Ye Olde Pompous Vegan

Y'all it tastes just like a mint julep...

2011-11-26T12:46:00.002-05:00

Now, readers of YOPV know that Tinsel Shrimpfax and friends have a strong penchant for that "magickal" elixir, kombucha. We were totally ecstatic when we learned that GT's, that Kombucha Powerhouse company out of Beverly Hills, had not only re-issued their classic beverages with original recipe (a "stronger alcohol content"), but had also added two new flavours to their roster of Phat K drinks.

We did approach one of the new flavours, Maqui Berry Mint, with a little trepidation. Berries and mint - they sound like a mix about as enticing as chocolate and oyster. Well, maybe not that gross, but still. The other flavour - Third Eye Chai - well, where can you go wrong with that?

So we searched. These new flavours - and the other original recipe drinks - are a little hard to come by, even 'round these parts where they're made. They're sort of sequestered in liquor stores, beer kiosks and your finer health food stores - none of which are close to were the new L.A. YOPV Headquarters is located. Luckily, there is one grungy beer ditch in Eagle Rock (on Eagle Rock Blvd., as a matter of fact) that sells them. We felt like we were going to a head shoppe to purchase a pinchy... it all seemed so elicit.

We purchased the Maqui Berry Mint and Third Eye Chai, along with an old friend - SUPERFRUITS, which we simply adore.

Upon first taste, we were unhappy with the Maqui Berry Mint - but as we got adjusted to its strange combo of essences, we realized what it tastes like Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime Tea. So we give it a good review. As for the Third Eye Chai - simply deee-licious. We love it. And we DIDN'T get hammered. If you are near one of these locations, why don't you drop in and give one of these new little elixirs a whirl?

Canta y No Llores!

2011-07-01T23:47:00.008-04:00

¡Aye, que rico!

I never, ever thought I would find it. Queso dip for vegans that doesn't taste like sweaty crack. You know what I mean.

As I was perusing the various hippie comestibles at Figueroa Produce in divine Highland Park, I came across a product that I had only marginal hopes for - yeah, yeah, yeah, yet another vegan cheese substitute. Aside from Daiya, vegan cheese is pasty, it tastes like rotting misery or worse, and it's just plain gross. People eat it because they want to feel included in the whole "I'm a vegan and I TOTALLY don't miss cheese because I have all of these great substitutes!" thing. But guess what? Almost all of it tastes like BALLS.

So I bought it anyway. I like to live on the edge.

I saved it for a few days, mostly because I was afraid that I would be opening some Satanic Jar of Death that would send me into a fainting spell. And then it happened. I grabbed a bag of corn and nopal chips and snapped the top off that jar.

Paradise.

This stuff is SO GOOD I can't even tell you. It tastes just like - no, wait - BETTER THAN - any actual queso dip you could ever have imagined. No aftertaste, no questionable flavors that make you think, "Really? They marketed this as cheese substitute?". It is so good that, as a matter of fact, I might just eat the whole jar of it tonight. And I don't give a shit because it is FAT FREE. Try finding a non-vegan queso dip that can add that to its list of selling points.

Find this shit, y'all, if you have to cross oceans of time in order to do so. It's produced by Food For Lovers - which is an especially appropriate name if by "lovers," they mean lovers of totally fucking awesome vegan queso.

Raw Chocolate Messes Up My Life.

2010-11-02T15:47:00.004-04:00

I'm going to have to admit it - I have a raw chocolate addiction. A HUGE ONE. Up until this past July, I was spending anywhere from $20 - $30 a day - yes, A DAY - on that shit. Why? Because it is amazing, and it is also incredibly good for you. Yes, it's a ton of dough to shell out for something most would consider to be a luxury - but I've got what one would refer to as an addictive personality, so maybe I went a little overboard.

That all changed this summer, when I just said "no." I stopped grabbing at raw chocolate packages with the ecstatic fervor of a five-year-old grabbing for its first Cabbage Patch Kid (or whatever ignominious equivalent pollutes tots' Christmas lists these days), and started saving some money for future endeavors, whatever they may be. However...

I had to take a sabbatical from the Chocolate Ban when I received an email from Gnosis Chocolate detailing in perverted, near-pornographic terms their new concoction for fall - THE PUMPKIN SPICE TRUFFLE.

Observe:

Like bees extracting nectar from late-blooming flowers, Gnosis draws seeds from autumn’s pumpkin essence, and whips these mini kegs of energy and such immune boosters as zinc, magnesium, and iron, into a creamy, nutty butter. Combining the butter with its uniquely delicious, nutritious chocolate, Gnosis then adds potent maca root, effervescent ginger, Siberian ginseng, cinnamon, nutmeg, Cordyeps mushroom, vanilla beans, and blue green algae.

The result is a treat whose sugar-free sweetness tricks (and delights) all palates and invites gobbling well beyond Thanksgiving. And, while keeping plenty for you and yours, we invite you to consider filling Halloween Party Goers' bags with Pumpkin Spice Truffles this year rather than with the usual sugar- and chemical-filled “treats.” Gnosis’s oompa loompas faithfully follow Nature’s example each and every day, as they combine the highest quality raw, organic plant based foods to create gems whose value is great for lovers of life’s very best things.

I tried to resist. I really did. But sadly, I work less than a block away from Westerly, one of the main suppliers of this drug-of-choice - and when I was over there last week and saw those little motherfuckers staring out at me from their compostable packaging, I just snapped. I had to buy them. They were CALLING TO ME. Because not only do I have a raw chocolate addiction - I also have a VERY severe pumpkin addiction (aside from that revolting, ultra-sweet sewagey filth they serve at Starbucks under the "pumpkin spice latte" banner. That shit makes me want to vomit.) Mostly, if it says "pumpkin" in it - I'm going to want it.

Were they worth every single god damn penny I laid out for them? Absolutely. Have I maintained control since their purchase? Yes. How? Because Westerly sold out of them. But if I ever see them there again, you can bet I'ma snap those little bastards up. They are nut-buttery delight, and they are FULL of things that are just plain good for you.

I love pumpkins, and I love Gnosis. The two together - PURE HEAVEN.

Accessorize Your Assholeism!

2010-10-28T19:09:00.006-04:00

Want to show off just how much of a stupid, selfish cunt you are? Then head on over to dollskill.com where they sell "YES, THEY ARE REAL" fox tail keychains!

First of all - tacky.

Second of all - it's bad enough that the foxes are being killed for something so completely fad-driven and asinine - why, why, WHY do you have to subject the poor little angels to being dyed hideous colors like lime green, pink, and orange? Whoever came up with this idea is crawling at the very bottom of the gene pool.

Of course, what's even sadder is that there are people crawling around the bottom of the gene pool with this dipshit, ready to snap these stupid things up and allowing this person to make a living off something so completely repellant.

Go ahead and buy them - you'll be advertising to the populace at large that not only do you feel an intense need to look just like everyone else in order to be comfortable with yourself, but also that you are a world-class asshole who doesn't give a fuck about the suffering of animals or the destruction of the environment as long as you THINK you look cool waddling around with a fucking animal's tail strapped to your ass.

From their shoppe on etsy:

What could be better then a fox tail dipped in a Candy Apple Green? The attitudes of these candy colored tails are as Posh as our favorite Hollywood celebrities. Rare and distinct, the So Posh tails are sure to cause a fashion riot everywhere you go.

Tails are 100% REAL fur Foxtail. Featuring an industrial strength nickel hardware for clipping it onto your bag, belt loop and the like! Attached to each tail is a chain link with soft and supple authentic deer skin leather tassels, same leather used on the finest handbags out there!

Each tail is approximately 15-18'' long. Due to the fact that these tails are 100% authentic fox fur tails, each will vary slightly in size and shape.

I know something that's "better than a fox tail dipped in candy apple green" - how about a fox tail that's LEFT ON THE FUCKING FOX WHERE IT BELONGS.

Trends come and go - suffering is forever. And Dolls Kill, obviously run by idiots, seems to be intent on keeping suffering trendy.

You stupid shits need to start thinking before you act. Oh, and you also need to stop dressing like morons.

PHAT-ASS BAKERY up in this piece.

2010-10-17T17:22:00.011-04:00

Now, when folks 'round these parts bring up vegan bakeries, they usually mention that half-assed dump Babycakes - the place that serves cupcakes that taste like and have the consistency of chalk with a dollop of slightly-sweetened Crisco slapped on top - but I won't go to that shamehole. I tried it once, and that was enough for me. Anyone who says those products are good is fooling themselves. Low rent.

However, do you want to try some REALLY, GENUINELY good vegan baked goods that will make you sob hysterically when you get down to the last crumb with an intensity one might reserve for discovering that the world is about to end?

Then you'd better drop every single fucking thing you're doing right this very second and run screaming to Champs Family Bakery (176 Ainslie Street) in Williamsburg, Brooklyn - and I mean Right. This. Second.

Now, I'm not usually one to venture into Williamsburg these days. The artfully-draped scarves and Steve Urkel frames on those hipsters are enough to make me steer clear - for their safety more than mine... But today when Jates had The Perambulator handy, we decided to drive over - that way we wouldn't have to wend our way around klatches of simpleton 20-somethings wandering around in a post-Saturday night of feeling self-important at various clubs-haze. We got right to Champs' door with barely even a vision of a hoodie or a flannel shirted, skinny-jeaned jackass. And BOY was it worth it.

Upon entering, our olfactory systems were treated to the glorious, comforting aroma of quality baked goods - probably one of the most calming odors in the entire world. We were already in ecstasy.

The staff was among the friendliest I have experienced ANYWHERE EVER... they treated us as if we were good friends from the moment we entered the establishment, and were, for lack of a better word, awesome. So so nice - and they played great music, too, which was a massive plus.

And then we looked in the glass cases that displayed this establishment's wares. Or should I say treasures. FUCK. Take a gander at these here snapshots -

And then there's what I had... the pumpkin cinnamon roll. Which I'm sure had at least seven days' worth of calories - but you know what? I don't give a fuck. This thing was so god damn good that by the end I was trembling - yes, I said trembling - with wonder at the baker's prowess. (The baker, one of the lovely people who was working when we were in there, brought us a complimentary sweet potato turnover so we could sample more wares, and let me tell you what - that shit was off the hook too. Divine.)

This cinnamon roll was the size of a personal pizza (I ain't kidding!), and I ate every fucking crumb of that thing because I don't give a shit. It was AMAZING. Fluffy, gooey, drizzled with that white sugar shit they put on those things... Dern, I'ma be dreaming about that pumpkin cinnamon roll for the next three weeks, y'all.

What can I tell you about Champs Family Bakery? I can tell you that it is extremely difficult to master the Art of Vegan Baking, and this place has more than done it. I challenge anyone to go to this place, try something - anything - and say that vegan baking isn't a worthy substitute for regular old eggs ("liquid flesh," as Guruji says) and milk ("teat extract," as I say) baking.

Get over there, y'all. You will not regret it.

Animal "welfare" policies.

2009-09-01T16:22:00.004-04:00

How can "animal welfare policies" be in place in a factory that specializes in killing animals?

This is yet another example of humans' deplorable behavior toward other beings, and quite possibly one of the most nauseating to date. I can't fathom what kind of sick, sick fucks they find to do this sort of shit willingly on a daily basis, hour after hour, but I hope none of them have children. Shit.

The video, shot with a hidden camera and microphone by a Mercy for Animals employee who got a job at the plant, shows a Hy-Line worker sorting through a conveyor belt of chirping chicks, flipping some of them into a chute like a poker dealer flips cards.

These chicks, which a narrator says are males, are then shown being dropped alive into a grinding machine.

In other parts of the video, a chick is shown dying on the factory floor amid a heap of egg shells after falling through a sorting machine. Another chick, also still alive, is seen lying on the floor after getting scalded by a wash cycle, according to the video narrator.

Hy-Line said the video "appears to show an inappropriate action and violation of our animal welfare policies," referring to chicks on the factory floor.

But the company also noted that "instantaneous euthanasia" — a reference to killing of male chicks by the grinder — is a standard practice supported by the animal veterinary and scientific community.

Company spokesman Tom Jorgensen said Tuesday an investigation was continuing, and once it's completed the company would release more information.
Runkle acknowledged that his group's ultimate goal was to get people to stop eating eggs. He said he believe many would refuse to eat eggs if they knew what happened to male chicks.

"The egg industry is perhaps the cruelest industry on the face of the planet," Runkle said.

Mercy for Animals also sent letters to the nation's 50 largest grocery store chains, including Walmart, Whole Foods, Safeway, Harris Teeter and Trader Joe's, asking them to include a label on egg cartons that says, "Warning: Male chicks are ground-up alive by the egg industry."

Read the whole article here.

"They're just chickens," assholes will say. Naturally, because they can't process that a living being is a living being, and no creature great or small was born to suffer such needless cruelty at the hands of a toothless, brainless shithead who gets off on torturing animals. This shit is just. plain. sick.

Although it is horrifying that these practices are allowed to continue, I at least take solace in the fact that stories such as this one have been coming to light more and more in the recent past.

People NEED TO KNOW where their food is coming from, and what sort of torture and malignancy they are endorsing and supporting when they eat meat, dairy and eggs. I can guarantee that 90% of meat-eating people would give it up completely if they were told that, in order for them to get an omelette, they would have to do what these ass-fuckers have been caught doing.

Hurling babies into a fucking grinder? Unfathomable.

Naomi Campbell - Has-been Doughebag - Drapes Herself in Shame

2009-09-01T11:34:00.005-04:00

Tantrum (and cell phone)-throwing cunt has-been model Naomi Campbell has taken on Dennis Basso's Line of Shame and is now modeling furs.

We at YOPV really aren't that surprised - she's shown time and time again that she's an arrogant, self-important, utterly pointless human being who lashes out violently and immaturely when things don't go her way. We hate her.

Worst Product Name In the History of the Universe

2009-08-28T14:16:00.002-04:00

This product has replaced Nads as Worst Product Name Ever Award Winner!

PIT PUTTY? What were they thinking while they were brainstorming up this repulsive name? It's an organic deodorant, not something you're going to want to form into a bowl or sculpt into a figurine. The name conjures up the image of smearing big, clammy gobs of grey goo into one's armpits. Not what I want to think of when selecting a product to combat human odors.

Straight from Sacred Chow to my heart.

2009-08-23T21:00:00.010-04:00

I'm "friends" with the vegan restaurant Sacred Chow on Facebook, so I'm privy to their shenanigans as or sometimes even before they occur. You can imagine, then, my almost psychotic glee when I saw this status update from the creators of my favorite marinated kale salad:

Sacred Chow ms. fang is molding seitan sausages, which will be wrapped in alum foil and steamed and then served w grain mustard over warm sauerkraut & onions 4 our protein of the day.

FUCK, y'all. I dropped everything I was doing and IMMEDIATELY sent an urgent text message to my Sacred Chow conspirator. We salivated and cried and prayed for the weekend to come so we could sink our teeth into those god damn sausages. And then the moment came. BAM! Check out those fucking sausages, y'all. Homemade! And that mustard - homemade. Off the god damn hook.

And... SHAZAM!

Detailed here, we see our old friend Mr. Marinated Kale Salad, along with some supple, pouting black olive seitan. Next to our tapas is a Charlie Brown Smoothie.

Seriously, y'all. If you haven't been to Sacred Chow yet, you must Run. Screaming. to this place. The waitstaff alone is worth the trip. Where else could you expect a waiter to insert himself into your conversation with, "Oh my god are you all talking about Sarabe from The Lion King?!?" while playing Limahl's "Neverending Story" on his iTunes.

Yes. The place is that good.

It's Almost Fur Time Again, Y'all!

2009-08-18T16:41:00.004-04:00

It's almost that time of year again, y'all, where the douche-trickles of New York City and other metropolitan areas will attempt to show how "civilized" and "cultured" and "classy" they are by either a) purchasing new furs or b) dragging their wretched, unholy coats and hats and muffs out of fur storage (hint to dipshits - if you have to FREEZE your clothing in order to keep it from going rancid, you probably shouldn't be wearing it. Morons.).

Now, it's no secret that above everything else in the realm of human stupidity, Marky Mae Brown hates - and I mean HATES - fur coats and their continued production. Are we eskimos? Is this 1472? No. Fur and its production are unnecessary, horrifying, disgusting, loathsome, deplorable, and just plain sick.

Why the hell people can't see beyond their own need for vanity, status and material wealth to the simple fact that fur is torture is beyond me. When I was at a seal hunt protest last year, a fat cunt wearing a fur coat proudly paraded back and forth in front of us, waving her fur as if it were just so fucking funny that she had participated in the needless slaughter of probably 60+ minks. She laughed, she smirked, she shot birds at us. I wanted to kick her smug, ugly teeth down her throat.

I think there should be a rule that if you really want a fur coat, you should have to go to a farm yourself, look at the timid, scared, malnourished creature trembling in an overcrowded cage, stare into its eyes for about ten minutes, watch it as it eats, grooms itself, tries to sleep.

If you can get through that and still feel okay about the fact that it's about to either have its neck snapped and its skin ripped from its body while it's still alive or be anally electrocuted and THEN have its skin ripped from its body, carcass tossed aside for the garbage, then you can go ahead and get your coat. And then everyone who sees you in it will know exactly how bereft of compassion you are - which they should know anyway.

Because people who participate in the creation of fur - on any level - are absolutely bereft of compassion and deserve the horrific karmic seeds they are collecting on a massive scale.

All of you fur-wearing cunts can help save ME from collecting a big boatload of negative karmic seeds by staying the fuck away from me, because my gut instinct when I see y'all is to do something akin to the atrocity you were complicit in committing on those innocent animals.

Jesus Fucking Christ, Y'all.

2009-08-15T11:40:00.006-04:00

Okay, I've been on yet another dreary Raw Foods kick - once you start with the raw foods, going back to regular foods makes you feel... what's the word... lame. I don't know why - I can't explain it. I think starting a raw foods diet, at least for me, puts my brain in 'eating disorder' mode - if I dare eat anything processed at a temperature that exceeds 115 degrees fahrenheit, I immediately feel as if my ass will balloon. Retarded, yes, but whoever said humans were rational thinkers?

Anyway, enough of that drivel. I'm here to bleat about raw chocolate. The shit is amazing, y'all. And I discovered a new variety yesterday that would make even the most staunch advocate of Hershey's and other purulent, fetid versions of chocolate fall prostrate at the chef's feet, praising him or her for defying all odds and making the most amazing shit in the entire fucking world.

It's called ChocAlive!. I purchased some yesterday before going to see District 9 - I ain't eating none of that mess they sell at concession stands in movie theaters. (Did you know that the "butter" they use on their popcorn contains condensed chicken feet? True story.) I nestled into my seat and popped open the 'sampler pack' of raw chocolate truffles, and ho-lee fucking shit, y'all, I almost had to get up and leave the theater, my reaction was so strong. I could not believe the smooth, sweet, amazing deee-lite that I had just bitten into was actually raw food. One variety was rolled in coconut, another in cacao nibs, and I think the other was just rolled in raw cacao powder. Whatever they were rolled in, they were all of them - each and every one - off the god damn chain.

Meanwhile, what's all this fuss about raw chocolate that's been going on not just in hippie news circuits but on mainstream news as well? From ChocAlive's website:

ChocAlive! is uncompromising in our standards, using only the highest quality organic ingredients and carefully preparing our products in such a way as to preserve those precious, vital enzymes and nutrients that make ChocAlive! products so inimitably nutritious AND delicious!

