PastaPigs: wholemeal pasta, red cabbage, baby spinach and walnuts, or: I copy a dish

I didn't even mean to go to the supermarket today, but deciding that another day without coffee was untenable, I ended up doing a full shop and halted, skidding-style, in front of half a red cabbage.

I don't usually venture far outside my usual fruit'n'veg preferences. I ignored a number of things today including cucumber apple and dragon fruit in favour of my bananas, avocados, tomatoes, proper garlic, zucchini, eggplant, red onion and asparagus (I'm not really a fruit-eater; I like bananas, avocados and tomatoes, watermelon and some apples as a rule - all others are eaten only provisionally, and don't even get me started on stone fruit and berries).

Red cabbage, however, has been on mind. It started back in New York (you know, daaahling, when I was in Noo Yaaaaahk last year) when Buzz and I had a delicious pasta/soba salady thing with red cabbage here, and I was reminded about that combo last week when Buzz's mum cooked a great teriyaki-red cabbage-spaghetti dish from Vegan Cooking for Idiots for us (isn't she the bestest for buying that book to help her cook for me? I'm all warm and fuzzy about it; it's totally generous and kind and awesome).

So the red cabbage made it home today, along with wholemeal spaghetti, baby spinach and walnuts. Natch, I had plenty of garlic on hand.

I cooked some of the spaghetti al dente, and I think the wholemeal pasta works just as well as what Buzz swears was in the original 'sNice version, buckwheat noodles. I sliced some red cabbage - I took a half a cabbage, and just cut a big slice of about 1 centimetre in width straight down. It looks like a lot but it's not - keep going and chop it up. I minced some garlic and added some sesame seeds and black olives for good measure (and also those bloody sesame seeds have been sitting there for ages daring me to find inventive uses for them). I simply tossed these ingredients, along with the baby spinach and a massive dollop of olive oil, into the drained pasta and shook it all about.


Buzz once told me that my love of garlic can lead me astray. He is quite right, having borne the brunt of it regularly. I did it again here; it wasn't as disastrous as it could have been as I was just cooking for one and the little furry boys don't care, but for future reference, Miss T, one clove of the top shelf stuff is more than sufficient.

Otherwise I think this one will be great once I tweak it, and it would work very well as either a cold salad or a warm main (served hot? No. Don't.).


The brine from the olives was surprisingly effective at cutting through the soft oil and crunchy bitterness without adding too much salt, and I would add more next time. I think I should break down the walnut pieces and be more judicious with them, as even though they provide an almost creamy counterpoint to the bitter cabbage, they are too overwhelming and jarring in bigger pieces. I also overestimated the amount of oil I needed, which was ironic as one of my criticisms of the 'sNice version was over the same fault.

I would also consider adding some halved cherry tomatoes to act in the same way as the olive brine, but I would strongly advise against any other pungents such as onion or spring onion - the cabbage is more than enough.

I'm quite pleased I deviated from my usual pasta cravings here (tinned diced tomatoes, garlic, eggplant, zucchini, chili flakes, salt, pepper, sometimes some NinjaVegan MasterFoods bacon flavoured chips, a dash of passata, drowning a little bit of penne) and will give this one a fair airing as I tweak it to get it right - all potluckers can expect to try endless variations soon!

Angelica Kitchen and Viva Herbal Pizzeria, New York City, or: we snatch eatering victory from the jaws of defeat

It's always a bit awkward to say you just didn't like a meal at an institution of an eatery. And it makes you feel a bit like the smartmouth boy in the Emperor's New Clothes to say you thought it was bad.


Naky! He's naky!


Angelica Kitchen in New York City's East Village, is a longstanding pioneer of organic, fresh, vegan cookering. It retains some of its early 70s quaintness by only accepting cash, having (apparently) not redecorated, and by not having a liquor licence. As we did not expect BYO, we turned up empty handed, prompting one of Buzz's best calls: "I'm happy to forgo meat. But beer? Bloody hippies!".

Reviews of Angelica's on SuperVegan tend to be in either Column A or Column B. Column A: this is macrobiotic food so it won't be ultra-flavoursome; the waiters are cool or you must be being a jerk if they're not; it's an institution therefore good. Column B: bland food; poor service and pompous staff; get with the program and take cards; and even one extraordinary report of racist management. I fall in to Column B (minus the racism).

Our waiter seemed nice, on the two occasions we saw her during the entire meal. Including when we wanted to pay. She might have been a good waiter but I don't really know because she didn't really wait on us. Or talk to us. Or walk past our table.

