veganism4geeks

Vintage Seltzer

At first I thought it may have been a stale batch, but, I have cross referenced and performed due diligence and am beginning to suspect that Vintage Seltzer is tapping a new water source.

The taste is off. Until very recently, Vintage was one of the cleanest tasting brands of bottled water of any kind: vitamin water, mineral water, spring water, seltzer, etc., but now it tastes kind of more like White Rock, or something else with a more chlorinated, unpurified taste and aftertaste.

I hope this is temporary. Maybe they changed their filtration methods, in which case enough expressions of disappointment might affect a reversion.

Even now, it still enjoys an edge on competitors, so I will continue to delight in it, if a little less.

Photo by Spiff

Pre-Dreamster

Though my beloved dreamster showed me the marvels and delights of splendidly prepared vegan dishes, before my life was so enriched, I subjectively and without culinary expertise of any sort derived a bunch of extremely healthy, though bland and monotonous, super-easy-to-prepare meals.

It is almost time to amass them, coalesce the vapors of my vegan experience, and describe them in one long page here for those faced with delightfully similar circumstances: tempeh and tomato sauce, hummous and pretzels, vegan cookies with almond butter, and many more.

It all began with almond milk, or reading about almond milk, in a PETA pamphlet I picked up from a tabler in D.C. in 1995. The idea of having something so luscious, luxurious, and also healthy, made the ruby meadows bounce their eerie glow off the firmament and into tempest, stream, ravine, and garden.

Dalliancing in fields, lolling by the brook with a daisy between my teeth whilst dazzling a dewy maiden, carried unbelievable appeal. Keats and Shelley, Wordsworth and Spenser, Renoir and Monet, more defined my early vegan years than Star Trek or Star Wars, Dungeons & Dragons or technology: these geek-pursuits were kind of suspended for several years.

Maybe, antiaging4poets would be more fitting. It might better describe who I actually am. I cannot describe how much Keats, Yeats, Hopkins, Pope, Frost, cummings, Whitman, and, yes, even the second rate Poe (2nd rate poet, 1st rate original mind), have changed my life.

I wanted nothing more for endless months than to wander with Lucy among the untrodden ways. Every time I read Whitman, I am still uplifted with more cerulean bliss than ever a Chai Tea could generate. (Tai Chi...Chai Tea...interesting spoonerism, btw).

But, the minute the ecstasy of poesy subsides (it never fully subsides. once you have been touched by the wings of poesy, you are forever enthralled, but it can subside a little), I realize that it is likely that I am equally shaped by Star Wars and verse romance, by Demogorgon and Cezanne, by Planet of the Apes and Bach.

And, before sleeping again before my Sunday D&D game, I will read highlights from The Eve. of St. Agnes and listen to X-Minus One, Dark Fantasy, and Dimension X, that is, I will flit from edge to edge with but a modicum of integration.

Horror. Vampires. Supernatural. Gothic. Forgot all about these! When the gauze spreads thin and the psyche glows omnipresent, it is easy to see in streams and wakes, nodes and arcs, how all these interests are so closely related: the medieval lovers of St. Agnes Eve, paladins in D&D, trolls in Wagner, ghosts in Shakespeare, monsters in gothic fiction.

At some level, I feel like integrating them in my psyche, allowing them to cross pollinate at unbridled leisure and haste. But, at some other compartmentalizing end of consciousness, I want to keep them separate, to allow some overlap and synthesis, but to maintain the hierarchy which places poesy at the apex.

My most beautiful beloved sleeps so dreamily.
She is so utterly beautiful.

Soon, lethe-ward will I sink.
Enjoy a fine Sunday, all.

Garlic and Organic Smart Balance

There are few finer vegan staples than this modernized folk rite. Maybe raw almond butter and apple sauce on sprouted grain toast, maybe fresh guacamole (can't help but think of George Carlin's routine from way back when whenever I pronounce this- think it was Carlin at Carnegie or Carlin on Campus) or Crispy Cubed Tofu with Brown Bean Sauce from Veggie Heaven.
I think chopped garlic and olive oil was the forerunner.

Nut Butter Mania

Maranatha, Once Again, Arrowhead Mills, Skippy, Jif, Peter Pan, and the now defunct Rejeuvenative Foods: there is nothing except sun-avoidance that hath preserved the hermit so much as skin-plumping, lymphatic-enhancing, dreamily oily, glimmering, luscious, scrumptious, eternally fresh, and irrepressibly delightful nut butters.

Macadamia Butter for pure skin luxury
Peanut Butter for invigoration as well as everything else in adequate proportion
Almond Butter for a pure health tonic, as well as very good skin enhancement
Cashew Butter for complex balance and certain fortitudes
Sesame Tahini for the purest health and skin radiance with the bitterest, harshest medicinal taste.

Suggestions:
Macadamia Butter: spread on toast, dip with pretzels or cookies, spread on muffins
Peanut Butter: whip up with apple sauce into a fluffy dip for pretzels, cereal or cookies; also works best with jams, jellies, marmalades, and fruit spreads
Almond Butter: try on toasted sprouted grain bread, topped with apple sauce
Sesame Tahini: mix with tomato sauce and use to top beans, peas, pasta, or anything else; can also be used as a dip

Overall Best:
Almond Butter and Sesame Tahini

As Elias Sandoval said in the Star Trek episode This Side of Paradise:
'You'll find no weaklings here'

Enjoy!

Photo by Piccolo Namek

Two Roads Converged In A Forest

A shot's path is linear,
An elk's, irregular,
But their marriage is forever.

Festivities Abound at the Vegan Carnival

Enjoy the rides, the recipes, the dreams, and the tofu:

Vegetarian Carnival #15

Caravan of Dreams

I am reminiscing on Caravan of Dreams, Healthy Home Cooking, Candle Cafe, Angelica Kitchen, and all the other really cool, fully vegan, places to dine at in glorious Manhattan in the late 1990s.

Angelica Kitchen and, I believe, Candle Cafe, still stand and proudly fly their vegan flags, but the rest are relegated to history.

Now, I enjoy tofu at Veggie Heaven, Iced Venti Soy Chai at Starbucks, and comb through menus at a bunch of other places for veganesque choices.

Bring back 1998, but let splendid 2008 stand as well: a transposition of the two would work well. Is this possible?
Palpatine: 'Make it possible!'.

Enjoy.

A Logger's Song

Down by the white gardenias,
A sloth and I did meet.
She dangled from the branches
By her little hooked feet.
She bid me take life easy
And spare these precious trees,
But I, being young and selfish,
With her would not agree.

In a forest by a river,
The sloth and I did stand.
We ambled to the fringes
Of a cleared and wasted land.
She bid me view this image
And hear her future fears,
But I continued logging
And now am full of tears.

A parody of 'Down By The Sally Gardens', by William Butler Yeats

Veggie Heaven

Had Crispy Cubed Tofu in Brown Bean Sauce at Veggie Heaven, Teaneck, tonight, along with Yam Fries, Spring Rolls, and a Diet Coke.

'Twas predictably divine!

Haven't had almond butter in a while: if I go too long without it, a tremor in the force could result.
Wow! Is that a geeky comparison or what?!

Veggie Heaven rules! Gary rules!