Although known to be rich in magnesium and high in antioxidants, conventional chocolate is heated, processed and refined to such a degree that many of these touted healthy components are literally destroyed. While this type of chocolate may taste good, it is usually no longer as nutritious as nature intended it to be. Here's what makes our ChocAlive! products so uniquely healthful:

Prepared at temperatures below 118°F, preserving the integrity of the enzymes, vitamins and minerals of these straight from nature ingredients
Extremely high in antioxidants and magnesium
Contains only wholesome, unprocessed, plant-based sweeteners
Contains NO wheat, gluten, refined sugars or dairy products
Wide variety of flavors and products available without nuts for those with allergies

And here's a good article from msnbc.com on the benefits of raw chocolate. But really - the benefits are not the important part for me. I am a chocolate hog - I always have been. I have been known to eat an entire pound of See's 'nuts & chews' in one sitting and grope for more once the box is empty. So to find raw chocolates - and en ever-expanding selection of brands - emerging in the marketplace - chocolate I can eat without feeling as if I'm going to need to purchase braces to keep my furniture from buckling - is particularly exciting for me. Each ingredient is o so good for you.

Huzzah for raw chocolate!

On the Road with YOPV, Part 2.

2009-05-08T11:04:00.009-04:00

God damn, y'all. MMB's been doin' him some EATIN'.

He met his friend Tracie yesterday morning (and her new French Bulldog Gatsby) and the two of them headed out for a day of excitement. First, they went to the Alcove Cafe and Bakery on Hillhurst in Los Feliz. As they were enjoying their brunch of granola and soymilk, and assorted comestibles, they noticed several celebrities lounging about at various tables - most notably, Mr. Jude Law was sitting at the table next to them and Mr. Lenny Kravitz was a few tables away. Oh, Los Angeles...

After a brief sojourn to the Wacko Soap Plant on Hollywood Blvd., where they witnessed the theft of several expensive pieces of art from the back gallery, they jetted off to Scoops, a purveyor of fine homemade ice cream with a lovely vegan selection.

MMB sampled the banana oreo cookie and the chocolate almond varieties. Both were so god damn good he almost started screaming.

After that, Tracie had to go to pick her son up, so MMB was left on his own. He spent the afternoon drooling over the selection at Amoeba, the best fucking music / movie store on the planet. He bought a Mojave 3 cd and the first season of Popular, because he's, you know, that way.

Afterward, he met his friend Amy and the two went to Cru, the raw food restaurant in Silverlake that USED TO have that god damn banana split that sent MMB into a foaming frenzy. Although MMB was upset that the banana split was no longer on the menu, he decided he would give their other items a chance. And he's very happy he did.

The marinated kale salad with avocado and sprouts was deee-licious. MMB got him some roughage, y'all, and it was worth it. Kale may well be the best food on the planet, just so you know. Vitamin K, calcium, all sorts of shit is packed up in them leafy folds.

Amy got a sampler platter complete with a different variety of kale salad, some tzaziki with cucumbers, cashew nut cheese, some mashed date shenanigans, and beet salad. MMB tried the cashew cheese and it was fucking GOOD.

Check this shit out, y'all. This is raw cashew cheese ravioli stuffed in jicama. So good you would want to order another plate of it immediately after consuming this shit. Garlicky, creamy, fucking awesome - these little bastards are some of the best things ever.

After MMB's initial despondency over the fact that Cru had removed the banana split from their menu, he decided to give the brownie a la mode a go. Holy Fucking Balls, y'all. It's BETTER than the banana split. Yes, you read that right - it's better. The brownie tastes and feels like a regular brownie, and the ice cream and chocolate sauce - SHAZAM!

Today, MMB's going to visit his favorite West Coast yoga instructor Patty at Karuna Yoga on Hillhurst. He can't wait. Then he'll probably saunter over to Ye Olde Vegan Barn for a seitan wrap. But you never know. So many choices.

On the Road with YOPV, Part I.

2009-05-07T11:12:00.004-04:00

Marky Mae Brown was en route to Los Angeles yesterday. He's there to visit friends, hike the mountains, look at the beach, and see the Dead (yes - you don't have to say anything) on Saturday.

He flew Jet Blue, which has a brand new terminal (T5, they like to call it) at JFK International Airport. Now, Marky Mae had to get up at 4:30 to catch this flight and he needed coffee big time. "Oh, I'll just get it at the airport," he said to himself as he tried very hard to wake up. When he got to the terminal, however, he was dismayed to find that not a single coffee purveyor offered soy milk. In New York City. At an international airport. It was the one and only time Marky Mae has ever caught himself actually wishing there were a Starbucks around. He steeled himself for the pain and drank his coffee black.

In a testament to just how retarded Marky Mae actually is, his first stop after he got to Los Angeles was Nature Mart, his favorite health food store in the area. (kd Lang is a shopper here, too, y'all. She's been witnessed in their bulk bin on many occasions.) He purchased a kombucha (he noted there was a new brand available, but didn't buy it because it's in a plastic bottle and that just ain't right) and some of his favorite grilled seitan, and then headed over to the park to eat that shit up. Damn, that seitan was good.

Later that evening, he and his hosts went to an authentic Mexican restaurant in Highland Park at 5511 N. Figueroa St. called Cinnamon Vegetarian. It boasts the curious slogan, "Discover Your Fullness." He discovered his fullness, all right. He ordered the "chicken mole" - it was off the god damn chain, y'all. It featured what tasted like Follow Your Heart 'Chicken-free Chicken (minus the disgusting fake ribs Follow Your Heart seemed to think it was necessary to include). DEEE-licious. The fresh guacamole was delicious, too. All in all, a lovely joint. Sadly, Marky Mae wasn't able to savor any of the desserts ("Made each morning in a labor of love") because of the fullness he had discovered, but they all looked beautiful, y'all.

He's going on several gluttonous excursions while in La Ciudad de Angeles, and will report more as he gobbles his way through this god damn place.

Oh my god. OH MY GOD.

2009-04-24T19:23:00.005-04:00

Freddie and Pam guard that Coconut Chai with their lives.

I have just had an experience that bordered on religious, y'all.

Picture it - I was on my way back from registering for Sri Dharma Mittra's Maha Celebration (featuring the kirtan of Krishna Das) when I decided to stop in and see what the story was with this raw vegan place on 23rd Street - Bonobo's.

Now, I've always figured this place would be awesome since it was named after the only animals (aside from ourselves) who are recreationally bisexual. I mean, these bonobos - if it's got a hole... well, you get the picture. They're frisky animals, those bonobos. (Homosexuality has been documented in TONS of species of animals, basically throwing all of these ignorant "Christians'" blatherings about Gays As Satan's Army On Earth out the window. Honestly, is there a place in Hell reserved for lonely cows who decide to lap a box or two in their segregated pastures? I doubt it very highly.)

Meanwhile, this Bonobo's cafe. I had heard mixed reviews - my friends had gone there, two of whom raved about it. Another friend said it was only "okay." But the other two said she had no basis for an argument, since she had eschewed the made-on-the-spot items for some pre-packaged nonsense that had been sitting in a plastic container for who-knows-how-long.

I didn't have time to fool around with the food. I'm sure I'll go back there later to sample it, especially since I noticed that they feature a marinated raw kale salad. And we all know how much I loves me some marinated raw kale. No, I didn't sample anything other than the...

coconut chai.

Oh. My. God. Words cannot describe this stuff. I mean, it's like sipping something that was whipped up in heaven and brought gently down to earth on a pillowy cloud. Sweet, creamy, just absolutely fantastic. You must - and I mean, MUST - run screaming to this place and get one of these immediately. They're right there by the door in the refrigerated compartment. You don't even have to wait!

So go get one!

Earth Day 2009.

2009-04-22T11:35:00.003-04:00

It's Earth Day, so lay off the fucking ham for a change.

You're Just What I Needed.

2009-04-17T22:20:00.007-04:00

Off the motherfucking hook, y'all.

I'm going to admit it - I have an addictive personality. When it comes to desserts, once I start - I just can't stop. I cram desserts down with such force and fervor and intensity that one would think my life depended on it.

So the very last thing I needed was a purveyor of homemade vegan non-dairy frozen desserts to open in New York City. What I needed even less was TWO purveyors of homemade vegan non-dairy frozen desserts to open in New York City. Yet, that is exactly what I got.

Today I met my friend Jating after work for our Hoagie-a-thon at Sacred Chow. Now, if you haven't been there I would suggest - no, I DEMAND - that you drop whatever you're doing and run screaming for their door and order the following items: 1) dijon-marinated raw kale, 2) the black olive seitan hero. Never in your life will you experience anything as close to divine as those two food items. Well, except for what I'm about to describe to you right now.

So, after we were finished with our meal, I said to Jating, I said, "Hey, howzabout we go and try one of those two new vegan non-dairy frozen dessert purveyors we've got up in here?" because we've been talking about doing that for the past several weeks. She agreed, and off we went. We never expected what happened, though - we witnessed our lives changing.

Stogo. It's at 159 2nd Ave (entrance is around the corner - across from the poetry church). Their atmosphere was a bit stale, like one of those obnoxious frozen yogurt kiosks that is littering our city these days - but who gives a fuck about that. What mattered was the tubs of frozen goo they had behind their counter.

Flavors like "Toasted Almond Joy," "Red Velvet," "Salted Caramel Pecan," "Pina Colada," and "Bananas Foster" were glaring out at us, wooing us with their glistening goodness, whispering into our ears, "Eat me! I am delicious!"

I got "Toasted Almond Joy" and "Salted Caramel Pecan" crammed into a cup. Jating got the "Pina Colada." Let me tell you what, y'all. This shit was SO FUCKING GOOD I can't even begin to do it justice. SO. Fucking. GOOD. Plus, it had no discernible aftertaste at all, as some hippie ice cream substitutes do, nor did it have a weird texture. It was the real deal and it made me want to cry.

After that, we decided to walk to the new Kim's Music and Video location on First Avenue (St. Mark's is too highbrow now, if you can believe that shit. Where once were junkies and hobos there now are yuppies and trust fund cunts. So boring.) After Kim's, we decided just to be total fucking hogs (well, I did, anyway. Jating had no more ice cream) and went to new purveyor of non-dairy frozen desserts number two, Lula's Sweet Apothecary.

Lula's is at 519 East Sixth Street between A and B in the East Village. Let me tell you what - the people who work there are just as cute as a button, and the ambience is ciento por ciento better than Stogo's. Olde Fashioned apothecary signs line the walls, antique bottles and kitchenware complement the decor, giving a sense of time warp. It's like a hippie version of Farrell's. And we all know how much I like Farrell's!

I had the mint chocolate cookie "ice cream." Off the fucking hook. Not too sweet, and divine. Homemade, I might add. Jating got an apple seltzer, and the best part - they use actual seltzer bottles. Glass ones, with dispensers. They get them from one of the last people in the WORLD to supply this shit, and it's super cool to watch them lug those things out and spray seltzer into a glass.

A vegan rampage, is what it was, and it was an awesome one. I highly recommend both purveyors of frozen non-dairy desserts. Get some - it's almost summer!

Thee Kombucha Gods Have Answered Our Prayers, Part 4.

2009-04-10T13:29:00.003-04:00

It's Superfruits, hands-down, y'all, as the winner of the New Flavors From GT's Taste Test 2009-a-thon.

What's to say about Superfruits - well, let's start by saying that if you like Trilogy (my other personal favorite flavor from GT's) then you will LOVE Superfruits. It's tart, fruity, acidic, carbonated, and ciento por ciento off the god damn hook, y'all.

What makes this elixir so amazingly good? Well, yumberry juice, goji berry juice and camu camu juice, for starters. Now, if you're like me, you had never heard of yumberries or camu camu before, so let's take a moment to get acquainted with these little numbers - what do you say.

YUMBERRY: Myrica rubra, also called yangmei (Chinese: 杨梅), yamamomo (Japanese: yamamomo; kanji: 山桃; katakana: ヤマモモ), Chinese Bayberry, Japanese Bayberry, Red Bayberry, or Chinese strawberry tree (and often mistranslated from Chinese as arbutus) is a subtropical tree grown for its sweet, crimson to dark purple-red, edible fruit. It is native to eastern Asia, mainly in China, where it has been grown for at least 2000 years, and probably also Japan and Southeast Asia as well. Chinese cultivation is concentrated south of the Yangtze River, where it is of considerable economic importance. In Japan, it is the prefectural flower of Kōchi and the prefectural tree of Tokushima. The plant's name appears in many old Japanese poems.

CAMU CAMU: Myrciaria dubia, commonly known as Camu Camu, CamuCamu, Cacari, and Camocamo, is a small (approx. 3-5 m tall) bushy river side tree from the Amazon Rainforest vegetation in Peru and Brazil, which bears a red/purple cherry like fruit. Its small flowers have waxy white petals and sweet smelling aroma. It has bushy feathery foliage. The evergreen, opposite leaves are lanceolate to elliptic. Individual leaves are 3 - 20 cm in length and 1 - 2 cm wide.

You learn something new every day. Whatever the hell they crammed into this, I can tell you this much - the shit is good. Go get you some, hear?

Thee Kombucha Gods Have Answered Our Prayers, Part 3.

2009-04-08T21:52:00.004-04:00

Botanic No. 7 - GT's Kombucha's MARVELOUS new concoction that contains hibiscus, orange peel, chamomile, and ginger - gets a BIG FAT THUMBS UP from Marky Mae Brown, y'all. Out of the new flavors, this one is the best he's sampled to date.

But beware, Superfruits has yet to be tasted, and we all bet that one is going to be off the chain in a very big way.

Thee Kombucha Gods Have Answered Our Prayers, Part 2.

2009-04-08T09:47:00.004-04:00

Marky Mae is now happily sampling Botanic No. 9 - a spritely, fresh concoction containing bilberry, honeysuckle and red clover.

While the taste is definitely pleasant, there is nothing that makes this stand out from any other variety of kombucha. So, not hyper-exciting, but it's not akin to drinking unflushed toilet.

Two more to go, y'all, and then everything's back to normal in Kombuchaland.

Thee Kombucha Gods Have Answered Our Prayers.

2009-04-07T21:42:00.006-04:00

Well look who it is - it's that alien-fighting robot and Ye Olde Pompous Vegan's special friend Jet Jaguar! He's always looking for new treats to share with us over here at YOPV, and he's just uncovered some amazing new beverages shot straight down from Planet X for us to enjoy!

Everyone knows that Marky Mae is an ardent fan of kombucha. He makes his own, and he guzzles the shit as if his life depended on it. So when Jet Jaguar revealed the news that there were four - yes, four - new flavors of kombucha from those geniuses at GT's Kombucha way out yonder in Beverly Hills - why, Marky Mae dropped everything and went on a mission to find those new elixirs!

A bit of background on kombucha for those of you who aren't familiar with its wonders (from GT's website):

Kombucha is alternately known as a Chinese tea, a plant, or a mushroom. But it's not really any of these. It's a living culture of beneficial microorganisms, and in Kombucha's case, the whole is infinitely greater than the sum of its parts! Our Kombucha is delicately cultured - some liken it to fermentation - for 30 days. During this period, essential nutrients form like active enzymes, viable probiotics, amino acids, antioxidants and polyphenols. All of these combine to create an elixir that immediately works with the body to restore balance and vitality. Kombucha has been used for hundreds of years throughout the world as a daily health tonic. The culture resembles a light brown, tough, gelatinous disk and because it's a living, growing entity, it can regenerate and create new cultures with every batch.

And:

We nurture our Kombucha and bottle it in a loving and peaceful facility in sunny southern California. The Kombucha is coaxed into growing in a warm, dark room - not unlike a womb. We believe that, because Kombucha is a living culture, it can absorb the energy of the people who tend to it. That's why we take special care that the people minding our Kombucha cultures are positive, healthful and respectful of the work. This may sound “new agey,” but we sincerely believe it makes a difference in how our Kombucha tastes and how it makes people feel.

Hippies...

Now, Marky Mae had dinner with some friends tonight at the sassy Vegetarian's Paradise 2 restaurant on West Fourth Street. They sampled the salt and pepper "chicken" tenders, the coconut "shrimp" (OFF THE HOOK), and other delicious vegan dishes that were served piping hot by a friendly waiter who countered the malevolence of the harpy who lingered over the hostess station like a serial killer waiting to strike her next victim. After the meal, Marky Mae and his equally-excited Kombucha Kompanion decided to find these new flavors - and as a special treat, we were going to indoctrinate an as-yet-untainted soul into Thee Kult ov Kombucha!

Off to Whole Foods we went. Boy was Marky Mae going to be PISSED if he got to that store and there were no samples of the new flavors to be had. He told himself he'd act calm and collected so his friends wouldn't know how painfully devastated he actually was, but he knew that his efforts would be see-through.

Luckily, he didn't even have to try. All four flavors were accounted for, although he initially thought BOTANIC No. 3 wasn't stocked. (His friend dug through the stacks and found one tucked way way in the back! Now THAT's friendship, y'all.)

Marky Mae bought all four new flavors. His Kombucha Kompanion bought a few of the new ones; she had already tasted the SUPERBERRY variety so that one was old news to her. And their uninitiated friend - she took the strawberry concoction.

After they all checked out, Marky Mae and Kombucha Kompanion watched excitedly as their friend crossed over to the dark side and took her first ever sip ov Thee Nectar ov thee Godz. She loved it, y'all, and with good reason - the shit is off the motherfucking chain. Yay!

Marky Mae restrained himself, however, from dipping into the new flavors. He wanted to be in the comfort of his own home in case his excitement got out of hand. So now, here he is with variety #1 being sampled. And the word is - FUCKING AWESOME, Y'ALL.

Botanic No. 3 features an infusion of elderberry and lavender. Upon first taste, Marky Mae commented, "This tastes like a new age bookstore." And he sticks by that assessment. You know what he means - when you walk into the bookstore and there's that particular smell - that combination of incense, hippie musk, dirt, 'essential oils,' and the dust that cakes books no one is ever going to buy? That's what this tastes like, and it is GOOD.

Thumbs up, y'all. More reviews to come. You can't expect Marky Mae to drink four bottles of this shit in one sitting.

PeTA is a Selfish Pack of Douchebags

2009-03-31T11:09:00.004-04:00

People for the "Ethical Treatment" of Animals - instead of being spiteful, power hungry cretins, perhaps you should focus energies on the things you SAY you care about - like, perhaps, animal welfare.

I think suing an organization that runs a shelter for abused primates, taking in animals that have been experimented on for most of their lives or exploited in entertainment, is pretty fucking sick. You really need to rethink your actions, because they are transparent and repulsive.

All y'all - read this article, please, and do not give PeTA your money as long as they're foolishly and needlessly attacking other animal rights organizations.

An excerpt:

If dressing up like clan members, exploiting women in protests, investing in the animal industry, or euthanizing 80-97% of 'rescued' animals doesn't change your mind about PETA, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, perhaps their recent lawsuit will get your attention.

Is PETA suing KFC as part of their KFCruelty campaign? Are they suing Lowes for selling moustraps? PETA has decided to take it easy on these guys and instead go after the Friends of Animals animal advocacy organization's primate sanctuary.

Read the whole article here.

Ingrid Newkirk and brainwashed minions - instead of bullying groups that are actually doing something good for other species, why don't you go back to finding some more porn stars or strippers to pose naked for your idiotic publicity whore ad campaigns that we've all grown to despise?

Or, even better, why don't you try focusing on something that could actually do some GOOD for the animals?

BUSTED!

2009-03-26T18:25:00.008-04:00

The Whole Foods on Houston and Bowery is so totally busted, y'all. Take a gander at that photo - "Vegan Honey Jalapeno Barbeque Seitan." What's wrong with that picture?

It's NOT vegan.

