Holi-Daze

It's the holiday season, so that means I have a cold.  Yuck.  The really depressing part is that I was planning to go to an amazing vegan holiday party tonight in a neighboring town.  But it's hard to enjoy delicious food and wonderful company when you're blowing your nose every other minute and trying not to get germs on everything.  This is really too bad.

On a happier note, just before I started to feel under the weather, some friends invited my husband and me over for some holiday festivities.  We brought some Silk Nog with Southern Comfort and our copy of Christmas Vacation.  They provided delicious vegan sugar cookies and all the fixin's to decorate them.  Here are my creations:

The cookies were really wonderful.  My friend who made them is not vegan, and she reported some apprehension at her first attempt at vegan baking.  She said she'd never bought Earth Balance before, but she was pleased with it after this first attempt.  In fact, we all agreed that the result of her efforts was a total success.  Her husband even took the leftovers to work the next day and he said his co-workers were raving.  It's really nice to have thoughtful friends that will experiment with vegan cookies for your benefit.  I am truly blessed.

Next weekend, my husband and I are visiting our families.  This could prove tricky for my eating habits -- I hate for people to make a big fuss over me.  At the same time, though, I really don't feel up to cooking a whole meal for myself everywhere I go.  I guess I'll just have to play it by ear.  Again, I'm lucky to have such understanding family members.

Hope everyone is having a warm and love-filled season.

Viva Las Vegas!

A month ago, my husband and I went to Las Vegas for a friend's wedding.  It was a great trip overall, but the only part that's germane to this post is the food.  Man, did we pig out!

First on the agenda were vegan doughnuts from Ronald's Doughnuts (4600 Spring Mountain Road)  Oh, yum.  I had already greedily dug out my soy-cream-filled eclair, but here you can see an apple chimi sort of thing, another soy-cream goody, the world's best apple fritter (vegan or not!) just barely peeking out, and a chocolate cinnamon twist.  If you're wondering, I ate doughnuts all day and into that night that first day.

Next, we went to Go Raw Cafe (2910 Lake East Drive).  I had a Mexican sample platter that was very good (standout: yam "rice"), but I didn't get a photo because I was too busy eating!  I did take a photo of this dessert, though - a raw chocolate cheesecake made by Live Makery (http://www.rawmakery.com/).  It was very tasty and decadent.

Now that's a sign I like to see!  By far, our favourite place was Veggie Delight (3504 Wynn Road).  In fact, we liked it so much, we went two meals in a row!

I had a Thai iced tea with tapioca (my first in a long time!) and my husband had a honeydew tapioca "tea."  He went so nuts for it, he got another to go...and two on our next visit!

This was "chicken loaf."  It was actually amazing.

This was my Vietnamese "steak" noodle dish.  Divine.

I think it looks even more delish all stirred up.

I also got Vietnamese "pork skin rolls."  I guess that means pork rind, because the filling was crispy.  In the background you can see my husband's broccoli "shrimp" -- hands down the best mock shrimp I have ever had.

Crispy "skin" with lettuce, peanuts, and rice noodles.

The next day, even my husband took some photos of his favourite honeydew drink to post on facebook.  My drink was avocado and it was AMAZING.  Not too sweet but oh-so-creamy!

This is squid salad - probably my least favourite dish that I tried there, but still tasty and interesting.  The "steak" spring rolls in the background were really, really good, though.

Dipping sauce for the win!

I LOVE Vietnamese style sandwiches (Bánh mì).  Cilantro, spicy pickles and carrots, kimchi, mayo...and the awesome shop in my hometown closed, so I was so happy to get some in Vegas.  My "egg and pork" is on the right and hubby's "steak" on the left.

Last few bites.  So amazing!

Okay, so enough foodporn.  I just had to post a few of these because I've been carrying them around on my camera for about a month.  Hope ya'll have some ideas, now, for the next time you're in Vegas.  I know, there are other things, too...shopping, the strip, the casinos, Fremont Street, rides, Red Rock Canyon...but let's be serious, you know the best part about travelling is stuffing your face, right?

"All natural"

Earlier this week, I went on a field trip for work.  The field trip involved visiting lots and lots of beef feedlots.  And you know what?  I couldn't tell the "all natural" feedlots from the conventional ones.  Each had thousands of animals walking, laying, caked in their own excrement.

Every time the car stopped, I was transfixed, staring at the cattle, thinking that they were so beautiful.  Glassy black eyes with long eyelashes, strong necks, woolly winter coats, steam rising from their nostrils...and I also couldn't help but think that each one existed only to be food.  They looked cold.  Sometimes they were obviously frightened.  Some had wounds and deformities.  There were several that were dead. 

One of the farms had bison, transported from the relative wild to a feedlot to be fattened up before ending up on a plate in some trendy "wild game" restaurant. 

I saw the lakes, rivers, and mountains of waste.  I smelled the sweet smell of distiller's grain, destined to be diluted at least one trophic level before ever meeting a human tongue.

And yet I had a wonderful time.  How could that be?  I told my friend, who brought me on this field trip, that I have the utmost respect for people who can look their choices in the face and be satisfied with them.  So how can I look at all this and not cry out at how wrong it all feels?  Maybe I just like to examine both sides of the coin.