For my entree I chose 9 pieces of Norimaki, served with wasabi, pickled ginger and lemon shoyu. My main was Sea Caesar salad, which was romaine lettuce with creamy garlic dressing topped with sourdough croutons, smoked dulse (?) and nori strips. Buzz chose Agrarian Salgado for his entree - baked rounds of Yukon Gold (that's spuds) and herbed seitan with basil-walnut pesto, topped with dill-tofu sourcream and garnished with marinated kale. His main was Three Bean Chili - chili made with homemade seitan, kidney and pinto beans and lentils, sundried tomato, blend of chilis, and lime-jalapeno tofu sourcream, served with Southern style cornbread and cucumber-red onion salsa.

Don't be misled. The extraordinarily detailed dish descriptions were not indicative of an extraordinary meal.

My Norimaki was made with something that was clearly not sushi rice. It was brown rice, too glutinous and mouthy, and the fillings were unbelievably bland. The addition of the lemon shoyu was still not enough to inject some flavour, and to finish it, as I bizarrely felt I must, I ended up smothering them in plain old soy sauce. It was a prettily presented but poorly executed plate.


Buzz's Salgado was like soft, wet felafel. A tangy sour cream couldn't make me forget the ... kaleness of the kale. Soft, green, shiny wiggly kale. The best bit about the dish was that a portion of all proceeds went to benefit the Friends of Brazillian Landless Workers Movement . Buzz would have preferred that the potatoes were more (vegan) buttery, and perhaps hotter. Or hot. Or hot-ish.


My Sea Caesar came with balsamic, not the creamy garlic sauce as described. It was, after all my expectations of a real New York caesar (like the awesomely awesome creamy one I had at Blossom - to be shared later on), a plate of lettuce with balsamic and croutons. My notes of the evening, verbatim, are: "Sure hips will appreciate, but not palate". I didn't finish and there was no explanation offered. I would have asked had I seen our waiter or any waiter near by. Or within shouting distance.


Buzz's Three Bean Chili was, according to my notes: "just fine and not spicy or hot". I suppose I thought that chili would imply either spicy, or hot, or maybe even both. The cornbread was a new experience for both of us, so I'm not sure how it's really meant to taste. It was sweet and heavy, but dry. It looked like cake, further confusing us. The cucumber salsa was the only highlight - it was fresh, tasteful and I tactfully left it to Buzz in acknowledgment of the pain I had inflicted on him so far.



We declined dessert and they don't serve coffee anyway. Only tea. Herbal varieties. Odd ones.


Instead, full though we were, we walked back on to 2nd Avenue and returned to Viva Herbal Pizzeria, where we had eaten a few days before with gusto. We felt the need to expunge the Angelica's meal with something honest, tasty and good value, despite our full bellies and overwhelming annoyance.


Viva Herbal Pizzeria offers vegetarian and vegan 'slices' - massive two Australian sized slices slices - and also a range of vegan desserts including tiramisu, frozen desserts like yoghurt and a Death by Chocolate.


The pizzas are dripping with sauce and piled high with ingredients. (Plush Pizza, I love you, but you don't overload the toppings really do you and I do think you could try a little harder in that area. Perhaps, like Viva, if you left off the soy cheese you could make up the price difference with more veggies? Just a thought. Thanks).


Some slices have soft roasted garlic cloves scattered within, which makes this garlic-addict a happy girl.


Some pizzas are wheat-based and some are on spelt - the first spelt I've ever liked. Really I think that the pictures speak for themselves, and my notes finish with: "That is one helluva slice".

Instalment of Two of I Know What You Ate Last Summer

Ta Da! More from London.

I was staying in a hotel with only a kettle, so I bought myself a bowl and spork and tried to enjoy my picnics on the floor. I got these things from the WholeFoods/Fresh'n'Wild in Soho.


My breakfasts - coffee and a Laura's muesli/tofu/strawberries pot - it was delish.



I loved this place - Ha Ha Veggie Bar in Camden Lock Market. Everything was vegan except the cheese, and it had some rocking vegan mayo. My friends Jess and Lachie ate too - we had felafels and burgers (with seedy handmade veggie pattie on a wholemeal roll) which were made when we ordered them by a lovely guy.

Ha Ha Veggie Bar: Camden Lock Market, Chalk Farm Road, Camden, London NW1.






From Planet Organic - a forgettable Laura's Sunball (sticky icky sweetness) and a really godawful sandwich - dry crumbly bread, dry beetroot, a swish of hummus and a real waste. Boo!


Some real junk (but good junk) ... RedVeg Burgers in Soho. Most things - burgers, fried, felafels, hot dogs - can be made vegan. The best thing about it is that it is a real fast-food style burger (if that's what you're after) - soft bun, textured dark brown pattie sans lentils or tofu, a bit o' lettuce, tangy mayo - but with coriander. The fried look like Macca's (good or bad - you decide!) and come in an open top cardboard cone.