For the people at Whole Foods (and the people at Westerly who argued this point with me recently over their "vegan" sandwiches that were prepared with honey oat bread) - the definition of Vegan is as follows:

A vegan is someone who tries to live without exploiting animals, for the benefit of animals, people and the planet. Vegans eat a plant-based diet, with nothing coming from animals - no meat, milk, eggs or honey, for example. A vegan lifestyle also avoids leather, wool, silk and other animal products for clothing or any other purpose.

Now, I will give Whole Foods credit for trying. THIS Whole Foods, anyway. As I've complained before, the Whole Foods by where I work - they just dump shit out and expect you to sit there and read all the ingredients, printed on teeny-tiny cards, in order to figure out for your damn self whether or not there are offending ingredients in their freshly-prepared comestibles.

The Whole Foods on Bowery and the one on 24th Street - they take the time to label things they think are vegan. Too bad they're wrong some of the time. Honey is an animal product. (If you would care to read more about honey and why it is not vegan, please click here.)

So, for a vegan to say, "I'm a vegan but I use honey," is as hypocritical as the fartmouths who say, "I'm a vegetarian but I eat fish." Fish have bones, fish have blood, fish feel pain when you rip them from the water with a hook through their mouths. Therefore, you're NOT a vegetarian.

The same goes for bees and vegans.

Vegans, for the most part, made this choice because they respect all life (and respect doesn't necessarily mean that they LIKE all life) and do not want to cause harm to any other living creatures either through killing or by subjugating their freedom in order to extract various substances from them, use them as laborers or steal products they make. Keeping bees for honey falls into one or more of these categories.

So Whole Foods - I thank you from the bottom of my heart for making the effort to supply vegan food, but please please please take the time to educate yourselves before calling something vegan. Someone who didn't have the time to read the ingredients could very well have assumed that since it says VEGAN in big green letters, that your use of the word "honey" was just to make that dish sound like one of the many fattening and gristly appetizers they serve at T.G.I. Friday's and other chain restaurants frequented by stupid fatasses.

And I can tell you - there are vegans who would react a hell of a lot more freakishly than I have over this matter, especially if they had actually taken a bite of it before they realized that it contained that stuff. The very last thing you want is an indignant vegan pitching a fit after having been fed an animal product. I've seen it and it ain't fun.

I LOVE CHEESE! What is it about cheese!

2009-03-23T12:37:00.008-04:00

Yesterday I was at a ra-sha-sha book-signing event for President of Friends of Animals Priscilla Feral's new cookbook, The Best of Vegan Cooking*, at the beautiful and glamorous vegan restaurant, Candle 79 on the Upper East Side. Now, a few things struck me as interesting right from the start:

An elderly woman in attendance whose many plastic surgeries had created in her the appearance of an amphibious muppet - lips, eyes, cheekbones, carved beyond recognition. She took great glee in sharing with anyone who would sit by her the many trials and travails she had gone through to achieve this plasticine visage of "eternal youth" that looked more like silly putty stretched tight over a raw chicken than an actual human face.

And,

A wonderful harpist who serenaded the room with classical renderings of such songs as "Angel of the Morning" by Ms. Juice Newton and "Something" by the Beatles. She was a marvel and we all applauded her spiritedly at the end of each song. She blushed and smiled embarrassedly, which made her even more endearing.

Now, after about 20 minutes of schmoozing and hobnobbing with Manhattan's vegan / animal rights / socialite set, we noticed that the waiters were starting to bring out trays of hors d'oeuvres. I hadn't eaten anything at all since the day before, and it was late afternoon at this point, so I would have grabbed fried dung and eaten it if it had been offered. But, anyone who knows of Candle 79's reputation is aware that the appetizers being passed around were anything BUT dung.

Off. the. fucking. hook. Seitan skewers, chickpea cakes with almonds and plum sauce, seitan dumplings... each was better than the last. I mean, these things were fucking amazing.

And then it happened - the thing almost every vegan has dreamed - no, PRAYED - would occur in this lifetime. We, the people at this event, were the first people in New York City (and almost in the world) to try out a new nondairy cheese. I didn't know this when I was grabbing greedily at the plate of quesadillas being passed around the space. All I knew was that I was hongry as balls and I wasn't stopping til I was full up.

But when I bit into that triangle of bliss, topped decoratively with a dollop of guacamole, it was as if the Gates of Heaven had opened up and a shaft of Light had poured forth from God's fingers and landed on my tastebuds.

This shit was AMAZING, y'all. And I mean, if I hadn't been informed ahead of time that this stuff was vegan, I would have screamed at the waiter for derailing my vegan diet with tainted teat-drippings.

Let me detail to you the wonders of this cheese. It melts. It has no fucked up aftertaste. It TASTES, FEELS, LOOKS, SMELLS just like cheese. This cheese is NOT soy-based. We were told by someone who was representing the company at the event that the cheese made with tapioca flour, among other all natural vegetable-based ingredients. When we found out that this man was even ancillarily responsible for bringing to us this manna from Heaven, we all circled around him in an attempt to kiss the hem of his garment.

The cheese is from a company called Daiya. You can read all about it here.

If you do not believe me that this shit was off the chain - and not just from the standpoint of a vegan who misses cheese and will say that anything orange and slime-like that is labeled as a "cheese alternative" is awesome and amazing - you can ask my 100% dairy-enthusiastic friend who attended the event with me and marveled along with me at how fucking awesome this shit was.

Sadly, this product is not yet available in your local comestibles kiosk. They are trying to work out distribution. Let me tell you, it will be worth the wait.

Vegans everywhere will rejoice when this product hits the mass market. Pizzas will again be in our grasp. No longer will we have to suffer through the noxious clots of damnation that make up VeganRella and the alluring but not completely satisfying Vegan Gourmet.

And that will be a happy day.

* Might I suggest that you purchase a copy of this book if you're able and help support a wonderful Animal Rights organization.

Brooklyn Restaurant News

2009-02-26T10:54:00.005-05:00

Sad news for Fort Greene, y'all. Urban Spring, the ultra-green, ultra-local and ultra-friendly coffeehouse / sandwich / juice / cookie / vegan baked goods shoppe, is closing.

I can't even tell you how sad this makes me - I go there every morning for a cup of locally-roasted and really amazingly good coffee. On Saturdays, I get their fantastic (and voted Best Sandwich in New York City by the Vegan Guide to New York City) tempeh avocado sandwich. All of the yogis and hippies in my neighborhood congregate there. But the times - they're a-changin', and the owner said he just couldn't keep going. So sad... he was one of the few truly environmentally responsible business owners I've met.

Now, Fort Greene has lots of vegan options. Red Bamboo Brooklyn is right up the street from Urban Spring, and their menu is almost completely vegan. Their food is so fucking good that I've known people (you know who you are) to make special treks to the neighborhood just to pick up a vegan "chicken" parmesan hoagie.

And then there's Dao Palate - it's not IN Fort Greene, but it delivers to Fort Greene. It's in the same family as Wild Ginger, and we all know how good THAT place is.

I decided to give Dao Palate a whirl recently. I ordered their Crispy Soy Protein with plum sauce, spinach wonton soup and malaysian curry stew (yes, I was a total hog - but give me a fucking break. I was sick, and you're supposed to feed a cold - everyone knows that.) Absolutely delicious. I highly recommend it.

My trouble with Red Bamboo and Dao Palate comes in their takeout packaging. Plastic GALORE, y'all. Huge plastic containers for their entrees, sandwiches, desserts, soups. And Red Bamboo pokes holes in the lids of their soup containers, rendering them unable to be re-used (Dao Palate does not do this). I had so much plastic left over from my Dao Palate order that it made my mind reel.

People always groan, "But all of those containers - they're recyclable! It says so right on the plastic!"

Yes - in theory, deli containers are recyclable. But, if you check your list of what the New York Department of Sanitation WILL recycle - you'll see that all takeout containers are recycling no-nos. Why, I don't know. But I do know that it's a huge waste of plastic and, given the rate at which New Yorkers take out food from restaurants, an enormous addition to our already grotesquely overflowing landfills.

Now that the one place I've ever encountered that actually went out of its way to use biodegradable takeout packaging is closing in a matter of days, I'm going to have to seriously limit my takeout practices.

What to do? Ask Red Bamboo and other restaurants to switch to paper takeout containers. They're not recyclable either, but at least they biodegrade. And that's something.

Coolest Fish In the World...

2009-02-25T16:55:00.004-05:00

This is one cool fish, y'all. It's got a transparent head!

Read more about this deep sea marvel HERE.

Off the Hook Raw Foods with Offie Lee

2009-02-22T18:21:00.005-05:00

Hi, y'all. I'm Offie Lee, guest-blogging here on Ye Olde Pompous Vegan. From time to time I'll pop by and fill you in on my findings in the world of hippie foods.

Today I'm all about raw comestibles, and let me tell you what - I can't get enough of these overpriced raw foods! Legend has it that raw foods maintain the natural enzymes that are generally destroyed when food is cooked above 113 degrees. Enzymes = health, or so they say. If it's a gimmick, I'm sold, y'all, because this shit is off the motherfucking chizzain up in here.

Take, for example, this dr-cow tree nut cream cheese:

You know what's in this? Cashew nuts, salt and acidophilus. Off. The. Chain. It's low in fat and calories and tastes like a creamy and delicious cheese should - sharp and gorgeous. Get you some and find out, if you think I'm joking.

Now, what could complement such a divine raw vegan cheese product? How about some motherfuckin' raw onion bread? Like Awesome Foods Raw Onion Bread, perhaps?

Let me tell you what - no matter what you think of it now - you have never. and I mean Ever. tasted anything as delicious as raw onion bread. It is so so sweet and delicious and will leave you begging for that dehydrator to hurry the fuck up and pump some more of that greasy goodness out. Off the chain.

Might I suggest the following - get you some Dr-Cow and some raw onion bread, an avocado, a tomato, and some broccoli sprouts, mash the crap out of that avocado and smear both it and the cheese on that onion bread, top it off with some tomato and some sprouts, and have you a good ol' fashioned raw party with fixins!

You'll feel vibrant and fabulous and be overwhelmed by how deee-lovely and deee-licious raw food can be! Take it from me, Offie Lee!

Seen In New York.

2009-02-19T09:53:00.005-05:00

Quite possibly the WORST marketing campaign ever - especially since this particular kiosk, located at 52nd and Broadway in Manhattan, has priced this shit approximately 2 dollars higher than most purveyors of kombucha in New York City.

I drink kombucha every single day, many times a day. Has it improved my health? Probably not. BUT, I love the taste of it. These people at this deli just don't know what the fuck they're missing.

2009-02-18T16:56:00.002-05:00

Dear Crystal:

I love your name and your low-profile attitude. I love how effortless you are—not to mention how your impact upon the earth is nominal, if not non-existent (You are my hero!). Crystal, you’re such a model citizen--the wind beneath my wings. And, Crystal: The fact that you're vegan really makes me proud and happy.

But, Crystal, I don’t understand your unpredictable ways: one day you’re all about doing what it is you say you’ll do—doing the right thing—and the next I’m left high and dry. Except by high and dry, Crystal, I mean wet and stinky.

Why do you have to be so fickle, Crystal?

I don’t want us to part ways, Crystal. Most of the time, I think we are really good for each other—that is, until I get hot or stressed out like today. I want our relationship to last a long time, but for that to happen, Crystal, you need to meet me half way. That’s all I ask.

XOXO,

Dimples

Want to see what an asshole looks like? UPDATE.

2009-02-13T12:03:00.005-05:00

Just to make it clear, Jason Wu has cancelled - yes, you read that correctly - CANCELLED his fur line.

What Jason Wu said:

"As a result of increased interest and demand from our global retailers, we've decided to put our fur license on hold and concentrate on our growing ready-to-wear business," Wu said.

What that means: so many people called, wrote and screamed at me that I decided that in order to save my career I'd better steer clear of butchering helpless animals so some entitled cunt can drape herself in a gaudy, overpriced shroud of death in order to feel "beautiful."

Thank you, Jason Wu, for caving to peer pressure and (at least on a fiscal level) realizing that fur is horrifying and brutal.

Now if only these stupid bitches and assholes who continue to buy fur would just snap out of it...

I'm posting this video, not because I endorse PeTA, but because more people need to see this shit. Think about this when you're coat shopping, please. Or shoe shopping, or glove shopping, or just plain shopping.

THIS MEANS YOU, PEOPLE WHO WEAR COATS WITH FUR COLLARS.

Pledge to go fur-free at PETA.org.

2009-01-30T11:30:00.003-05:00

When I was in my mid-20's, broke and destitute, I got a part-time job at a Thai restaurant. I loved Thai food, plus I loved the owners of the restaurant: Vang and Mina. Two very sweet, kind and generous people.

I loved working there. I made a lot of money with what amounted to not a whole lot of work. Plus, I got to eat Massamon curry every day (I seriously ate this curry hundreds of times over the course of the 3 years I worked there). I also got Feng Shui lessons from Mina (whose every spare moment was spent studying it), which culminated in allowing me to Feng Shui her living room. I got to tell my boss that she needed to "hang a prosperity crystal in her north west corner" and to, "goddamnit, turn that fountain around so the positive energy is flowing in the door and not out the window! Seriously!?"

When I started waiting tables, I wasn't a vegan. In fact, it was during a low point in my consumptive life: I was flirting with eating anything that was dead. I won't go into the gross acts of violence I was complicit in; I am trying to forget. I did, however, become a vegan after working there for about 3 months, although my conversion had nothing at all to do with the soup they fed me made of cow cartilage.

Now here's something surprising: my bosses were interested in helping me be a vegan. "Oh, that silly white boy and his eating experiments," they'd say. Vang, the chef, learned to create delicious curry without fish sauce--learning how to dump plenty of salt and sugar into the coconut milk to compensate for the rotten fish. Plus, they introduced me the power of hot sauce, namely Sriracha Sauce--a love affair that continues to this very day.

Sriracha, in my opinion, is the most delicious and versatile hot sauce that exists. Nevermind the neon color, it's good in or on everything. Just the other night, I used it to season a vegetable soup broth (and by season, I mean set it on fire!), and a certain someone I know told me it was one of the best soups he's ever eaten. Plus, if you are a lesbian or a hippie (or both), you can stir it into your beans and rice and witness it's transformative powers for yourself.

One of my uncles, who is possibly a little retarded and probably a little mentally ill, says that hot sauce kills all the germs in your body (yes, he claims all of them), thus making it impossible to get sick. Of course, this is bullshit, but don't let it stop you from a little delicious self experimentation.

Want to see what an asshole looks like?

2009-01-26T12:42:00.008-05:00

Take a gander, y'all. Here is a 100% Genuine Asshole:

"Fashion designer" and drooling simpleton Jason Wu, the entity responsible for that heinous sale rack prom dress Michelle Obama was wearing on inauguration night, has stated his intention to create a "significant" fur line.

Our friends at ecorazzi pointed out that this vile bolsa de mierda stated the following on Access Hollywood:

“I’m doing a significant fur collection, and the message will be all about luxury.”

and

"Fashion is also sort of escapism, and women need beautiful dresses to lose themselves in.”

Hey, fuckface - fur is not "luxury." Fur is destruction. Fur is the ultimate fashion faux pas, and you as a young designer should know that.

How about trying to create something for women to "lose themselves" in that doesn't cause the needless death and suffering of another sentient being? It's not that hard... designers do it every day.

Oh, and that dress you designed for Michelle Obama was fucking gross. I knew I didn't like you - and now I know why.

GoodTimes Newz Roundup!

2009-01-22T15:19:00.005-05:00

Around the news today:

Global Warming Threatens Forests

Forests in the Pacific Northwest are dying twice as fast as they were 17 years ago, and scientists blame warming temperatures for the trend, according to a new study.

The study, to be released Friday in the journal Science, is the first large-scale analysis of environmental changes as contributing factors in the mortality of coniferous forests.

The data for this research was gathered by generations of scientists over a 50-year period at multiple sites in Oregon, Washington, California, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and southwestern British Columbia. Seventy-six forest plots, all more than 200 years old, were monitored by scientists doing some of the most rudimentary research -- counting trees.

"It's not a happy story, but, an important one," said Phillip van Mantgem, a research ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey and the lead author of the study. "These are beautiful places. They do change and respond to their environment, sometimes quickly."

read the rest here

Antarctica Is Warming, Not Cooling

ROTHERA BASE, Antarctica (Reuters) - Antarctica is getting warmer rather than cooling as widely believed, according to a study that fits the icy continent into a trend of global warming.

A review by U.S. scientists of satellite and weather records for Antarctica, which contains 90 percent of the world's ice and would raise world sea levels if it thaws, showed that freezing temperatures had risen by about 0.5 Celsius (0.8 Fahrenheit) since the 1950s.

"The thing you hear all the time is that Antarctica is cooling and that's not the case," said Eric Steig of the University of Washington in Seattle, lead author of the study in Thursday's edition of the journal Nature.

The average temperature rise was "very comparable to the global average," he told a telephone news briefing.

read the rest here

2009-01-22T15:00:00.005-05:00

I loves me some cookies. If there's one thing veganism really has going for it, besides hippies, it's cookies. People will bitch and moan about the ass-like properties of most people's tofu scramble, or how some people's cupcakes taste like scabs, but vegan cookies, almost across the board, are Hawaii Fab-O.

Take for example Sticky Finger's Bakery. It's basically an animal product-free shitake hole (that's insultingly overpriced), but their lemon coconut cookies are to-die-for (the chocolate chip are fine, too, but the oatmeal cookies are way too sweet). Cookies were born to shun the exploitation and commodification of our cow and chicken brethren.

Most hip vegans think Isa Chandra Moskowitz's cookies are the gold standard, but unfortunately this is not true. I don't understand why or how because she did, after all, write the Cupcake Bible, which truly is a masterpiece that will stand the test of time and the stupid hipster fad that is cupcakes. For some reason, some of her cookie recipes suck. And not in a good way.

Personally, I am drawn to cookies that are slightly crunchy on the outside, with a center that is chewy and has some bite. Like my men. A cookie can't be vomit-sweet, either, or cause you to feel dizzy or nauseated if you eat more than three. Also, like my men. And if you are baking vegan cookies yourself, well, then, of course you are going to eat more than three, so this is uber important.

The vegan cookie expert is Dreena Burton, of Eat, Drink, Be Vegan fame. If you don't believe me, try her chocolate chip cookie recipe. Just this past weekend, I made her spelt flour-based "You Dipped Chocolate in My Peanut Butter Cookies," which are rich and decadent and completely amazing. Plus, you can pretend that the spelt flour makes them good for you (think fiber)!

Vegans always moan on and on about greenhouse gases, animal suffering, drowning polar bears, blah-blah-vegan-blah-go-vegan-vegan-blah-blah, without pulling out the biggest gun of them all: never underestimate the power of a good cookie.

That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore.

2009-01-21T13:19:00.007-05:00

Ye Olde Pompous Vegan has tried on more than one occasion to get across the point that factory farming is destroying the planet - but we're going to do it again, because it is something that needs to be repeated until dipshits get it through their heads that meat is b-a-d bad. Repeat. B-A-D BAD. Yes, y'all. Factory farms are not only violent, horrible places that inflict misery and suffering on countless thousands of animals, they are also primary contributors to Mr. Global Warming.

Our friends at Ecorazzi pointed out in their blog roundup an article coming out in February's Scientific American regarding this very subject - one most people either ignore or pretend doesn't exist, because they like gobbling down their saturated fat-laden McDLTs and Triple Whoppers more than taking action to save the fucking planet for their children.

