Spirituality, Veganism Spirituality, Veganism

An Edible Churchyard

I have a big post coming up soon on veganism and Christianity. In the meantime, here are some shots from Old South Church, which has an organic heirloom kitchen garden to benefit homeless women and children through a charity called the Women's Lunch Place.P1090652P1090649P1090655P1090651If I wanted to belong to a church again, here is still more evidence why I'd consider this one.P1090426(Kate and I went inside while she was visiting last month.)P1090656Stopped by the farmers' market across the street (it's open Tuesdays and Fridays) for some beets and dinosaur kale (so called, I guess, because the leaves are huge. Sweet and juicy too, perfect for juicing). Hooray for local produce!!!

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Main Street Vegan Academy, part 3

(All Main Street Vegan Academy entries.)Friday morning Victoria offered several very useful lectures on public speaking and the nuts-and-bolts aspects of working with clients. She's so knowledgeable practical and wise. If you ever get the chance to hear her speak (or better yet, attend the vegan academy yourself), you should JUMP on it. And read Main Street Vegan, of course! She presents everything you need to know in such an easy and loving way; I admit that some of us vegans get REALLY impassioned to the point where we might alienate the "veg curious," but in her books and on her podcast, Victoria's approach is always gentle and friendly.

After Victoria's talks, our classmate Ilana gave us an introduction to Ayurveda, which is an ancient Indian tradition of natural healing. (Ayurvedic practitioners generally use milk and ghee, but some vegans are modifying the tradition--see Talya Lutzker's new book The Vegan Ayurvedic Kitchen. Talya was a guest on Victoria's podcast last month.) I'll write more about Ayurveda in a future post. Then we took the subway downtown to Pure Food and Wine for a languid lunch, and by that I mean three courses over three hours, or close enough to it! (I'd been there earlier in the week with Kate and Sara, remember, and while the company was excellent my burger was a little disappointing. This meal more than made up for it!)  P1090572The Mediterranean salad: arugula, kale, kalamata olives, tomatoes, pumpkin seed macadamia parmesan, balsamic vinaigrette. Awesome.P1090581Brazil nut sea vegetable croquettes with a tartare sauce. If I had to pick my very favorite dish out of all the meals at NYC vegan restaurants I've had, this would be it. It's the sort of thing you really want to recreate at home, but you know you won't be able to! Exquisite. (I also ordered a "swan greens" juice--cucumber, spinach, dandelion, pear, grapefruit, tarragon, spearmint, and yuzu...which I now know to be an East Asian citrus fruit, thanks to Dr. Google.)P1090583I was a bit skeptical when this lemon bar showed up—it looked kind of plasticy—but appearances can be deceiving and all that. Really flavorful—a PUNCH of lemon—and a perfect almond coconut crust.P1090588After lunch we walked to an Indian grocery, where I picked up a bunch of interesting powders and oils Ilana recommended on the fly. (This photo with Ilse, Zachary, and Stephanie.) I haven't had a chance to try any of them yet, but when I do I'll let you know how I find them.

Then it was on to Moo Shoes, which I somehow hadn't visited since 2004. I'm happy to say that vegan footwear has come a LONG way in that time! (By the way, my other favorite place to buy fashionable, quality, breathable shoes is Vegetarian Shoes in the UK.)P1090592Margo gave some love to the Moo Shoes resident kitty.I spent so much time trying on shoes that I missed out on Babycakes (everyone had left by the time I got there, and I didn't feel like eating cupcakes by myself), but I did manage to meet up with my pal Kathy (for whom I used to work back at HarperCollins) for cocktails and some delicious gourmet pizza with Daiya cheese (made of arrowroot and tapioca as opposed to soy, by the by--melts just like dairy cheese) at Pala, which offers a vegan menu. (Sometimes I do wish I still lived in New York...!)

Saturday morning we reconvened at the grocery store around the corner from Victoria's apartment to meet her daughter Adair, who was playing our hypothetical client. I picked up several new pieces of knowledge in the course of the "tour," the most scary of which is that tin cans contain BPA unless otherwise noted on the label. You know how water bottles will say "BPA free"? That's because studies have indicated that BPA is a carcinogen. So you have to look for cans of soup or beans or sauce that specifically say "no BPA." Here's a list of seven brands you can trust on Treehugger.com. (If you do a quick Google search on BPA, you'll find that it's the organizations profiting from it who say it's perfectly safe, and it's not like you can actually trust the FDA, due to the influence of said corporate interests.) Afterward we went back to Victoria's for Fran Costigan's talks on food demos and comparing all the different kinds of vegan sweeteners for use in pastries and desserts (coconut sugar, date sugar, rice syrup, Sucanat...) Her new book, Vegan Chocolate, comes out in November, and the confection on the cover looks every bit as decadent as an ordinary chocolate cake. (But like I said, you enjoy your treats way more when you know they're fair trade and cruelty free...)P1090600After lunch we had a panel discussion with Gary Gibson, Dianne Wenz, and Jaime Karpovich, all MSVA graduates, who offered more practical info on starting a vegan coaching business.     Michael Parrish DuDell gave the next lecture--half was marketing and business-y and the other half presented the case for veganism from an environmental standpoint. Did you know that raising animals for food contributes more to global warming than every mode of transportation in the world combined? It sounds unbelievable, but this is a statistic generated by the U.N. in 2006. No one is making this up; no one would ever want to. You can see why Michael says he initially went vegan for the sake of the environment. That night we went to Blossom for dinner. I've had pretty good meals there in the past, but nothing truly inspired until Friday night: P1090612Seitan Frites Au Poivre with creamy mushroom peppercorn sauce, shoestring fries, and grilled asparagus with horseradish cream. The chocolate mousse pie was awesome too, and I almost collapsed with ecstasy as I sipped the organic mint chip shake Lindsay ordered.