Two things annoyed me about RedVeg. As the name implies, the shop is festooned with images of Che Guevara and Lenin, which I found a bit disturbing. I was uncomfortable with the conflation of veganism with controversial far-left figure, even if in a wry, trendy Soho way. It seemed like a) a blunt marketing tool, and b) a good way to continue the "veggie eating commie hippie" stereotype.

The second thing that got my goat was that the vegwursts and hotdogs were listed as vegetarian on the instore flyer, but vegan on the board above the counters. In a vegetarian shop this is not on.

You might note that the packaging changes from red to blue to red - ahh, EagleEyes, it is indeed form two different meals, carefully selected by your guide to demonstrate the wrapped, closed and open versions. The red versions had hickory sauce - sweet, smokey, real Down South ma'am.

RedVeg: 95 Dean Street, London, W1D 3TB.





Sheese from World Vegan Day. Meh. (Actually, the smoked cheddar was good enough for me to cart all the way home, so that was preemptive. The rest of it still didn't ring my bell though).

Instalment One: I Know What You Ate Last Summer

Having fallen shamefully behind with my overseas blogging, despite having faithfully recorded almost every mouthful I consumed, I now admit defeat and present a montage of New York and London eatering (is that jumping the shark?).

There are still a few proper reviews in the works, but to make sure that I didn't dutifully, publicly and sometimes a little embarassingly record and note every forkful and track down like a bloodhound all the eateries that I went to, here is the first instalment of an abridged, abbreviated and written-without-my-dear-notes series entitled "I Know What You Ate Last Summer".


This brand "Laura's Idea" was available in a number of supermarkets in London, including Planet Organic where I would plonk myself with my morning unsweetened-soy-latte and tofu-muesli pot. Not all of the products are vegan, but those that are are clearly labelled and you can tell that they're produced each day because the labels contain adorable and inconsistent typos. Bless!

VitaOrganic in Soho, London. My Bloody Mary -type juice took ages, but being entirely grumpy and cranky from the flight made me too grr-grr to complain very loudly. The selection of salads varied nicely and was served directly from pot to bowl.

A pita-pocket-sort-of thing from a deli on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village. It was a bit like curried tofu and although soggy and falling apart, was surprisingly nice.

I was determined to try as many of the soy cheeses form WholeFoods as possible, blithely unaware that quite a lot of the soy cheeses contained casein, thus vastly reducing the number of vegan soy cheeses and really making me cross.



Tofurkey and Follow Your Heart soy cheese - chemicals on a plate.



That's all for Instalment One, folks. More slack writing and vague musings to follow.

From NYC - 'sNice, or: I realise that my daily skinny-soy-latte is in fact pure gold

Yes, ‘sNice. Having been described in my NYC Bible (Vegan Restaurant Guide to NYC 2008, Friends of Animals) as a café/sandwich shop/baker, I was expecting a linoleum style counter-type place with little bits of sandwich filling in individual containers. Instead, ‘sNice is a rustic, relaxed, artsy-boho eatery on par with the finest of Smith Street’s wood-filled, nod-to-the-retro faux-ho.

A combination of individual and communal tables make for a missed crowd – couples, families, groups of friends – and the provision of the day’s papers was something we hadn’t seen much of in NYC. I was, however, a little perplexed by the service arrangements – either let me take my own food to my table, or give me a table number and bring it out yourself. But don’t take my order, prepare it, and then spend five minutes shouting my name out in a busy café on a Saturday morning to find out where I am so you can bring it over. I mean, dudes!

Buzz went for a side serve of pasta salad made with red cabbage, baby spinach and walnuts, with a main of TVP-chicken satay wrap. I plumped for a vegan panini and a Blondie.
The pasta salad, although the teenisest-weensiest bit on the oily side, was a winner,. The pasta was quite al dente to compliment the combination of the crisp cabbage and walnut with the soft spinach. The cabbage, uncooked, lost the worst of its bitterness whilst retaining bite and crunch. The spinach had been softly coated with olive oil. We’re going to attempt this one at home.

The stay wrap contained TVP chunks which were spongey and textured and delicious, but in retrospect remind me a little of the KitEkat Chicken in Gravy that I feed my boys. Good thing it tasted great then. The satay sauce was subtle, lightly creamy and not at all peanut buttery. The serving was large and accompanied by a decently sized fresh salad.

