“Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay”

-Robert Frost

And so it goes with scrambled tofu in Brooklyn. One day it’s there, the next day the restaurant is boarded up or just plumb stopped serving it. But the good news is that new places to find it pop up all the time, and the cycle of life continues.

It’s rough all over, Ponyboy. But scrambled tofu makes it easier.

My latest pilgrimage to tofuland was Flatbush Farm. There’s a lot of hoopla surrounding this place, so I was kind of expecting something awesome. Instead I got something pretty forking good, and I can’t complain. Their scrambled tofu ($10) was from the heavily curried school of scrambles, with little flecks of red that could have been either tomato or red pepper, they were too small to tell. It came with a side of tangy stewed collards, which were melt in your mouth yummy, and whole grain grilled bread. On the side I ordered hash browns ($5) which ended up being the sleeper hit. I love when a dish makes you think, and I have to say, if it’s a potato dish that makes you think, all the better. I have no idea how they did this! It was casserolish, baked and sliced into thick wedges. With potatoes I never want obtrusive flavors, I really just want potato, and you can tell that Flatbush Farm used good high quality ones that needed very little fanfare. Perfect.

Magical hash browns

Service was really speedy and friendly, and good about answering vegan questions. I think our food was on the table within five minutes of ordering, that’s really how you know you’re not in a vegan restaurant. The dining room is nice and sparse, with high ceilings and black plank floors. A good solid place for brunch I will definitely be returning to.

One thing that was funny, whatever font they use makes it look like their scrambled tofu is 18 bucks instead of 10. I was prepared to try it for 18, if that gives you any insight into the sorry state of vegan brunch in Brooklyn.

Flatbush F A R M

Sure, maybe the french fry is the vegan french fry, but roasted brussel sprouts are a near second. And Brussels is really close to France, so it makes sense. I know I don’t shut up about roasted brussels, I’ve blogged about them and they are in VwaV as well as Veganomicon, but they deserve it. They smell like popcorn while they’re roasting and you can kind of mindlessly eat them while watching TV or studying - they are the perfect snack food.

To roast them, preheat the oven to 400 F. Slice off the knobby bottoms and peel off any out of shape leaves. Slice in half, place on a rimmed baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and toss to coat. Roast for 15 to 20 minutes, flipping once. Easy as pie. Actually, much much much easier than pie.

Say hello to my little friend 

Brooklyn is woefully behind the times with vegan food. I mean, compared to Nebraska it’s aight, but being so close to Manhattan you would think that some of the magic would rub off. Instead, mostly the decidedly unvegan stuff rubs off, so here we are with a few dozen places that serve octopus salad or rabbit medallions, not to mention the 3K a month studio apartments, and hardly a tempeh reuben to be found. Jerks. So this week I’m going to post a review a day, sampling the best, the worst and the mediocrest that the BK has to offer.

On the rainiest day we’ve had in years, Jason Das and I scurried over to a new place called Earth Tonez. I was hopeful about this place, it’s located just down the street from the future Brooklyn ‘sNice (more about that later this week) so it had better be good, especially if their specialty is sandwiches. The sandwich and salad descriptions looked promising, if lacking in innovation. I would love to have a decent Caesar salad in the neighborhood. But it turns out that their fake chicken wasn’t even vegan, so there goes half the menu items. And, if it’s not obvious from that last sentence, most of their offerings were of the fake meat variety and so could be whipped up at home for much cheaper.

Which brings me to the next problem, the 9 and a half dollar sandwich. I settled on the Bada Bing, which the really nice owner recommended. It was store bought veggie sausage with marinara sauce, unmelted soy cheese and sauteed peppers sitting on a pile of blue corn chips. And it was 9 and a half dollars. It came with a tiny ramekin of a corn avocado salad but I don’t know that this was even standard. Jason got the Philly Cheese steak which was seitan and cheese. Decent enough, less expensive than my sandwich, and they obviously put care into the sandwich making, but not impressive enough to keep us from going to ’sNice when it does indeed open.

This sandwich is ok, but is it 9.50 okay?

The owner (who, as I said, was really nice!) was fiddling around with a Red Mango Bakery cake when we got there, so of course we finished our meal with a slice. Unfortunately, they don’t even serve real coffee, which was another minus, because it really would have helped. We picked a Chocolate Chai cake, and it must have been sitting around for a few weeks because the flavor was there but it was really dry and tasted a bit of fridge. So. That sort of sucked.