Sunday was our last day. We had lectures from Sharon Nazarian on social media and Rynn Berry on the history of veganism. Professor Berry's talk was absolutely fascinating, and I'll be blogging about his books (Food for the Gods, etc.) in the months ahead. (He even gave me an extremely useful tidbit for my Edinburgh novel! Like I said--collecting the jigsaw pieces...)P1090618A refreshing glass of gingerade and a Mediterranean panini at Peacefood Café on the UWS, where we celebrated our graduation. The chickpea fries (in the background) were INCREDIBLE.

After lunch and a round of goodbye hugs, I went to a wine bar with Ilse and Stephanie to continue our conversation, but I didn't order a glass myself since I was heading out to Park Slope for yoga with our classmate Jean. That was another full circle experience for me, since I used to go to that studio when I lived in Brooklyn nine and ten years ago. (More about this when I blog about my pretty-much-daily practice at Back Bay Yoga.)Thus concludes my MSVA recap, although I do feel I ought to take another post for reflection as opposed to "we did this and this and this." It would be impossible to overstate how much I loved and learned from this program—I'm truly only scratching the surface here!

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Full Circle

msva peta

With Tali and Margo on Washington Square East, en route to the PETA talk at the Kimmel Center. Photo by Rain.

* * *

As you may know, at NYU I was an opinion columnist for the Washington Square News. (If you're interested, here's the best thing I ever wrote for that paper.)One time the animal rights group on campus circulated a pamphlet stating that NYU researchers, funded by our tax dollars, were practicing vivisection on rhesus monkeys, supposedly to discover a cure for lazy eye. I was going to link to the definition of "vivisection," but I think I'd better define it for you here:

viv·i·sec·tion  [viv-uh-sek-shuhn]noun1.  the action of cutting into or dissecting a living body.2.  the practice of subjecting living animals to cutting operations, especially in order to advance physiological and pathological knowledge.

I was so shocked and disgusted that I hastily typed up an opinion piece decrying what was going on in our university research labs. It was an absolutely lazy piece of so-called journalism--I did virtually no outside research--and the next day we published a letter from the NYU spokesman (part of whose job it was to take us pesky kids down a peg on a regular basis) that began, "Camille DeAngelis parroted the contents of a nasty pamphlet..."Funny that he should use the word "parrot," right? Because parrots repeat what's actually been said; they don't obfuscate, as humans are wont to do. The NYU spokesman didn't deny anything about the vivisection itself--he only attempted to rationalize it by saying people would be helped by the "work" they were doing, and that the animal rights activists were just getting in the way of medical progress. As if making use of our first-amendment right was "nasty," and drilling holes into monkeys' heads WASN'T.Yeah, I think the monkeys would have a thing or two to say about that. But we don't speak their language.

Does "progress" necessitate the torture of innocent, sentient beings? Scientists like T. Colin Campbell believe this to a certain extent--for without his lab rats we wouldn't have as much scientific evidence that a plant-based diet is THE way to fend off cancer, diabetes, and heart disease, and there's no denying that animal testing has saved many human lives through vaccines and other critical medicines. Our technology, however, has advanced to the point where animal testing (for pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and so forth) is actually the least effective way of doing things. And yet many companies are still dropping chemicals in rabbits' eyes before sticking them back in their cages.I don't know about you, but I don't want to be a party to unnecessary suffering in any form. I wish I had actually joined People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals back at NYU, and gotten involved. I thought I was doing enough by being a vegetarian, but I know better now.

P1090565Ingrid Newkirk's lecture included photographs and video footage of animals doing extraordinary things...and animals being treated with extraordinary cruelty.As our vegan academy group walked down to Washington Square for the PETA lecture that Thursday night, I thought back on that ill-executed yet thoroughly righteous editorial I'd once written. I also remembered a brief conversation outside the NYU Main Building I'd had with a really nice girl named Lauren, who was active in the PETA group on campus and was thrilled that I'd written about the vivisection issue. I was sipping a hot chocolate, and I offered her some. She asked if there was milk in it, I said yes, and she politely declined.Why didn't I get it?I wasn't ready, I guess. But I really wish I could have been. 

(All Main Street Vegan Academy posts here.)

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Vaute with your Wallet

Did you happen to notice my cute new winter coat in that photo with my Hawthornden fellows? I'll show you again.(Yes, I am blogging about my winter coat on the fourth of July. Ha!)hawthornden fellowsGorgeous, right? It's also nice and warm. Best of all, it's not made of sheep!If you're one of my knitting buds, you know I've given up knitting with wool. As Victoria Moran points out in Main Street Vegan, the wool industry IS the mutton industry. Now that I've made that connection in my head, I can't un-know it. I can't de-understand it. I am ready to make better choices.Until recently, though, vegans living in cold climates didn't have very good outerwear options. Now, thanks to Leanne Mai-Ly Hilgart at Vaute Couture (pronounced "vote"), you can be snuggly, stylish, and ethical.P1090546Rain and Stephanie at the Vaute Couture flagship store at 234 Grand Street in Williamsburg.Depending on your budget, Vaute Couture coats may be "pricey"--they are made in the NYC garment district by people who are paid fairly for what they do. You can preorder in late summer for up to 50% savings; I paid $220 for mine, which is what I'd have paid for a quality wool coat (probably made in a sweatshop) anyway. Get on their mailing list (click here and scroll to the bottom of the page) and they'll let you know when pre-orders are starting.As with anything else in life, you get what you pay for. And I feel awesome every time I put on my coat.

