Monday, May 17, 2010

Finally, a vegetarian restaurant!

In case you didn’t see the story in Saturday’s Journal, Winston-Salem is finally getting a vegetarian restaurant! Chef Darryl Murray, a former sous chef for the Carolina Hurricanes, will open a vegetarian restaurant in the space currently occupied by Mary’s Of Course! Cafe. (The veggie-friendly Mary’s is moving to a spot on Trade Street.) The new restaurant will be called The Grilled Asparagus.

It’s about time, and I can’t wait for it to open! Are you as excited as I am about this?

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Vegan Frappuccinos

You may have heard that Starbucks is introducing its “However-You-Want-It Frappuccino” by offering the drinks at half-price during a 3 to 5 p.m. happy hour each day through May 16. I’m especially happy that the new frappuccion offers several vegan-friendly options.

The regular and creme frappuccino bases are vegan, although the light base is not, according to the Veggywood blog. You can order the drink made with soymilk and without whipped topping for a dairy-free treat. Many of the add-in options are also vegan, with the exception of java chips and caramel drizzle (but the caramel syrup is reported to be vegan).

You can also see how the drink stacks up nutritionally by going to the nutrition section of Starbucks’ Web site.

Thursday, May 06, 2010

Put on a happy face

People who go veg because of concerns about how animals are treated often extend that compassion into other areas of their life. In addition to not eating animal products, vegans don’t wear animal products such as leather or wool. And many people, not just vegans, are opposed to animal testing for personal-care and household products, and want to avoid buying from companies that test on animals.

Fortunately, as awareness of these issues has grown, it has become easier to find information about companies’ policies. Unfortunately, as being “cruelty-free” has become a selling point, some companies may make misleading claims on their labels. As the Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics, the group behind the “Leaping Bunny’ logo seen on some products, says: “Designation as ‘cruelty-free’ or ‘not tested on animals,’ or even the image of a bunny on a label may only refer to the finished product, when in fact, most animal testing occurs at the ingredient level. Furthermore, while a company may claim, ‘We do not test on animals,’ it could still contract other companies to do the testing.”

The coalition is a project of several national animal-protection groups, including the American Anti-Vivisection Society and the Humane Society of the U.S. Inclusion on its Compassionate Shopping Guide indicates that a company has made “a voluntary pledge that cosmetic, personal care, and/or household product companies make to clear animal testing from all stages of product development. The company’s ingredient suppliers make the same pledge and the result is a product guaranteed to be 100 percent free of new animal testing.” Because it covers ingredient suppliers as well as manufacturers, it is a most comprehensive standard.

But even if a company doesn’t test on animals, in some cases their products may still contain animal ingredients. So if that is a concern, look for additional information. Ingredient lists such as PETA’s “Animal Ingredients and Their Alternatives” can be helpful – but in some cases may be difficult to interpret without additional research. That’s because some ingredients such as collagen are clearly from animals, but others can come either from animal or plant sources or be produced synthetically. It may be most effective to look for products that indicate on the label that they are vegan, or state that they do not contain animal products.

Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Cheap and Easy

I have more books on food and cooking than a person could use in any one lifetime, on subjects from fermentation, to raw foods, to punk-rock musicians’ favorite vegan dishes ... and still I keep buying them in the hopes of finding the cookbook that will change my life for better forever.

The latest is Robin Robertson’s Vegan on the Cheap, which offers a wealth of tips and recipes designed to help vegans save both money on their food bills and time in the kitchen. Robertson calculates the approximate cost per serving of each recipe, and they range from 50 cents to $2.

Saving time and money are goals I need to strive for, but the recipes what really sold the book to me. They sound both innovative and appealing, with names like “Walnut-Dusted Fettuccine with Caramelized Vegetables” and “orange-Chipotle Dressed Salad with Black Bean Salsa.”

