Veggie Goes Vegan

Day 211: Why have it on the menu then?

OK, this is the second time in the last two weeks that I've been to the Oak City Grill in Menlo Prak, and the second time their pizza oven wasn't working. Without that oven (and the opportunity to get a cheeseless pizza) that leaves me one option: an appetizer salad...without the cheese that every one of them comes with.

Both times I got a beet salad, which is nice and everything, but rather petite. And they don't automatically bring your table bread, so each time I had to ask for some sourdough bread.

I don't get it. Why even have the pizza section on your menu? I'm going to vote against going there again.

Breakfast:
Puffins Cereal
Organic Rice Milk

Lunch (Oak City Grill):
Coffee
Sourdough Bread
Beet Salad with Walnuts

Dinner (Pasta Pomodoro again):
Sauteed Brussels Sprouts
Capellini Pomodoro
Lemon Sorbet

Day 210: Benefit of ordering in? Over-ordering and leftovers for the next day

Yes, lunch today was dinner yesterday. But that mean that when I got home at 9:30 PM after a speaking engagement, there were no more leftovers to make dinner with. Bad planning on my part.

Breakfast:
Puffins Cereal
Organic Rice Milk

Lunch:
Leftover Cappellini
Leftover Verdure
Natural Cola (Meaning with actual sugar not corn syrup...got it from Whole Foods.)

Snack:
French Fries (went and hung out for an our with a buddy at Santana Row)

Dinner:
Morningstar Farms "Steak" Strips, sauteed in Olive Oil, Garlic and Nutritional Yeast
Roasted Corn

Day 209: Sometimes you just gotta order in

Like Wednesday. Back from yet another trip and home all day trying to catch up without feeling like I actually was. It was time to turn to Waiters on Wheels.

I did get in a quick 40 minute walk around the neighborhood with my voice student. We're supposed to do that every week after her lesson, but things often get in the way. This week we managed though.

Breakfast:
Puffins Cereal
Organic Rice Milk
Organic Pineapple Juice

Lunch:
Potato
Soy Margarine
Vegan Sour Cream and Vegan Cheddar Cheese
Broccollini (OK, see, I ate some vegetables!!!)
Tofutti Cutie

Dinner (Pasta Pomodoro via WOW):
Cappellini Pomodoro
Brussels Sprouts
Verdure Vegetables over Whole Wheat Penne

Day 208: Ask and ye actually may receive

Sometimes I'm not a patient person. (And if you ask my S.O. he'll say that "sometimes" means often.) I'm even less so when I'm hungry. Something about low sugar I'm sure.

Anyway, the hotel in which I stayed in Omaha yesterday offered free breakfast to guests, so I dutifully turned up at 9:30AM (30 minutes before closing) to get mine. Of course I wasn't expecting much, and that's what I saw. Eggs, bacon, sausage, cereal with milk, big fluffy bread for toast that likely had egg in it. No fruit or bagels or oatmeal. And I also didn't see a live person anywhere in sight. So I grabbed a little plate and got myself some grapes that had been, I think, garnish. I also scooped up some hash browns, knowing full well there was little chance those were vegan.

About 5 minutes later a hotel employee did appear, and I asked for plain oatmeal, and I got some. So I could have been a little more patient and avoided my non-vegan moment. It's not like I would have starved on a breakfast of grapes :)

Breakfast:
Coffee
Oatmeal
Grapes
Hash Browns (non-vegan alert)

Lunch (The hotel made it for me special after my speaking gig):
Spaghetti Marinara
Steamed Vegetables

Snack (Omaha Airport):
Potato Chips
Diet Dr.Pepper

Dinner (Denver Airport):
Burrito with Black Beans, Corn, Veggies, Guacamole in a Flour tortilla

Day 207: Another trip, another meager day

Yes, travel is still hard if you're a vegan...there is no doubt about it. ay to day life at home is pretty easy. The Safeway grocery store across the street has vegan options, let alone nearby Trader Joe's or Whole Foods. And I know all sorts of restaurants in all sorts of neighborhoods across the Bay Area that will treat me right.

But it's not so easy once I'm outside those few cities I know well, well, the one other city I know well: New York.

And this trip was to the "heartland", the midwest, hell, the home of Omaha Steaks! The hotel had nothing even vegetarian on their menu, but they were quite accommodating and made something for me. They didn't have to much creativity though. I had described to the person who took my order that perhaps they oculd make me a Pasta Primavera, made with olive oil instead of butter and no cheese. I got a plate with absolutely plain cooked spaghetti and a small side of vegetables. Oh well.

Breakfast (still at home, if you can't tell):
Puffins Cereal
Organic Rice Milk
Organic Pineapple Juice
Organic Orange

Lunch: (San Jose Airport Noah's Bagels):
Plain Bagel with Peanut Butter
Pretzels (form United)
Diet Pepsi

Dinner (Omaha Regency Lodge room service):
Plain Spaghetti
Steamed Vegetables
French Fries
Greens with Balsamic Vinaigrette

Day 206: A cooking experiment not gone awry exactly, but...

Yesterday was not a successful food day, in that the things I tried, whether ready-made from Whole Foods, or experimenting in the kitchen did not actually taste that good to me. I have long loved Morningstar Farms Chik Patties, but they're not vegan, so I've also long been looking for a Chik Patty replacement. The "chicken" nuggets I tried yesterday did not fit the bill.

Then for dinner I tried to cook up a little stir-fry using this spicy-citrus sauce I'd bought at Whole Foods too. I was a little heavy-handed with it, I think, because it just was all tang, no flavor.