Earlier this year Vaute Couture launched their ready-to-wear line--the first all-vegan clothing line at New York City fashion week!--and it got lots of good press. I love this video.otts(Amiee took this shot of me with my new Maidenhair fern at Ott's Greenhouse back in March. Have I mentioned yet how much I love this coat?)Next up: coming full circle with PETA at NYU.(See all Main Street Vegan Academy posts here.)

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Main Street Vegan Academy, part 2

We kicked off Main Street Vegan Academy Tuesday evening (June 18th) with a delicious chickpea curry, DF Mavens ice cream ("the best dairy-free ice cream in the world" is no exaggeration), and a presentation by Dr. Robert Ostfeld of Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. Dr. Ostfeld did a great job of explaining the mechanics of heart disease in layman's terms. ("Grummus" is something you do NOT want inside your arteries, but it's such a fun word to say!) Dr. Ostfeld and nutritionist Lauren Graf offer a plant-based cardiac wellness program for their patients, many of whom are living on limited incomes. These are awesome people doing awesome work, and I know we all felt very lucky to learn more about it.Wednesday was our most lecture-filled day. First up was Marty Davey, La Diva Dietitian, who offered us a basic course in vegan nutrition, followed by special guidelines for pregnancy and children, athletes, and the elderly. Marty is very wry and witty, making the material way more engaging than it might have been. (She likes to tell teenage boys that if they stick with the standard American diet, "by the time you're 35, Mr. Happy may not be so happy!")After lunch, Jasmin Singer and Mariann Sullivan of Our Hen House gave an impassioned and very articulate talk on animal rights and animal law (Mariann is a professor of animal rights law at Columbia and a couple other NYC schools. I really loved it when she said, "What was I thinking before the light bulb went off?", because that's how I've felt every single day since I went vegan.) If you're interested in exploring the philosophy around animal rights, their website is a great place to start. (See also Main Street Vegan Academy Will Change Your Life.)After their talk, Jasmin and Mariann were guests on Victoria's radio show, with our classmate Zachary co-hosting. We got to be the live studio audience.

After the radio show, Joshua Katcher of Brave Gentleman and The Discerning Brute gave an equally powerful presentation on animal cruelty in the fashion industry: fur, leather, wool, silk, and feathers. For a quick intro (no, shearing sheep isn't the same as a haircut!), check out the FAQ on his blog."We must not allow the beauty of an object to blind us to the horror of its origins."Joshua designs vegan business suits, which are manufactured in Italy. Fashion may seem frivolous on the surface, but the work he, Leanne Mai-Ly Hilgart, Jill Milan, Jaclyn Sharp, and other designers are doing is so, SO important. An estimated one billion animals annually are killed for their skins, and the undercover footage Joshua showed us almost literally made me sick.(You don't want to watch this, but you really should. This particular footage was taken at a fox farm in Illinois.)People like to think if you're going vegan you can only dress in burlap sacks, but there's absolutely no excuse to wear leather or fur when alternatives exist that are ethical, sustainable, and stylish.Wednesday evening, after a delicious avocado quinoa salad at Candle West (I skipped dessert, though I did have a bite of Marcia's cannoli and it was just as tasty as "the real thing"!) I went down to Union Square for some edible and inedible treats.Thursday morning Jennifer Gannett gave us a very practical presentation on "mixed" families (i.e., not everyone in the family wants to go vegan) and transitioning to veganism in general. That'll be really useful for those of us who will be focusing on private coaching.P1090544Thursday lunch: carrot-pecan-coconut salad; mock tuna salad; Aztec salad with black beans, red onion, red pepper, tomato and cilantro; and a creamy dill dip. Words can't express just how much I enjoyed this meal.Thursday afternoon we took a field trip to a cute little raw food store called High Vibe, followed by Sustainable NYC and Vaute Couture. After dinner at Jivamuktea, we headed down to NYU to hear a talk by Ingrid Newkirk, co-founder of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. I'll be blogging about Vaute and the PETA lecture over the next couple of days.

(All Main Street Vegan Academy posts here.)

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Treat Yo'self!

Thursday night (of vegan academy week), after a delicious dinner at Candle West with my classmates, I went down to Union Square for dessert and some browsing at one of the world's best bookstores.(That "treat yo'self!" episode of "Parks and Recreation" is the only episode I've actually seen, but I do like to quote it.)P1090535Dairy-free dark chocolate YUM in a pretzel cone at Chloe's Soft Serve Fruit Company.People sometimes have this notion that being vegan means giving up all the fun stuff. Not true at all! I enjoy a treat way more now, because I can feel good about where it came from.P1090540As much as I enjoyed that "soft serve," browsing at the Strand was an even bigger treat. (Here's an example of something awesome I found there on a past visit.)P1090542Delicious books! The Decomposition Notebook was a gift for a friend, but isn't that sort of a treat for myself too?(I'm almost finished with Hardcore Zen, which my friend Mike recommended to me years ago. It's a great book. I'll be blogging about it.)P1090538I don't usually spend much time perusing the clearance books outside the store, although I do like to daydream sometimes that the Strand is still around a hundred years from now, and some NYU student finds one of my books on the dollar cart, reads it and loves it....Is that weird?P1090533(And here is a random window shot of a store called Mantiques Modern. Ha! Love it.)(All Main Street Vegan Academy posts here.)

