Catching up

Well, we're off to sail the high seas just hours from now. I'm sure cruise ship food will be an adventure in itself. One of our wedding presents was a new camera so I'm eager to put it to the test. I also gave Mr. RV a teeny video camera as a wedding present, so maybe some videos will eventually find their way onto this site. Meanwhile, here are a few dishes I photographed but didn't get a chance to blog about while the wedding planning was in high gear.

A tasty midsummer bulghur salad. I wanted to do something different from tabouli. This has grapes, pecans, cucumbers, red onions, and red peppers. I think the dressing was a simple lemon juice/olive oil vinaigrette.



Roasted vegetable napoleons. I made these for dinner with a friend after seeing their deliciousness on Vegan Yum Yum. They were very time-consuming to make, but came out very flavorful. The stuff sticking them together is a variation on baba ghanouj. The paste didn't turn out too great. I would make these again, but I'd slice the veggies more thickly and I'd probably use a silken tofu concoction between the layers. Don't they look like some kind of space colony in this picture?



I've got to get packing, literally!

My descent into respectability

Readers, are you out there? I am back, at least for this week. Our wedding is a wrap and the honeymoon starts on Saturday. The wedding was truly perfect, despite being married in the second worst storm (the remnants of Hurricane Hanna) to hit this area in at least the past 6 years. I’ve put a few pictures of me and HS* up but will replace them with pictures of just me in a few days, since HS is a bit wary of Internet-posted photos. The quality of the pictures should improve when I replace them, since these are just snaps taken by tipsy people, not the real photos from our pro photog friend.

Here are some ecologically-friendly aspects of our wedding:
--We had it in a neighborhood that is extremely walkable and well-served by public transportation.
--The location for both the ceremony and the luncheon was America’s first certified organic restaurant. Of course, vegan alternatives were available for all courses!


(Non-vegan risotto; vegan version did not have parmesan thingy on top)

--About 90% of our wedding-related expenditures went to independent businesses.
--We did away with many of the wedding trappings that we didn’t care about. There was no wedding cake, nor special ceremonial wedding cake knife with its own corsage. I made the centerpieces for about $100 total. Needless to say, there was no bouquet toss or garter removal. There was a classical guitarist instead of a DJ, and the only dancing was a conga line to “White Wedding” for our exit.


(Classy friends, cheap centerpieces)

--I hope to be able to wear my wedding dress again, and I asked my two bridesmaids to buy any dress that they would wear again.
--We kept the guest list to 50 people (fewer guests=less travel and less emissions).
--We didn’t register, because we really have everything that we need for our new place.
--Our rings are recycled gold.
--No limousines were deployed. (I had hoped to make our exit on a tandem bicycle, but the rain definitely prevented that from happening.)

We knew we wanted to do things our way for the wedding, and not follow the path of “traditional” weddings. (I put that in quotes since I think the traditional American wedding is really cake and punch in a church rec room or the bride’s parents’ house, not the 40K affairs now called traditional.) It was difficult to swim against the Wedding Industrial Complex current at times, but we are both extremely happy we stuck to our guns and had the small, nonreligious, intimate wedding that we desired.

Hopefully I’ll have the chance to blog again before we leave for the honeymoon. I’ve got a few pictures and many health-related thoughts to share.

*HS will now be known as Mr. RV.


(At the afterparty)

Reflection

It's not much of a lighthouse; it looks like a small farmhouse with a light instead of a chimney. The massive highway construction project that has spanned 10 years so far and cost 2.5 billion dollars turned all the land surrounding it into an asphalt wasteland but spared the small park around the lighthouse. I walked under the highway overpass in the blazing sun today to pay my respects.

The lighthouse was owned by Margaret Brent in the seventeenth century. The inscription reads, "An extraordinary woman, she spent most of her adult life fighting discrimination of her sex." She was a land baron as well as a litigator, and people were often stunned at her very unladylike ways.



Our rapidly approaching wedding has made me reflective. I am grateful to Margaret and everyone else who fought for gender equality so that I can marry the person I love, not the one who will support me or the one my family has chosen. I left Margaret flowers in gratitude.



Margaret must sometimes have been discouraged by the enormity of the fight towards gender equality. 400 years later, sexism still exists, and attitudes towards animal rights, resource consumption, and the environment frustrate me on at least a weekly basis. However, I told Margaret her work was worth it, and I hope that ours is too.

Time for a blog-cation

Oh, how I wish I was in Fiji right now. But I am not. If it isn't already obvious, I haven't had much time to write or read blogs lately. I'm going to take a blog-cation until mid-September, when I'll be back in good form with lots of inspiration (hopefully). Enjoy the rest of your summer (or winter if you're part of the Southern Hemisphere contingent)!

Tagine and teeth

This week I went to the dentist. My insurance plan allows me to go to what I think is the cheapest 10% of dentists in the area. This dentist is on the edge of a transitional neighborhood, in a basement office. He accepts walk-ins. My appointment was rescheduled because (I think) he forgot to pay the phone bill and the line was disconnected for a few days. But he is a character with lots of colorful stories and he swears like a sailor.

