Whoops.

Occasionally, I am just more of a jackass than a Spiteful vegan.

In this post, I rambled some constructive (okay, perhaps not so constructive) criticism about a vegan/plant-based/healthy foods event I attended that was actually quite delicious.

So, I want to say a couple of things about that.

1. I'm sorry.  It was rude.  I was in an uber sarcastic critical mode and I have a habit of sometimes thinking my exaggerations and sarcastic musings and criticism are funny, when they actually are just rude (ask my mother, who's been wondering since I became a teenager why I am such a pain in the ass).

2. In no way am I a legitimate food critic.  I write about the things I like to talk about, which happen to include food and my opinions on food, but no I haven't attend culinary school, taken a nutrition class, or even worked in a restaurant.  That is, my opinions on food are from an every day vegan and not to be taken as legitimate food criticism from someone who...knows food.  Maybe I should stick to the feminist musings that are actually well thought out and that I have a fairly educated opinion on, but I'll probably keep writing about food because it's yummy and interesting and important to me.

I'm spiteful but not unable to apologize.

I'm bummed that there aren't more 20 somethings who take an interest in attending events like the one I blogged about recently, but that's proooobably not a good reason to criticize people who put the event together.  Would I like to see them reach out to a younger demographic?  Yes.  Is that their obligation or did that make their event a fail?  No.  And I'm sorry that my post made it sound that way.  Just look at the pictures of tasty food and let your mouth water.

Healthy Taste of LA! Food, good; website, bad.

Last night I attended part 1 of Healthy Taste of LA (part 2 is a day long conference today that I didn't attend to save money/because I am on call for work).   I enjoyed a 7 course vegan meal, all prepared with no oil, and a Q+A sessio with Dr. Colin Campbell, author of the China Study.   Campbell is a contraversial scientist/nutritionist who posits the radical idea that what we eat affects our health.  I may write more on him later but for now I want to concentrate on the delicious healthy foods I enjoyed - as it is rare to find a 7 course gourmet, healthy, vegan meal that is all prepared for you by some of the most amazing vegan chefs in existence.

Course 1: Veggie Sushi! with tempeh, carrots, and some other stuff I ate even though I'm not sure what it was.

Course 2: Baked onion rings, that apparently I forgot to take a picture of.  I HATE onion rings.  They are greasy and disgusting - yet I ate every single bite of these onion rings.  They were oil free, baked, and "battered" in whole wheat bread, cornmeal, and chickpea flour - so they actually contained some whole grain nutritional value.  Yum!

Course 3: Lentil loaf with a shittake mushroom pate (the jelly looking thing), with pickles, radish, and chia seed/sunflower seed crackers.

This dish contained a number of things that I've never considered using in food (chia seed? all that makes me think of is growing 'chia pets' into the shapes of famous faces, etc as a child).  But again, I ate every single bite - even the mushroom pate, and I generally have a rule that mushrooms/fungus does NOT go in my mouth.  However, I also have a rule that I eat what I pay for, and at a $75 dinner, there was no way I wasn't going to try it.  To my surprise, it was amazing.  Lentils tend to be a bit bland, so the pickle garnish and pate jelly were the perfect complement.

Course 4:  Butternut squash soup and roasted parsnip soup, garnished with arugula and pumpkin seed. 

Did you know you can put TWO different soups in the same bowl?  The left side is parnip and the right side is butternut squash and ginger.  Both delicious, and I maintain that soup is one of the most unappreciated yet delicious (and nutritious, depending on what you put in it) ways to serve food.  If I ever get my act together and open my all vegan oil-free restaurant, the signature dishes will obviously be soups.

Course 5: Chef AJ's Hail to the Kale salad.

Ahhh the thing that started it all for me.  I'm constantly searching for tasty ways to consume green veggies, because for a vegan, I'm rather disgusted by healthy vegetables.  This salad is amazing (and the recipe is free on Chef AJ's site and I thinkon you tube).  Many people don't like the bitter taste of kale, but the accompanying dressing balances out the bitterness perfectly - with a little bit of sweet, a little bit of savory.  It's strange to see a salad whose focus is so clearly the greens - typically we use that as a base but smother it in creamy things like cheese and ranch dressing.   I challenge the kale naysayers to NOT like this salad; I'll even make it for you!

Course 6: Grilled portobello mushroom over a spekt berry and black bean salad with salsa verde, and a soft polenta.

Again, I rarely find a reason to ingest fungus, but I willed myself to at least try it after shelling out 75 bucks for a meal.  I ate every single bite.  And liked it.  I'm now having an identity crises after consuming 2 courses containing mushrooms last night, and loving every single bite.  The winter squash in the black bean salad along with mandarin oranges, and the tangy salsa verde actually made the fungus worth eating.   I still think mushrooms are stupid - why would you eat something called fungus that has virtually no nutritional value?  But if I have to eat it, this is the way to do it.

Course 7: German Chocolate Cake

Delicious. 

While the food was tasty, I wouldn't be Stephanie if I didn't have some criticisms of this event.

