vegangirl.com

Macaroon from West Village Market

I’ve been eating very healthfully for many weeks so today I decided to indulge in a treat. But only one, so it had to be good. A gluten-free, vegan macaroon at West Village Market caught my eye a couple of days ago, and that was what I wanted today.

I’m very happy with my choice. It’s a large, coconut chocolate chip macaroon that was freshly made somewhere nearby. In other words, not in a package or full of preservatives. Very soft. Very filling.

For a small, neighborhood grocery store, West Village Market does a pretty good job keeping their store stocked with exciting vegan (and gluten-free) options.

Cafe Luna in Charlotte

Maybe it’s because I had more time to spend in Charlotte on this recent trip, but the city seems significantly more vegan-friendly than ever before.

First though, the bad news. Blynk Organic, the super healthy, vegan-friendly, soup and salad restaurant at the Southpark Mall, which I wrote about in a previous post, is no longer there. It was so good that we were actually looking forward to eating there again. I’m sure many readers are thinking, “who gives a crap about mall food?” Well, I hate shopping at the mall too, but the truth is that the only reason I ever go to Charlotte in the first place is to buy clothes, because you just can’t find petite women’s clothing in Asheville. It was nice to have a place in the mall to grab a quick bite to eat.

But on to all the good stuff, some of which is new, most of which has probably been there for years but I just didn’t know about it.

Fern, Flavors from the Garden, is a new all-vegetarian restaurant, a bit on the fancy expensive side.  Plenty of gluten-free, vegan options available. The flavors were impressive. The only complaint is that the portion sizes of the entrees were very small. I think most people would be disappointed with, especially considering the price. I do highly recommend trying it.

Buckwheat Blaster at Luna's

Luna’s Living Kitchen is a raw, vegan restaurant, open only for breakfast and lunch. Many gluten-free options. They have an extensive breakfast menu, but I was hoping to order something off the lunch menu. Unfortunately it was too early, and I didn’t end up making it back there again later. I ordered the Bombin’ Buckwheat Blaster, which was tasty and full of fresh fruit. For me though, it was way too sweet, which means most people would probably love it. Even so, I could tell the quality of the food was top notch, and I hope to try their lunch menu next time I’m in Charlotte.

I’m sorry to say, I found out too late about Zizi’s Vegetarian Restaurant. It’s 100% vegan, take-out/delivery only, lots of gluten-free options and lots of comfort food. It looks fantastic. It’s #1 on my list of places to go the next time I’m in Charlotte.

Not a restaurant, but I have to mention….

The Greener Apple is a new little all-vegan store. I should really say, The Greener Apple is an all-vegan tiny corner of a large book store. Despite it’s surprisingly small size, I did walk out of there with 3 things I was genuinely excited to find – peanut butter cups, dog bisquits, and something like a sponge but much less disgusting than a sponge. Make sure to look for the “Book Buyers” sign in order to find the store.

There are also plenty of grocery stores in Charlotte that have all the vegan food you could want. Healthy Home Market, where I did my grocery shopping this time around, has 3 locations and a ton of gluten-free breads. Earthfare has 2 locations in Charlotte. Berrybrook Farm is a great little health food store in Charlotte, but it’s pretty small. They also have an excellent sandwich shop inside.

Veggie Love (photo from veggieloveasheville.com)

Veggie Love, Asheville’s own vegan and gluten-free food truck, has been around since this past summer. I finally managed to try them out today, when they were parked a few blocks from my house. For such a small city, Asheville always surprises me with all of its vegan resources. I’ve lived in bigger cities that didn’t have this much to offer vegans.

I was tickled to see, painted on the truck, “gluten-free”. I asked if all the food is gluten-free. She was quite definitive. “Yes, everything is always gluten-free, now and forever.” So great. There were also some raw food options as well. They even sell coconut water, which is my latest addiction.

I ordered miso soup with seaweed and a Dosarita, which was just like a south Indian dosa, as far as I could tell.

It’s no 5-star restaurant and the options are limited (it is just a little food truck, after all), but everything I ate was good and healthy too. Definitely a great place to go if you need a quick bite to eat and they’re parked nearby. I’m happy to report that there was a line for food, so hopefully they means they are doing well and will be around for a long while.

Go to their website, www.veggieloveasheville.com, to find out where they’re parked.

Blueberry Pie from A Piece of the Pie

First, let me say that I love pie. Sometimes, when people ask me what my favorite food is, I just say “pie”. Because it almost doesn’t matter what kind of pie – although I do have my favorites.

Before I ever had a chance to post about the amazing vegan cupcakes at Bake It Pretty on Wall St., it closed down. They sure were delicious cupcakes. I hadn’t finished crying over that loss, when a new little business opened up in its place – A Piece of the Pie. And just like Bake It Pretty, they have a daily selection of vegan options!