More about Robertson, including sample recipes from Vegan on the Cheap and her other cookbooks are available at her website, Global Vegan Kitchen. Also, vegan mother Krys of the Two Vegan Boys blog has started a project to cook each recipe from the book and blog about it. So far, she has raved about the “Linguine With Variations on a Pesto” and “Stovetop Cheezee Mac.”

Thursday, April 29, 2010

White with Tofu?

The “rules” on wine parings tend to be meat-centric (red wine with beef, for example). Personally, I subscribe to the theory that the wine to drink is the wine you enjoy (or better yet, skip the wine and go with beer!)—but vegetarians looking for more-formal guidance may enjoy a recent article from the San Francisco Chronicle about the experiences of vegetarian winemakers. (I found it through Erik Marcus’ blog Vegan.com.) It concludes with some tips for pairing vegetarian foods and wine. My favorite is “When in doubt, try sparkling wine.”

Vegan tipplers may also want to toddle over to Barnivore.com. As the site explains, “Brewmasters, winemakers, and distillers may include animal ingredients in their products directly, or they might use them in the processing and filtration.” Barnivore has more than a thousand listings that detail the vegan- or vegetarian-friendliness of beers, wines and liquors.

Friday, April 09, 2010

Stamps for animals

I’m in need of a new book of stamps, but I’m going to wait until the end of the month if I can, so I can buy a couple of books of the new set featuring 10 dog and cats who were adopted from animal shelters. They’re adorable! To make it even better, in conjunction with the stamps, pet-food company Halo is donating a million meals to shelters around the country. Well-known animal-lover Ellen DeGeneres is also involved in the campaign. I’m thrilled that the U.S. Postal Service is bringing attention to the plight of shelter animals.

To read more about the campaign or to pre-order the stamps, go here.

Thursday, April 08, 2010

Here, there and everywhere

As the Veggin’ Out picks for the top vegetarian entrees show, there are a lot of things for vegetarians to enjoy in local restaurants. Bravo to all the places that offer creative and delicious choices for vegetarians. But ... how can I put this gently? ... many restaurants fall short in the creativity department. There are a few “vegetarian cliches” that I wouldn’t mind never seeing on a restaurant menu again. Portobello mushroom sandwiches, for example. I love mushrooms, truly I do, but do they have to be everywhere? It’s not even that I don’t enjoy a portobello mushroom sandwich from time to time. I just wish there were something more to choose from.

Other people feel this way. Ezra Klein of the Washington Post recently wrote about how he detests the GVP—grilled vegetable plate: “Let’s get something straight: A vegetarian is someone who doesn’t eat meat. It’s not someone who loves vegetables. Or dislikes composed meals. Or thinks food doesn’t benefit from seasoning, and saucing, and a variety of textures and grains and cooking methods.” You can read the whole amusing rant here.

What are the vegetarian cliches you would like to see less often?

Monday, April 05, 2010

Veggie food for carnivores

It’s always gratifying when I serve something vegetarian to an unrepentent carnivore and they really like it.

At a recent gathering, I served mock chicken-salad sandwiches, using the exceptionally yummy mock chicken salad from Whole Foods (I’m also a big fan of Earth Fare’s mock chicken salad—it’s sublime). My most carnivorous friend, a real meat-and-potatoes guy who seemingly has never met a green vegetable that he liked, kept going back for another and another sandwich.

“You could have told me it was real chicken salad, and I would’ve believed you,” he said.

Now, I don’t believe for a second that he’s suddenly going to renounce steaks in favor of tofu. But maybe it will help him be a bit more open-minded about trying vegetarian food in the future, now that he’s realized that he actually LIKES some of it. It makes me feel good, like I’m helping to change misconceptions about vegetarian fare, one bite at a time.

Have any of you had successful “experiments” of serving vegetarian fare to a carnivore?

Friday, April 02, 2010

How sweet it … isn’t?