While he was examining me, he abruptly asked, "Are you a vegetarian?" When I asked how he knew, he said, "It's because your back teeth are worn down." He went on to say that cellulose (plant walls) wears down tooth enamel, but that steaming or sauteing vegetables will break down the cellulose enough for teeth to handle it. (So, this pointed to me eating a lot of raw vegetables, not necessarily to me being a vegetarian.)

Is this true or just another of my dentist's tall tales? All I've found is one article that says it probably isn't true, although eating citrus fruits isn't especially good for your teeth. I don't eat that much citrus, but I do eat a lot of raw vegetables. I like my veggies crunchy, and I think the nutrients I get from them are more important than some wear and tear on my teeth.

On a completely unrelated topic, I'm going to a potluck tomorrow where the theme is "Mediterranean Vegetarian." I'm bringing tofu tagine (pictured). This recipe is awesome. It won a Vegetarian Times reader recipe contest about 8 years ago and I've been making it ever since. It's somewhat time-consuming but totally worth it. Fried tofu is simmered in a sauce with savory spices, cinnamon, onions, garlic, lemon, and honey (I subbed maple syrup). It's served with couscous that also has a salty, lemony flavor, in addition to mint and dried fruit. Then the whole mess is sprinkled with toasted almonds. The flavor is complex and unusual. Let me know if you try it!

When natural isn't better

I just got back from the vegetarian/vegan Mecca, NYC. We had great meals at Angelica Kitchen, Red Bamboo, and Two Boots Pizza. I can highly recommend all eateries. I'd wanted to try Angelica for several years and it did not disappoint. I had soup and a salad and HS had a seitan burrito. Red Bamboo has an extensive ecletic menu. This time we both had seitan; a sandwich and a skewer plate. Two Boots is my new favorite pizzeria, and they have a hearty vegan slice. They just need to put their jalapeno pesto on it (not really a pesto, more of a puree, and I'm sure it's vegan) and it would be perfect.

I have a letter to the editor in Natural Health magazine this month. My letter is in response to an article about sustainable sandalwood products. I say that sandalwood has been pushed to the verge of extinction due to the perfume industry, and that it's better to buy products with synthetic sandalwood, which smells exactly the same but uses only a fraction of the resources that sandalwood tree production (sustainable or not) does. It's important to replant sandalwood, of course, but I think it's a mistake to always prefer "natural" scents. In some cases it takes a ton of flowers, leaves, etc. to produce a gallon of essential oil. It just reminds me a bit too much of meat production in its resources in/ product out ratio.

Another way that I don't prefer natural is in regards to sweeteners. Actually, just one sweetener, agave. I figured out a few years ago (it involved tequila; don't ask) that I'm violently allergic to cactus derivatives. I can stay away from tequila but agave is more pernicious, often masquerading as a "natural sweetener." It rules out a lot of energy bars or vegan sweets for me. I'm writing about it because there is next to nothing on the 'net about agave allergies/reactions. (My reaction is horrendous stomach pains.) If you know anyone who's also allergic to agave, holla back so I know I'm not alone!

Taco time

I am woefully late in posting about this yummy dinner. What can I say? I've been busy with work, more work, wedding stuff, and trying to determine which of these is the better rhyme:
1) abuse me/ muesli
2) on ya/ Apollonia
(if you have an opinion, let me know!)

Anyway, one of my favorite vegan (or vegan-friendly) meals for guests is make-your-own tacos. It sure uses a lot of bowls but seems to satisfy all tastes. The picture above shows chipotle brown rice, avocado-corn salsa, Yves fake meat with tomatoes, onions, and chili powder, as well as soy cheese, lettuce, beans, etc. Although I'm not particularly drawn to meat substitutes, Yves is my favorite of the type. It tastes good and is filling, yet is freakishly low in fat and high in protein.

I wish I had gotten some pictures of the actual tacos people made but that's a good reason to have Taco Nite again. For dessert, we had mango-strawberry cobbler. This picture came out terribly blurry but it's all I had. I only remembered to take it the next day when the cobbler was nearly gone.



This cobbler is no ordinary dessert, at least not to me. A friend once described it as one of the best desserts he'd ever had. The secret is cardamom. I know, a container of it costs 7 bucks or more, but it is essential in this recipe. If you omit it, all bets are off. (Note that the recipe requires ground cardamom. If you buy the kind in the pods, you'll have to grind the seeds first.) Here is the recipe, heavily adapted enough (one might say cobbled) that I don't feel bad about sharing it:

Mango-Strawberry Cobbler

Fruit Layer
2 mangoes
1-1/2 pints fresh strawberries (about 4 cups, chopped)
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
3 tablespoons flour

Peel the mangoes and cut them into bite-sized pieces. Wash, remove the stems, and chop the strawberries into halves or quarters. In a bowl, mix together all fruit-layer dry ingredients. Add the fruit to the bowl and toss to coat.

Topping
1-1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons white sugar
1/4 cup oil
1 cup "milk"

Stir together the flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar. Add the oil and milk and stir together until just combined. Place the fruit-layer mixture in a 8" square pan (you want the fruit layer to be pretty thick, thicker than in my picture, ideally). Gently pat the topping mixture over the fruit layer. Use a light touch--the less it is messed with, the better the topping will rise. Bake at 375 degrees for about 35 minutes. Serve topped with your favorite vanilla ice cream alternative.