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Critical Thinking

I mentioned in my first post on Main Street Vegan Academy that I'm learning to think more critically. Here are two examples:

P1090567

Before: Gross. I can't look at that.After: So sticking capers in a cow's corpse is art, eh? Way to obfuscate. Art is CREATION, not murder! I'm taking a photo of this for my first Powerpoint lecture.P1090624Before: Grooooooooss.After: It's at least ninety degrees out, and who knows how long those boxes of beef and chicken have been sitting out on the sidewalk. This is a ridiculous public safety hazard; but then, you could say that of any animal flesh we choose to eat. Powerpoint!

* * *

Today in the dining hall I sat down with my friend Ryan, who was seated across from a middle-aged woman I'd never met before. We introduced ourselves, and Ryan started telling my new acquaintance (his teaching colleague) about my being a vegan. We talked about the health benefits, and Ryan (bless him!) complimented me for expressing myself and my beliefs in a non-judgmental way. I couldn't help noticing that his colleague had tunafish and a few slices of ham on her plate."What I don't like," she said, "is when they try to teach chimpanzees English, or dress dogs up in stupid outfits. As if they didn't have their own wants and needs."I'd only just met her, but I wasn't willing to let this slide. "Can I ask you something? Isn't that also true for what's on your plate--the animals that food used to be?" She bristled, but I went on, making a special effort to express myself in a calm and friendly way. "It's so interesting how we want to be kind to our dogs and cats, but then there are all these other animals we only see as food.""All right," she said as she dropped her cutlery on her half-full plate and got up to leave. "I'm done.""I'm sorry if I've offended you," I said pleasantly. (As I said this I thought of my new friend Stephanie, who says we should never apologize for speaking the truth, but in this case it was a social nicety. It's important to me that people don't feel I'm being an "angry" or "militant" vegan. If I keep my tone and demeanor light and friendly, they can't honestly accuse me of jumping down their throats—which is, of course, thoroughly counterproductive.)"You haven't offended me," she replied as she gathered her things. (Hmmmmm.)As she walked away I said, "Have a good day!" Then Ryan and I had a nice little conversation about moral consistency. And because I'm certainly not perfect either, I invited him to call me out on my own bullshit the next time he detects any (though he already knows this, I'm sure). As Marty Davey (a.k.a. La Diva Dietitian) told us in her lecture for Main Street Vegan Academy last Wednesday, it's a basic sales principle that "he who questions owns the conversation." I asked the question, and now it's up to my new acquaintance to consider it.She might just decide that I'm a jerk, though, and for the first time in my life (thank you, Victoria Moran and company!!!), I'm totally okay with that. But I do hope she'll think about it. It takes courage to examine your own entrenched beliefs, but I believe that each and every one of us is capable of it.

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Main Street Vegan Academy, part 1

Where do I even begin? It was that wonderful.Last week was thoroughly life changing. I made lovely new vegan friends and colleagues, learned a TON, gained confidence, and ate some of the most delicious food EVER. I've already noticed that I'm thinking more critically and I'm more sensitive to the issues. I want to speak the truth in a loving and compassionate way, and I feel empowered to do that now.How is this all going to play out in my life and work? More on that soon. I'll do a proper blog post later this week, but here are some highlights in the meantime.P1090545Rain and Margo en route to Sustainable NYC and Vaute Couture. Here are some incredibly happy, healthy, gorgeous people!! Vegan is love, baby.P1090516Thursday lunch, topped with Treeline cashew cheese. D-I-V-I-N-E. Dairy cheese is literally addictive--it contains casomorphin, an opiate (!)--and while this "cheese" is insanely tasty, you can eat all you want and stay healthy!P1090594On Saturday morning we went on a supermarket tour, with Victoria's daughter Adair playing a new client who wants to eat healthier. Whether or not you're vegan (yet!), it's so, so important to read every label before you drop the item in question in your cart. Also very helpful to know which fruits and veggies contain which vitamins and minerals.P1090585More fieldtripping. (We spent much more time in lectures, but apart from one food demonstration I didn't take photos.)P1090551Seitan burrito at Jivamuktea. Thoroughly delicious.

P1090566Thursday night we heard Ingrid Newkirk, co-founder of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, speak at NYU, and she was electrifying. I was so inspired!(Main Street Vegan Academy.)

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Vegan Academy Prelude

(The Heart is a Compass; Victoria Moran's Main Street Vegan Academy.)I'm in New York City this week for Main Street Vegan Academy, which began with a glorious dinner (chickpea and green bean curry, lemon broccoli, lovely fresh salad with shitake mushrooms, raw chocolate cake and non-dairy ice cream) and a very informative lecture by Dr. Robert Ostfeld of Montefiore Medical Center.But before that, I got to have lunch at Pure Food and Wine with my lovely agent and my new editor at St. Martin's! We shared a plate of guacamole and a celebratory bottle of white wine. Such a treat. I also found out that they sold the rights in Italy, so Bones & All will be translated into my ancestral tongue. My grandpa would be proud.P1090515Portabella and hemp seed burger. Sprouted manna bread, caraway kraut, lapsang souchong tea smoked cashew cheese, house made mustard, pickled pink onions. The "cheese" was my favorite part. More filling than it looks!Plenty more MSVA-related posts coming up! I'm already having a ball, and I can't wait to share it all with you.