First: don't tell me how much better a plant based diet is for the environment, then serve 7 courses on disposable plates.  I understand that the church basement venue may not have provided a huge kitchen full of restaurant size dish washing spaces, but then you need to find a new space next year.  Please don't tell me in one sentence that the hole in the ozone layer can be 51% attributed to factory farming practices, and 2 minutes later bring out the 7th disposable plate to serve my (delicious) dessert.

Second, the marketing for this event was absolute crap.   Chef AJ - I love you, but why does your website look like it was built in 1991? I paid $75 for a ticket to a dinner, and couldn't find anywhere on the website the actual TIME of the dinner.  Really?  The materials were unsophisticated to my generation's eye, and even though I can't get on board with twitter personally, you need to learn new technology if you want to, as you claim, encourage Americans to eat healthier.  My guess is 90% of the people at this event were aged 50 or above, and many, I gathered switched to a plant-based diet after enduring serious health problems.  If, as you claim, nutrition can help us avoid these problems in the first place, reach out to a younger demographic who still has a chance of avoiding serious health problems if they commit to a healthy diet now.

Third, the recipe book provided for the dinner attended is also crap.  Half of the recipes are there, half aren't - when you clearly told me at dinner last night that I'd get a book with all these recipes.  To the untrained vegan chef, who has no clue what would go in vegan mushroom pate or has never heard of all the fancy vegetables used in the sushi - this book is virtually useless.  There are some decent recipes, for sure, but they are inconsistent at best.  Some of the best dishes from last night aren't in here, and while half the recipes provided useful nutritional facts about sodium or protein content, the other half don't.  Don't tell me to KNOW what I'm eating and make choices to use plant-based whole foods, then not tell me what the hell you're actually feeding me.

I appreciate the talents and innovativeness of these amazing vegan chefs, but I'm thoroughly confused in 2011 as to how famous book-writing Doctors or nutritionally knowledgeable chefs could have such a hard time writing their own recipes down or marketing effectively.

At the beginning of the dinner, I sat down at a table by myself.  A few minutes later, Chef AJ announced to the room "That girl is sitting by herself!! Someone sit with her!"  She then pointed out that I was knitting, and when I went to talk with her later during the event, said "Oh, you're the knitter!"  After briefly wishing the floor would open up and swallow me whole as I flushed red of middle school like embarassment, sitting alone and knitting at a social event, I realized the problem.  Despite my old-lady like proclivity for knitting, I was the youngest person in the room by a good 20 years until a handful of teens, dragged by their parents, showed up just before the event started.

Here's some advice.  Don't think of me as the knitter.  Hire me as the event planner, because this group needs it.  Thanks for the tasty food - now get your administrative act together and practice what you preach:  teach nutrition to people, not just old people recovering from health problems.

Love,
Stephanie

Twice Baked Avocado Mashed Potatoes with Cranberry Relish

Tonight I got creative with a few recipes.  My friend Amanda and I frequently discuss how avocado is basically the most delicious thing ever, and mashed potatoes are pretty tasty too.  She recently sent me this recipe for avocado mashed potatoes, assuring me that it was delicious.

Since I'm vegan and trying to avoid salt and oil, I adapted the recipe a little.  And since I was feeling innovative, I went with twice baked avocado mashed potatoes instead of regular old mashed potatoes.  I garnished them with Chef AJ's cranberry relish (which she recommends with twice baked sweet potatoes).

My recipe:

2 avocados

1 splash of lemon juice
5 small/medium potatoes
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 of a small onion, chopped
Cranberry relish (below)


Bake potatoes at 350 for about an hour, after poking them with a fork few times (which is my favorite part... a healthy way to get out aggression).

While the potates are in the oven, scoop out the 2 avocado insides and throw into a food processor with a splash of lemon juice - process until smooth.

When the potatoes are ready, cut in half and scoop out the insides into a bowl, and mash (I mixed about half with a mixer and mashed the other half with a fork, because I like it smooth with some yummy potato chunks).  Stir in the chopped onion and minced garlic, and the avocado/lemon juice mix.

Fill the potato skins with the avocado/potato filling, and bake again at 350 for 15-20 minutes, until slightly browned.

Tasty!

For an extra flavor kick, garnish with Chef Aj's cranberry relish.
Cranberry Relish:
12 oz cranberries
2 oranges, with zest (I almost threw in the peel haphazardly - make sure to google what 'zest' is if you don't know)
2 tablespoons psyllium husk

Throw it all in the blender.  Easy.  And super flavorful, so I actually cut this recipe in half and it was more than enough to eat on my potatoes.

Keeping Up With... Stephanie's thoughts on marriage

You probably already know that I have an opinion about virtually everything.  I think my parents, in fact, might regret encouraging my education because I won't ever shut up if I think I know something (kidding, the rents are actually very supportive and proud - and I absolutely always know everything).