Agave nectar has become a popular sweetener among vegetarians and health-conscious consumers, but nutritionist and registered dietitian Jeff Novick questions whether it is any more benign than the dreaded high-fructose corn syrup in a post titled “Agave: Health Food, Health Fad or Health Fraud?”

It’s a guest blog on a blog run by Jack Norris, a nutritionist and registered dietitian and the president of Vegan Outreach.

The agave post got me thinking about the subject of nutrition. While animal issues are the reason for my vegetarianism, rather than health concerns, it is good for the animals for vegetarians to stay as healthy as possible – to avoid perpetuating the stereotype of the sickly vegetarian. (Toward that end, it’s also a good idea to avoid falling for the equally false stereotype of the vegetarian diet as automatically healthful).

In addition to the blog, Norris has an excellent Web site focused on nutrition at www.veganhealth.org. Another dietitian who provides reliable, readable information is Virginia Messina at her blog The Vegan Dietitian and Web site Vegetarian Diets: A Dietitian’s Guide.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Top Vegetarian Entrees, Part II

I intended to post my list of Top 10 vegetarian entrees ahead of Great American Meatout on Saturday; but life got in the way. Still, these dishes are good any time of the year! And if Meatout inspired you to go veg, even some of the time, they are some good bets.

1. De Molecito y Pintos, at La Botana, 1547 Hanes Mall Blvd. Of all the excellent vegetarian dishes at this great Mexican place, this is the one I get most often. As in, almost always: It is a bed of rice, topped with pinto beans, two cheese enchiladas, and a wonderful, deeply flavored mole sauce, finished with a zingy topping of lime-marinated onions and jalapenos. Journal reporter Laura Giovanelli’s profile of La Botana’s chef, Rigo Velazques, explains how he comes up with his dishes.

2. Green curry with tofu, Thai Sawatdee, 2281 Cloverdale Ave (inside the Harris Teeter). This spicy dish, full of flavor and fresh vegetables, will cure what ails ya. There’s not a lot of atmosphere in the little dining area in the Harris Teeter, but at lunchtime, you get soup and crispy spring rolls for an amazingly low price. A second, sit-down. location is supposed to open soon.

3. Wild Mushroom Pizza, Brixx, 1295 Creekshire Way (off Hanes Mall Boulevard). This place offers a choice of vegan cheese on their pizza, and a lot of good beers on tap. I would be here almost constantly if Brixx weren’t just down the road from my beloved La Botana. Photo

4. Mysore masala dosa, Turmeric Indian Restaurant, 3088 Healy Drive This is the only place in town I know of to get dosa, the Indian crepe. This version comes spread with spices inside, wrapped around a tasty potato-based filling. Accompanied by spicy sambar soup and chutneys, it’s a taste sensation and by far my favorite dish at Turmeric.

5 Winter Harvest Boxty, Finnegan’s Wake. 620 N. Trade St. A potato pancake wraps around a filling of apples, pears, and walnuts. This sweet and savory dish is served at brunch, not dinner, but it’s my favorite main dish at Finnegan’s Wake. Finnegan’s is notably veg-friendly in that many of its dishes can be made with meat analogues – such as a vegetarian version of its shepherd’s pie, or a Rachel – like a Reuben but with faux turkey. Since Cass chose one of Finnegan’s brunch items for her list, clearly this is a place vegetarians need to go for brunch….

Cassandra and I had a couple of overlapping items on our lists:
6. Chef’s Vegetable Tasting Menu, Bleu, 3425 Frontis St. This topped Cassandra’s list; and I second everything she wrote about it!

7. Sampler plate, Mooney’s Mediterranean Café, 101 W. Fourth St. I’m happiest when mujadara, a lentil-and-rice is one of the rotating weekly specials.

8-10. These spaces reserved for future use…. I originally had a list of 10, but after the writing about the meals above, I realized I didn’t have quite the same enthusiasm for the rest; and who wants a padded list? C’mon, Winston-Salem restaurants, wow me! Readers, what are your picks for top local entrees?