Vegan for the Weekend

 When I told my friend Jen about the Skillshare, the idea so intrigued her that she planned a visit to Boston around it. (Read her thoughts on the event in this lovely blog post.) While we were talking about what else we wanted to do while she was in town, she told me she wanted to eat vegan the entire (long) weekend. You can just imagine how psyched I was.  Her train was delayed that Saturday evening, but we still managed to get to Veggie Galaxy for a late dinner. Jen loved her veggie burger and shared my chocolate banana frappe. I ordered the glazed seitan loaf with sweet potato mash and sauteed rainbow chard—excellent, as always!(Food photos by Jen.) 

@cometparty @deianara_crush Hope you'll have a good time and enjoy your meal at VG tonight. Thanks for coming!— Veggie Galaxy (@VeggieGalaxy) March 2, 2014

The next morning, Sunday, we got up really early to head over to Somerville to help set up for the event. I had bananas for us to eat on the T, and we figured we'd grab something between Porter Square and John's place (where we were meeting before heading over to the Armory). But you know how it is—you're running late and there's so much to do. John had a big box of doughnuts, which were transferred to the Armory along with all the other supplies, and at some point Jen just got too hungry and ate half of one. Later there was pizza, and she had a slice. (We had a vegan option, but it had olives and mushrooms on it and Jen doesn't do mushrooms.) It's really important to plan ahead at times like these, and we just weren't organized enough food-wise. I wasn't eating too well either—I literally had a vegan brownie from the Armory café for lunch (and it took me like two hours to finish it, I was that busy).Now, I have to tell you how impressed I was at how Jen handled the rest of the weekend food-wise. I know a lot of people who would set a goal of "vegan for the weekend" and, once they'd eaten something non-vegan, would say "oh, the heck with it," and give up the whole enterprise. Cheeseburgers and the like. Not Jen!As the post-Skillshare cleanup was drawing to an end, we talked about how poorly we'd eaten that day and what our bodies were craving to make up for it. I wanted, needed, a nice fresh juice for dinner. (No food, just juice—I'd really filled up on that cheeseless pizza from Flatbread.) Jen wanted juice and something with lots of veggies in it. We walked to Davis Square and satisfied our wholesome cravings at the Blue Shirt Café. I ordered a juice billed as an immunity booster, with carrot and garlic (!) and I don't even remember what else, but it was good and it made every atom in me sing.The other thing that strikes me about Jen's determination to come back and stick to her vegan-weekend plan is that she didn't get hard on herself for slipping. No one is perfect, and giving oneself (or anyone else) a hard time for falling short of perfection is a waste of energy. I am really proud of her.  For a prelude to breakfast on Monday, we stopped at Jugos, the excellent juice bar adjoining Back Bay station, before moseying down to Grey's Fabric in the South End. (I'd never been before, and it was such a treat. Gorgeous fabrics, great selection of indie sewing patterns, and excellent customer service.)  Monday night (after yin yoga at Karma) we headed out to Newton to try the Walnut Grille, which was lovely. I really appreciate that the menu offers several entrees without faux meat products. My Polenta Napoleon was really good—the corn cake satisfied that dinnertime need for something hearty:  One scoop of vegan pumpkin ice cream (from FoMu, which I still need to blog about!) Like I said, eating out for breakfast can be tricky as a vegan, but I'd had an awesome egg-free "sunshine" muffin (with pineapple, carrot, and raisins) at Flour a week or two back, and Jen was cool with a sandwich for breakfast, so that worked out fine. The hummus at Flour is more textured, which is nice for a change when you are usually eating the super-creamy kind from the supermarket:  After Flour, we returned to Jugos so Jen could board her train back to D.C. with another tall green juice. All things considered, it was a healthy AND tasty two-and-a-half days, and it was lovely to have a good friend there to share it with. (Of course I had to send Jen home with a sampling of the BEST chocolate in the universe!......And I ate the rest. Bwahahaha.)