So here we go diggin' one more time. A sample of the article, which can be found in its complete form right up in here:

Most of us are aware that our cars, our coal-generated electric power and even our cement factories adversely affect the environment. Until recently, however, the foods we eat had gotten a pass in the discussion. Yet according to a 2006 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), our diets and, specifically, the meat in them cause more greenhouse gases carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, nitrous oxide, and the like to spew into the atmosphere than either transportation or industry. (Greenhouse gases trap solar energy, thereby warming the earth's surface. Because gases vary in greenhouse potency, every greenhouse gas is usually expressed as an amount of CO2 with the same global-warming potential.)

People make fun of Ye Old Pompous Vegan when this subject is brought up. "I don't care - I like hamburgers," or "fuck the environment," or "cows are dumb and can eat shit," are a few of the things YOPV has heard over the years. But y'all, there's going to come a point where your jokes won't be funny anymore. Just ask Morrissey. And by that point, will it be too late?

300 Football Fields every hour.

2009-01-20T15:07:00.009-05:00

by Marky Mae Brown

Today's the inauguration of Barack Obama. I WAS elated... until I read this.

I've known of the plight of the orangutan for quite some time, but this startling and tragic realization of just how screwed they are really horrifies me:

But palm oil plantations devastate the forest and create a monoculture on the land, in which orangutans cannot survive. Over the years, Galdikas has fought off loggers, poachers and miners, but nothing has posed as great a threat to her "babies" as palm oil.

There are only an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 orangutans left in the wild, 90 percent of them in Indonesia, said Serge Wich, a scientist at the Great Ape Trust of Iowa. Most live in small, scattered populations that cannot take the onslaught on the forests much longer.

Trees are being cut at a rate of 300 football fields every hour. And massive land-clearing fires have turned the country into one of the top emitters of carbon.

read the rest of the article here

It's really difficult to understand how people can plow through the rain forest at such a disturbing rate when they know that they are destroying something that will never, ever, ever be able to recover. They're stealing not only from the orangutans, but from themselves.

We laughed at orangutans in those purulent Clint Eastwood Any Which Way films, but we won't be laughing when they're gone.

The orangutans are two species of great apes.

Known for their intelligence, they live in trees and they are the largest living arboreal animal. They have longer arms than other great apes, and their hair is reddish-brown, instead of the brown or black hair typical of other great apes. Native to Indonesia and Malaysia, they are currently found only in rainforests on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, though fossils have been found in Java, the Thai-Malay Peninsula, Vietnam and China.

They are the only surviving species in the genus Pongo and the subfamily Ponginae (which also includes the extinct genera Gigantopithecus and Sivapithecus). Their name derives from the Malay and Indonesian phrase orang hutan, meaning "forest person".

The orangutan is an official state animal of Sabah in Malaysia.

Help Orangutans, please. You can adopt an orangutan here or help reforest an acre of their home.

Orangutan Foundation International

This is a very reliable, trustworthy organization. Here's some about its founder, Birute Mary Galdikas:

At 25, Galdikas arrived in Borneo to begin her field studies of orangutans in a jungle environment extremely inhospitable to most Westerners. Galdikas proceeded to make many invaluable contributions to the scientific understanding of Indonesia's biodiversity and the rain forest as a whole, while also bringing the orangutan to the attention of the rest of the world.

When she arrived in Borneo, Galdikas settled into a primitive bark and thatch hut, at a site she dubbed "Camp Leakey", near the edge of the Java Sea. Once there, she encountered numerous poachers, legions of leeches, and swarms of carnivorous insects. Yet she persevered through many travails, remaining there for over 30 years while becoming an outspoken advocate for orangutans and the preservation of their rain forest habitat, which is rapidly being devastated by loggers, palm oil plantations, gold miners, and unnatural conflagrations.

Galdikas' conservation efforts have extended well beyond advocacy, largely focusing on rehabilitation of the many orphaned orangutans turned over to her for care. Many of these orphans were once illegal pets, before becoming too smart and difficult for their owners to handle. Galdikas's rehabilitation efforts through O.F.I., Orangutan Foundation International, also include the preservation of rain forest.

The value of Dr. Galdikas's work has been acknowledged in television shows hosted by the late Steve Irwin as well as Jeff Corwin on Animal Planet. In addition, the importance of Dr. Galdikas's concern and work towards preserving Indonesian rain forest has been reinforced by the biofuel article of January 25, 2007, in the New York Times and the November 2008 article in National Geographic magazine, "Borneo's Moment of Truth."

The term "endangered species" has always bothered me. The fact that such a label even exists shows our destructive impact on the earth. We must work WITH nature - not opposed to it - if we are to maintain livable conditions on this planet. And we must ensure that these conditions are for all beings - not just the ones we deem worthy. It's not our place to put one species over another.

Further reading: "The Vanishing Man of the Forest."

Mongo Like Candy... (part 4)

2009-01-17T19:55:00.009-05:00

Holy Crap, y'all. Mongo - the eating machine who will blithely cram anything that even slightly passes as "candy" down his bottomless and greedy gullet - has just discovered what has got to be the perfect candy. Yes.

The. Perfect. Candy.

Now, if you're like Mongo, you're conflicted about a few things: how to be a glutton - gorging on anything that's not nailed down - and at the same time tread lightly on our planet.

So when Mongo was just at Ye Olde Healthfoods Kiosk in the West Village - yes, Lifethyme, that purveyor of fine hippie comestibles on Sixth Avenue - he decided to splurge. But splurge responsibly.

Mongo hasn't eaten candy in quite a while. But Mongo's got a freelance project coming up, so he's stress-eating. (Fuck off. It helps soothe his frazzled nerves.)

That's when he saw it -

Gnosis Chocolate Coconut Almond. Now, nothing makes Mongo freak the fuck out faster than coconut, chocolate and almond. So he snatched this shit up faster than Whitney Houston snatches up crackrock. Bam!

Mongo rushed out of that store with his package of earth-friendly snacks, barely able to contain himself from ripping into the Hippie Goodness that was calling to him from his hemp fabric satchel.

And let me tell you - you can't get more hippie-ish and environmentally correct than this little number up in here. Mongo finally got home, sat down and read the packaging on this bitch.

He felt as if he were attending a Rainbow Gathering right in his very own living room - THAT'S how much this product cares about the environment. Observations made while reading the packaging:

Raw, vegan, organic, handmade, no refined sugar
10% of all profits are donated to The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation
The box is 100% recycled paper
The labels are made from corn
"Let's support companies that work hard to improve the health of our bodies, our society, and our planet!" says the packaging. Namaste, y'all.

And this company makes about 927,865 other sensuous flavors - Mayan Heat, Vanilla Hazelnut, Blackberry Mint, Orange Blossom, and Almond Fig Spice, just to name a few of these fly-ass bad boys.

Not able to hold out any longer, Mongo snatched into this dark chocolate love goddess and sampled the bliss.

Well Mongo can tell you this much. This shit is off the chain. OFF THE CHAIN. You want to know what it tastes like? It tastes like a motherfucking Mounds. You know, "Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't"? Yes. That's what it tastes like.

Plus, it doesn't have any artificial shit in it, leave a waxy film in your mouth, come wrapped in plastic, or exploit cows or other animaux up in here.

In other words, the shit is good. Mongo has spoken. Go get one.

Taking Stupidity to an Entirely New Level.

2009-01-17T18:31:00.007-05:00

by Marky Mae Brown

Yes, that pesky douchedrain Aunt Sarah is at it again.

She isn't content to destroy the forests, wolves and polar bears in Alaska - oh not that one. Since she's already got programs in place to get all the trees razed, put pipelines through once-pristine land, and make sure the entire moose, wolf and bear populations in her state are gutted and draped over her kinfolks' couches, she's got to find some new aspect of nature to destroy.

So what's her next pet project?

She's suing the United States to take Beluga Whales OFF the endangered species list. Yes. She wants to take the whales off the Endangered Species list. Why? Because protecting those whales will hurt the fishing industry in Alaska. Boo-hoo, cuntbag. The fishing industry's not going to be around for much longer because we've depleted the oceans and poisoned the water to the point that barely anything's left alive.

From a Center for Biological Diversity press release:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska— The state of Alaska today formally notified the federal government of its intent to sue to overturn recent protections given to the critically endangered Cook Inlet beluga whale under the Endangered Species Act. In October 2008 the Cook Inlet beluga whale was listed as endangered by the federal National Marine Fisheries Service over the objections of Governor Sarah Palin. The listing occurred following petitions and litigation by the Center for Biological Diversity and other organizations.

Alaska ’s legal action against the beluga whale marks the second time in recent months that Governor Palin’s administration has launched legal attacks against endangered species on behalf of the oil industry; in August 2008 Palin filed suit seeking to overturn federal protection for the polar bear.

And from Reuters:

Former vice presidential hopeful Gov. Sarah Palin said the energy-rich state believes the Endangered Species Act protections for belugas announced in October by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are unwarranted.

"The State of Alaska has worked cooperatively with the federal government to protect and conserve beluga whales in Cook Inlet," the Republican governor said in a news release announcing that a 60-day notice of intent to sue had been sent to NOAA. "This listing decision didn't take those efforts into account as required by law."

Beluga whales swimming in Cook Inlet, a glacier-fed saltwater channel running from Anchorage to the Gulf of Alaska, numbered as high as 1,300 three decades ago, but has dropped to about 375 since then, according to NOAA.

Alaska's announcement it would challenge the endangered listing drew ire from environmental groups.

"Once again Governor Palin has demonstrated either a complete lack of understanding or lack of concern over the plight of endangered species," Brendan Cummings, oceans program director for the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement Wednesday.

Federal scientists believe overhunting by the area's Alaska Native population caused the decline in the beluga population.

What's wrong with this asshole? She makes George W. Bush look like a member of Greenpeace. She won't be content until every living thing in Alaska that isn't a white "Christian" (in cases like hers I use the term lightly - she ain't following the teachings of Jesus) is dead or dying or extinct.

Over-hunting has taken the whales' population down to just around 400. FOUR HUNDRED.

Aunt Sarah can't be bothered with facts like that, though - she's too busy promoting teen pregnancy and converting gays. You know, important stuff. Stuff that makes America great.

Putting the Money Where the Mouth Is.

2009-01-16T16:56:00.003-05:00

by Marky Mae Brown

We live in a world of inaction. What with the internet, cable TV, Fresh Direct, and Wiis, we don't ever have to leave the comfort of our homes or acknowledge that there's a world going on outside of our electronic contraptions and tv shows. So most people probably find this bit of news less than interesting:

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Amazon deforestation jumped 69 percent in the past 12 months — the first such increase in three years — as rising demand for soy and cattle pushes farmers and ranchers to raze trees, officials said Saturday.

Some 3,088 square miles of forest were destroyed between August 2007 and August 2008 — a 69 percent increase over the 1,861 square miles felled in the previous 12 months, according to the National Institute for Space Research, or INPE, which monitors destruction of the Amazon.

"We're not content," Environment Minister Carlos Minc said. "Deforestation has to fall more and the conditions for sustainable development have to improve."

This article goes on to report that Brazil lost 2.7 per cent of the Amazon rain forest in 2007. 2.7 per cent in ONE FUCKING YEAR!

Now, being a comic book editor in New York City doesn't really give me any experience or advice to offer those people down there except this - "STOP CUTTING DOWN THE FUCKING RAIN FOREST. AND I MEAN RIGHT NOW."

But, as an educated consumer, I can start making choices that will, in theory, keep money away from companies that are allowing this idiotic practice to continue. And I started today.

Notice that increased demand for soy is one of the main contributing factors to rain forest depletion. I was, initially, going to attempt to ban soy from my life. "Just switch to seitan," I said to myself. But that's next to impossible. So what I decided was, in any case where I'm consciously going to buy a soy product, I am going to make sure it's either sustainably farmed or grown in the United States, where clear-cutting happened centuries ago and I don't have to feel responsible for it.

Wild Wood comes through again! Yes, our friends at Wild Wood Organics, the ones who make that GOD DAMN DELICIOUS fucking soyogurt, also sell firm, extra-firm and silken tofu, and it is 100% completely and totally a) organic and b) grown in the United States. Ain't no god damn Brazilian asshole displacing an ocelot over this shit.

Tofu is one of the world's wonders, and I am very happy that I can continue to buy it without having it weigh on my conscience. The rain forest is, after all, one of the world's most precious resources - the sooner fuck-dumps realize that and stop fucking cutting it down, the better off we'll all be.

Why Can't I Stop Eating?

2009-01-16T11:42:00.001-05:00

by Marky Mae Brown

I try and I try and I try. But I can't stop eating. As a yogi, I'm supposed to be balancing my channels, making sure that the greed from the left and the bitterness from the right smooth themselves out in perfect harmony through the central, or sushumna channel. Yet get me around food, and my left channel says, "Let me at it!"

Take, for example, my recent obsession with Solstice Goji Bars. These bastards are GOOD. Dark chocolate and peanut butter and dark chocolate and cherry and almond are the only varieties that I've tried - but they are both jam-packed with chocolate fabulousness and I can't go through a single day without consuming at least one - and sometimes two - of these fat, highly-caloric fuckers.

I am hoping that this is only residual glee at returning to the United States after 2-plus weeks in a developing country where the only food I had access to was white rice. I hope that soon I'll be back to normal instead of gorging myself on everything that's not nailed down. But really, who am I kidding? I've always been a hog and I probably always will be one. My channels are and always have been out of balance, and it's going to take more than yoga to fix that.

Meanwhile, check out these bad boys:

Dark Chocolate and Peanut Butter Bar
Our best selling bar, the Dark Chocolate & Peanut Butter Goji Bar is a meal in itself…

Of course, dark chocolate and peanut butter is a delectably classic combination, but the addition of dried apples, toasted cashews, and (of course) goji berries takes them to the next level of wholesome, lip smacking goodness.

Aside from being delicious, the DCPB is a nutrition powerhouse, with 6 grams of fiber, 9 grams of protein, 11 grams of whole grains, 800mg of omega-3’s, and a full day’s supply of antioxidants! Great for school lunches or a quick bite while running errands, you get a slow-release source of energy that lasts and lasts…!

and:

Dark Chocolate, Cherry & Almond Bar
A chewy, fruity bar, our DCCA combines goji berries with the richness of Callebaut dark chocolate, the tangy chew of Bing cherries, and the sweet nutty flavor of ground almonds.

And with all that flavor, it doesn’t skimp on nutrition. Each bar has 6 grams of fiber, 7 grams of protein, 11 grams of whole grains, 1000mg of omega-3’s, and a full day’s supply of antioxidants! Perfect as a quick breakfast, it’s equally delicious heated up and topped with low-fat frozen yogurt as an ooey-gooey treat. “Stealth Health”, we call it…

Whatever they call it, the shit is deee-licious.

Smoke This.

2009-01-16T10:51:00.002-05:00

by Dimples Doublefist

As many of you already know, I burned down part of my house several years ago (only $25,000 worth), so needless to say I was forced to give up smoking as a full-time occupation. It's been a rough road, paved with a few cigarettes along the way, but I have to admit that the house-fire---unglamorous though it was---ended up being a good thing.

Being a true addict, however, I was forced to find something less dangerous than cigarettes. Let me tell you, it's not as sexy, but just as satisfying: I drink hot tea all day long.

Here's the routine: I get up in the morning and drink two cups of coffee. If you must know, I drink them with a splash (this small measurement holds deep importance for me) of Trader Joe's soy cream. Sugar is nasty. I am happy.

When I arrive at work, I start drinking green tea (sometimes oolong and sometimes white tea, too). I drink said tea from a Mason jar. I proceed to drink cup after cup (which metaphorically means that I smoke cigarette after cigarette) all day long, non-stop. Sometimes, by 5 PM I am totally cracked out. Sometimes my hands shake or I feel dizzy or nauseous---or both. But, like I said, I am an addict.

A few weeks ago, however, I found the beverage of my dreams---thanks to Mongo/Marky Mae: Yerba Mate. I always thought the stuff would taste like a cup of hot dirt water, but it doesn't. If I stick with the cigarette analogy, Yerba Mate is an American Spirit Light. Green tea is a Benson and Hedges Ultra Light 120, which means Yerba Mate is Heaven and green tea is Hell.

My favorite is the Guayaki Organic Mate Chocolatte, which is infused with cocoa and spices. I like it better than smoking, which, if you know me, is saying something. If you throw in a splash of Trader Joe's Plain Soy Creamer, you've got yourself some hot-sex-magic in a cup. Plus, Mate Chocolatte does not cause the crack-shakes, so you can drink with impunity.

Trust Marky, you want some of this.

This Tree Did Not Die In Vain.

2009-01-15T10:45:00.003-05:00

by Dimples Doublefist

I have a giant collection of vegan cookbooks, which is kind of queer considering the fact that I hardly cook. There are multiple reasons for this:

1. I am lazy

2. I am impatient and

3. My standards are impossibly high.

I want everything I eat to taste like it came from either Candle 79 or Sacred Chow. That's a problem because of #1 and #2. I have said collection of cookbooks because every couple of months I swear off eating out, I purchase a new cookbook, then I proceed to cook for three nights in a row and then, out of boredom and disappointment, return to my old ways of eating out all the time. Rinse and repeat.

Well, let's just say that restaurants in the Nation's Capital suck ass. Yes, there are a few decent things, but pathetically the food is uncreative, over-priced and the biggest sin of all: fattening. That's why I am both bitter and no longer skinny. (Fuck you, Washington, DC).

Anyway, my friend Rancy Nice (since I didn't ask permission, you get a pseudonym) recently told me that I needed Robin Robertson's Quick Fix Vegetarian, which promises that all meals contained therein require less than one half hour to prepare. Rancy also told me everything was incredible. Because I like Rancy, I listened.

Well, I'll be damned.

This weekend I made a seitan (that is encrusted with paprika) with sherried mushrooms and peas; I made a linguine with a red lentil sauce that was garlicky and rich---as if it had been made with cream---and totally to die for. And finally, today I made a red bean and coconut milk based Jamaican stew that is truly inspired and out of this world. Three home runs.

If you're a hippie, I'd run to my local, independent bookseller and get this cookbook immediately. Even though I am a hippie (I am wearing linen pants right this very minute), I had to run to Amazon dot com---where it's only $11---because I needed instant gratification. Indeed, that's what I got.

Two - or perhaps one - views on So Delicious Coconut Milk "Yogurt"

2009-01-14T17:28:00.007-05:00

Dimples:

The Lowdown:

Coconuts were made by the goddess herself---a celestial creation whose presence enhances all matter of food. I love the meat, the water and, most of all, the delicious, ass-fattening milk. Just pour that shit down my throat and see if I stop you. During the three years that I spent waiting tables at a Thai restaurant, I ate Massamon curry practically everyday. I never got sick of it. A couple of weeks ago, while minding my own business at Whole Foods, my eyes, like a hawk spotting a mouse miles below, focused upon the new addition to the yogurt shelf. I could have shit my pants. Coconut milk-based yogurt. Instead, I bought one of each flavor.

Do y'all like coconut-infused snot---an overly sweet gooey mess that's hard to swallow, like a phat loogie that you can't suck down? Well, Turtle Mountain seems to think so. They've introduced a vile line of sugary diarrhea intended, it seems, to outdo the soy based diarrhea that's already available at a grocery store near you (Wildwood Soy Yogurt, for the record, is not diahrrhea, but it is hard to find). Seriously, every flavor tasted like the same vegetable: high fructose corn syrup mixed with pureed okra.

If you are wondering how this is possible (Turtle Mountain makes the fabulous Purely Decadent line), well I am too. Consider yourself warned.

