Sweet on San Luis Obispo, Whole Foods Southern California, & "Sweet Justice"; a Benefit.

Please head over to my new blog at TheUrbanHousewife.com, where you'll find this post & more!

While this weekend was hardly a relaxing getaway having done 14+ hours of driving in less than 3 days, we always take the time on trips to find delicious vegan options along the way! Our first stop was halfway between San Francisco & Los Angeles in San Luis Obispo, our former home & the current home to our good friend Josh. Josh is always kind enough to let us crash at his place, any hour of the night, any day of the week, seriously ANY time, so I decided to surprise him with a delivery from Amy Bakes Cupcakes!

A popular Central Coast special order bakery, Amy Bakes Cupcakes has options for the vegan & gluten free folks & will deliver right to you! With Josh being a lover of Peanut Butter & Chocolate, I opted for a dozen of the "PB Kiss" cupcakes, a moist, flavorful peanut butter cupcake, topped in sweet chocolate frosting! He was completely surprised & they disappeared quickly! We can't wait to pass through & place another order, I have my eye on the S'mores cupcakes next!

Another sweet treat in San Luis Obispo is the newly opened chocolate shop, Sweet Earth Chocolates. Formerly housed in Splash Cafe, this company making organic, fair trade confections has opened their own storefront location & seems to have more vegan options than ever! While my favorite will always be the rice crispie & cashew flecked caramels coated in dark chocolate they call Turtles, I certainly would not turn down their other chocolates! I opted for an assortment for myself & friends, including Vanilla Caramels, Chili Orange Walnut & Almond Clusters, plus Cherry Almond & Peppermint Bark. They also have Truffles, Fruit Gellies, & Peanut Butter Cups! Luckily, you can order online if you won't be making it to San Luis Obispo any time soon.

I have heard time & time again that Southern California Whole Foods are the best around. Well, even though we only made it to Thousand Oaks & not the vast locations further south, we were pretty well impressed. Signs declared that we were in the midst of vegan options & we found everything from organic cotton candy to Gardein Curry Salads & even a vegan friendly taco bar. Sure, those all sound great, but we were there for the "Surfboard Pizza"! Whole Foods in Southern California offer large, surfboard shaped pizzas with the soy free, non-dairy cheese Daiya, that has been taking the vegan world by storm. We opted for a Garlic, Tomato, & Spinach pie which was topped in Cheddar Daiya, baked to perfection in a wood fired oven, & set us back a mere $13.99! While I prefer my pizza topped in Cheezly, this was a pizza definately worth eating & sharing with friends!

For those of you in the Bay Area, there's a benefit coming up on August 28th at 8pm to support the AETA 4. "Sweet Justice" will be a night of vegan desserts with a silent auction, raffle, & more to benefit 4 activists currently jailed due to the Animal Enterprise Terrorist Act. Please see the AETA 4 blog post for more information! For those of you who can't be there, please sign this petition to repeal the Animal Enterprise Terrorist Act!

Finally, if you haven't checked out Veggie Thing lately, you're missing out! Sure, I might be a bit biased because they just featured the Peanut Butter Cup cupcakes my company Sugar Beat Sweets made for Sky at Eats Well With Others, but they also bring you the best in vegan eats across the United States, submitted by vegans like YOU! Be sure to check it out!

Food & Friends in Los Angeles + the Veggie Pride Parade.

Please head over to my new blog at TheUrbanHousewife.com, where you'll find this post & more!

When I found out the Veggie Pride Parade was happening in Los Angeles, I thought it would be a fun time & a great excuse to see friends & eat my way through the area. Car loaded up & ready to go, Strummer & I headed South to see what was in store for us!

Having lived in San Luis Obispo years ago, I always stop there when I have the chance. While SLO has plenty of vegan dining options, my favorite treat is from Sweet Earth Chocolates, who I've mentioned before & found out about from Amey at Vegan Eats & Treats. As usual, I had to stop by Splash Cafe & pick up an assortment of vegan chocolates, especially the Turtles & vegan caramels!

I started my Los Angeles dining adventure in the Silverlake area, at a vegan raw food restaurant, Cru. While many of the options were tempting, I went with the Mezze Platter, a plate with creamy cucumber tzatzizki, a fabulous beet and apple salad, fig pate, cashew cheese, flax crackers & garlicky rubbed kale. I certainly appreciate the work at goes in to raw food, but not quite enough of the items on my plate wowed me to justify the $13 price tag. That being said, I have heard fabulous things about their desserts & would consider going back to try them!