 

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Juice-o-rama

P1090307I have really wanted a juicer ever since I saw "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead" last fall. Then in March my dad surprised me with a Breville as a belated Christmas gift (we didn't really "do" Christmas 2012 since my grandmother was in the hospital.) Victoria Moran also recommends the Breville brand in Main Street Vegan, so I knew he'd gotten me a really good one. I had my inaugural juicing session with Amiee the night before she moved me up to Boston: carrot + apple + celery, and it was yum!Since my new friend Alex loves fresh juice as much as I do, we are using it quite a bit.

me juicing

Things we have learned after maybe a couple dozen juicing sessions:1. Simple is best. More than three or four ingredients and the flavors can get confused, whereas apple + carrot + ginger (use a good chunk of ginger for a real kick) or beet + plum makes for some seriously delicious juice.2. "Shit brown" juice can still taste really good. (You can, of course, predict what color the juice will turn out. That time we used rainbow chard, so red + green inevitably makes brown.)3. Buy a CRAP-TON of produce. None of it will go to waste! (And make extra, because there's always someone around who'll gladly have a glass. I'm really enjoying the social aspect of juicing.)P1090364P1090346Apple + kale. It grows on you.

image

Beet + plum juice looks and tastes like melted raspberry sorbet. My favorite so far, along with carrot + apple + ginger.photo (1)...And the pulp looks like red velvet cake, but the juice is WAY tastier! The Breville comes with a perfectly designed brush-cum-scooper (that sounds vaguely filthy, but it's the most descriptive) that makes cleaning up a snap. That's the reason people buy a juicer and don't use it--only because it's too much of a P.I.T.A. to clean. Not so with this one, happily!I'll blog more about juicing over the coming months--right now I'm still experimenting, but it would be great to get to the point where I'm coming up with my own combinations and recipes (and photographing them like a quasi-professional. I need a new camera and some photography lessons!)(Most of these photos by Alex.)

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Vintage Quickie (goes Vegan)

As you know, I love vintage knitting patterns. This one's called the "Three-Hour Sweater" and while the name is a total exaggeration, it is fun and cute and easy.DSC_0087I first knit this pattern back in 2008, and the result was so unflattering I can't even bring myself to post a picture here (but here's the Ravelry link). I stuck to the original pattern when I ought to have rejigged the whole thing, as I did this time around: finer gauge, back shaping, knit the yoke in the round. Much, much better. (Ravelry link for Vintage Quickie #2, with copious notes.)DSC_0082These photos were taken by my friend and fellow Squammie Jen Barlev one March afternoon while we were visiting Amiee in Pennsylvania. Quality time with my Squam buds is always so nourishing for me. (Literally, too--Jen surprised me with a bar of cherry lemonade vegan chocolate!)DSC_0088Hooray for back shaping!The yarn is Valley Yarns Southwick, a bamboo-cotton blend. Pleasant to knit, easy to care for, and it's holding up really well. I'm determined not to see knitting without wool as a dilemma ("how will I knit warm-enough sweaters for the winter?!", etc.) I am resolved, because as Victoria Moran says: the wool industry IS the mutton industry.I've gotten to the point where I want to replace my favorite wool handknits (like the Victory Jumper) as soon as possible because I feel a certain degree of uneasiness whenever I put them on. In keeping with my new direction, I'll be blogging about vegan knitting more regularly starting over the summer sometime (whenever my new website launches).P1090351In the meantime, I'm slowly destashing my wool yarns and replacing them with pretty pima cotton.P1090348DSC_0084This photo is my favorite because I look like I'm knocking on an invisible door at the edge of the reservoir.

three hour sweater

This is my other favorite photo because of the printable Amiee colored for me (you can find it here). I put it over my bed and it makes me so happy every time I look at it!

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The Heart is a Compass

After that rather enigmatic post two weeks back, a couple of friends (faithful blog readers—thank you, thank you!) were a bit concerned when I wrote that "some important people in my life aren't going to like the direction I'm headed in." It's nothing dramatic, it's just the ordinary resistance you experience when the people who have always loved you don't see why you need to change.P1070371This is how I feel on the inside, every day.As you may know, I went vegan two years ago this month. I have never felt happier, more loving or more at peace with my place in the world. I have never felt such clarity of mind and purpose. I am more honest than I used to be, and every day I experience joy and gratitude on way deeper levels. I love the lifestyle so much that I want to share this feeling with anyone who is open to it!This is the shift I was alluding to a few weeks ago: I will always write novels, but novels aren't enough. So in June I'll be training with Victoria Moran to become a vegan lifestyle coach, with a focus on veganism for enhanced creativity. I am insanely excited about this new epoch in my career; I can see my life unfolding decade by decade toward (and past) the century mark, and this really is the beginning of the big work. No matter your dietary habits or personal philosophy, I trust you will support me as I make myself as useful as I can possibly be. (Later on in the summer I'll be launching a brand-new website, which will have my book stuff and the vegan coaching stuff all in one place. I'm also making the jump to Wordpress, which means I'll have spam filters that actually work!)I want to tell you more about the internal changes I experienced when I went vegan at Sadhana Forest two years ago, so you see how the shift came about and why I believe in the connection between veganism and creativity.I arrived in India a longtime vegetarian feeling increasingly uneasy about consuming dairy products, although I wasn't able to articulate this until afterward. I was really excited at the prospect of spending a month in a vegan community, so when Jamey sat down next to me at dinner one night and asked, "What's keeping you from going vegan?", I was totally ready to hear him out. He spoke his truth, and it became my truth. It felt like my head had cracked itself open and a great white light was shining through. Or—if you want to describe it more prosaically—a light bulb went off.

You are still hurting animals by consuming their milk and eggs.

You were not built to eat these things.

The world will be a better place for your choosing not to eat them any longer.

