime. This is when I think "maybe I should go outside." So I walk to the grocery store to buy something I probably don't need and hustle home freezing because the average temperature of the last month has been about 29 degrees. Now I sit in the sun on the bed with the cats and warm up. Maybe I read my book, maybe I just sit there.

Now it is afternoon. If I haven't gone to the store I go buy a cup of coffee. I eat lunch and contemplate my single fork and plate sitting in the sink and decide I will just wash it tomorrow. I eat one too many of whatever it is I baked that day and check my email for the millionth time waiting to hear back from someone - anyone!

Now it is mid-afternoon at which point I start waiting for Amos to come home.

Now it is evening. Amos comes home and I don't understand why he doesn't want to go somewhere! Margaritas? Movie? Fabric Store? Well let's just play a game then! Please!!! What do you think you are doing sitting on the couch trying to read your book?! Can we go to Florida? Why is airfare so expensive?!

Now it is night. Time to make dinner. Time to clean the kitchen again. Time to go to bed.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Virtual Euopean Getaway...

I had a great job interview yesterday - let's all cross our fingers and hope they liked me as much as I liked them.

This isn't where I interviewed but an old classmate of mine now works for Valerio Dewalt Train Associates who have a cute little section of their website here offering architectural guides to different cities in Europe! I am not sure if anyone I know is going to Europe anytime soon but couldn't we all use a little virtual vacation?

Sorry - maybe this isn't too fun for you non-architecture buffs. But until I have something new to cook up you will just have to wait!