It’s a new place so I hope they step up their game, offer more vegan options and vary their menu. Lose the stunt meat, up the veggies and beans and homemade sandwich fillings. Maybe add a side to make the just-shy-of-ten-bucks price tag worth it; potato salad or a pasta salad, something cheap but satisfying. The things it has going for it are friendly staff, reasonably priced muffins and cookies (but with no coffee?) and a nice space with exposed brick and tin ceilings. I will give it another try, but not for a few months. And after seeing this review they might clock me one if I enter, so maybe I better not. But if fake meat sandwiches are your deal then maybe you would absolutely love this place as is.

Nice people means repeat customers, even with the problems

I couldn’t find any online info for Earth Tonez- not even a MySpace or blog or anything, but click the thumbnails for the menu. It has a very odd tagline: Healthy Alternatives For The Meat Eater. Maybe that’s part of the problem?

You know, Chad at Food Fight gets to blog three times a day just by google-newsing “vegan” and then linking to whatever or just by walking next door to Sweet Pea and seeing what kind of cupcakes they have. Not fair! Some of us have to put actual thought into what we blog about, and so yes, it might take a month to get that shnit together. But fork it. Here’s the vegan minute completely culled from the Post Punk Kitchen message boards: where vegans in the know don’t go. (I just made that up)

Bob Barker’s Enchilada Bake

Because Bob “My Boyfriend” Barker just donated a million bucks to an animal rights program at his alma mater why don’t you make his semi-homemade recipe.

Vegan Etsy Team

I guess all the vegan Etsy sellers banded together and formed some sort of elite internet cadre. This will be helpful for those of us who love to search for “vegan” in every website we go to. Have you ever searched for “vegan” in the “by name” advanced search option of IMDB? Then you know who this guy is.

More Twigs & Berries Zine 

Another new vegan zine from deep in the heart of Canada with some really tempting looking recipes. Stop being a cheapskate and buy it for yourself and your loved ones.

Is Ecstasy Even Vegan? 

If you’re looking for love behind bars, this may be your dream date. It’s a short read about a vegan inmate in Brooklyn getting sent to England so that his diet can be accommodated. But it is so much more than that.

And I leave you with a picture of my new niece Norah and my old sister Michelle. Just because I hate blogging with no pictures. I have such blogging integrity!

People always think that Sarah and I have some sort of competition going on. And you know what? They’re right! And so we’re going to settle things once and for all the old fashioned way…with a nutritional yeast snorting contest. Now, she is at somewhat of an unfair advantage. I mean, have you seen the nostrils on that girl? But I think with enough practice I can give her a run for her colorful Canadian money. Unfortunately, the only thing I have to practice with is a couple of grams of pure cocaine, so expect a lot of blogging in the coming weeks.

I’m not sure how we’re gonna do this, but it’s gonna get doned.

Is Sarah using those two fingers to ready her nostrils? 

Just whose side is Josh Hooten on? 

This is Loca, but I call her Bowie because of her mismatched eyes. And her trend setting ways.

I’m at Eastern Shore Sanctuary for the week, watching Pattrice Jones completely demolish oppression while I cruise the internet and take photographs, with the occasional cooking and dish washing thrown in. I can’t imagine what kind of world we would live in if everyone worked as hard as Pattrice does. Probably a world with lots of happy chickens.

It’s amazing to watch these birds interact, and to hear Pattrice tell their stories. Michael and Christopher drove up to Brooklyn to pick me up along with four hens and a rooster. The hens are already acclimating to sanctuary life. Here they are on their first day. Well, one of them, and the feet of the others.

It’s a myth that you can’t have more than one rooster around hens. There are maybe 40 or so here. And they all have their own personalities, you’d have to be working really hard not see it.

The fighting roosters learn to get along with one another. The “broiler” hens learn to trust. Dogs lick cat’s faces. Ducks talk to humans. When they say that they’re just stupid animals they are lying. Unless they’re talking about humans.

Just up the street 40,000 chickens are crammed into a shed. Watching one chicken here at the sanctuary living her life, pecking at her food and nuzzling her friend or even having a little tiff, it is mind boggling to imagine the cruelty that humans are capable of. I could never hurt these little guys and of course I can’t see killing one. I guess most people just don’t know, or don’t want to know. Of course some don’t even care.

The thing is, if you open yourself up to it there is suddenly beauty everywhere. And if beauty isn’t your thing, how about freedom?

I want to make something clear. Even though vegans may not hate everyone, they do hate Anthony Bourdain.

Is there a more loathsome person? Here is a man who sends his busboy to buy his drugs. A man who - with a straight face - accused the Rock-N-Roll Hall Of Fame of being sellouts. I can’t wait to hear his critique of Hard Rock Cafe jackets or Avril Lavigne.