The next day, I set out for brunch at M Cafe on Melrose. Traffic seemed to have another idea, I slipped in the door just before 11:30am & was able to order the Vegan Benedict! Luckily, I had a great group of gals dining with me, Adriana from Anarchy in the Garden, QuarryGirl, JennShaggy, & Britt from Sick of Lettuce who made me forget all about the traffic. The Vegan Benedict was delicious with a grilled whole-grain baguette topped with steamed kale, tomato, tempeh bacon & a hollandaise sauce. I also had Broccolini Pepperoncini & the Kale with Spicy Peanut Sauce, a dish I have heard about many times from people & it lived up to the hype! M Cafe has an impressive display of desserts, so I opted for the Lemon Tart, which looked just lovely. The tart was sweetened with maple syrup, which was pretty much all I could taste, which was a disappointment when you're expecting lemon. I hope next time I'll be able to try the Banana Millefeuille, which they did not have when I was there, but I have heard is wonderful.

Since I don't get to Los Angeles as often as I'd like, I thought I would organize a little get together to meet up with as many vegans as I could wrangle. It's not easy to find a restaurant large enough to house a group with decent parking, but Vegan Village Cafe fit the bill, as the space happens to be a dance club in the evenings! Quite a few people turned up, including the brains behind Could It Be Seitan?, C'est La Vegan, QuarryGirl, Hugger Food, Afsoon's Posties, plus friends from The PPK forums & Twitter. Vegan Village Cafe serves up soul food & house made cakes, & the staff was friendly & totally accommodating to our needs. I opted for a plate with all my favorites; black eyed peas, collard greens, yams, buttered corn, & cornbread. After stuffing myself with food, I managed to sneak bites of other's people's desserts & found the cakes were moist, fluffy, & unlike other cakes I've had! I especially enjoyed the pineapple cake, which I suspect had some help from a can of pineapple juice.

Speaking of C'est La Vegan, Kim was find enough to bring samples of some of her treats for everyone to try at lunch! I managed to take some back to where I was staying as well, so I could savor each bite. I enjoyed the mini cookies in Snickerdoodle, Chocolate Chip, Peanut Butter, & Oatmeal Cranberry, the size was super fun to pop in to your mouth. While not normally a biscotti fan, I was pleasantly surprised by the Chocolate Almond & Pistachio Anise Seed, toothsome & flavorful, they were delicious! My favorite was the brownie, deep chocolate flavor & fudginess made this a winner! If you find yourself in LA, check out C'est La V Bake Shop goodies at Locali & local farmers markets.

I love a good brunch, so I headed to Flore Cafe's all you can eat offering on Sunday morning with a few friends. The $10 price tag was certainly worthwhile, as I loaded up my plate with fabulous french toast, waffles, mexican inspired tofu scramble, potatoes, veggie sausages & fresh fruit! I wish we would have something like this in San Francisco, although I hardly need to be eating at buffets weekly! Don't miss this delicious option for brunch with a rotating menu!

After brunch, the next stop was the Veggie Pride Parade in Venice, a celebration of the veg lifestyle & a 5k parade around town. Strummer & I had a great time making new friends, hanging out with familiar faces, being interviewed by VegSource (Strummer is at 2:45 & I'm interviewed at 8:30), & exploring the food & clothing booths including C'est La V Bake Shop! I must admit, the event was a bit cheesy, & I couldn't help but giggle at the people in random neon animal costumes many from the Supreme Master Ching Hai posse (note the rabbit looking nauseous & various other costumed folk), but overall it was a fun day & hopefully the press was effective to inform people about veganism.

For dinner, I headed to Hugo's Restaurant in West Hollywood with friends, including Alex & Kristen who happened to be visiting from San Francisco as well. I opted for the sweet corn tamales, instead of the soyrizo tamales which normally come with the entree, plus a side of flavorful mixed vegetables & kale. While a bit pricey, the dish hit the spot for me. Unfortunately, my dining companions were less than impressed with Hugo's. In the future, I think I'll stick to Hugo's Tacos, home of tasty taquitos, loved by Strummer, Ryan, & myself!