Marky Mae:

I was going to write a scathing rebuttal to the above diatribe. I tried two flavors of So Delicious Coconut Milk Yogurt - vanilla and strawberry.

My only complaint, other than the lip-pursing sweetness, was the waxy buildup that remains in your mouth long after you've taken your last swallow. It's almost as if you've taken a lit candle and dumped the liquid wax into your mouth, allowing it to cool.

And then I realized - why do I care? Why do I give a shit about coconut milk yogurt, other than the novelty of it, which wore off rapidly after my first bite? Sure, it's not like you're spooning cultured vomit into your mouth or anything, but other products are much better.

And I am not allergic to soy. I love soy. If I could subsist on soy and soy alone, I probably would. Soy yogurts, for the most part, do have a jacked up aftertaste that is akin to battery acid, so I steer clear of them unless I'm just in one of those moods to cram everything on the planet into my mouth at the same time.

This morning, things changed. I was at the laundromat, and, having been forced to scoop leftover cups-full of that rancid ASS-smelling "fabric softener" out of the tray in the one and only available washing machine (I hate that smell. That smell, even the slightest wiff, makes me want to hunt down and destroy whoever came up with the Satanic chemical compound that created it. It is unholy; it does not belong on clothes) before depositing my coins. Frustrated and alone, I decided to walk up to ye olde health food kiosk on Fulton and purchase a kombucha and a banana.

And then I saw it - they had plain coconut yogurt. I figured I'd give that shit another whirl. But next to it was Wildwood Organics soy yogurt - THE brand, the one everyone's been ululating about for the past several months, the one I had yet to try.

I picked it up. 135 calories, as opposed to the plain coconut milk's 150. 23 calories from fat, as opposed to the coconut milk variety's 70. I was sold. "All of these vegan gays had better be right," I said to myself as I paid up.

And they were. Not only is this Wildwood Organics yogurt delicious - as far as I could find, there was NO discernible soy to it at all. It had the consistency and flavor of actual real yogurt.

My one complaint about Wildwood - they have not taken the hippie plunge like other yogurt companies and excluded the hard plastic tops from their containers. The pull-back tops are sufficient and spare the world a fuckload of litter. Wildwood - wake up, please. Plastic sucks.

So fuck that coconut nonsense. If you don't have issues with soy, I say go with this Wildwood Organics shit. Because it is fucking good.

Update - as a test, I baked cookies with coconut milk yogurt to see how they would turn out, and they were just as acceptable as the same variety done with soy milk yogurt. So, in a pinch - coconut milk yogurt is just fine and dandy for your baking needs.

Let me introduce you to your new friend, the cauliflower.

2009-01-14T11:41:00.004-05:00

by Dimples Doublefist

This is serious, y'all. I am going to give you the Best Recipe Ever. Unfortunately, I did not make this one up. Plus, I am not going to tell you who did, but suffice to say a very talented chef came up with this one; I have adapted the recipe slightly (I am a bigger fan of spice and garlic). It's one of the most delicious things I've ever stuffed my face with. It's easy and fairly quick, too. This is the recipe that I make at least once a week---because it's amazing.

Look, I know you are thinking that cauliflower is bullshit.

But let me tell you - it's not. If you associate it with white trash crudite dipped in Ranch Dressing, then you are sadly missing out on its ability to make your mouth sing. And yes, I know what you're thinking: another boring pasta dish. How totally inane. You can shove that attitude up your ass, too - you'll eat those words!

The cauliflower is good for you. It has lots of fiber, folate and vitamin C. Just look at this: "the compound indole-3-carbinol, which appears to work as an anti-estrogen, appears to slow or prevent the growth of tumors of the breast and prostate. Cauliflower also contains other glucosinolates besides sulfurophane, substances which may improve the liver's ability to detoxify carcinogenic substances. A high intake of cauliflower has been found to reduce the risk of aggressive prostate cancer." [Courtesy of our friends at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cauliflower] Cauliflower will ensure that all your junk keeps working well into old age!

Anyway, so here's the recipe. Cook this shit up tonight. Be prepared to want to eat it the next night and the night after that.

Spicy Cauliflower and Onions with Linguine

Olive Oil

I head Cauliflower (if you are lazy or lame, buy a bag of frozen florets)

1 large Vidalia onion

1 large can of plum tomatoes

5 cloves of fresh garlic (granulated actually works fine, too)

1 heaping tablespoon of hot pepper flakes

3/4 cup of yellow, Hunza raisins (they sell these at Whole Foods in the bulk section--and if you can't find them, regular yellow raisins will suffice)

1/2 cup pine nuts

Salt

Pepper

Saute the cauliflower florets in a generous amount of olive oil until cooked---about 10 minutes. Add a little more olive oil and add chopped Vidalia onion to the pan, cooking until translucent---about 5 minutes. Then sprinkle hot pepper flakes, a generous amount of salt and pepper, and add garlic. Stir around pot for a couple of minutes. Then add pine nuts, yellow raisins and dump the jar of tomatoes in. Use a spatula to break the tomatoes up and stir the dish well. Taste to see if you've added enough salt and pepper. On low, let the sauce simmer for about 10 minutes.

Serve right away over linguine.

This recipe probably serves 4-5 normal people. Or three over-eating vegans.

Bon Appetit!

P.S.

This is an excellent dinner party recipe because people will think you worked really hard and are really talented---and you won't have to break a nail over this recipe.

A Tisket, A Tasket

2009-01-06T10:02:00.007-05:00

Item!

PETA sends Bristol Palin a baby gift

Among the many gifts Briston Palin will receive to celebrate the birth of son Tripp is a gift basket from PETA. The animal rights group says since Tripp’s “grandparents never met an animal they didn’t like — to eat or shoot” — they sent some gifts that send a message of peace toward animals and the world. Among the items are a “Give Peas a Chance” onesie and a bib emblazoned with the slogan “Animals Are My Friends.”

“Tripp will inherit a kinder and more compassionate world than the one his grandparents cling to,” PETA’s Michelle Cho wrote in a letter included with the gift. “There is a growing consciousness among people everywhere of how our actions affect those around us, including animals. Helping children understand that animals are living, feeling beings who deserve to be treated with respect and compassion will help them grow up to be kind, compassionate citizens.”

Now, it's nice of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to send Lil Miss Palin a gift basket for her bastard child and all, but I am pretty sure the thought behind the gift will be lost on the Alaskan twit. Bristol was brought up in a family that chants the inane mantra, "If it moves, shoot it" and eats anything that once had a face.

I can only hope that among the many other gift baskets the daughter of Alaska Governor and all-around idiot Sarah Palin receives is one from Planned Parenthood extolling the virtues of birth control, safe sex and other means to curtail her stupidity. Her mother clearly failed in her task to teach her these things. Besides, the current number of Palins littering the world is more than enough.

Am I wrong? No, I am not.

Attack of the Killer Chinchillas!

2009-01-03T13:52:00.015-05:00

Wow, I don't even know where to start with this one. I have abhorred this posturing, preening, flitting, prissy asshole for years and years, and I didn't even KNOW he was this stupid.

Yes, y'all. I am talking about fashion icon and all-around idiot Mr. Karl Lagerfeld, the man responsible for turning Chanel into a line of clothing so ugly, tacky and garish that even strippers would be embarrassed to be seen in public in it.

Are you ready for this?

Here we go.

Mr. Karl Lagerfeld says it's okay to wear fur because, and this is a direct quotation, the "beasts would kill us if they could."

Can you imagine a chinchilla gnawing you to death? Can you picture a mink, its mouth about the size of the tip of your pinky, chewing on you until you were dead? No? I can't either.

The circular logic in the statement is baffling, but the entire interview leaves one with the realization that Mr. Lagerfeld simply must be suffering from the last stages of dementia, drooling onto a couture bib as someone spoons him some mashed peas.

The main issue, however, is this - who cares whether or not a fox, rabbit, mink, chinchilla, and yes - dog or cat (if you think dogs and cats aren't used as fur, you're fooling yourself) - would attack and "eat" us if they had the chance? We have evolved to the point where we are able to make conscious decisions based on what is right and wrong. Raising an animal in filthy conditions, neglecting it, leaving it to spend its life in a cage, just so some stupid cunt can wear its fur after you've anally electrocuted it, is WRONG. It is just plain wrong.

Mr. Lagerfeld, 75, bleated out his idiotic views on fur in a recent interview, stating that in a world that eats meat and wears leather it is "childish" even to discuss whether or not fur is okay. He went on to argue that, of course fur is okay because there are people who make their living from it. Guess what, you limp-wristed dipshit - there are people who make their living selling drugs to kids. Does that make it okay? Use your brain, and stop using that fucking fan. You look like an asshole.

The Chanel supremo said it was "childish" to even discuss the issue of wearing fur in a world where eating meat was normal.

German-born Lagerfeld, 75, a contemporary of the late Yves Saint Laurent, said that he did not himself wear fur. But he defended the practice, saying there was "an industry who lives from that".

Hunters in the north "make a living having learnt nothing else than hunting", he said, "killing those beasts who would kill us if they could."

The fudge-packing fashionista* made himself sound even stupider by saying he "gets queasy" around meat and can't eat it unless it doesn't look like meat.

"I can hardly eat meat because it has to look like something what it was not when it was alive," he said.

(Read the whole article HERE and realize what a schmegeggy this shithead is.)

But it's okay to pick up a small, helpless animal by its tail and smash its head against the ground until it's dead or at least to the point where it won't struggle while you rip its skin off. That's acceptable to Mr. Lagerfeld.

Fur is gross. Mr. Lagerfeld is gross. I can't even award him the coveted Douche Alert Award, because he's just too egregiously stupid for that one. This rambling nincompoopery goes to a new level of assholeism that few ever achieve.

Inane Cunt Award, perhaps? Bloviating Buttplug Award, maybe? If you can think up a better name for his personal award, please let me know. I'm all ears.

(* I am allowed to make fun of him in this manner because I am gay and therefore immune to accusations of homophobia. And I'm allowed to make fun of him in this manner because he deserves it.)

Raw Food In St. Pete.

2008-12-26T17:41:00.016-05:00

photo from the St. Petersburg Times

Leafy Greens Cafe is a raw food and vegan establishment in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida.

My friend Gina alerted me several weeks before my annual sojourn to St. Petersburg, Florida that a raw food restaurant had opened its doors in the downtown area.

"I don't buy it," was my response.

St. Petersburg, deep in the heart of Florida, is not known for its celebration of healthy living. We Southerners tend to like things dead, deep-fried, gutted, battered, glazed, hickory smoked, filleted, corpuscular, and bloody.

"It's true!" she exclaimed. "And it's fucking good!" she added excitedly. She had been down to visit her father recently, and had eaten at the restaurant every day, at least once a day.

Now, Gina, a friend I've had since the early '90s, is one of the few people I know who shares my absolute affinity for trying the most esoteric, bizarre, costly, time-consuming, or downright perverted forms of veganism.

She was famous back in the day for her homemade rejuvelac and her multiple jars of sprouts and nut pastes and butters, all of which she would consume happily while emitting random "mmm-MMM!"s and "God DAMN, this shit is good!"s.

At the time, I found her raw food penchant to be a bit too strange - I was relatively new to vegetarianism and had not yet teetered over into complete and utter veganism.

Oh, I tried vegan foods, but back then - when something said "Vegan" on it - it was pretty much guaranteed to taste either like composted coffee grounds or unwiped ass. Things have improved markedly over the past decade-plus, and now a vegan can eat things that taste absolutely amazing without putting too much effort into it.

Over the years, I realized that veganism was for me, not just to help animals (though that was the primary reason leading to my decision), but people and the environment as well. Finally, I decided to try raw food, first at Cru in Los Angeles, then at my old New York standby joints - Westerly and Lifethyme - and finally, at Jill's in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.

Gina had come to visit, and she wanted to try Jill's. We went there, and we tried each and every one of those God Damn desserts, sounding like hogs at a trough, yodeling out from time to time with joy - "Oh my god, this is so FUCKING GOOD!" and "Jesus, can you believe this shit is raw?!?"

But all of that is really beside the point. You expect to find weirdo shit like that in New York and Los Angeles.

We're talking about St. Petersburg, the home of Ted Peters Smoked Fish House and more Bob Evans than you can count. We're talking about a town that prides itself on its many BBQ restaurants that use pigs in aprons and chef's hats as their mascots.

She and I made plans in advance to go to Leafy Greens Cafe (at 409 Central Avenue) when I got home. Nestled in the downtown area next to the old Kress Department Store and in the space where the old McCrory's was (I got some Urkel-O's cereal in that McCrory's in 1994... gross), this place was about as unassuming as a place can possibly be. I was very excited.

The owner, who came over and talked to us while we were waiting for our food, had an interesting story regarding her raw food choice:

As a Raw Foodist (that’s what we are called), I am living proof that eating a vegan diet does wondrous things to a person’s health.

In early 2007, I was diagnosed with Systemic Lupus, which is a degenerative immune system disease. I was told that, without treatment, I could die in five years.

This is a genuine wake-up call for anyone! I began a raw food diet the next day. I bought a small cookbook but found that the recipes were horrible—the food was pureed in a blender and had no flavor or texture. My husband, Doug, and I almost gave up but because of my health (and because I had purchased a week of food for the raw food venture), we decided to purchase another cookbook that was highly recommended online (“RAW the uncook book” by Juliano.

After one meal we were hooked! The food was wholesome and amazing! In four months, my blood was totally transformed and the doctor released me saying that he could find no sign of any illness!

After my amazing experience, I decided that I had an obligation to introduce as many people as possible to the delicious vegan food we love and tell anyone who is willing to listen about my near-miraculous healing!

She was a lovely woman, clearly very passionate about her food and lifestyle choice.

I ordered:

mango soup - "This is my daughter Joanne's invention! Mango, coconut, lemon, and a bit of nut milk pureed and topped with chunks of mango and shredded coconut. Delish! Eat it for breakfast, lunch or dinner!"

The Real Deal - "The first time I had this onion bread was at the Grass Root, a raw and vegan organic restaurant in Tampa. I was blown away! Our sandwich is served on our delicious homemade raw onion bread and stuffed with raw cashew hummus, chopped lettuce, guacamole, sprouts, and halved grape tomatoes."

I also had a raw chocolate, peanut butter and banana smoothie.

Now, to say that this food was delicious is not doing it justice. It was just plain amazing. That raw onion bread - however the hell she made it - will haunt my dreams until the day I die. It was oh so good.

So good, in fact, that I went back the next day and ordered the same thing (I tend to do that - I know I'd be a better reviewer of hippie establishments if I'd sample their supply, but I can't help it. I loved that onion bread and I wanted it again, god damn it).

Gina and I took a confirmed non-vegan, meat-eating friend of ours there. He got the "Not-tuna sandwich" and he exclaimed that it was completely delicious.

Gina, on an "all-fruit" binge for the day, decided to have the "Banana Blast" - "This absolutely delectable dish is made from bananas, chopped nuts and pure vanilla bean and topped with berry sauce garnished with fresh fruits and homemade chocolate shavings! WOW!" Wow is right... I tried that motherfucker and wished I had ordered my own!

Basically, what I'm trying to say is two things - 1) I am baffled, proud and amazed that my hometown has gotten progressive enough that raw food restaurants can thrive in it, and 2) I am glad that this particular raw food restaurant serves really good, dazzlingly delicious food.

Go there and try it! You'll be very happy you did.

(Read a full review of Leafy Greens from the St. Petersburg Times here)

Home for the Holidays.

2008-12-23T08:25:00.006-05:00

I'm not known for my patience, or for my tact. So how can it be possible for me to convey to my egregiously ignorant family the ins and outs of WHY I became vegan in the first place? Though they tolerate my behavior (and in some cases actually go out of their way to accommodate it) they in no way pretend to understand or care why I'm doing it.

Comments like, "I just wish you'd eat dairy and eggs. It would be so much easier," and "Vegetarian's fine - but why vegan?" come and go on a regular basis.

Now, I know my family. And I know that if I were to start to talk to them about crowded, inhumane conditions in factory farms, the fact that these farms are major contributors to Global Warming, the detrimental effects dairy and meat have on the human body, that we are the ONLY SPECIES on the face of the planet that steals other species' baby formula and consumes the nasty, foamy shit as adults, and that little tiny fact that the subjugation of species for our pleasure is just plain wrong - well, they would just tell me to shut up.

"I don't want to hear it," my mother has said. Or, "I don't care - when I want a hamburger, god damn it, I'm going to have a hamburger!" Another statement of wisdom.

This more baffling exchange happened just yesterday. I was telling my family that tuna are going to be extinct in five years due to gross overfishing and human greed (nice Holiday Talk, I know, but it came up somehow). "But tuna tastes good," my niece said. Now THAT I could handle, because she was just being sassy. But then - THEN - we went to lunch at a primarily vegetarian restaurant and what does my father order? A fucking tuna sandwich.

I know they're not doing this crap to be vindictive or horrible and that those who are active in progressive movements must be ready to face many roadblocks toward their goal of success, but shit. If I can't even talk to my family about this without being ridiculed, how the hell am I going to talk to anyone else?

People know that Global Warming is barreling down on us and is going to destroy our planet. They talk about it in dire terms. They carry their little post-consumer-waste bags and drag their groceries and other goods around in them. They wear their little green activism t-shirts and buttons and such. But they just won't give up meat and dairy - the single most meaningful and lasting act they could POSSIBLY do in order to save this planet from impending chaos, horror and doom. Saying it on a t-shirt doesn't do a DAMN thing if you don't follow it up with action.

Then there's also the fact the grain we grow to feed our livestock in factory farms could solve the world hunger crisis many times over. But we don't care, damn it. We want those Steak-ums!

Why is it so ingrained in our heads that eating meat is acceptable? I can guarantee that if 3/4 of the people who blithely cram hot dogs and ham and beef stick and hoagies and pepperoni down their throats were confronted with the gruesome reality of the meat industry, they would swear off meat immediately (just a little example - did you know that factory farm cows, vegetarians by nature, are forced to consume "enriched" grain that has been "enriched" with the guts of other animals, including cows?).

My resolution will be to gently, kindly figure a way to talk to people about why eating meat is destroying the earth. Will I be able to do it? History says "no." But I have to try.

The True Face of Fur.

2008-12-21T18:34:00.007-05:00

Here is what people who wear fur REALLY look like:

Animals' skins weren't meant for people to wear. It turns out most people - even those who defy logic and actually parade around in these garish shrouds of death, decay and suffering - know that.

I have an anti-fur button on my backpack from a Friends of Animals anti-fur event at the Jivamukti Yoga School in Manhattan.

Now, given the increasing number of shameless cunts who have decided that fur is okey-dokey, I've kept this button on my backpack as a less aggressive form of protest than, say, dumping paint on them (though I have to admit that would be much more satisfying).

Miraculously, I have seen many people, after peeking at my little button, attempt to obscure their fur coats, either behind their husbands, behind packages, by folding them inside out, or any other manner of ways that don't work.

What does this say to me? It tells me that these selfish twats are fully aware that their coats are ugly, inhumane, horrifying, and the ultimate article of greed. It says to me that they know right from wrong - they just don't care. At least not enough to actually separate themselves from their need to feel socially superior by wearing dead animals.

Fur as fashion is dead, in more ways than one - making people who cling to this grotesque display of superficiality feel guilty is not only fun, it's just what they deserve.

Second Annual Douche Alert - Elizabeth Hurley.

2008-12-18T14:26:00.019-05:00

Should read, "What becomes a SOULLESS WHORE most?"

I know this isn't news to those of you in The Compassionate Set.