So here is my list of 10 things that are more punk than Anthony Bourdain “bad boy” chef (snicker, snort). Feel free to add your own!

10) Rachael Ray

9) A 94 Chevy Celebrity

8 ) Dungeons And Dragons

7) A brand new shopping mall

6) That aggravating feeling you get when you can’t remember the name of Alf’s earth family*

5) Croquet

4) Good Charlotte

3) The National Weather Service

2) Belly button lint

And the number one thing that is punker than Anthony Bourdain…

1) Otters holding hands!

*The Tanners!

Why is there a picture of a quiche here? 

I can never remember how to make oatmeal.

It’s embarrassing, and it’s not just a one-time embarrassment that I can work out in therapy, it’s an every other morning embarrassment where I stand immobilized at my kitchen counter in complete disbelief that I really need to read the goddam oatmeal container again. So it’s always weird to hear myself talking about food.

This interview with Weekend Edition’s LeAnn Hanson, featuring me and the uncharacteristically chatty Terry, was really fun! Terry and I got to walk through the hallowed halls of NPR and sip on their filtered water. After it aired yesterday, 2 out of the 3 top cookbooks on Amazon were vegan ones. That would be Skinny Bitch in the Kitch (big ups to Rory and Kim! You guys should be our frenemies!) and Veganomicon. And the third one wasn’t even a cookbook, but it does have a chapter on veganism*. So I would say that the score board for 2008 looks like veganism: 1, meat: 0.

My muscles are pretty permanently clenched when I think of the rest of the year, on both a personal and political level or if you want to be feminist about it, what’s the difference? We’ve got the elections coming up and I am sure that president Kucinich would have retroactively declared this the year of the vegan if he hadn’t gotten the boot, so now I guess president Obama will have to carry the torch. Do you remember the carefree nineties, when the president was able to declare things “The Year Of…” Now every year is pretty much the same what with the war and torture. Not that the nineties were all that awesome, but they were better. I feel like all plans are on hold until November, which is pretty much how I felt in 2004.

However, the world still needs vegan cookbooks no matter what happens and so I am thrilled (well, as thrilled as someone who is sitting on her couch in bra and pajama bottoms at noon can be) to announce mine and Terry’s upcoming projects, some together and some separately. Not because we don’t love each other, but because we would like to continue loving each other.

Spring 2009: The Crack Of Noon - A Vegan Brunch Book by me!
Fall 2009: Vegan Cookies (title TBA) by Terry and me!
Fall 2010: Vegan Latina (title TBA) by Terry Hope Romero!
Fall 2010: Vegan Entertaining (title TBA) by me and maybe by Terry a little bit, we shall see

I know those dates sound crazy. “2010? We’re not going to have a 2010. ” But it will come faster than we think and if I get this time machine working, even faster still. Thanks for all the love and support, everyone. For seriously.

*That would be Professors Who Hunt Boar And Justify It Because They Think It’s Awesome And Thrilling To Hang Out With Non-Academics In Any Capacity But Especially A Manly One by Michael Pollan.

It’s been a few weeks, so let me dip my toes back into the blogging world with the best sort of not-safe-for-work cookie disaster from Garrick, who’s also working on a vegan cookie book. You know, I’m just going to post them. If your boss fires you for looking at accidentally vagina-shaped cookies then it’s not the kind of job you want anyways.

They were supposed to be Sweeney Todd cookies, as Garrick explains on the PPK forums.

“They were supposed to look like slit flesh, as in Sweeney Todd, he slits the throats of victims… I didn’t know marzipan would expand in the oven. ”

In other news, Terry and I will be on NPR’s Weekend Edition tomorrow morning at 8:30 in NYC. I’m not sure what time or channel for other cities. And I’ll be posting some exciting news about mineses and Terry’ses upcoming projects.

Okay, toes? Dipped.

That’s right. Naked Vaygun Episode 1. It’s almost like a real show, although I am still echoing a bit, we hope to have that cleared up next Ep.

This episode we discuss my falling out with Peter Singer over cupcakes, Moo Shoes Grand Opening and why Justin Moo can not be trusted to sell boots, Food Fight’s new mural, a painting by Corey Feldman for Corey Haim or vice versa. Plus we give some really long winded, bad advice to hurting vegans which in all honestly you can probably fast forward through because it was in dire need of some editing. We also tie up some loose ends and play a Brown Bird Rudy Relic song. Oh, and some adult advice on what to do if your cat jumps on your lap while you’re masturbating.

Other links for this episode:

Hot Cheese Pump

Minor Threat Hot Sauce

HSUS Coats For Cubs

Drew Carey Votes Republican

Next week we’ll have bad holiday advice and maybe our website will be up!