I was giddy with joy for having made the choice to go vegan. And then, a few days later, I came down with sunstroke.I'd been drinking lots of water, but I hadn't been getting enough electrolytes. (It happened to pretty much everyone at some point.) So I spent six days in the "healing hut," alternately stumbling to the toilets and taking reluctant sips of downright nasty electrolyte powders dissolved in water. I slept a lot.It sounds miserable, I know. I was miserable. But my brain was alight, and whenever I woke up from a fever dream I had to scribble in my journal. I finally got "the click" for my epic Edinburgh novel, what McCormick has referred to (bless her!) as "my Wolf Hall." I tossed, I turned, I roused myself and wrote GOTHIC SATIRE! in exuberant capitals. I'd been waiting a long time for that click, and when it happened I momentarily forgot how rotten I felt. Looking back on those six days in the healing hut, I wonder if my body checked out so that my brain could process the leaps I was taking--psychologically, spiritually, and creatively.It may seem at first like I'm making too much of this--making a connection between going vegan and getting good ideas when it's just a coincidence--but believe me, it isn't. Ever since I began writing in earnest in 2002, I have had "trough periods" in between novel projects. These periods could last up to two years, and were characterized by false starts, frustration, and plenty of self doubt. Before I went vegan, whatever new story I tried to work on right after a successful project was doomed, inevitably: there was a ghost novel between the practice novel and Mary Modern, another two or three ghost novels between Mary Modern and Petty Magic, and yet another one afterward. It bugged the hell out of me, but I figured this was just the way things were. This was how my brain worked, right? Wasn't it just the nature of the creative cycle?Not at all! The past two years have been my most prolific by far. I've written two novels, one of which--a children's novel—I believe to be my best work. The other one, a new novel for adults (which I originally took for YA because the narrator is a teenager), is my agent's favorite out of everything I've written. I have never written two successful novels in as many years before. I have never transitioned so seamlessly from one project to the next and back again. (I began with the adult novel in June 2011, pressed pause to write the children's novel in early 2012, then returned to it at the end of last summer.)The ideas keep coming, and these days everything clicks. I have my Edinburgh novel to look forward to along with another adult novel I may end up writing first (I actually wrote the first 10,000 words while I was in India), more travel writing (travelogues! YES!), and more stories for children. I have never felt so inspired, and I know it's because I am striving to live with greater compassion and authenticity. And of course, on a physical level, I am thinking more clearly because I am no longer putting unnatural, disease-promoting substances in my body.Why shouldn't everyone feel this amazing? Why shouldn't you?* * *I was trying to think of a catchy title for this post, and when I thought of "The Heart is a Compass" some other part of my brain kept wanting to replace it with "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter." It's the title of a novel by Carson McCullers, which I remember as very finely written but relentlessly depressing. There is a piece of classic Yaddo gossip to do with McCullers crushing on Katherine Anne Porter, to the point where she literally curled up and fell asleep on the floor outside KAP's bedroom door, and from what I've read about her, McCullers had a rather short and not particularly happy life. I'm bringing all this up because that particular string of words, "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter," serves as a stark reminder that our thoughts really do create our reality. So here goes:My heart is never lonely.My heart is always full.

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Veganism Veganism

Butternut "bisque" with sage and cumin

When life gets crazy, blogging is the first thing to go--and Flashwrite too, alas. Scotland is coming up soon, and then I have BIG plans for this space.(Big, big plans! Redesign, relaunch, and MORE!)But for now, here's a recipe I've been meaning to blog since before Thanksgiving. I kept eating it up before I got around to taking a picture.P1070750Trying out this tasty recipe, it occurred to me that a bisque of butternut squash with almond milk instead of cream would be comfortingly delicious. I tried it, and it was. Here's the super-easy vegan recipe:

3 lb. butternut squash, cut into pieces (I bought it pre-cut, but if you purchase a whole squash, cut it in half and roast until soft)one onion, diced1/4 cup olive oil2 cloves garlic1 tbsp. dried ground cumina dozen large sage leaves, finely chopped2 cups broth made from vegetable bouillon (I like Better Than Bouillon)2 cups almond milksalt and pepper to taste

Toss the squash and onion with olive oil, garlic, cumin, salt and pepper in a glass baking dish and roast at 425º at least an hour. Midway through, open the oven and stir in chopped sage leaves. Once cooled, mash it all together and pour into blender or food processor along with vegetable broth and almond milk and puree. (Or you could pour everything together into the pot and just use an immersion blender.) Yields approximately six generous servings.Happy Holidays, everyone!

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Veganism Veganism

Chickpea Salad

P1070218I love the idea of an "unrecipe," where all ingredients are "to taste." This one is a really easy knock-off of the "balela" you can find at Trader Joe's in a tiny plastic container. I like to make a whole tub of this stuff.

--chickpeas--red onion (chopped up in the food processor)--cilantro (also finely chopped)--vine tomatoes--lime juice--olive oil--salt and pepper

Mix and devour!

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Spirituality, Veganism Spirituality, Veganism

A Very Primitive Species

Jeff Bridges is an amazing actor. He was robbed of an Oscar for Starman (1984), in which he plays an alien who clones Karen Allen's dead husband and leads her on a three-day road trip from Wisconsin to Arizona to meet his spaceship at the bottom of a crater. I know it sounds nutty, but it's actually a really romantic and thought-provoking movie. For example:

starman

Starman: Dead deer? Why?Jenny: People hunt them, to eat, for food.Starman: Do deer eat people?Jenny: No.Starman: Do people eat people?Jenny: No, no, of course not. What do you think we are?Starman: I think you are a very primitive species.