But, I didn't know about Elizabeth Hurley's inability to separate monetary paychecks from karmic ones - that is, until I looked at the website for Blackglama.

It saddens me to see such a seemingly attractive person doing such hideously unattractive things. It really does. But... I'm going to have to go ahead issue the following statement:

Elizabeth Hurley is the recipient of the Second Annual Douche Alert Award. Congratulations, Elizabeth Hurley, for proving to the world that you care more about money than compassion, the environment, and a world free of suffering for ALL living beings.

You look like an asshole draped in all those little dead animals. No, wait. You don't look like an asshole... you ARE an asshole.

* * *

Blackglama's logo is, "What Becomes a Legend Most?"

Well, shit heads - I can tell you what becomes a heartless pig most, and that's wearing one of your "world's finest natural ranch-raised mink" coats.

The only things that look good in minks are MINKS. People who feel that it is a-okay to strip these little animals of their fur so they can satiate some ASININE need to increase their status are downright deplorable human beings. They're proving they aren't worth the air they're stealing from the rest of us.

Fur is an antiquated, barbaric, loathsome, and heinous fashion accessory. Those who continue and approve of its use are guilty not only of murdering countless thousands of animals but also of POLLUTING THE PLANET needlessly. All so some fat cunt can "look good" at the opera.

Given fur's recent inexplicable and grotesque increase in popularity, it looks like I'm going to have to issue a LOT of these Douche Alerts.

Get ready, y'all. When the fur comes out of storage, Ye Olde Pompous Vegan gets PISSED THE FUCK OFF.

Fuck you, Elizabeth Hurley. Fuck you.

Dirt Candy. Unless You Like Supporting Cretins, Stay Away.

2008-12-12T15:59:00.011-05:00

Dirt Candy. What is it, and why does it sound so thoroughly unappealing?

Why, it's a vegetarian restaurant in the east village. Its egregiously stupid "trying too hard to be cool" name would be enough to turn anyone off, but there's more - it is owned by, from what I can gather, one of the most unpleasant and adversarial vegetarian chefs on the planet.

Now, I like supporting vegetarian places, even if they're NOT vegan. They generally have at least one or two things on their menu that will accommodate "weirdoes." However, after reading this self-important and just downright rude shit, I am turned off.

In several recent interviews, this woman, Amanda Cohen, has made it be known that she thinks most vegetarians are "weird" and that vegetarian restaurants are "terrible" (because, she claims, they don't have "real chefs" - they have people who are into "lifestyles").

To top it all off, she isn't even a vegetarian. She eats fish. Why not stay true to yourself and open a restaurant that openly and honestly does what you are doing under the guise of "vegetarianism"? Instead of insulting the lifestyles and ideals of the people you're attempting to cater to, why not just serve steak and get it over with?

Here are some questions and answers from her recent interview in The Feedbag:

Amanda, what’s the deal with Dirt Candy? What’s the difference between it and other vegetarian restaurants? Is there one?

Here’s the thing: these are real dishes in a real restaurant. I’m not trying to convince anybody not to eat meat. I want normal diners to come in say, you know what? I’m not missing the meat. I’m using plenty of butter, using plenty of cream. So maybe one night someone can eat without meat; it’s actually very traditional.

The thing is, though, that vegetarian restaurants are always terrible.

Always! They’re horrible. Horrible! And you know why? Because they don’t have real cooks. The people who cook there have no culinary background; with this kind of food, you really have to know how to cook. If you don’t, it’s going to be awful. And it is.

They’re more ideologues than cooks, the same way the people who eat there have philosophical baggage instead of wholesome appetites. So what’s the point? Is it a health thing at Dirt Candy?

No! Look, there are lots of vegetarians who don’t care about their health. Look at India. It’s partially religious, but mainly, it’s how they grew up. I’m not Indian, but it’s how I like to eat. I just enjoy eating it, and that’s how I cook.

So if you go to this restaurant, you can learn to be a self-important asshole and get fat at the same time! Let's go!

That doesn’t sound so bad! So it’s not only weirdos who come in to eat there?

Unfortunately, I get a lot of weirdos. But we’re not a weird restaurant.

And from another interview on Gothamist:

So taking the premise that most vegetarian restaurants are say, making menu choices based on a lifestyle diet instead of being adventurous with food, what is it about Dirt Candy that sets it apart?

I think there are two differences. One, we do use dairy. Cheese, dairy, eggs, all that. That’s a huge difference. And then, also, I think our food is much more focused. We have a focal point on vegetables. That’s what I’m celebrating here. Other vegetarian restaurants are much more international, all encompassing, all over the place. Their focus is vegetarian food, or I guess I would say vegan food. My focus is vegetables. I get to be a lot more eccentric because I only have this one thing I do; it gives me these parameters to work within. Whereas if I was at another vegetarian restaurant, I could be like, I’m doing some Chinese food, I’m doing Italian food and I can do anything I want with it, and it’s so much broader. It’s almost like the difference between a really good diner and a fish restaurant. The diner probably does do some fish but it’s not going to do it as well as the fish restaurant.

I know in this time of global warming, when we've discovered that raising animals for meat, dairy and eggs contributes immensely to the destruction of our planet through climate change and grain production, it's whimsical and witty and charming to "make fun of the weirdoes" - but guess what, lady. Like it or not, you're adding to the problem with your fatty butter-and-cream-and-eggs menu.

Oh. And then there's that whole cute little issue of farm animals living in horrid conditions and being treated miserably for their entire lives while entitled creeps open quirky little bistros and insult those of us who are trying to do something about it...

Dirt Candy: this is one weirdo you can count on never, ever showing up at your shame barn of a restaurant.

Douche Alert...

2008-12-08T12:33:00.011-05:00

It's our first annual Douche Alert, y'all! (They'll probably come way more frequently than that, but "first annual" sounds so fantsy, we just couldn't resist).

Douche Alert #1 goes to Kid Rock. He's a dipshit, he's ugly, he's stupid, he's a brawler, he's entered Pamela Anderson, and he loves to wear fur.

How much does he love it?

Well, to quote an article posted by our friends at Ecorazzi - the Green Gossip Site, "My biggest extravagance is fur coats - I’ve got every kind of animal in my wardrobe."

What does that tell Ye Old Pompous Vegan about Kid Rock? It tells us that Kid Rock is bereft of moral value, a cum dumpster of selfishness and vanity.

Kid Cock goes on to state that he wants a "war" with PeTA. Just try it, moron. If you think you'll be able to defeat an organization KNOWN for its psychotic, rabid devotion to animal rights, you're just plain wrong. I don't defend PeTA's often infantile ways, but I'm going to enjoy watching this shit unfold.

How Pamela Anderson, PeTA spokesperson and vehement animal rights activist, let this braindead douchedrip into her velveteen netherfolds is beyond us here at Ye Olde Pompous Vegan. Perhaps she hadn't tapped into this particular tragic hobby of his at that point.

Whatever the case, Kid Rock - and those like him who insist on wearing the skins of animals that were raised in horrible conditions, neglected, possibly actively tortured, and then put to a horrible death just so some materialistic, status-seeking assholes could "feel better" about themselves - just plain old needs to fuck off, like his career did years ago.

S-U-S-H-I

2008-11-30T09:34:00.004-05:00

Jesus Christ. Pompous yuppies and people trying to be "cultural," read up - this shit is sad and scary:

If an army marches on its stomach, then the key item in the kit bags of the Roman legions that conquered southern Europe about 2,000 years was dried bluefin tuna. But having survived the demands of the Roman conquest, the species — each of which can weigh as much as 1,500 pounds and live as long as 40 years — might finally have met its match in the contemporary global appetite for sushi.

If environmentalists and marine scientists are right, the world's remaining stocks of bluefin tuna, 90% of which are in the Mediterranean, could be on the verge of extinction. Says Alain Fonteneau, a marine biologist for France's government-run Institute for Development Research in Montpellier: "If we do nothing, in five years we will fish the last bluefin tuna."

read the rest here.

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty horrified by this particular snippet of news. An entire species decimated because of sushi?!? Simply and positively disgusting.

I can guarantee you that no one is going to do a god damn thing about this, either. Oh, I've heard the arguments before. "I understand the concern, but I just love it too much. I can't give it up," or "So what? It's just a fish," are things people say. Yes, for real. So, we might as well say goodbye to tuna. People are far too selfish and far too stubborn to give up one tiny thing that would make a change.

Sacrifice is the only way to make things work - I hope people will pick up on that sooner rather than later. Here is one perfect and urgent example of what sacrifice could do for the world.

Sodey.

2008-11-17T12:30:00.000-05:00

by Dimples Doublefist

I used to be one of those people who poo-pooed soda--figuratively. My step-dad growing up worked for Coca Cola, but there was no carte blanche soda drinking in our house; in fact, I was hardly ever allowed to have soda--only on special occasions. Thus, I never really acquired a taste. Plus, the one fear my mother really did instill in me: pop will make your teeth rot out.

When Chop't, the salad place, opened its doors several months ago, I started ordering their lime seltzer; I was instantly in love. Having never been a Perrier drinker, Chop't's house-brand soda, Boylan Vintage Soda Pop and Seltzer, is the bomb. But Boylan only started the addiction.

My new favorite soda is IZZE-esque. It's the -esque part that's important: there's only a hint of sweetness. It's the love child of premium seltzer and natural soda, so it's both refreshing and slightly naughty. A whole bottle only has 60 calories.

My favorite flavor of IZZE-esque is the black raspberry, closely followed by the mandarin. Inexplicably, the lemon-flavored one is terrible (the lemon flavor also contains some sort of Chinese-sounding fruit juice extract that I've never heard of, which might be the culprit; for all we know, it could be melamine!). If you try that one, you will write the whole thing off.

Drink up!

Y'all.

2008-11-10T11:56:00.003-05:00

The Pompous Vegan has been away in Madagascar for most of October. You can read about his sojourn here. It was a whirlwind of joy, and he is sad to be back here in the United States. But he'll get over it.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama is "set to reverse" the majority of Turd Cutter's missteps as president. So it is to be hoped that the future for the environment, both here and abroad, will be a bright one. At least we now have a President who cares - one who states that clean energy and environmental protection are at the foreground of his vision.

Congratulations to everyone who helped make this dream a reality. Can you imagine a world in which Sarah "Africa's a Country, Not a Continent" Palin actually had a say in what was happening? We'd all be doomed.

Keep her away from power, and help Barack Obama make the MOST of his four (and hopefully eight) years.

Broadway Doesn't Go for Booze or Dope.

2008-11-03T12:18:00.002-05:00

by Dimples Doublefist

I am not an alcoholic. In fact, before a year ago, I probably consumed a sum-total of ten alcoholic beverages per year, over the course of two nights. That's because I do like being drunk, but only twice per year.

That's changed since moving to Washington, DC--a place that's inspired me to give up some bad habits and to pick up news ones. I have, more or less, stopped my flirtation with cigarettes (meaning I don't smoke a few cigarettes every month or so); unfortunately, I now--like everyone else here--drink for fun.

I used to just go out and get cocktails---gay drinks that contain no fewer than five fruit juices, a splash of seltzer and some kind of designer booze. I love this variety of cocktail, no matter how declasse and trashy. But things have taken a turn for the worse: I now drink a lot of Trader Joe's wine. And I love it.

Blame it on Sarah Palin: as soon as that moose-hating tyrant was catapulted onto the national stage, I found myself embracing the Two-Buck Chuck Shiraz. And even though Two Buck Chuck actually costs $3, what do I care? It tastes good and does the trick.

The shiraz is heaven-like nectar: a little bit sweet and smooth as a baby's bottom. It's mother's little helper that's gotten me through the horrors of the general election with a relaxing ease.

I recommend a bottle or two on hand for tomorrow.

Brigitte.

2008-10-07T14:53:00.004-04:00

Shazam!

Former sexpot film star turned animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot busted a big time move on Sarah "Pig Fucker" Palin in a rebarbative memo sent Tuesday:

"By denying the responsibility of man in global warming, by advocating gun rights and making statements that are disconcertingly stupid, you are a disgrace to women and you alone represent a terrible threat, a true environmental catastrophe," wrote Bardot.

and:

In a final salvo against Palin, the 74-year-old ex-star picked up on Palin's depiction of herself as a pitbull wearing lipstick and said she "implored" her not to compare herself to dogs.
"I know them well and I can assure you that no pitbull, no dog, nor any other animal for that matter is as dangerous as you are," Bardot wrote.

God damn! Let's not get on this lady's bad side... she ain't fucking around.

Meanwhile, if anyone deserves to be trashed, it's Sarah Palin. Her blatant, unrepentant ignorance and lies are a disgrace to democracy and to the world. Should she be allowed to ascend to the vice-presidency, we might as well just quit because we will have failed.

Read the article here.

Extinct.

2008-10-07T11:46:00.007-04:00

This is the Holdridge's Toad - once a denizen of Costa Rica's rain forests. Despite regular searches for remaining members of this species, the last recorded sighting was in 1986. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature declared it extinct this month.

Help, please.

2008-10-06T13:14:00.006-04:00

Okay, this is serious. This is no longer just a "tree hugger's whining" - this is life or death. A new study shows that half - yes, HALF - of the world's mammal species are endangered. We've got to act on this immediately. We've got to rethink the way we live, stop being so greedy, end the destruction of these animals' habitats and ecosystems.

I don't want to have to explain to children of the future that these animals were once here but aren't anymore because we were just too lazy to figure shit out. This is for real and we all need to work toward a viable solution to this devastating problem.

If you're talking to someone about this and they say they "don't care" - you have my permission to hit them really hard.

BARCELONA, Spain - One in two mammal species on Earth are in decline and at least one in four are at risk of disappearing forever, according to a scientific survey released Monday and whose sponsors described the trend as an "extinction crisis" in the making.

"Mammals are declining faster than we thought," said Jan Schipper, lead author of a companion study being published this week in the journal Science.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature released the data compiled by 1,700 experts in 130 countries, adding that the numbers could be even worse given that data was lacking for hundreds of mammal species.

and:

In South and Southeast Asia, 79 percent of primate species are threatened with extinction, the IUCN noted.

You can read the whole article here.

Can you imagine what the world will be like as we sit back and watch these animals just disappear? What will be left? I don't want to think about it. But I have to. We ALL do. Our actions are what will decide the fates of these beautiful animals.

What's more important - a new housing complex or the survival of a species?

How do these people sleep at night?

2008-10-04T21:36:00.006-04:00

Our Vice-president, Mr. Dick (DICK) Cheney, had this to say recently:

"As all of you know very well, President Bush made wildlife conservation an early and a high priority of his administration. We’ve carried out that commitment in these eight years — and we’ve been proud to have people like you as partners in the enterprise.

The men and women in this room understand what conservation is all about. It means reverence toward creation, and a commitment to faithful stewardship. It means guarding our spectacular wildlife populations — not just for our own time, but for all time.

As anyone who reads, thinks, speaks, or has opposable thumbs KNOWS, it is a defendable fact that the Bush Administration has done everything in its POWER to remove protections from animals, destroy the Environmental Protection Act, make it easier for protected lands to be drilled for oil, and see to it that all bunnies, puppies, tarsiers, marmosets, newts, roaches, and cows are shot dead until the only living things left are fat, stupid Republicans.

Seriously - the lies these people have told and continue to spew are so horrid and evil that it's a wonder they haven't imploded from all the bad karma they're creating. The next administration - as long as it's the one that will actually DO anything about this stuff - is going to have one seriously immense job on its hands. The world is getting closer and closer to being permanently screwed; we need people to do something about it, not just lie and pretend everything's okay.

Read this. And then this.

When are we going to stop TALKING about saving the planet and actually SAVE IT? We can have all the "thinktanks" and coffee klatches and summits we want, but that's not going to stop species from dying and forests from being depleted. Action is needed, and it is needed RIGHT NOW.

I have enough.

2008-10-04T20:31:00.002-04:00

We have so much here and are so ungrateful.

Vegan Treats R Mmm-MMM Good.

2008-10-04T12:16:00.000-04:00

by Dimples Doublefist

Every vegan already knows that the best, most trashy, decadent and delicious baked goods are made by Vegan Treats--a bakery in Bethlehem, PA. Until a couple of months ago, unless you lived in New York City (or, obviously, PA) you were, as the saying goes, shit out of luck.

Two things have recently happened, one of which is completely fucked up: Vegan Treats now delivers to Washington, DC and Sticky Fingers, Washington DC's crap-tastic vegan bakery has opened a store in NYC. But we are here to focus on the former, not the latter, because the latter is very bad news, because Sticky Fingers is disgusting--the shame of vegan baked goods.

That's right: some of Vegan Treats' specialties--like the brownies, cream-stuffed cookies and cheesecakes--are available at Java Green and Busboys and Poets. They are not only better than Sticky Fingers, they are less expensive, too.

I only get my panties in a wad over one item, however; and it's something that's so good and perfect, I am left breathless and heaving every time I eat it: The Chocolate Peanut Butter Mousse Bomb.

I know that's kind of an obnoxious name for a mere brownie. But, oh, I forgot!: This is no mere brownie! Just look at that pregnant plop of mousse sitting there on that gooey chocolate mass--all rich and chewy, just like your momma didn't make. So what if it's the vegan equivalent to a Double Whopper with large fries?

This baby is fierce and you should go eat one now.

Whole Foods Strikes Back

2008-10-03T11:15:00.000-04:00

There are many things to hate about the Whole Foods in Columbus Circle:

It's in Columbus Circle

It's packed with rich, self-important dildoes who excel at being obnoxious, either intentionally or otherwise, and generally have 2-5 screeching babies and/or toddlers in tow

Most importantly - and this is the ONLY Whole Foods in New York City guilty of this egregious offense - they do NOT label which items in their deli and buffet section are vegan. Every other Whole Foods has a dark green label above their items' ingredient lists that states 'VEGAN' if, in fact, the items are vegan. Why does this one have to be the lone offender? Why is it so hard to accommodate vegans in a fucking health food store?!?

So it is easy to say, this is not a pleasant place. Trying to maneuver through the ocean of dipshits that filters through this kiosk of the damned is about as fun as being told your test results won't come back for another two weeks.

I was about at the end of my hippie-food rope when I spotted something here that no other Whole Foods, at least to my knowledge, has - vegan desserts from Candle 79. Now, I've never been to Candle 79 - but most vegans in New York City, and some NOT from New York City (like my co-author Jiggles) have ululated endlessly about this place and its otherworldly ability to create food bordering on erotic.

Now, I'm on a dessert sabbatical at the moment. As you may have read in past posts, I went a little overboard with the desserts, and Mr. Waistline suffered tremendously. However, to further the cause, I purchased one of these divine concoctions. There were several to choose from - Chocolate tart, chocolate peanut butter tart, some fruit tart shit, and some other fruit tart shit.

Fuck fruit - I wanted the chocolate.

I don't really know what to say about this except, "Holy fucking balls." One of the best desserts I've had... voluptuous chocolate in a subtle, delicious crust. Smooth, creamy, god damn divine.

It's a good thing going into that Columbus Circle Whole Foods gives me hives, otherwise I'd be eating one of these motherfuckers every day, and then where would I be? Fat and poor.

Do the Hunza!

2008-10-02T12:15:00.000-04:00

Let me tell you what - this raw food is mad expensive, yo. It is an unfortunate fact, however, that I absolutely love - and I mean LOVE - raw food. I love it. Sure, some of it tastes like coffee grounds in the compost - and yes, a lot of it is even more fattening than its cooked counterpart - but I still love it. I love the concept of it and the fact that, by its very nature, it makes me at least pretend to be a better and healthier person.

