Tuesday, June 30, 2009

A toast to the Fourth

The annual July 4 cookout is right around the corner; and vegetarians need not fear. Cookouts can be suitable for vegetarians of all tastes, from those interested in creating fabulous feasts like the spread described by Vegetarians in Paradise to the lazy veggies like me, who go the veggie-dog and chips-n-dip route.

The most labor-intensive part of my contributions to the cookout will be the onion dip, which will involve making a double-batch of Jo Stepaniak’s vegan sour cream and stirring in an envelope of Lipton onion soup mix. Stepaniak’s recipes in such books as Vegan Vittles and The Uncheese Cookbook include many outstandingly satisfying replacements for dairy products, such as:

VEGAN SOUR CREAM (recipe from Vegan Vittles)
1. 10.5 oz box firm silken tofu
1 tbsp oil
2 tsp lemon juice
2 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp sweetener
1/2 tsp salt
Blend in a blender till very smooth.

This July 4 will bring a nifty new taste to test: vegan marshmallows to toast over the grill. They’re called Dandies, from the Chicago Soy Dairy. The French Broad Co-op in Asheville was my source for these, and so far is the only store I’ve found that carries them. They are tasty little morsels straight from the bag, so it’ll be nice to see how they do toasted. I’ll let you know—

What kind of veggie treats are you planning for the Fourth?

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Vegetarian kids

Delicious Living has a recent article on raising vegetarian kids and what nutrients you should pay special attention to. I don’t have kids, but I can imagine it can be a challenge to raise them vegetarian, what with school lunches, going out with friends, birthday parties, etc. If anybody has any tips on the subject that could help other readers, please share!

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Suicide Food

You’ve seen it—the deliriously happy pigs promoting barbecue, Charlie the tuna who wants to become “Chicken of the Sea”—but maybe you didn’t know there was a term for it: suicide food. As the fascinating Suicide Food blog puts it, “Suicide Food is any depiction of animals that act as though they wish to be consumed.”

The blog has been around since 2006 but I didn’t know about it until an out-of-town friend mentioned it as we drove past Mr. Barbecue (and Miss Fried Chicken) on Peter’s Creek Parkway. The commentary and ratings system for the images—one to five nooses, from “mildly disturbing” to “Ye gods! I must go wash out my eyeballs!”—are lively and amusing. But they make a serious point. As the blog description says: “Suicide Food says, ‘Hey! Come on! Eating meat is without any ethical ramifications! See, Mr. Greenjeans? The animals aren’t complaining! So what’s your problem?’ Suicide Food is not funny.”

No, suicide food is not funny. But the blog is—and thought-provoking as well.

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Whole Foods cofounder

There’s an interesting interview with a cofounder of Whole Foods, John Mackey, in Saveur magazine. He talks about his time living in a vegetarian co-op in the 1970s, how Whole Foods finds products from small businesses that they’d like to sell, and what he thinks the next step will be in food labeling, among other things. The actual issue of the magazine (the Texas issue), unfortunately has a giant grilled steak on the cover, so you might prefer to read the interview here.

Now, if he could just do something about that annoying parking lot at the Winston-Salem store….