Starman later brings the deer back to life, and the jerk hunter you see in the background (no, he really is a jerk) rounds up a bunch of cronies and they all try to beat him up.Watching this scene reminded me of a little thought experiment I come back to every now and again. We are at the top of the food chain, yes? But what if we weren't? What if some aliens touched down and announced that we were to be, wink wink nudge nudge, the guests of honor at their spaceship dinner party? They'd only be using the same rationale that we're using now.Hold up a second, someone might say to me. WE are a SENTIENT species.Sentient—yeah, okay, so we're sentient. Which means we ought to know better. Who's to say an animal suffers any less than we would, if we were put in the same position?***While we're on the subject, yesterday morning the wonderful vegan cookbook author/podcaster Colleen Patrick-Goudreau was interviewed on KQED (California public radio), and she tackled a lot of common questions and concerns people have about veganism and vegan nutrition; you can listen to the archived program here.***Okay, I have to come clean on one point. In the movie, Starman does eat a hamburger. [EDIT, 2018: I misremembered! Rewatched this movie recently and it's Karen Allen eating the hamburger. Starman just eats a lot of pie.]

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Travel, Veganism Travel, Veganism

Eating Vegan in Colombia

P1060348Sierra made this incredibly delicious soup by roasting tomatoes, onions, and garlic for a couple hours and then putting it through the blender. HOLY CRAP it was awesome.People keep asking me, "Wasn't it REALLY hard to be vegan in Colombia?"Nope.That's not to say it isn't carne, carne, y más carne everywhere you go, but there are many good vegetarian eateries too. I found at least one in virtually every town I visited:IMG_0260Girasoles in Cartagena. This is the place I went to every day while I was writing. We also went to Govinda's, which was fairly good, but Girasoles is better, and a way better value too (7,000 pesos for juice, soup, and a big plate of yum).P1060359Albahaca in Bucaramanga. I love that all the ingredients are laid out in little plastic tubs on a table by the door, and you just choose what you want and they sauté it up for you with fresh herbs.P1060393Restaurante Vegetariano Saludable Delicia in San Gil. Best seitan steak ever!P1060415Mandala Arte y Sabor in Barichara. Same deal here for lunch--only 7,000 pesos. I believe they called this "vegetable paella." Nom!P1060627A very friendly veggie café in Villa de Leyva (I can't seem to find the name by googling, but it's just north of the Plaza Mayor on Calle 12). That lentil burger with chutney was taaaaasty. Again, only 7,000 pesos, and that included soup, juice, tea, and dessert!(You may have noticed that there is no entry from Bogotá. We wanted to try Quinua y Amaranto, but every time we went it was closed. Boo!)

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Books and Creativity, Veganism Books and Creativity, Veganism

Savoury War-time Pie

Grandmamma had heartened herself with gin now and again from a bottle produced from somewhere amongst her voluminous black skirts, and was game to the last, if a trifle maudlin.

(from a description of a Soldiers' & Sailors' Wives Club event)

 Remember the war-time soup that called for everything in your compost bin? Here's another recipe from the book I was reading at the NLS last winter (Mrs. Dorothy Constance Peel's How We Lived Then, 1914-1918: A Sketch of Social and Domestic Life in England During the War). This time I actually tested it--veganized, of course--and my updated recipe follows the original.

Vegetable Pie with Potato Crust(Meat shortage)

2 onions, 2 carrots, 1 turnip, the outside sticks of half a head of celery, 1/2 lb. artichokes or two potatoes, 1/2 pint bacon-bone stock and 1 oz. lentils. For the pastry, 6 ozs. cooked potatoes (mashed), 6 ozs. flour, 2 ozs. cooking fat, 1 teaspoonful baking-powder.

Wash, clean and prepare the vegetables, cut them into small pieces and arrange them in a pie-dish in layers, putting the lentils, which have previously soaked for twenty-four hours, in the centre; pour over the stock and 1/2 pint of water; put into the oven with a dish over it and bake for 2 hours (or boil in a saucepan and put into a pie-dish afterwards if more convenient). For the paste, steam and mash the potatoes, rub the fat into the flour, then rub in the cooked potatoes, add a pinch of salt and the baking powder; mix to a fairly stiff paste with a little cold water, roll out and place over the vegetables in the pie-dish, trim the edge and mark it neatly, bake in a moderately hot oven for 3/4 hour.

P1050447

And here's my vegan version:

filling:--two onions--two carrots--three sticks of celery--one turnip--one 6-oz. jar of artichoke hearts--two cups vegetable stock (I used Better Than Bouillon)--one cup lentils (soaked overnight)--salt and pepper--herbs and spices (rosemary, cumin) to taste

pastry:--one medium potato, mashed--1 1/3 cups flour--1/4 cup Earth Balance shortening (half a stick)--1 tsp. baking powder--dash of salt

Preheat oven to 375º. Finely chop all vegetables (including the potato skins!) and sauté with herbs in olive oil until soft. Take off heat and add vegetable stock and pre-soaked lentils. To make the pastry, follow the original instructions (mix the shortening into the dry ingredients, then add the mashed potato, mixing together with a little cold water. It should make a nice easy-to-roll dough). Spoon the filling into a casserole dish (will yield too much filling for a pie plate), roll out the pastry and cover, sealing the edges of the pie with a fork. Bake for 45 minutes, dabbing the crust with a bit of Earth Balance vegan butter if you have it.

Turned out mighty tasty, if I do say so myself!