Meanwhile, I don't have time for a lot of these raw food shenanigans. I don't have time for things to sprout or soak or decompose or dehydrate or any of those other processes one must go through in order to make any of this shit even slightly palatable. Therefore, as with regular food, I have turned to the "fast food" version of raw foods - and that generally entails really expensive, yet delicious, "on the go" treats.

My favorite for quite some time has been the Go Take a Hike! trail mix as presented by our friends at International Harvest.

goji berries
mulberries
golden raisins
cacao nibs
cashews
pistachios

Throw all those motherfuckers together and you've got a combination of comestibles that, when blended, equals DELICIOUS.

A word of advice - be sure to shake the fuck out of your sack of Go Take a Hike! to make sure them cacao nibs are evenly dispersed throughout. Otherwise, you're in for a bitter surprise at the bottom of the bag. When mixed with the sweeter dried fruits and nuts, the nibs are divine. Alone, they taste like chalky doom.

A note to the people at Gohunza.com and every other raw food website - why is it that every single page on your sites EXCEPT the ones from which you can earn money are perpetually "under construction"? Are you too busy dehydrating rain forest-friendly fruits to write a god damn paragraph telling us why your product should be eaten? Get the god damn lead out of your asses and get some marketing skills. Jesus.

"You Need Not Think Alike To Love Alike." - Francis David

2008-10-02T11:41:00.006-04:00

Hippie-ism. I had no choice in the matter.

Take a gander, y'all. This is the kind of shit Marky Mae Brown was raised on. I used to watch this program every Sunday before my parents would whisk me away to that den of liberalism and sin known a the Unitarian Universalist United Fellowship (formerly the Francis David Unitarian Universalist Fellowship). There, I was exposed to free-thinking and radical ideas like love, kindness, community organization, helping the impoverished, working for world peace. There, I discovered what it means to care about something deeply, to strive for unity despite differences.

This program was clearly made before the Reagan Era destroyed the last remnants of the "peace and love" movement, ushering in mass market consumption and greed - an unpleasant and overpowering trap we still find ourselves in today, perhaps more so than ever before.

I doubt very highly that a program like this could be made today - there's no place for licensed products here. I'm glad I was brought up when I was. My eyes were opened to things a lot of today's kids will never see. We seem bent on driving home the "us vs. them" mentality of the Bush I and II regimes. I wonder if we'll ever escape that stupid, backward thinking and once again attempt to realize that, underneath it all, we're just people.

Happy World Vegetarian Day, y'all.

2008-10-01T11:02:00.005-04:00

Yes, today has been declared World Vegetarian Day - a celebration for those of us who are able to move past the instant gratification of hogging down (get it?) a piece of bacon or getting a McRibs from the McDonald's drive-thru and see that meat consumption, farming and production is cruel, unnecessary and harmful to the planet. So to all y'all out there who are down with the tofu pups instead of the real thing - I say, "bust a move" and thank you for helping to make the world a kinder, gentler place.

For those of you who are NOT vegetarians - why don't you just try it for a day? You'll feel better, you'll be gaining good karma by practicing a little bit of the old ahimsa, you'll be saving animals' lives, and you won't be contributing to an industry that promotes torture and destroys the environment. Give it a whirl - what's a day gonna do to you?

Meanwhile...

Not to be a downer or anything, but this ad pretty much sums up one of the main reasons (and there are several) that I think this Alaskan carbuncle shouldn't be in charge of her own existence, much less the free world. Someone needs to slap this bitch to sleep.

I'm just sayin'.

Issues

2008-09-27T21:27:00.002-04:00

Don't you love how congress just okayed offshore drilling and no one wrote about it or cares? Typical. Here is is, buried with little fanfare under tons and tons of press about Paul Newman, who died today. Is that sad? Yes, of course it is. But this is sad too.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – The Senate overwhelmingly passed a spending bill Saturday that allows a 26-year ban on offshore oil drilling to expire, subsidizes federal loans for automakers and offers aid to Gulf Coast hurricane disaster victims.

The House already passed the $600 billion stop gap funding bill on Wednesday. The bill, which passed the Senate on a 78-12 vote, will continue government spending at the current level through March 6, 2009.

President Bush is expected to sign the measure.

The end to the ban on oil drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts is a major victory for Republicans. Speeches at the Republican National Convention last month were often interrupted with chants of "Drill, baby, drill."

The ban will be lifted October 1.

Say goodbye to those coral reefs.

Hamburger Helper For Hippies.

2008-09-24T12:13:00.001-04:00

by Marky Mae Brown

If you're a lazy god damn son of a bitch like I am, you want to be able to prepare something in, oh, about five minutes - something that tastes fucking awesome but requires little to no action on your part whatsoever. Because, let's face it - cooking for one is boring. Lame.

I have a solution! It's cheap as hell, and it tastes deee-licious. Plus, if you purchase the right variety, it has almost no caloric value whatsoever. Observe our friend Jyoti:

Once upon a time, a young girl named Jyoti, born and raised in New Delhi, living in Houston with her Engineer husband (Vijai) and two little children, was studying for a Master’s degree in Nutrition at the Texas Medical Center. Upon completion of Graduate School, she decided to start a business that she could run from home. Prepared Indian style foods of authentic taste and high quality were not available. In modern-day cooking, flavor and nutrition are the important concerns and convenience is very much desired. Recognizing that, and noting America’s intrigue with the tantalizing tastes of India, Jyoti decided to develop Indian style natural foods and sensible fat and salt content and to sell such foods via mail order from home. Jyoti developed recipes for Indian home style foods in cans, and Vijai helped with manufacturing technology for having those foods packed under JYOTI Cuisine India name.

This is some fly ass shit, y'all. I know it's canned and canned food is supposedly "bad" for you because it's processed and blah blah blah. But guess what. I don't give a fuck. As I said, I am lazy.

May I direct your attention in particular to the Delhi Saag - Spinach and Mustard Greens with Ginger and Peppers. One can has 4 servings at 60 calories each. That ain't shit. Especially since a "serving" according to whoever figures this shit out is usually about a quarter of what a real person actually consumes. So bring this shit on, y'all, cuz it is mmm-MMM good.

Ingredients: Mustard greens, spinach, water, onions, soybean oil, corn meal and corn starch, fresh ginger, hot peppers, lemon juice, and salt.

Now, I've modified this shit a few different ways, each more awesome than the next. For example - one night, I added in cubed tofu. It was like a mock paneer. Another night, I added some Morningstar Farms Chik'n Strips (totally vegan, y'all) and some Bragg Liquid Amino Acids (I add that shit to everything, thanks to Gina). And yet another concoction involved some fresh steamed kale (steamed in vegetable broth, which makes it extra delicious) so that I didn't feel like I was being TOO fucking gross in eating canned slime.

Try it, y'all. It's like taking a Trek to India. And it only costs $2.79 at Ye Olde Purveyor of Fine Comestibles.

Soup Is Good Food.

2008-09-19T12:10:00.001-04:00

by Dimples Doublefist

For breakfast and lunch, these are the questions I ask myself (listed in order of importance):

1. Will it make me fat?

2. Is it vegan?

3. Is it inexpensive?

4. Will it make me want to take a nap after I eat it?

5. Will it make me stink?

6. Will it kill my dogs when they finally force me to hand half of it because they've given me the Evil Puppy Dog Eye and abused their telepathic superpowers (that means it can't contain grapes, raisins, chocolate, onions, macadamia nuts or onions).

Like Jennifer Coolidge and my significant other, I eat a hell of a lot of soup; I also do a lot of talking and not talking--especially at work. And I am ashamed to admit it, but a lot of said-soup is Dr. McDougall's Right Foods. Let me just get this embarrassing detail out of the way: it's the kind of soup that's dehydrated, with a pull off top. They are frequently on sale for $1.29, and I keep them well-stocked at work. All I have to do is add hot water and voila!

Here's the thing: these soups do not taste like shit*, but they are not delicious either. They are decent, and I embrace mediocrity in all aspects of life. However, they meet all the important criteria: they are fat free, vegan, cheap, inoffensive, and my dogs LOVE them. They totally go all Lady and the Tramp on the Hot and Sour Noodle Soup; it's precious!

Since all of us may be eating at the soup kitchen together in the very near future, I recommend getting some practice in with Dr. McDougall.

(But stay away from the Split Pea...because it looks like diarrhea. Just sayin'.)

How Corporations Are Working to Save the Environment.

2008-09-17T16:18:00.003-04:00

It's good to know that in these days of increasing fear over our limited resources, corporations - those supplying us with our daily needs - are taking into account the preciousness of life and reworking their products accordingly.

Example:

NEENAH, Wis. - If two-ply toilet paper is good, then three-ply tissue must be better. At least that's what toilet-paper researchers in northeastern Wisconsin hope.

Yes, there is such a thing as a toilet-paper researcher. And a team of them at Georgia Pacific's Innovation Institute in Neenah has come up with a three-ply version of its Quilted Northern product.

The new product will be launched Monday. The company touts the toilet tissue as "ultra-soft" and says it plans to market the product to women 45 and older who view their bathroom as a "sanctuary for quality time."

Read the rest up in here.

Just what the Lazy Assholes of America need - three-ply toilet paper. For fuck's sake.

This just about sums it up...

2008-09-12T15:54:00.001-04:00

We were alerted to this by our friends over at Ecorazzi - the green gossip site, and, well, it just sums everything up perfectly. So here you go.

Bust a MOVE, Pamela Anderson. Bust. A. Move.

Mirror, Mirror On the Wall.

2008-09-12T11:29:00.001-04:00

by Dimples Doublefist

Look at that precious baby. I know I'm no professional photographer or anything, and this might not be a Glamour Shot, but you know damn well that's a pretty baby. I know you want to eat that baby.

A few months after I moved to DC, I stumbled onto the best vegan pizza I've ever sunk my teeth into---and it's right in my neighborhood, so I can eat it anytime I goddamm well please. That pizza is from Astor---a quaint little restaurant that sits right beside Yes! Organic Market on Columbia Road. It's the best kept secret in DC.

As the saying goes, the devil is in the details and this pizza contains melt-in-your-mouth eggplant, a sauce so rich and garlicky (without being overwhelming) that it makes your mouth water, and a hand-tossed, brick-oven baked crust that is unparalleled. Let me tell you: I have eaten the shit out of this pizza and my love affair is not even close to being soured. No one could ever get sick of eating this shit.

I know there are haters out there---people who can't imagine a pizza that tastes delicious without cheese. But I dare you to not fall in love with this one. This love is guaranteed.

Wouldn't you rather have MEAT?

2008-09-11T10:30:00.004-04:00

From the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali:

Obstacles occur when the mind is distracted,
and this can be caused by illness, fogginess of the mind,
having doubts, carelessness, and laziness
And by mistaken views of the world
that are left uncorrected,
failing to reach specific levels,
or not being established in them firmly.

Geshe Michael Roach's translation explains: "Our culture today has its own massively mistaken ideas of the world, and these cause all the hunger, poverty, sickness, and war in the world. If our people's view of the world is causing pain to others and ourselves, then we must look for a better one, one that works. If it doesn't work, we cannot simply continue to follow whatever we learned as children, whether it came from parents or schools, churches or governments."

So, what does all this blathering, hippie crap have to do with anything?

Well, I bring this up specifically in regards to red meat consumption. And our duty as a society to right a wrong that is not only detrimental to our physical health, but to the health of the planet.

"I like hamburgers," people say. Guess what - so do I. I'll go one step further - I LOVE hamburgers. I used to eat those things Every single day. Hamburgers were one of my favorite things about being alive.

But, like lots of things that I love - cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, Madonna - hamburgers turned out to be bad. After reading scientific proof that cattle farming is irrefutably tied to global warming - and this was YEARS before the UN's global warming report came out - I gave up red meat.

The 414-page United Nations report Livestock's Long Shadow concluded that the livestock sector is "one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global." The report suggested that the livestock industry should be "a major policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity."

Meat Is the Number One Cause of Global Warming
According to the U.N. report, raising animals for food generates more greenhouse-gas emissions than all the cars, trucks, trains, ships, and planes in the world combined. The livestock sector is one of the largest sources of carbon dioxide and the single largest source of both methane and nitrous oxide emissions. Nitrous oxide is about 300 times more potent as a global warming gas than carbon dioxide. According to the U.N., the meat, egg, and dairy industries account for a staggering 65 percent of worldwide nitrous oxide emissions.
read the rest of the article here

Then there's just the idea that we, as thinking rational beings - the "pinnacle of evolution" - should be able to overcome our desire to murder other beings for food and for clothing. We've progressed beyond any of this being necessary.

Ahimsa is a lovely concept to grasp and enjoy. Put simply, ahimsa is nonviolence to any living being. It's a practice that makes you a better person.

Ahimsa (Devanagari: अहिंसा; IAST ahiṃsā) is a Sanskrit term meaning non-violence (literally: the avoidance of violence - himsa). It is an important tenet of the religions that originated in ancient India (Hinduism, Buddhism and especially Jainism). Ahimsa is a rule of conduct that bars the killing or injuring of living beings. It is closely connected with the notion that all kinds of violence entail negative karmic consequences. The extent to which the principle of non-violence can or should be applied to different life forms is controversial between various authorities movements and currents within the three religions and has been a matter of debate for thousands of years.

Though the origins of concept of ahimsa are unknown, the earliest references to ahimsa are found in the texts of historical Vedic religion, dated to 8th century BCE. Here, ahimsa initially relates to "non-injury" without a moral connotation, but later to non-violence to animals and then, to all beings. The idea emerges again in the Hindu texts Mahabharata and Manu Smriti, where ahimsa is said to be merited by good Karma. Though meat-eating and slaughter of animals are criticized by some Hindu texts, other texts present counter-arguments in support of hunting and ritual sacrifice. In the 19th and 20th centuries, prominent figures of Indian spirituality such as Swami Vivekananda, Ramana Maharishi, Swami Sivananda and A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami emphasized the importance of ahimsa. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi applied ahimsa to politics, by his non-violent satyagrahas.

Ahimsa in Jainism emphasizes vegetarianism and bans hunting and ritual sacrifice. Jains go out of their way so as not to hurt even small insects and other minuscule animals and make considerable efforts not to injure plants in everyday life as far as possible. In accordance to this policy, eating of some foods, whose cultivation harms small insects and worms as well as agriculture itself, is to be abstained from. Violence in self-defense, criminal law, and war are accepted by Hindus and Jains. Though ahimsa is not used as a technical term in Buddhism unlike the other two religions, it condemns ritual sacrifice and war and moral codes emphasize the importance of not taking life.

read the whole article here

Why am I being so hippie-ish today?

Because I am a hippie. I am a hippie who believes that all sentient life on this planet has a right to exist in its own circle of being without being trodden on by other sentient forms of life. When rednecks devastate a forest that is home to an endangered species and claim their rights to the land supercede those of the animals - they are displaying extreme ignorance. One animal - whether it's a bird, a slug, a roach, a mosquito, or a human - does NOT have more right than the other.

If humans could get over their egocentric idea that they own the planet and other animals are just guests, then maybe we could get this place back in shape and keep it beautiful and clean for future generations of ALL species.

One way to start this process is to cut the fucking meat out of your diet. Animal farming - factory farming especially - is causing massive destruction.

Red meat - like cigarettes, alcohol and Madonna - is horrible.

Not only in what it does to your body, but what it does to the planet. But, like cigarettes and alcohol, lots of people just can't get enough of it. Ultimately, letting the red meat stay on the cow is the best way to show your adoration. Sacrifice is hard - but sacrifice is necessary.

We've got to reshape society to overcome "meat love" if we want to survive. That's just the way it is.

Salty Balls.

2008-09-08T11:32:00.000-04:00

Disregard that part about "seafood meal" enjoyment, or pretend they're talking about nori.

Mmm-MMMM! I just waddled over to the Westerly Natural Foods - my favorite purveyor of organic delectables in Manhattan - and ventured into the raw foods aisle to retrieve a snizzack that would satiate my desire for something sweet without adding girth to Mr. Waistline.

What I found was "Temple Balls II" - an all-raw, vegan and certified organic snack from our friends at Glaser Farms, way down in Miami, Florida.

Ingredients - "organic medjool dates, organic raw almonds, organic sesame, celtic sea salt, organic spices."

I rolled a few of these balls around in my mouth for a hot minute before coming to the conclusion that these are the best balls I've had in quite some time. They get a big, fat thumbs-up from me, y'all.

By the way - yes, there really IS a difference between Temple Balls and Temple Balls II.

Glaser Farms differentiates them thusly -

Temple Balls: "Surprisingly moist and delicious."

Temple Balls II: "These yummy little balls have a grown up taste that even kids clamor for. All raw."

Get your hands on these balls if you know what's good for you. This shit is fucking good.

Retards at Work and Play.

2008-09-08T10:26:00.005-04:00

Sarah Palin Wants a McDonald's Here.

I did not watch the RNC because the mere mention of that Alaskan cunt's name makes my hands ball into fists involuntarily.

The moment I read of Gopherz picking her as his running-mate, my stomach immediately cramped into an acidic knot of doom, misery and horror. I was so nauseated by that news that I had to get up and leave my apartment, walking around Fort Greene park and looking at the trees and dogs in order to calm the fuck down. Because, basically, Sarah Palin stands opposed to trees and dogs. Especially if they get in the way of her greedy and idiotic quest to rape Alaska's virgin territories in order to suck the limited supply of oil out of the northern territory to "end our dependence on foreign oil."

I did not watch the RNC. But I know they were all chanting, "Drill, baby, drill!" in a brainwashed, short-sighted, idiotic cacophony of Wal-Mart shopping and meat-gorging shame.

These people just refuse to think. They refuse to grasp the concepts that oil dependence is a large contributing factor to this planet's rapidly decreasing stability. They refuse to figure out that once you destroy a forest, it isn't going to grow back. They refuse to stop to consider that animals - in this case, polar bears and wolves - are beautiful sentient beings that deserve their homes just as much as we do.

"Drill, baby, drill" is a mantra being heard around the country because these people fear change. They are afraid of a new approach - one that would create jobs and help us clean our air, rivers, forests... one that would pave the way to a cleaner, healthier planet for their children and grandchildren. Fear stops us from doing lots of things, but in this case, it's a fear we MUST overcome.

What's the big deal about electric cars? What's so wrong with wind energy? Why do these people make fun of this stuff as if it's something that one would read about in the sadly-defunct Weekly World News? These alternative energies and means of transportation have not only been proven to work, but are also NECESSARY if we don't want to end up living in a hell of our own doing.

Some scientists say it's already too late to do anything about our eventual downfall. I am too optimistic to grasp that concept, surprisingly. But it's coming up fast... and with schmegeggies like this ululating out their brainwashed idiocy with the glee of a child on Christmas day, it's going to be a fucking hard fight.

But we have to do it. We HAVE to stand up to these big-business turds. Sarah Palin's statement that she "doesn't believe" the science that proves global warming is manmade says to me that either she hasn't read the UN documents on global warming, or she's so entrenched in the oil business and its profits that she just doesn't care. Scientists from around the world accumulated that information - it wasn't, as dipshit conservatives blather, a "liberal agenda." It is proven. It is a fact.

We have to defeat Sarah Palin and Gopherz. If we don't, she and her minions of money-grubbing asswipes will wreak even more intense havoc on our beautiful planet than we've suffered in the hands of Dipshit McGee and his asinine eight years of reversals and inaction.

"Drill, baby, drill" - y'all need to wake the fuck up.

