Carbondale, I want to be inside of you.

Published on March 1, 2010 in family, food, life and pictures. 5 Comments

A few weeks ago, I took a bus down to Carbondale to spend the weekend with my husband.  Carbondale is a small town in southern Illinois, but it’s a college town so there are actually a few things for vegans to get excited about!  My hometown (which I am grudgingly living in for now) is five times as big and has not even half the options.  The health food store here is small, and has the driest, saddest vegan baked good ever.  The eating out options are fine, but there isn’t any place specifically for vegetarians.

I was only in Carbondale for 38 hours, but I managed to stuff myself pretty hardcore.

The first place we went to was Longbranch Coffee House, a vegetarian cafe.  Unfortunately they don’t have a website or menu online (and our table was too small for me to get pictures with my portrait lens), but I do remember that the number of options that were already vegan or could be made vegan were a little slim.  But i’m a creature of habit anyway, so even if they have one thing that I like that I can eat, i’m happy.  I had a veggie calzone (no vegan cheese, just cheeseless), and the dough was to die for.  So, so good.  I checked out the bakery case at the front and if any of the items were vegan, they weren’t marked as such.

The health food store was just down the block, so we went in there.  A quick glance over the bulk section revealed no nooch or gluten – the two things that I can’t get from regular grocery stores that I consider absolute musts.  The only vegan cheese was Veganrella, which I didn’t even know still existed because most stores stick to Follow Your Heart or have moved onto Teese and other newer products.  Then I looked at the deli case to see if they had any vegan items.  They had tofu salad made with Vegenaise…and HONEY.  I have this habit about loudly bitching about fucking hippies and their need to put honey in fucking everything, and Brian saw the label before I did and started giggling.  I didn’t see much else in the way of vegan items.  On the way out, the woman behind the counter offered me some local cheese.

I don’t anticipate going there very much.

Then we got to go to the Co-Op.  The clouds parted and the angels sang.  It was amazing.  Not only did they have everything I expected, but they had more!  Chocolate covered ginger, vegan sandwiches and wraps, a daily vegan pizza special (that day was olive, and I hate olives so I passed), and more importantly CAKE.  Often times when i’m feeling down, or bleeding and murderous, I often complain that I can’t just get a single piece of cake.  I have to make a whole cake or batch of cupcakes (which I can halfsies, but still) myself.

Since I wasn’t staying long I only got the essentials.  You know, chocolate and sugar.  And a sandwich (called John Lennon) for the bus trip home.  Chocolate cake, a mini-carrot cake, chocolate covered ginger, carob energy bites, and my sandwich (baked tofu, peanut butter, and roasted peppers).  The chocolate cake was a smallish portion, but it was a little over $1 so that’s okay.  I went back before my bus ride to get another piece and they were all sold out (b00).  So I got two pre-packaged cake donuts instead.

After the sugar coma that ensued, I was happy when I found out Lent was coming up, and I decided to do the low-sugar, gluten free thing I did last year.  But come Easter, I am all over that place again.

The only bad experience was the indian buffet.  Brian was all excited to take me, and it turned out to be a total bust.  They only had eight or nine trays, and like an idiot I plopped rice down on my plate without looking at the other food first.  I’m naive and have had good luck with indian food so I just assumed it would be safe, if only for one or two dishes.  They had one bean dish that had meat in it, more meaty things, and then things that clearly had dairy in them.  I ended up with plain rice, spicy cabbage that was too hot for me to even eat, and plain salad.  I ate as much as I could while trying not to cry, and it was $9!  And seriously, what kind of indian place has meat in the chickpea dish?

But overall, it was a pleasant experience and I would really like to sell our house so I can move there already!  Mostly so I can see this handsome dude all the time:

Food to make enemies with.

Published on January 21, 2010 in family, food, life and pictures. 17 Comments

Hey dudes!  I’m dipping my toes back into blogging, after a very hectic last couple of weeks with moving.  The good news is that i’m no longer in Tennessee, the bad news is that the lack of selling our house means that while my husband is starting school, the animals and myself are mooching room and board off of my father-in-law (staying in Tennessee was not an option).  Two people, five dogs, four cats, one house.  Luckily, Chester is the only boy dog and they’re all either too old or too shy to be dicks, so everyone is settling in nicely (though the cats took a little longer to adjust).  Including my farts.

The very first dinner I made for myself here was based on the fact that I wanted buttery, noochy pasta, chickpeas, and broccoli all at once.  After the past few days of living off of take out and gas station snacks, it was a welcome change of pace.  But unless you’re trying to offend everyone around you, I don’t recommend this combination.  Eating this almost got me thrown out of a moving vehicle, and the fart in question happened before I even got in the car. It was like I had found the magical combination to quickly generate the rankest farts ever.  It certainly wasn’t just the beans, I ate chana masala for three meals in a row and i’ve barely made a toot.

So there you have it, the secret to becoming a walking chemical weapon.

P.S.  Didn’t you miss my insightful posts?

Finally, all of my stage momming has paid off!

Published on October 31, 2009 in animals, books, food, life, pictures and veganmofo. 11 Comments

I’ve been waiting for this day for a very long time.  I always knew that Bonny was a star, and now the whole world knows!

I didn’t test for Isa and Terry’s cookie book, for weight reasons, but when she said she was going to put tester photos in the back, Melisser and I begged to be able to submit photos of our dogs.  If you’ve never seen a picture of Strummer, this is really the only one you need to look at.  All we had to do was take their picture with some cookies.  Easier said than done!  I made a batch of the Chocolate Chip Mint Icebox cookies, gave Bonny a bath, and told her to be her cutest.  In my defense, I had done something similar with Chester a few years ago…

…and it was all I could do to keep him from eating the cookies, so I was honestly surprised when Bonny’s reaction, was, well…

Sometimes, if Bonny can tell you want her to do something but she doesn’t understand what, she gets upset.  So she just stood there and shook and looked really unhappy.  I tried having her sit in Brian’s lap, but no.  Also, Bonny isn’t that into people food and we don’t feed it to the dogs hardly ever, so she had no reason to think those cookies were for her.  To be clear, I wasn’t trying to get her to eat them, I just wanted a picture of her sniffing them.  I would never feed a cookie to my dog, even without chocolate!  So finally, I broke up a dog cookie, hid it under the top cookie, and snapped away as she sniffed and ate those.  You can see the dog cookie a little bit in this last picture.

Also, I obviously totally bailed on MoFo this year.  Personal issues have kept me from eating much outside of oatmeal and cereal (the plus side to the depression diet has been losing ten pounds), and from wanting to blog a lot.  I don’t see that changing until after the holidays are over, when we’ll be moving out of this miserable cesspool.  The only interesting thing i’ve made all month is Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls for a friends birthday.