Oh well, the kettle corn I bought on impulse was quite yummy...and made without butter!

Breakfast:
2 Trader's Joe everything-free Waffles
1 with Organic Cherry-Applesauce
1 with Organic Peanut Butter
Light Syrup
A little bit of Whole Foods Vegan Chocolate Cake...too rich for the morning.

Lunch:
Kettle Corn
"Chicken" Nuggets with Vegan Sour Cream (did not like 'em, did not eat much of 'em.)
Root Beer

Dinner:
Rice
Stir-fry with Olive Oil, Garlic, Organic Leeks, Shitake, Portabella and Crimini Mushrooms, Roasted Corn, Morningstar Farms "Steak" Strips and the Spicy-Citrus sauce
Brussels Sprouts tossed in Oil, Salt, Cinnamon

Day 205: Belated Happy Birthday to Me :)

My partner and friend Lisa had a lovely birthday dinner for me in Half Moon Bay last night, just a small dinner for six, a perfect size. It was a delightful evening, and I even drank a mojito...the first time I've ventured beyond having a little beer since discovering that my alcohol allergy seems to have subsided. Yum. Tomorrow I leave for Omaha. Normally I wouldn't be to optimistic about veg*n choices there, but a colleague sent me a list of three veg*n friendly restaurants there. I'll let you know how it goes :)

Breakfast:
2 Trader Joe's everything-free Waffles
1 with Organic Cherry-Applesauce
1 with Organic Peanut Butter

Light Syrup

Lunch:
Peach Soygurt, mixed with Apricot-Applesauce and Organic "Rice Krispies"

Dinner:
Mojito
Pita Bread with Avocado and Pinto Bean Dip
Fried Plantains
Grilled Portabella Mushroom
Polenta with Pepper Relish
Vegan Chocolate Cake

Day 204: Lucky me, a friend cooks for me from Fatfree Vegan Recipes

After a long morning of meetings and another dayof driving into SF (which I find stressful) it was nice to head to La Honda in the early afternoon and have a quiet lunch with a friend and former colleague. She cooked for me from one of those sites I bookmark and always intend to use more...Fatfree Vegan Recipes. She made Red Lentil and Artichoke Stew, and it was mighty tasty. Here's the recipe. (My friend did admit she used a little olive oil to saute the onions, so it wasn't truly fat-free.)

Breakfast:
Puffins Cereal
Organic Rice Milk
Apricot-Applesauce
Soy Latte

Lunch:
Lentil Artichoke Stew
Spinach Salad with Pear, Dried Cherries and dressing
Diet Pepsi

Dinner:
1 slice Sourdough Bread
Nayonnaise 
eggless Egg Salad
Organic Avocado
Tofutti Cutie

Interesting online discussion: Do only vegans have the "moral right" to object to any animal abuse?

Thought y'all might be interested in this online conversation in which I've been participating at BlogHer. It starts as a discussion of the Canadian seal hunt, but migrates into a discussion about who is entitled to protest such things.

Key excerpt:

Commenter: ..."Understood, and as a vegan I think you are probably one of the few who has a true moral right to object to this industry..."

Me on a soapbox:

"Understood, and as a vegan I think you are probably one of the few who has a true moral right to object to this industry."

OK, so I really have to say that I don't believe that I or you or anyone has the right to say where people draw their lines. I have no more moral right to object to seal hunting than anyone else, because that would assume that we must be perfect. That it's all or nothing.

But no one is perfect...seeking out ways to call people hypocrites only discourages them from thinking through and making any moral decisions at all. And I'd rather someone take one ethical stand they believe in than take none.

OK, it'd be awesome if they took 10 stands...20, 30, 40, but there will always be more we could be doing. If we waited until we were perfect to protest we'd instead be passive."

The conversation continues.

Do you think people are hypocrites if they object to, say, fur, but eat meat? Don't eat meat, but have leather shoes?

Day 203: Nothing to see here, kepp movin' along

Ack. Just one of those days with too much to do, too little time to make good food. At least i was smart enough to force myself to eat both breakfast and lunch before heading out to an afternoon meeting in that bane of my existence...San Francisco. Truly I hate going up there for meetings. Tack 3 hours on to any meting and that's what having it in San Francisco does. At least I've recently discovered that if the meeting is near Market Street parking at the Daly Cirty BART station and training in the rest of the way is a HUGE boon. I don't actually think it saves a ton of time, because I usually do have to walk a bit to and from the station in SF, but the reduction in stress level to not deal with city traffic or parking is huge. Can I say "huge" again?

Anyway, I often don't consider how long I'll be stuck in my car and meetings without food, and I often exit a meeting feeling icky, so yesterday I did make the effort to throw some food in. Just wasn't very creative about it.

Breakfast:
Organic Corn Flakes
Organic Rice Milke
Organic Banana
Coffee

LuncH:
1 slice Multi-grain Sourdough Bread
Trader Joe's Eggless Egg Salad
Nayonaise
Organic Avocado
Applesauce
Tofutti Cutie

Dinner (Picked up at El Pollo Loco because after being up since 6AM, then 3 hours round-trip travel and a nearly 3 hour meeting, i just couldn't face cooking at 7:30PM. So sue me!)
Veggie Platter with Rice, Beans, Veggies, Onions, Salsa and Avocado Salsa
Salad
French Fries and Mashed Potatoes (non-vegan alert...I'm sure these have dairy in them.)