Burritos In the Mornin' Make Me Happy

2008-09-03T12:06:00.001-04:00

by Dimples Doublefist

Is there anything you love, but you know there's no particularly good reason why? Whatever it is might not suck, but you know it doesn't deserve its own haiku--much less a sonnet. You love it just because you love it: maybe it evokes some childhood memory or a fun vacation. It's one of those things you probably love privately--like Beyonce or masturbation.

Anway, that's how I feel about Amy's Breakfast Burrito. I seriously never tire of them. When they are 2 for $4, I buy copious amounts and stuff them into my refrigerator at work. If they become slightly boring (which they really never do), I buy a jar of salsa and dunk them in it. They have potatoes, tofu, salsa, black beans, peppers and onions. It's the trifecta, even if that's more than three perfect things.

In general, I could take or leave Amy. Some of things taste like downright shit. I do love that cheeseless pizza a whole lot, but unlike Stumps who is completely enamored by that rice crust/Follow Your Heart vegan cheese pizza, I'd rather be locked up here in my office all day and smell my boston terrier's diarrhea farts. In other words, I despise it.

What Amy's product do you love?

Without the rain forest, life on earth is unsustainable.

2008-08-30T18:57:00.002-04:00

The Amazon. Wouldn't a Wal-Mart look great here?
A few months ago, on a whim, I picked up a pre-publication copy of a children's book my last place of employment was publishing - it was called You Can Save the Planet.

It was the evening before I was getting on a plane for Los Angeles (after being a good psychotic hippie and buying carbon credits to make my trip carbon-neutral), and I was bored. I flipped to a page and started reading. This book, mind you, is for kids. I opened it to a chapter on the rain forest. It started (and I am paraphrasing) - "Did you know that without rain forests, life on earth would be unsustainable? Did you also know that an area of rain forest the size of a football field is cleared EVERY SECOND?"

Well, needless to say, my evening was shot. This shit is ridiculous. I KNOW they're poor and doing what they have to in order to survive. I KNOW a lot of them don't know any better. But, Jesus Fucking Christ. We have to teach them how to farm sustainably. We HAVE TO.

It can't be that difficult.

And now there's this trinket of news:

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Amazon deforestation jumped 69 percent in the past 12 months — the first such increase in three years — as rising demand for soy and cattle pushes farmers and ranchers to raze trees, officials said Saturday.

Some 3,088 square miles of forest were destroyed between August 2007 and August 2008 — a 69 percent increase over the 1,861 square miles felled in the previous 12 months, according to the National Institute for Space Research, or INPE, which monitors destruction of the Amazon.

We need to figure this shit out. And we need to do it NOW. Land-raping has to stop - at the rate we're going, there won't be anything left to plunder.

What can we do?

Donating money to some "fund" that emails me on a daily basis, wastes god knows how much paper and fuel sending out annoying bulk mailings on a weekly basis, gives away "premiums" like stuffed dolphins that I'm sure were made in China - that's obviously not working.

We've got a cute little movie called Madagascar - it shows lemurs and sifakas and aye-ayes frolicking in the beauty and wonder of a Paradise on Earth with rivulets and food and baobab trees and fruit a-plenty. But did you know that only ten per cent of Madagascar's rain forest - yes, that's correct - TEN PER CENT - remains, and even that is teetering on the brink of being clear-cut?

All those cute little lemurs and chameleons and tenrecs and aye-ayes kids are going to be cheering when Madagascar 2: Escape 2 Africa comes out in November - they're dying out really, really quickly because Malagasy need to know how to farm sustainably.

I would volunteer my services GLADLY if I could find an organization that would teach farmers how to work without clear-cutting. I would work for FREE as long as I could have the knowledge that I was helping save the rain forest from complete and utter destruction.

Anyone have any ideas? I'm not kidding.

Princess Ariel's Wedding Day

2008-08-29T20:49:00.002-04:00

Princess Ariel by norn

Once upon a time in the Magical Meadow lived a pony named Ariel.

Now, Ariel was no ordinary pony! She was the Crown Princess of the pony kingdom. She ruled with dignity, kindness and love of brother.

She was revered by all because of her intelligence and outstanding beauty. Of special note to her subjects were her hooves, which shone like gold in the morning sun. She had them polished every day with a special ointment made of honeysuckles, dew collected from the lilies of the field and yeast. Oh, her hooves were gorgeous.

One fine spring morn while making her rounds through the kingdom, she noticed a homeless little pony in the gutter with a broken leg. Oh, poor street urchin pony!

She gathered the ailing lad on her back and carried him back to her castle where she nursed him back to health and gave him a steady job and a place to stay. The princess couldn't explain it, but after spending so much time with the once-downtrodden pony she started to fancy him. The two fell in love.

On the eve of their wedding day they were strolling through the pasture snacking on fresh wheatgrass and oats. All of a sudden, a huge net trapped the love-struck ponies and two horrid men jumped down and clonked them on the heads, chopped off their hooves and shot them, leaving their broken, mangled bodies there to become carrion, a rotting testament to lost love.

But the children in the next village all said that the jell-o at Timmy's birthday party was the best ever.

Sarah Palin - harbinger of doom.

2008-08-29T11:50:00.002-04:00

How does someone who claims he is "pro-environment" and "green" choose as a running-mate a strident opponent of any environmental progress, one who OPPOSED placing the polar bear on the endangered species list and one who denies the science that proves global warming exists? HOW?

If this shit-smear actually gets elected - we might as well all just say goodbye to nature right now, because she does not give one FUCK about anything but oil and money.

Ode To Embryo

2008-08-29T11:23:00.002-04:00

by Dimples Doublefist

Every vegan tells the same tired story: "the hardest part was giving up cheese." Then they'll go on and on about all of their little indiscretions, their fucks ups that ultimately led to the path of righteousness. Some will tell you how such-and-such vegan cheese is really "not that bad," and you'll know they are lying because ALL vegan cheeses are disgusting except for Dr. Cow's Tree Nut Cheese (but that's only for the rich and fabulous in NYC and Washington, DC, apparently). Anyway, you get the point: vegans remember cheese as some sort of totally affordable Oxycontin--nothing like a slice of Velveeta to make the pain go away or a wedge of brie to make you feel loved--whose high never fades away.

All I have to say is: fuck cheese. I loved eggs.

I already know what you are thinking: ewwww, eggs are gross, slimy, fetus-secretion-slime-balls, OMG. But I loved them. I ate heuvos rancheros like I was on death row and it was my last meal, as often as I could. I liked 'em poached, fried, scrambled, deviled or sunny-side up. I never met an egg I didn't like. It was harder to give up eggs than it was my totally gluttonous collection of leather shoes.

Unfortunately, most tofu scramble sucks. There are many mistakes to be made: the tofu is too soft or the water is not properly drained; the cook is talentless and the wrong spices are used or the ratios are off; usually, it's D) all of the above.

I can happily report that there is a tofu scrambles that is actually un-fucking-believable. It's the recipe in Isa Chandra Moskowitz's instant-classic Vegan with a Vengeance. Her recipe is amazing for several reasons: 1. she goes into great detail about how to get the texture right (large, well drained chunks) 2. she gets the spices right--garlic, turmeric, nutritional yeast and fresh lemon juice and 3. she adds the right combination of vegetables, which is always red peppers, garlic, onions and lots of mushrooms. The final result is outstanding. I haven't tasted a finer tofu scramble.

But there's nothing like a supple tofu rancheros, which no one seems to be able to make with any proficiency. However, the Twin Sisters Cafe in San Antonio, Texas makes a pretty fucking great one: the salsa is hot as shit, the tofu scramble is not earth shattering, but it's good, there is a homemade tortilla and delicious black beans that are rich and garlicky. But when it all comes together, the result is fabulous. I could eat this shit every single day. I'd die happy if I dropped over with garlic breath and few black beans wedged between my teeth. Buenos Dias!

I still miss eggs when I forget about the egg industry for a split second--or I happen to lose sight of the fact that no animal was put on this earth to be dominated and commodified to death. Those are big words, yes, but they point to a simple truth: I don't know what the fuck this life is about, but egg salad will never point toward Higher Truth. At least I know that much.

Issues

2008-08-27T16:05:00.001-04:00

I just want everything to be safe and healthy. Why is that so much to expect?

Mongo Avoid Candy

2008-08-27T11:54:00.002-04:00

After Mongo's many excursions into the realm of vegan desserts over the past few weeks - and believe me, there have been plenty - he's taking a sabbatical from the soy non-dairy frozen desserts, the rice non-dairy frozen desserts, candy, cookies, pudding, scones, biscuits, fruit roll-ups, dips, chips, cakes, chocolates, whips, and any other number of unnecessary comestibles because he has gained an enormous amount of weight and, well, just plain doesn't like it. When Mongo finds that clothes are starting to bind and pull and be stifling to wear - Mongo knows he needs to lay off the god damn pudding pops.

But that doesn't mean that Marky Mae won't contribute. MM, Mongo's keeper, is on a path to clean eating and will share things that don't add bulk to Mr. Waistline.

Desserts - whether they're created with teat extract or vegan replacements - turn you into an unhappy, fat bastard. And Mongo, for one, is TURNED OFF.

The hippie goddess has landed and her name is Michele.

2008-08-19T12:02:00.001-04:00

by Dimples Doublefist

Basically, there are two demons who rule my life: the first is the demon who's afraid of getting fat and the second is the demon who can't stop eating. It's a vicious and unending cycle.

Unless I am nauseatingly stuffed, going to the grocery store is a dangerous proposition: if it says it's vegan and the packaging is somehow shiny and the word "delicious" is mentioned, chances are I want it. And I want it right now. That's what happened when I made a trip to Yes! Organic Market in Adam's Morgan this past Sunday. That Cherry-Vegan Chocolate Chip-Macadamia Nut Granola was screaming, "Buy me, gaywad, buy me!". So, I did.

I love granola, but there haven't been a plethora of opportunities to write haiku about it over the years, but Michele's Granola, which is locally made in Baltimore and available all over Washington, DC, is truly incredible. It's crispy, chewy and utterly delightful. Thank you, Michele, for bringing this hippie staple to a new level.

Really, this is the best granola I've ever had---and rest assured, I have made my own (because it's super easy). But even my own sucked in comparison. Michele has found the magic formula, and that apparently amounts to using a gourmet oatmeal cookie recipe and crumbling it up, bagging it and selling it to hippies like me.

Chocolate tongued bliss,
chewy cherry sticks to teeth;
Fat demon attacks.

Mongo Like Candy... (part 3)

2008-08-17T10:43:00.000-04:00

All right - we'll just admit it. Mongo is a fucking pig. I mean, he'd eat shit if it was dipped in chocolate. So if he sees something that sounds even moderately appetizing and is vegan, most likely he'll obsess over it until he buys it and gobbles it voraciously, even if it tastes like blended compost.

Observe:

This weekend, Mongo consumed:

One pint Organic Rice Dream Orange Vanilla Swirl

One pint Purely Decadent Coconut Craze

Two -yes, two - Rice Dream Frozen Pies (chocolate and mint)

More, but he's trying to modify the list so y'all don't realize how much of a pig he truly is. I mean, this shit is fucking gross.

So it should be fairly obvious - Mongo likes his junk food. A lot. So when he saw Smart Treat Chocolate Almond Joy, he snapped that motherfucker up asap. It looked delicious, two little chocolate cups just a-hankerin' to be eaten by a big, fat junk food hog like Mongo.

And then he read the label.

Asheville again.

What is it with these hippies? You know, Mongo used to live in Asheville. Mongo sometimes wishes he STILL lived in Asheville. But Mongo knows that if he DID still live in Asheville, he'd be working in an assembly line or at a coffeehouse, spending his evenings chainsmoking, getting drunk, dropping acid, and boning rednecks. that's just how you operate when you're in Asheville. It is a laid back town.

This snackfood had something going for it before he even opened it - memories of Mongo's past.

Mongo had consumed Smart Treat snacks (like the Chip Of Everything Cookie -"so good it'll make you want to fuck" - that should be this cookie's slogan), but never this variety. He had enjoyed their previous efforts, so he assumed this one was going to be just as fucking awesome as the other vegan comestibles the Smart Treat wizards had whipped up down South.

Then Mongo took a bite of the Chocolate Almond Joy. Thumbs down, y'all.

This shit is so sweet even Mongo didn't like it. I mean, the sweetness makes it difficult to even figure out what this shit tastes like - that's how sweet it is. Totally uncool.

The texture is velvety and gorgeous. The chocolate melts in your mouth. The center is moist and divine. But you never get to enjoy it because you're too busy cramping up and bloating from the sweetener (brown rice syrup, the label says). It could kill you, this thing.

So, Mongo was disappointed. Mongo loves candy, y'all, but Mongo doesn't love the Chocolate Almond Joy from Smart Treat in Asheville.

Mongo like candy... (part 2)

2008-08-14T10:39:00.001-04:00

Mongo has been eyeing a particular brand of raw chocolate recently. And because Mongo likes to try new things and love love LOVES to spend inordinate amounts of money on superfluous crap, Mongo succumbed to his desire and purchased one of these little numbers today.

It has everything that entices Mongo - it's vegan, it's raw, it's made without refined sugar, and it comes in 100% biodegradable packaging. Mongo would have to say that Love Street Living Foods had him hooked before he even opened the god damn package.

From their website: Our 100% raw organic Fair Trade chocolate products start with cacao and cacao butter harvested organically from Ecuador still in its most mineral-rich and living state.

Organic raw chocolate is filled with health-giving nutrients, minerals and enzymes. Raw chocolate is different than conventional chocolate which has been roasted and cooked at high temperatures. We use raw cacao butter and coconut oil, rich in nutrients and minerals, unlike the unhealthy and hydrogenated oils in most chocolate, for a creamy texture. The special addition of maca, super nutritionally rich staple from Peru, results in a true super food delight! This is the way chocolate was meant to be grown, harvested, prepared, and enjoyed!

Mongo originally saw this chocolate at Lifethyme but passed it up when he asked the cashier how much it was and the cashier responded, "I don't know, but it mad expensive." Mongo put it back because he didn't have time for such shenanigans, but then Mongo spotted it again today while at Westerly Health Foods, his favorite hippie comestibles kiosk in New York.

$3.79 - not too terrible, given the retardedly overpriced nature of raw foods.

Mongo bought it and rushed home with it, eager to slice that biodegradable packaging open and give this shit a whirl. Well, he did. And Mongo gives Love Street a big, fat THUMBS UP.

It does NOT taste like raw chocolate. It tastes like - surprise - chocolate. It's a little gritty, but one has to assume that's because it's sweetened with maple sugar, which is granular by nature.

Try it - you'll like it. It is deee-vine. There's another version with goji berries in it, but Mongo thinks goji berries are gay and steered clear of that one.

Mongo did, however, just peruse Love Street's website and come across this little number that sounds so good he almost started crying. Mongo hopes that Westerly carries it because Mongo won't rest until he's dipped into that Tub of Wonder.

This is the least ridiculous video of this awesome song
Mongo could find on youtube.

Oh Yes, My Dear Man - More Beans!

2008-08-13T11:48:00.000-04:00

Look, I know I complain a lot about the food in Washington, DC. And yes, it's no secret that I am insulting the vegan food, or the lack thereof, specifically. But that's the way it is: if you are lucky enough to find something vegan on a menu, chances are you'll wish you hadn't. My beef with this place is its obsession with it. Barf.

My standards for lunch food, however, are impossibly low. Let's just say I eat a lot of bean burritos. Occasionally, a salad or some leftovers are thrown in for good measure, but rice, beans, salsa and tortilla comprise about 98% of my diet before 6 PM. That's because, across the street from where I work, there is Juice Joint---a completely bells and whistles-free cafe that makes an awesome, filling, less than $5 vegan burrito. Somehow, I don't get sick of it.

However, diagonally across the street, a new restaurant opened that got me excited: Organic to Go. Upon further investigation, I find out that it's actually a chain that started on the West Coast, and DC is the first venture east. The name of the place got me totally excited. So, yesterday, I decided to check the place out.

Because I went during lunchtime, of course the place was packed. It's a block from the White House on K Street, so I expected as much. There is a salad bar, a large assortment of bottled and fresh juices, a sandwich menu and a pizza menu. There is only one vegan sandwich on the menu---and, of course, it's the most uncreative stereotype of vegan food imaginable: a roasted vegetable sandwich drenched in vinaigrette dressing. I don't know about you, but I'd rather walk across the street to the park and forage for dandelion greens that my dogs have probably pissed on.

The place, you know, because it's "organic," is crazy expensive and everything looks ridiculously boring. There weren't even good smells wafting through the place. The salad bar is de rigeur, and $8 a pound! Yes, I believe in the concept of organic, especially when applied to local farms, but please: this is just another capitalist venture aimed at cashing in on people believing a tiny $10 sandwich is going to prevent wrinkles, baldness and cancer.

I don't know about you, but I am sticking with my trusty burrito.

Sticky Fingers

2008-08-12T11:34:00.000-04:00

by Dimples Doublefist

A few years ago, I was sitting around minding my own business when I noticed an ad for Stinky Fingers Bakery in Washington, DC. I think it was VegNews magazine and I think they had bestowed some sort of prize and/or honor on them. But I remember this crystal-clear: there was a picture of a sticky bun.

And since I love Sticky Buns like lesbians love folk music (complete devotion), I knew right then and there I had to have one. I did what any desperate addict would do: I told the BF that if he really loved me, he'd buy me a tray of sticky buns and have them mailed to North Carolina [The real 'Secret' is that, in order to get what you really want, it's best to be both direct and manipulative simultaneously].

Well, the answer to that question was obvious: not only did I receive a tray of sticky buns, but I also got a whole tray of Little Devils---the creme filled, chocolate sandwiches. Sadly, though, when the box arrived, there was icing all over the place; it was a gooey mess. The whole thing was a substandard packaging nightmare. But I know you don't give a shit about that.

Well, the sticky buns were drier than the Mohave, and they basically tasted like something out of one of those supermarket cinnamon rolls that are fun to burst open and bake. In other words, they are fun in theory but taste like ass. I hold this opinion to this day: they are dry, and for a sticky bun, they lack density, flavor, richness. Why the fuck eat something called a "sticky cinnamon bun" if it isn't actually sticky? The Little Devils, on the other hand, were amazing. The chocolate was rich and moist and the creme was smooth and dreamy. Dee-lish.

Now that I live here, I am sad to report that the place is still a mixed-bag. Most vegans here won't be honest and tell you that. They'll go on and on about the place, but I am convinced that either their taste buds choked to death on one of their disgusting bone-like cookies or their standards are impossibly low; that is to say, they are used to eating sand.

The Corvin is sort of the white version of the Little Devil---with an oatmeal cookie-esque out layer. It's way, way too sweet, but the flavor is good. They have deli sandwiches that are as uninspired as they come---faux tuna, faux deli meat, chickpea salad sandwiches---but they are not awful. They also have this faux egg mcmuffin thingy that, I have to admit, is tasty. They are, however, very expensive. In fact, everything at Stinky Fingers is expensive---right down to their (very small) $5 cones of vegan soft serve. The place might cater to smelly fixed-gear-bike riding poseur punks, but only the ones with dough to blow.

I am told that the custom cakes at Stinky Fingers are exceptional, but I can't comment on that because I haven't tried them. Given the crazy ass prices, I probably won't. They are, indeed, very pretty, though, and that alone counts for something. (Plus, I don't know why they don't spend more time decorating the cafe; it's hideous, with it's slight swirl of pink that's supposed to resemble, I suppose, either garish icing or Peptol Bismol dripping down the sides of the wall).

After all the shit talk, I do go there occasionally, but it's mainly out of White Vegan Guilt: shouldn't I support a vegan business, even if it's not particularly awesome? Well, yes, I suppose I think I should.