Vegan Donuts!

I kind of miss Seattle. It's funny how some cities don't really have anything interesting but you still enjoy them more than anywhere else. And when you leave they pull you back with small memories twinged with tastes, smells and sounds.

I stayed at the Green Tortoise Hostel on Pike Street which I would highly recommend to anyone. They have free breakfast (and this isn't just one bagel... cough... HI Fort Mason... cough) you can make pancakes and eggs... or if you are vegan eat toast and fruit. They have great organised tours and free dinners on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday nights. And the tacos were vegan friendly! Yum! And the chef was more than happy to answer any questions about what was in them right down to the oil they used.

Directly underneath the hostel is a cosy coffee shop called Seattle Coffee Works. They roast their coffee on site (I can't vouch for the coffee since I was on a caffeine-free binge in the world's coffee capital; ironic, I know.), had soy milk readily available and serve their hot drinks up in bowl like cups. But the most important part is... the vegan donuts!


The are supplied my Mighty O Donuts (http://www.mightyo.com/) and are delicious. I was never a donut person. The melt in your mouth taste of hot cinnamon donuts was always ruined by the foreseeable cold, greasy lump of dough they'd be the next day. But these donuts are fantastic. I had the lemon and poppy seed as recommended by the fellow vegan barista behind the counter. It was excellent cold.

The United States became a lot more vegan friendly in the last four years since I was last here. And the result is that I'll be coming back to Australia heavier once again. And thank goodness! Otherwise I'd have to think of a new blog title.

Alive!

I am in San Fransisco and ate at Alive! today.

I don't think I understand raw foods. Henry Thoreau, in Walden, challenges the concept of using fuel for the preparation of food, and I'm not that opposed to the idea, but raw restaurants blend and refrigerate. They aren't subtracting the fuel. They are just subtracting the heat. And the result?

I ordered a Green Smoothie that tasted like celery and parsley and had the consistency of sloppy mashed potatoes. I had already eaten lunch so I went straight to dessert and asked the waiter what he would recommend. He recommended the Strawberry Chocolate Torte.

The strawberries were nice (but I could have picked up a punnet at Safeway for 3.99) and the chocolate biscuit base wasn't without it's merit but the 6 inches of cold coconut cream that layered the top of the torte and increased my risk of a heart attack ended up on the side of my plate in a whitish-pink mess.

I don't get raw foods. And I'm not sure I want to understand. I think I'm a baker.

Babycakes

Babycakes in Soho in Manhattan is a vegan bakery. And gluten free. And white sugar free. In fact, they are basically a guiltless bakery. Which explains why I ate too much and why my head and tummy now hurts.

A tastier vegan cupcake I've not had. And the staff were brilliant.

The owner and baker has a cookbook which is far too heavy to buy and carry to the west coast so I will endeavour to pick up a copy in San Francisco or back home. And then I will bake, bake, bake!

From the girl who brought you a Jane Austen book club after seeing The Jane Austen Book Club I present to you... a vegan's Julie & Julia.

It's my last day in New York. I'm not sure if it's Manhattan's acoustics or the temper of the God's but the storms here are orchestrally terrifying. The thunder left me with an interrupted sleep so I didn't exactly perform an enthusiastic start to the day. And it was raining on and off and after a trek and a half to get to Moby's Teany only to find it closed (although I did find Babycakes open which was a pleasant surprise) I decided to waste the last of my last day on the east coast with a movie.

3.05pm Inglorious Basterds was sold out so I bought a 4pm ticket to see Julie & Julia and wasted an hour in nearby Pottery Barn and Barnes & Noble.

The film was excellent. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Meryl Streep is such an excellent actress. Two things somewhat hindered my enjoyment of the story:

1. The fact that I had earlier enjoyed a banana cupcake with blueberry frosting from Babycakes and then followed it with a cookie sandwich from the same store. I'm in such vegan heaven here in New York that I frequently forget that two huge American sweets, no matter how vegan they are, will leave you with a throbbing headache and nausea.

2. I watched four lobsters being thrown into boiling water while alive and then the dead carcass of a duck be deboned.

I did, however, come up with a solution for this:

1. Make your own blog.

2. Make it vegan.

3. Share the goods with your friends so you avoid the headache and nausea.

4. Share the recipes and experiences with the whole three people who will read your blog out of voyeuristic tendencies.

So that is my plan. When I return home I will embark on a vegan cooking expedition.

How long will it last?

Well, to be fair to my fickleness, we did read all of Jane Austen's works in the book club. Although, to be fair to the truth, we only discussed the finished works. But I had a full discussion about Sandition and The Watsons and the other one with myself. I feel this counts. And I have now read all of Jane Austen's works. So let's see how many vegan cakes I can bake, vegan soups I can stir, vegan dinners I can hold and how much No Egg one vegan can use in a year.