Deep Dish

Deep Dish!

Used this recipe from QuarryGirl. You need to do the same. DanT loooooved this thing. It is super bready and heavy. Don't expect to be physically able to move after. But still, vegan awesomeness.

Sea Shepherd Beach Cleanup

Hi everyone! So I'm a poo-head for not posting about this more quickly, but life gets in the way! On Saturday, July 17th at noon a whole bunch of Sea Shepherd NYC volunteers made their way out to the far reaches of Queens to clean a beach. This was not just any beach cleanup for me. I helped organize this cleanup and I hosted! My 'rents have a tiny little bungalow out in Rockaway Beach. From spending time out there on weekends I observed the beach that the day-trippers go out to and how dirty it would get after a long day at the beach. Sea Shepherd Conservation Society had just started a chapter in New York City and my friend Ethan is the chapter head. He organized a beach cleanup last month at Coney Island and I brought up the idea to have one out in Rockaway. Ethan was going to be out at an animal rights conference, so he asked me to take charge with the help of Tod Emko, a Sea Shepherd crew member.

It was hot, but we persevered!

Cleaning in action!

My parents' court. Look how quaint!

I think it was a rockin' success! It was super hot, but I fed everyone homemade pasta salad and beverages after so no one passed out. It was a really fun event and I hope to host another at some point.

Gross beach garbage. Come on people, clean up after yourselves!

If you would like more information about the New York City Sea Shepherd chapter email nyc@seashepherd.org.

Our lovely chapter is hosting a super cool fundraiser for Sea Shepherd in two weeks! On August 9th we will be having a fundraiser called S'more Protection for the Oceans. It will be held at V-Spot in Park Slope. There will be free food and drinks for sale. There will be raffles that rock and good company. I'll be volunteering! Hope to see everyone there!

And I leave you with this awesome interview that two Sea Shepherd crew members did with google at their offices here in NYC. It is long, but really informative and interesting! Check it out here. Without our oceans we have nothing. This is important work that Sea Shepherd does. Please consider becoming a member and making a donation.

Important event tomorrow!

Yes it is in my calendar, but not everyone reads that (though you should...). Bold Native is being shown tomorrow (Monday, July 26th) at Anthology Film Archive here in NYC. The 7PM is sold out, but get those 9:15 tickets! This film is a fictional story, but super important to our movement. Here is more information from the Bold Native site:

"Bold Native is a fiction feature film. Charlie Cranehill, an animal liberator wanted by the United States government for domestic terrorism, emerges from the underground to coordinate a nationwide action as his estranged CEO father tries to find him before the FBI does. The film simultaneously follows a young woman who works for an animal welfare organization fighting within the system to establish more humane treatment of farmed animals. From abolitionists to welfarists, Bold Native takes on the issue of modern animal use and exploitation from several angles within the context of a road movie adventure story.

The filmmakers’ background in documentary informed the creative approach to Bold Native. Self-financed and shot with a four person team in real-world locations, sometimes using real activists, lawyers, and formerly imprisoned animal liberators, the film weaves an intricate tale of one of the most important issues facing America and the world morally and ecologically – the impact and consequences of industrialized animal use. And with a character who faces prosecution and potential lifetime imprisonment under the recently passed Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) for property crimes currently considered terrorism, the film also illuminates the danger of corporate interests influencing the law in a post-9/11 world."

The trailer for those of you who are still skeptical:



Hope to see you all there! If shows keep selling out, it will keep being shown. Think about how many people will be influenced to go vegan and save some non-human lives. This could be big...

Lindsay is awesome.

So, I have a friend named Lindsay. She is awesome. She has a blog that you must check out. On her blog, she interviews all the important names in the vegan world. She is also the biggest optimist I know, and that is one of the things I love about her. Another thing I love about her is her talent. Lindsay, being the smart girl that she is, likes to use her talent for good! So, as a last hurrah here in NYC (Lindsay is leaving us for Hollywood to go share her talent with the world), Lindsay organized a fundraiser for Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary. I've only been to Woodstock once, but Lindsay has been many times. She has taken friends who eat meat (many of whom are now veg), her family (many of whom are now veg), heck she's even the one who took me! Woodstock has an amazing farm animal sanctuary, and it is only two hours from New York City. Woodstock does great work, but they are a small organization and appreciate every dollar they get. Lindsay organized a fund raiser for Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary and Farm Sanctuary in March called "Rock it Out". The fundraiser had music, speakers, raffles and a bake sale. Around 150 people came! If I remember correctly, she raised $1400 for each charity. Amazing work!

Lindsay decided to organize a sequel. In a different, more intimate setting. This one would be at Joe's Pub, a small performance space here in New York City.

Lindsay Wolf rockin' out

"Rock it Out II" was a rockin' good time. Lindsay sang some original songs that broke my heart, they were so beautiful.

Jenny Brown of Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary

Listen to it! It's about her first love. Sorry for the poor sound quality... My camera is old.

After Lindsay sang we got to hear one of the co-founders of Woodstock speak. Jenny Brown always has the right words. If you get a chance to hear her speak, please do. She is an amazing farm animal care-taker, sure, but she is also such a great voice for the voiceless.