For my final Los Angeles meal, I made the trek to the valley to try the food at Follow Your Heart Market & Cafe, makers of Vegenaise, salad dressings, & O.G. vegan cheese. Never one to pass on a milkshake, a banana & peanut butter shake was promptly delivered to the table & devoured! At the suggestion of To Live and Eat in LA, I opted for the Reuben, which I split with Afsoon. I'm not a fan of Caraway Seed, so we opted for wheat bread, which worked in our favor because we were given two sandwiches for the price of one! Even after splitting things, my plate was filled with the sandwich of Seitan slices, Sauerkraut, Cottage Style Tofu, Thousand Island Dressing, Mustard & Vegenaise plus a side of Dill Pickle & baked fries. My sandwich was a bit overdone, but I still enjoyed the tangy filling & was happy to eat that when the bread proved to be too much. Unfortunately, the cake we ordered was downright disappointing & despite being ordered for 3 people to split, it went mainly uneaten.

Los Angeles is a crazy wonderland of vegan dining! I'm always amazed by the abundant options & they seem to gain more all the time. If you find yourself in LA, I promise you will not go hungry!

VegNews 20 under 30, Sweet Earth Chocolates, Delicious Danishes, & Food Not Bombs!

Please head over to my new blog at TheUrbanHousewife.com, where you'll find this post & more!

As some of you may have already seen, VegNews magazine did a feature on 20 activists under 30 years old in the March / April issue. I was lucky enough to be one of the people featured in the article! They mainly talked about my culinary activism, which is one of the ways I advocate for animals. People love food & I love to show them it's easy & delicious to partake without the use of animals. Thank you to those who have sent me notes about the article! If you haven't seen it, you should be able to click on the picture for a larger version, but you can also support a vegan business & pick up a copy! Thanks again to VegNews for including me with an amazing group of people.

Another stop on my little weekend trip to Southern California was in anticipation of a guest. Knowing Evan, king of all things peanut butter, was headed to San Francisco, I decided to stop at Splash Cafe in San Luis Obispo, a spot Amey blogged about in the past. While Splash Cafe is not exactly known for it's vegan options, it does house a large selection of vegan chocolates by Sweet Earth Organic Chocolates. These delicious, fair trade morsels come in a range of options from Cranberry Ginger clusters to Peppermint & Roasted Coconut cups & everything in between. In my opinion, the showstopper of their line is the Turtles; dark chocolate clusters filled with caramel, rice crispies, & cashews! These little babies are so good, I may have to order some online to tide me over until my next trip South!

Having another baker in your house can be an interesting experience, especially when they're baking for you. Evan of BjorkedOff came over & took over my kitchen for a night & the result was insanely delicious danishes! I made some of the fillings, so I didn't feel entirely useless, but I must admit it was tough watching someone else do the dirty work! We opted for 4 different flavors; White Chocolate Macadamia, Lemon Curd, Apple Butter, & the elusive Speculoos spread, an amazing treat & a gift from a friend in the Netherlands. The danishes all turned out flaky & buttery, just how a pastry should be! We took some to a Food Not Bombs meeting & everyone was floored by how good they were. I'm pretty sure I'll be trying my hand at danish making in the future, especially if I can get my hands on Evan's recipe!

Lately, I have been working with my local chapter of Food Not Bombs to serve vegan food to the homeless & hungry. San Francisco Food Not Bombs is very active & currently serves 6 days a week! It's a great way to get people to eat a vegan meal, but it also utilizes food that would otherwise go to waste. We're lucky enough to have local shops that donate the goods they pull from their shelves, from day old bread to bruised produce. Every week is like an Iron Chef challenge! You may only have rice, beans, & a few mushrooms one week, then the next you have 5 boxes of food, including 30 loaves of artisan bread to work with! Last Friday, we had an abundance of goods to choose from, so Jordan, Jenn, Evan, & I set to work to create a meal. We made a Moroccan Couscous Salad with Pear Ginger Dressing, a hearty Bean Stew, & Banana, Apple, Walnut Bread Pudding and headed out to "Hippie Hill" to serve it all up. We also had bagels, bread, & fresh fruit for the taking. Seeing how much food could have gone to waste when there are hungry people is an eye opener. If you like to cook & want to do something good for the community that also promotes peaceful animal free dining, consider getting involved with your local Food Not Bombs!

Well, it's only 2 days until I jet off to Europe! I'll be making my triumphant return to Berlin, but not to worry, I already have my eye on new spots to dine & report on! Additionally, I have been sussing out Copenhagen, Vienna, & Stockholm, so be ready for a full report when I return. As usual, if you want to meet up or have any must see places, please get in touch!