I stopped in yesterday to give their vegan pie a try. I had a choice of apple, cherry, or blueberry. I ordered the blueberry, which was still a little bit warm from being just baked earlier in the day. (They will also heat your pie up in the toaster oven if you like.)

If I’d had the sort of childhood where fresh baked pies were laying in the windowsill, I feel certain that this pie would have brought me back to those days. The crust was buttery and flaky, and the filling was a mountain of blueberries without too much goopiness mixed in. It was sweet, but not too sweet.

Eating all that gluten and sugar made me feel like I might pass out, but it was totally worth it. If you like pie, give A Piece of the Pie a try. Located at 54 Wall St. in downtown Asheville.

No gluten-free options, and none of the cookies or ice cream was vegan when I was there. Just the pie.

Sticky Fingers chocolate chip cookie (after surviving a flight from D.C. to Asheville)

The all vegan bakery and cafe in D.C., Sticky Fingers Sweets & Eats, has been on my list of places to visit for quite some time. I still haven’t gotten there, but I was blessed with the next best thing: my awesome boyfriend picked up a nice sampling of baked goods for me on his last trip.

Reaching me 2 days and 2 airplane flights later, they are still delicious. He got me a gluten-free chocolate chip cookie, a gluten-free chocolate cupcake, and a tiramisu cupcake (not gluten-free).

I don’t prefer a thick glob of icing on my cupcakes, but I do have to say the chocolate cupcake brought back memories of grade school birthday parties. The chocolate chip cookie is completely addictive. The tiramisu cupcake is delicious too, but I have been unable to give it a fair shake, because I was expecting actual tiramisu, so my judgment has been clouded by that disappointment.

I still hope to get to Sticky Fingers at some point because I notice their menu has gluten-free vegan quesadillas. I must try that.

Sticky Fingers cupcakes (after surviving a flight from D.C. to Asheville)

U.S. Government Buys $40 Million Worth of Chicken Nobody Wants from good.is:

Put simply, despite the fact that people are eating significantly less chicken, the U.S.’s chicken inventory is up more than 13 percent since last year. Any other business that ignored consumers’ desires would be forced to suffer the consequences of their negligence, but not chicken growers. The USDA, which already buys millions of dollars of meat per year for the school-lunch program, has agreed to purchase the extra $40 million worth of chicken in order to “provide support to the broiler industry,” according to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. In 2009, the government bought $60 million in surplus turkey.

Broiler hens

Most vegans discover the horrors of factory farming, or have some philosophical epiphany about the suffering of non-human animals, and give up meat and other animal products. By eschewing meat, we reduce the demand for it, thereby putting economic pressure on farmers to raise fewer and fewer animals. Sure, there are plenty of other reasons to not eat it, but vegans typically don’t want their money going to support a cruel and exploitative industry.

It turns out that the federal government is negating the effect of our meat “boycott” by buying up all the dead chickens and feeding them to school children. And, of course, they are doing it with our money anyway in the form of forcibly collected tax dollars.

I add this latest insult to the pile of federal expenditures that offend my personal values: animal experiments, dairy subsidies, non-defensive wars, etc etc etc. How do you like that big government now?

On occasion, we manage to brow-beat Congress into doing something positive for animals. Since animal advocates are still a small minority, we are more often brow-beaten into sending in our tax dollars to support animal cruelty, such as buying up our “excess” meat and pumping it into schools.

This is a perfect example of why I’m now a small government voter. I’m not going to get a government that’s compassionate toward animals any time soon, but I might have a shot at getting some more people in office who oppose using tax dollars for garbage like this.

On a related note: Ron Paul for President 2012

When I read the headlines, I thought the reporters probably just didn’t know the meaning of vegan. But it appears that Bill Clinton really is a full on vegan! Check it out in the Boston Herald. He’s vegan for his health, but no doubt swayed in that direction by his daughter Chelsea, also vegan. Way to go, Bill!

The infamous junk food lover, who underwent quadruple bypass surgery in 2004, is now a full-fledged vegan. He consumes no meat, no dairy, no eggs and almost no oil.

“I like the vegetables, the fruits, the beans, the stuff I eat now,” Clinton told CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

So what motivated Bubba to change his lifestyle? After he needed another heart operation last year, he realized exercise and cutting calories wasn’t enough to battle his family history of heart disease.

“I essentially concluded that I had played Russian roulette,” Clinton said, “because even though I had changed my diet some and cut down on the caloric total of my ingestion and cut back on much of the cholesterol in the food I was eating, I still — without any scientific basis to support what I did — was taking in a lot of extra cholesterol without knowing it. So that’s when I made a decision to really change.”