Then Matt Rice of Mercy for Animals said a few words. Matt, who works for a different organization, spent the evening collecting donations for Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary. It is nice when the movement comes together like this. It made me all warm and fuzzy inside.

Matt Rice of Mercy for Animals

Finally, Lindsay's sister, Whitney Wolf, performed. Unfortunately, by then my camera batteries were dead. But she was great, and you can listen to her original songs on her myspace.

No matter how much money Lindsay raised at this intimate performance, it was a great experience and a fantastic final fundraiser on the east side of the country.

Good luck out west Lindsay!!!

Vegans are funny!

So... I stink. I said I'd update yesterday with a post about the Sea Shepherd beach cleanup that I helped organize but here's the thing: I was in charge of stuff! I didn't have time to take pictures. And the lovely Tod, who did take the pictures, has a life so he hasn't had time to send some my way yet. He will, and I will recap the beach cleanup when he does.

For now you are stuck with this:

Breaking news! Vegans are funny! Or at least, Myq Kaplan is. Myq wrote a comedy CD called "Vegan Mind Meld". Funny and vegan. Myq never shys away from his veganism, which I think is awesome. Myq spells his first name with a q. Most importantly, Myq is currently competing on Last Comic Standing. He needs our help! He made it through last week (when he was super funny. He was the only comic that actually made me laugh out loud) and the voting from tonight's episode goes until midnight tonight. But even if you didn't get a chance to watch him live, watch his clips on the NBC site and watch him next week! 9-10 PM eastern on NBC. How can you go wrong?!? Funny is good! Vegans on national TV talking about veganism are good! Okay, I'll be back next time to talk about Sea Shepherd. Hopefully.

Watch this!

Hello people out there in bloggy land reading this! (all two of you...)

This is important. Please watch this video and support the amazing work In Defense of Animals does. Up here in NYC, ida is not a prominent group. It is actually through a blog that I really started to learn about the organization. (I'll let you figure out what blog. It is in my blog-reel but you'll have to do some digging). What amazing work they do! I wish they had an NYC office so I could be a part of the critical work that they do.

Watch the monkeys!


Their website is: idausa.org.

Not that I should have to say this but animal testing is deplorable. People will tell you that we need to test drugs on animals otherwise how will we know if it is safe to use them on people? This shows how differently I think then most of the world, but I think killing innocent creatures so we can live longer lives is terrible. For starters, a drug is rarely something your body needs. 99% of all human bodies know how to thrive without artificial help if we would only feed our bodies real food (i.e. VEGAN food. the good stuff. not junk), our bodies are smart and know how to heal. Secondly, many of the chemicals that are tested on animal are for cosmetics. And not for new cosmetics either. Many are tested over and over again. for NO REASON.

Now as you may or may not know, I have an adopted bunny. He is not the type of rabbit that is used for cosmetics testing (though he is the type that is given to little children for Easter and then neglected until someone realizes that they actually don't want to take care of a rabbit) but I feel the plight for all bunnies who are subjected to cosmetics testing. And cosmetics testing isn't even required by law! See more about animal testing on PeTA's Stop Animal Tests site.

But back to the monkeys. Poor monkeys are tested on for medical products. Ugg. Most of the results aren't even applicable to humans as we are different species. You know, I am a "science person" but why cant scientists realize that having a heart does not have to conflict with our goals to learn more and save lives. There are some alternatives to animal testing on GEARI's website, but if we were really such great scientists we should be able to come up with many more. That is my animal testing rant. I hope you learned something.

You will hear from me next in two days on Sunday when I will have a post about the Sea Shepherd beach cleanup that I am helping lead! Check out the calendar on the right (the thing that doesn't fit right on your screen) for the details if you live in the area. Hope to see all two of you who read this blog there!

The one where I say hello!

Hi everybody! So, here's the thing. I've been reading vegan blogs almost as long as I've been vegan (5 years this December). I never knew a single one of those bloggers from the early days. That was when I was in college. Now as a fully grown adult-type-person, I get around more in my local vegan community. And, shocking as this may sound, a lot of active vegans are bloggers. It always seemed like a cool idea to me and an awesome way to meet vegans from all over the world. But I asked myself, can I write? As an engineer who comes from a family of "humanities people" I never considered myself an adequate writer. Today I decided that it doesn't matter. I'm sure after a while my writing will get better and my posts will become more eloquent and interesting, but for now I'll just share and you can stick around if you like what you read.

The point of this blog:

Ah, you what to know what is going to be covered within these html-coded pages. Okay, here was my thought on that: look at the name. Food, of course! Vegan travels, hurrah! Some health and nutrition information, woohoo! Gratuitous photographs of my bunny, yippee! (Hey, he is vegan too!) And lastly I thought I would try to keep a calendar of all the cool vegan stuff happening in NYC. The calendar will give those of you in the area a chance to know about cool events like potlucks and movie screenings before they are over and I review them. Because then they will be over and you can't attend something that happened in the past.

So there you go. A lot of mumbo jumbo. Hopefully my posts get more focused, but who knows. There is a lot happening in my brain.