One area of exception has always been pop culture for me - I don't know, I don't care, I'm not hostile nor excited about celebrities of any kind.  I don't watch reality shows or know the names of the actors in the shows that I do watch.  I don't Keep Up with the Kardashians, and I only know the name of their show because it was a topic of conversation in my former workplace (miss you, tele-land!), and okay - because Kim Kardashian was on Ellen not too long ago.

I find all this is starting to change.  Partly, I blame Marco for getting me addicted to The A List: Dallas, which is both horrible and impossible to stop watching.  But mostly, I think it's the lack of homework for the first time in my life that prompts me to spend my evenings making spinach smoothies and channel surfing. 

So, I was slightly more aware than you'd expect when I started seeing the endless facebook posts about Kim Kardashian's short lived marriage - I knew who she was (sort of, I'm still not entirely sure how she or her family came into the limelight and no, I don't care to find out) and from her recent Ellen visit, knew she had recently been married and had rumors circulating that her marriage was already about to end.  On Ellen, she asserted that these rumors were false.  Recently I learned that she filed for divorce, and took personal offense to the fact that someone would dare lie to Ellen.

But, I'm still rather opinionless on her actual marriage.  I get the same-sex marriage advocates who criticize that a 72 day marriage is superficial, while geniuinely lasting relationships between same-sex couples are (mostly) not acknowledged as legitimate.  I get it.  But really - really, do we want to spend our time criticizing someone else's motives for getting married?  Is it fair to say so and so's marriage wasn't legitimate?  Um, is that what you want someone saying about a same-sex marriage?  Does it really feel like a good use of time to hate on someone else's marriage while working so that one day, your own can be recognized?

You can say that a 72 day marriage hurts the institution of marriage - but marriage can't be hurt.  Marriage is not a living being, with feelings.  Marriage cannot be damaged, except for within your own relationship and your own idea of what it should look like (if you can't get it out of your thick head that your way is not the right way for everyone).  Marriage cannot get its feelings hurt and marriage can mean different things to different people without it affecting your life or your personal desires in the slightest.   Same sex marriages, Kardashian marriages, traditional marriages - I really don't understand why we could give a crap. 

We should all be able to choose if, when, how, why, and to whom we get married.  But don't tout that you support marriage freedom for same-sex couples, then spend all the livelong day posting hateful tweets and facebook posts about Kim's shortlived marriage because you personally don't think she got married for the right reasons.   If you don't want money in Kim's pocket for allegedly stunt weddings designed to raise ratings and attract corporate sponsors - then don't watch her show and don't give advertisers a reason to give her money.

Kim - I can only guess that your show is ridiculous, stupid, annoying, yet with a touch of addictive.  I think consumerism and greed are probably ruining our country, and people like you are perpetuating an absurd fascination and longing for wealth and material items - and while you perpetuate this longing you're rolling around in riches while others can't find jobs.  But whenever, to whomever, and for whatever reasons you decide to get married - do what you feel.  I expect the same respect in return related to my decisions if, how, when, why, or whom I choose to marry.  Hell, maybe I'll try to marry into your family to share the wealth one day.

Day: I like processed peanut butter.

At our staff meeting every week, the RAs and I read from the kudos box - a little box where we put appreciation (and some silly) notes throughout the week.  Today we read a note from Becky, expressing that I am brave and strong for sticking to my unprocessed diet.

Although a sweet note, this was particularly embarrassing timing as I announced to my staff tonight that I've fallen off the unprocessed wagon - back to the delicious processed wagon full of sugars, salts, and oils.

Why?

I'm freaking hungry.

And it's not that the unprocessed foods aren't filling or tasty or a better choice - they most definitely are all of those things, but I'm broke, I have a meal plan, and the dining hall already has these things prepared for me at the end of a long day when all I have the energy to do is eat and watch Ellen. 

Which gets me thinking - what is wrong with our culture (and me) when meal times are an inconvenient burden.  I wasn't a psyc major but I feel like I remember Maslow's hierarchy of needs putting a pretty high level of importance on food.  

I want to stick to this while thing and stop using time and convenience as excuses, but I also want to use my free meals (or meals that are actually compensation for my time rather than 'free') so I can spend more money on luxuries like cable tv and mini-vacations to Vegas with the fabulous Matt Jeffries.  And that is selfish, and probably indicates some messed up priorities if eating the way I should/want to be eating interferes with those other things that Maslow says is less important (actually I'm not sure where trips to Vegas ranked on that pyramid - it was probably pretty important now that I think about it).

I don't want to imply that I ate healthily when I was in England just over a year ago (as that's far from the truth) but I recall having a much better work/life rythym and I wonder what steps we could take in this country to make it so we actually have the energy to say, cook a healthy meal for dinner.  I think it's probably inevitable in an individualistic and capitalistic culture that we are constantly working harder and to achieve more things - rather than living to be happy and healthy.  If the message we get every day is to work hard and achieve more things - money and prestige, mainly, how can we be expected to live whole and fulfilling lives?

 I don't have the energy to get into a critique of the pros and cons of capitalism, so that's an observation, not a criticism at the moment.    I have to go watch The Daily Show.