P1050449

Edit, 17 September: Kate and Elliot tried out this recipe using two standard pie plates, and as you can see it worked out perfectly:

wartime pies

 

So you might prefer to use two pie plates rather than a casserole dish. Next time we're going to try some new ingredients, mushrooms and whatnot. 

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Veganism Veganism

Vegan Banana Pear Bread

Last summer I used Gail's basic banana bread recipe a few times, jazzing it up with spices, walnuts, and vanilla, and now I figure it's easy enough to veganize. At the last minute I added a couple pears, hoping this bread would recapture some of the divine deliciousness of those banana pear muffins (edit: the recipe doesn't seem to be online anymore, unfortunately. I'd originally found it here). Not quite as divine, but still really tasty (and very moist).

3 or 4 mashed super-ripe bananas (about 1 1/2 cups)2 pears (peeled, cored, and diced)2 cups flour1/2 cup (1 stick) Earth Balance vegan butter (melted)1 cup raw sugar (can reduce to 3/4 cup)1/4 cup canola oil3/4 tsp. baking powder1+ tsp. each of cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg, or use pumpkin pie spice1 tsp. vanilla1/2 tsp. salt1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350º.  Mix the butter, oil, bananas, and pears, stir in the sugar and vanilla, and then add the dry ingredients.  Pour into a greased 4 by 8" loaf pan and bake for one hour (or until fork, knife, or toothpick comes out clean).

P1040198

NOM NOM NOM!
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Travel, Veganism Travel, Veganism

Vegan rice pudding

P1030229Cardamom growing on one of the spice plantations in Munnar.Remember that article about preserving family recipes my friend Cheryl Tan wrote for the WaPo a few months ago?

For years, Camille DeAngelis, author of "Petty Magic," resisted asking her grandmother and mother for their recipes for meatloaf, apple pie or pumpkin soup, for example, because of "the simple fact that no dish I put together will taste as good as my grandmother's version." Then, earlier this year, she got her grandmother's zucchini souffle recipe and tried it out in her kitchen. "Apparently my grandmother has a great deal more patience than I do. The recipe calls for grated zucchini and onion, but after only a few strokes I gave up and took out the food processor," DeAngelis says.

"The importance, for me," she adds, "lies not so much in the preservation of the recipes themselves as in the memories of family dinners they evoke. Someday I want my children to know their great-grandmothers through the dishes they made."

Since then I've been wanting to share Grandmom Kass's rice pudding recipe, but I'm only now getting around to testing it. This dessert will end up tasting even less like the original now that I'm vegan, but maybe when I make this it can remind me of my grandparents and that beyond-delicious thimbleful of cardamom rice pudding I had in Madurai.

P1030961

So here's my vegan version. It's easy-peasy and excellent comfort food—the way the cardamom mingles with the vanilla is totally magical.

2/3 cup uncooked white rice (I used 'jasmati')1/3 cup raw sugar1/3 cup raisins4½ cups coconut milk1 teaspoon vanilla6 cardamom pods

Preheat oven to 325º. Mix all ingredients in a large casserole dish. Bake for an hour and fifteen minutes, stirring regularly and taste-testing for sweetness once the rice has softened. Remove cardamom pods and serve hot or cold. Yields 6-8 servings.Some notes:

  • You can add more raisins, but it might be a good idea to add more milk too, since they really suck it up while they're cooking.
  • Of course you can skip the cardamom pods, or use ground cardamom, but it really does make the dish. (I can't emphasize this enough, actually. Magical. For reals.)
  • There's no need to cover the dish with foil (I wasn't sure, so I called my grandmother to check).

Now if only that zucchini soufflé were so easy to veganize! (I picked up a box of egg replacer but I haven't used it yet, so I'm still skeptical.)

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Art and Craft, Spirituality, Travel, Veganism Art and Craft, Spirituality, Travel, Veganism

Madurai

P1030298Detail from one of the gopurams (monumental towers) at the Meenakshi-Sundareswarar temple.Thanks to layovers, I got to see much more than I had originally planned on. I got to Munnar via Madurai, so on the way back I visited the temple there. I must have arrived too late in the day (10 or 10:30, maybe?), because the temple elephant was nowhere to be seen. (I went back and asked the guy who sold my ticket and he pointed out where I might find her, but I never did.) I wasn't too disappointed because (thanks to tips from my new friend Chris at Sadhana) I knew I'd get to see Lakshmi at Hampi.P1030303I had the best thali meal of my trip in Madurai, at a place called Sree Sabarees. Forty-five rupees (ONE DOLLAR!) for a huge amount of food, including a little cup of the most delicious cardamom rice pudding! (I didn't take a photo in the restaurant because I already felt like a silly tourist as it was, but I did take a photo of another thali plate in Hampi, so I'll show you that later. In real thali restaurants they give you a banana leaf and come by frequently to refill your 'plate' with rice, curries, chutneys, and pappadam or chapathi, but in other restaurants they just bring you the plate and that's that.)P1030311Anyway, back to the temple: it was marvelous, of course, a riot of color and texture and sound (there were loads of market stalls in shopping arcades offering mostly junk, apart from the flower sellers selling their fuchsia and white garlands). You walk into a place like this and realize just how limited and Eurocentric is your grade-school history education. (I felt this times a hundred while I was walking through the ruins at Hampi; but that's for another post.) I really enjoyed walking around (even if going barefoot still squicks me out a bit) and watching people at their devotions.P1030308P1030327P1030312P1030328The two statues above are inside the temple art museum.From Madurai, I took an overnight bus to Bangalore for another layover en route to Hampi. I did a city tour that day, though, so I still have plenty of good pics!

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