Enoch Choi’s Neighborhood

Some vegan links for the weekend

Elisa
2 days ago
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Here are a few things to check out over the weekend, the good, bad and ugly:

Hat tip to Vegan.com for pointing me to a very positive article in the News Observer: If a Vegan Comes to Dinner. The author actually suggests accommodating the vegan in your regular cooking, and that it (gasp!) won't kill the non-vegans to eat mashed potatoes with soy milk or stuffing made with vegetable broth. Of course, if you want to be left with the same warm glow the article leaves, don't read the comments. Some of your usual "Oh, you're a veg*n, let me tell you how tasty meat is" types are in there blowharding away.

JWeekly features a columnist who is aspiring to be vegan after being inspired by Alicia Silverstone and her new book.

I promised you ugly, and that would be the USDA declaring PETA to be a terrorist organization. Seriously appalling.

I'm definitely intending to write more about this, but here's a link to a section of Martha Stewart's site devoted to her awesome vegetarian Thanksgiving episode.

I'm also planning to write more about Jonathan Safran Foer's book Eating Animals, but until I do, here are two links I've been holding on to for way too long now, intending to share:

-Mary Martin from Animal Person on the book

-Erik Marcus from Vegan.com on the book

Finally, speaking of Erik Marcus, here is a little online interview with me, wherein I name Marcus's book "Meat Market" to be the most-life-chnging book I've read.

Enjoy, or at least appreciate, all the links and have a great weekend!

Fantasy of Lights

MagicMinis will be at The Fantasy of Lights tomorrow Saturday (12/5/09) from 3-5pm on Union St in San Francisco. Come say hi and get a holiday balloon!

Christmas_Wreath_MagicMinis.jpg

Best Songs of 2009: The Love Language - Lalita

Josh Hornik
3 days ago
1 comment

The Love Language are from North Carolina, and these days that's almost enough for me. Seems like I love all the music coming out of North Carolina.

Somehow I missed these guys when they came to town, can't remember why. Too bad, because this song Lalita (from their debut album "The Love Language") must be great live. I can imagine the singer really hitting the "LA-li-ta" to start the chorus.

Unfortunately, this is one of many horribly lo-fi indie recordings this year (definitely a bad side effect of the ease of creating and releasing music these days -- badly engineered & mixed recordings). Still a great rocker...

Lalita

The Love Language

Animal-friendly holiday gift-giving, courtesy of Change .org

Elisa
4 days ago
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As always, Stephanie Ernst, Change.org's Animal Rights blogger, is a font of useful information. This time it's a holiday gift (and charitable) giving guide that all vegan, all the time.

Check it out here.

I really need to get myself over to Vegan Etsy and do some shopping around!

Best Songs of 2009: Vetiver - Everyday

Guess what? It's that time of year again, when all the lists of Bests come out. It's already December and I've gotten a lot of great new music recently, so I have to get going with my Songs of the Year. After all, this being 2009, of course there have to be year-end lists and decade-end lists.

And now, my first pick for 2009's best songs, and this might be the best of them all.

Don't ask me how to pronounce their name, but the band is Vetiver. I have no idea if anything else they've done is any good. (OK - I just checked out Tight Knit, the album this is on. Pretty good, but most of the songs are a bit too mellow.) I got this song in a free sampler from Amazon (a Sub Pop sampler - see image below). They played the Treasure Island festival this year, but Noah and I were too cold and didn't want to lose our seats on the bleachers, so we didn't walk over to the other stage to hear them.

Nonetheless, this is a great song. It's light & bouncy and if it doesn't make you happy, I don't know what song would. Enjoy...

02 - Everyday (Album)

Vetiver

Good responses to common justifications

Elisa
Nov 29, 2009
1 comment

Recently the NY Times published an Op-ed by Gary Steiner from a truly vegan point of view, not the sort of half-assery usually published by folks like Michael Pollan and Mark Bittman.

Then they published some letters to the editor about the Op-ed, most of which made the usual excuses. I read them and moved on, not having the wherewithal to push back on these most common excuses.

Luckily, Eccentric Vegan, from Vegan Soapbox, has the wherewithal I did not! She responds to many of the comments in this great post: Backlash.

Book Reviews: Two hot vegan cookbooks

Elisa
Nov 28, 2009
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The Kind Diet: A Simple Guide to Feeling Great, Losing Weight, and Saving the Planet

Alicia Silverstone

Check out my personal blog where I did a very comprehensive review of Alicia Silverstone's The Kind Diet and a mini-review of Tal Ronnen's The Conscious Cook.

Now, bear in mind: I didn't actually cook from either book yet. With Silverstone's book, that's not so much of a big deal, since half the book is about the what, why and how, not the actual cooking.

Ronnen's book is a more traditional cookbook.

But as i say in my reviews: I own 20 vegan cookbooks already. I have no time. My reviews are really about whether a cookbook inspires me to want to take the next step, buy the unusual ingredients and spend an hour int he kitchen experimenting.

So, with that in mind: Read my reviews.

(Mostly) Vegan beauty products featured in LA Times

Elisa
Nov 27, 2009
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Sigh.

While I'm glad that the LA Times is featuring vegan beauty products, and that it's becoming more mainstream to talk about things like carmine (the crushed up beetles that provide the red color to many beauty products) and collagen (comes from cows), I do wish that when they say it's going to be a feature on vegan beauty products they wouldn't include a brand that is self-described as "mostly vegan." Or feature Origins which, again, is mostly vegan except their use of (self-described) "cruelty-free beeswax and honey".

I mean, there are lots of brands that say they're vegan and are vegan, not just mostly vegan. Alternative Outfitters is one source.

It reminds me when they had a feature on awesome vegan accessories/clothes, but one of the items was cashmere, I think.

I just think that sometimes "vegan" should just mean "vegan". Is that so wrong?

Two Photos of Awesome Food, nom nom nom

Elisa
Nov 27, 2009
4 comments

No, not yesterday's Thanksgiving meal, but some great vegan meals I've had lately, sometimes in unexpected places.

Like in the bar of some random hotel in NYC. We had stepped in for a drink. (I honestly don't even remember what street we were on or what hotel it was.) Eventually, getting hungry, we looked at the menu. Typical hotel steakhouse fare. But I asked the waiter if the chef could whip up something fabulous and vegan, using my favorite vegetables on the menu: Brussels Sprouts, Mushrooms, Spinach. This is what I got:

Hotel Pub Vegan Fare

A couple of weeks later we took a good friend to dinner at Amber India in Santana Row. Upscale Indian Food, and yes, veggie choices are always abundant at Indian restaurants. But most places don't present a salad quite this lovely:

DSC00684

3 comments

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I try to remember to take pictures of the creative, tasty vegan food restaurants come up with for me. (Or have on their menu already.)

Enjoy :)