On Vegan Cake, Hungry Vegan Meals and NOHARM

While most of the country is in a deep freeze, this is visitor season for me, where nary a weekend goes by without at least an overnight stay by a good friend or family member. No matter who’s in town, they eat vegan food when in my house, and I make that a bit easier by baking a cake of their choice and encouraging them to help.

For two weekends (the first of which a vegan was visiting so I didn’t have my "salesperson" hat on) we made the Ginger-Macadamia-Coconut-Carrot Cake from Vegan with a Vengeance, and by all accounts it was amazing. (I made the icing differently this week though, with only half the confectioner’s sugar, and I liked it better.) The three nonvegans who helped bake this weekend were all amazed that there were no eggs or butter in the cake, and get this . . . I was asked to bake a wedding cake (and maybe more) for a small kosher wedding in March, and to get my samples in the works so the planner could choose a cake for the out-of-town bride.

This is on the basis of one cake, a bowl of green soup I whipped up (and I mean whipped–I cooked peas, broccoli, zucchini, yellow squash and leeks in a bit of water then tossed them all in a blender to make verde goodness), and some quinoa with grilled veggies and tofu.

The bride grew up vegan and when she went to college, but both she and her vegan-chef mother went back to eating animals (I don’t know the whole story), which is obviously disconcerting. The groom was never vegan. Perhaps I can help remind her of all the good a vegan diet does for the planet, the conscience, and the body.

Speaking of awesome vegan food, I received my first set of meals from The Hungry-Vegan last week. I was off to a bit of a rough start as I didn’t read the site thoroughly and the fact that I would get my food two days after the food for the week was ready, as opposed to two days after I placed the order, completely bypassed me. And then when the food arrived over a week after I ordered it, the Chocolate-Peanut Butter Cream Pie was thoroughly unidentifiable from being crunched by the other food and the cold packs during shipping. It was delicious, but if I had to serve it to a guest I’d have a bit of explaining to do.

Other than that it was smooth sailing. People came and went all weekend, trying a soup here, a grain or tofu dish there, and there wasn’t one negative review. In fact, two people who would like to go vegan but think "it’s too hard" went to the website immediately, loved what they saw, and have decided to order food for a month. There was a lot of "If I didn’t have to figure out what to buy, cook and eat, I’d be a vegan." Problem solved.

I ordered the menu for one person (at a cost of $85, which includes shipping), and each item (except the desserts) served at least two people, particularly if they were eating more than one item, so keep that in mind. Calling all you lazy vegans out there, try The Hungry Vegan, if for no other reason than you know you’ve got backup food (you can freeze most of it) or food you wouldn’t ordinarily cook (i.e., instant variety) or munchies for when you have unexpected guests. And if you think $74 (before shipping) is expensive, check out the menus, make a shopping list, and tally the damage. Then factor in the cost of your time to prepare it all. Then tell me it’s expensive. I think it’s a great value and a great solution for longtime vegans as well as people trying to figure out how to make it all work.

Finally, my husband’s NOHARM shoes (he bought the style shown above) have been treating his feet quite well and though I’m sure he’s paranoid that people realize he’s not wearing Ferragamo‘s . . .

I think that most people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Of course there’s the matter of: Why do you want people to think you believe cow skin is a desirable foot covering? He might be there in spirit, but in mind it’s all still very new to him and I’m just happy he’s making such great progress.

Tomorrow I’ll probably write about an article Jenny alerted me to in yesterday’s comments, subtitled "The Compassionate Carnivore," which is just about all you need to know about the content, but it (and others like it) must be read and its premises must be examined.