Now an advocate for cardiovascular health, Bubba’s Clinton Foundation has joined the American Heart Association to promote exercise and offer better lunches in schools.

Cannoli at Plant

We’ve been waiting for months for Asheville’s only 100% vegan restaurant, Plant, to open and it’s finally here. And wow is it ever good. The menu is full of old favorites that vegans never get anymore, like onion rings and cannoli(!!!) but with all kinds of unique creations like the black pepper tofu and peppercorn crusted seitan. Every dish looks like a work of art and every bite is a perfect blend of interesting flavors. As far as I’m concerned, the chef at Plant is a genius.

There is even a raw dish on the menu – Enchiladas with summer vegetables, annatto cashew cheese, and cacao mole. It was filling without being completely overwhelmed by nuts (which many raw dishes tend to be).

There was a raw dessert last night too, key lime pie, but I’ll have to try that another time because there was no way I was going to miss the cannoli. One of my favorite treats as a kid in NY state, I thought I’d never have one again. The filling was slightly less firm than I remember, but the taste was right on.

One of my friends, who is a regular meat-eater, ordered the “berger” and truffle fries, which he ate and enjoyed for the most part. The problem though was the texture of the burger – it was very stretchy, like pizza cheese, and freaked him out quite a bit. Seeing as how I long for the stretch of pizza cheese, I actually enjoyed that, but it did seem odd. The flavor was amazing even so, and the corn-crusted onions (aka onion rings) that came with it, were better than I remember onion rings ever being.

Berger and truffle fries at Plant

There are a number of gluten-free options at Plant but my biggest complaint is that they were not labeled on the menu. I hope that can be remedied soon.

I really can’t say enough good things about Plant. It was some of the best food I’ve had in a long time, the owners were welcoming and attentive, and I left there feeling perfectly full without feeling weighed down. All the food is fresh and made from scratch. It’s my new favorite.

Cinnamon-Sugar Donut from Firestorm

Having locally made donuts is a mark of a vegan-friendly city. Firestorm Cafe & Books is now regularly selling various types of vegan donut, usually with at least 2 flavors available on any given day. Moving here from Seattle, home of Mighty-O Donuts, I am quite spoiled when it comes to vegan donuts, but Firestorm has created something pretty impressive.

I tried the chocolate glazed and the cinnamon-sugar donuts. I had planned on only having the chocolate glazed, but it was so surprisingly tasty that I couldn’t stop myself from trying the other. Vegans can definitely get their donut fix here and be very satisfied.

Chocolate Glazed Donut from Firestorm

Donuts come to $1.87 with tax. They are a little smaller than a standard donut – more like the size of those packaged ones you find in health food stores, only these don’t taste like they’ve been sitting on a shelf for 6 months.

I highly recommend you run out an try one. They do not have a gluten-free donut option at this time. Being sensitive to gluten, I did feel like total crap for a few hours after eating these, but it was worth it.

Sunday, August 7, 12pm – 7pm in downtown Asheville on Battery Park Ave. View details on the Asheville VegFest website.

Asheville’s first ever VegFest is a FREE street festival featuring amazing vegan food, entertainment, kids’ activities, beer, education, and more.

Here’s a nice write-up in the Mountain Xpress:

Asheville’s first all-vegetarian food festival, the Asheville Vegfest, takes over Battery Park Avenue on Sunday, Aug. 7, from noon until 7 p.m. The free festival is presented by The Asheville Vegetarians and Goat Mountain Sanctuary, two local nonprofit, volunteer-based organizations. The festival will feature vegan and vegetarian food, speakers, live entertainment and kids’ events, including The Vegetable Circus, a group that uses Big Top-style arts to teach children fun ways to grow up healthy.
Vendors will include such familiar faces as Firestorm Cafe and Books, Rosetta’s Kitchen, Laughing Seed and Chai Pani. Beer will be available from Highland Brewing Company. Avery’s Hot Dogs will be there too, vending their Tofurky veggie dogs.

Other food vendors:
Pachamama’s Meals
The Hop Ice Cream Cafe
Great Eastern Sun
Wingbean
Green Light Cafe
Veg-In-Out
MacDaddy’s Lemonade
Swallow Soup

It seems that Asheville’s first all-vegetarian festival is a great place to debut a number of other firsts. Veggie Love, a local caterer that’s opening Asheville’s first all-vegan, entirely gluten-free food truck in September, will be there. Asheville’s first all-veggie drive-through (opened earlier this year on Merrimon), Vegheads Drive Thru, will have a booth as well. Asheville’s first vegan restaurant, Plant (to be opened on Merrimon later this year), will also be represented. And did you know that there was a local publication that advocates an all-veggie philosophy? Asheville Magazine does not promote any meat products, say publishers. Representatives from the magazine will be there as well.