My panini comprised a couple of pieces of sundried tomato, slabs of room temperature tofu and pesto in a quite satisfyingly chewy ciabatta. The traditional combination of tomato and pesto was fine, but the tomatoes were a tad vinegary and sharp and the pesto unremarkable. Imagine a pest – hold it – that’s it. The tofu was a bit of a surprise; unflavoured and unwarmed and slapped between the ciabatta. However, all combined and encased in the excellent bread, and with the same salad, it was tasty and I finished it happily.

My Blondie was big and delightfully soft and chewy. It was pretty sweet, but not being a sweet-tooth by nature it’s hard for me to judge. The chocolate chunks were just at that soft and semi-melted but not dissipated stage; the crust was not crisp or think but of just the right consistency to both hold firm-ish and break off in bite-sized chunks; and the dough inside was on the right side of light and chewy.
A word on coffee: I can see why Starbucks does so well in the States. It’s oft repeated that prior to Starbucks’ ‘third place’ concept – the idea of a coffee shop being the third place between home and work where you could relax, hang out and bide a while – there was no such thing in the US. Starbucks began its success on the backs of urbanites who appreciated its plush velvet chairs, power points for laptops, and all the other soft-warm-welcoming design features. And from what I saw in NYC, this is a market niche otherwise unfilled. There aren’t really any other chain coffee shops and certainly none of the small, independent businesses or hole-in-the-walls we’re so spoiled with in Melbourne. What this makes for is that Starbucks’ cookie-cutter coffees are in fact the best cup available. They offer a standard taste, they’re familiar, and their stores are in fact used by people as their third place, which is nice in its way. One thing that did absolutely appal us though was the shocking and abominable practice of using pre-brewed coffee from tin coffee pots and then pouring freshly steamed milk on top. Shame! Surely this is corrupting the youth of America!

So back at Chez ‘sNice, we were served coffees that were the best we’d had Stateside. The were fine by Melbourne standards, but superlative in NYC, and I mean that as the highest of compliments to ‘sNice.

If this all sounds like Melbourne-centric arrogance, hubris, snobbery and plain up-yourself-ness – it is. Melbourne’s coffee is the PhD to NYC’s crèche. NYC might out-perform Melbourne in many (many) categories, but in this one, Melbourne is the one who rawks.


Below: we returned to ‘sNice a couple of times for the comforting and warm atmosphere, drinkable coffee and range of vegan foodstuffs– here are some of our meals and a few thoughts.

From NYC - 'sNice, or: I realise that my daily skinny-soy-latte is in fact pure gold

Yes, ‘sNice. Having been described in my NYC Bible (Vegan Restaurant Guide to NYC 2008, Friends of Animals) as a café/sandwich shop/bakery, I was expecting a linoleum style counter-type place with little bits of sandwich filling in individual containers. Instead, ‘sNice is a rustic, relaxed, artsy-boho eatery on par with the finest of Smith Street’s wood-filled, nod-to-the-retro faux-ho.

A combination of individual and communal tables makes for a mixed crowd – couples, families, groups of friends – and the provision of the day’s papers was something we hadn’t seen much of in NYC. I was, however, a little perplexed by the service arrangements – either let me take my own food to my table, or give me a table number and bring it out yourself. But don’t take my order, prepare it, and then spend five minutes shouting my name out in a busy café on a Saturday morning to find out where I am so you can bring it over. I mean, dudes!

Buzz went for a side serve of pasta salad made with red cabbage, baby spinach and walnuts, with a main of TVP-chicken satay wrap. I plumped for a vegan panini and a Blondie.

The pasta salad, although the teenisest-weensiest bit on the oily side, was a winner. The spaghetti was quite al dente to compliment the combination of the crisp cabbage and wiggly walnut with the soft spinach. The cabbage, uncooked, lost the worst of its bitterness whilst retaining bite and crunch. The spinach had been softly coated with olive oil. We’re going to attempt this one at home.


The satay wrap contained TVP chunks which were spongey and textured and delicious, but in retrospect remind me a little of the KitEkat Chicken in Gravy that I feed my boys. Good thing it didn't occur to me at the time or I couldn't have spent quite so long stealing pieces of it off Buzz's plate (sharing is caring doncha know...). The satay sauce was subtle, lightly creamy and not at all peanut buttery. The serving was large and accompanied by a decently sized fresh salad.


My panini comprised a couple of pieces of sundried tomato, slabs of room-temperature tofu and pesto in a quite satisfyingly chewy ciabatta. The traditional combination of tomato and pesto was fine, but the tomatoes were a tad vinegary and sharp and the pesto unremarkable. Imagine a pest – hold it – that’s exactly it. The tofu was a bit of a surprise and I'm not sure it was all pleasant: unflavoured and unwarmed and slapped between the ciabatta. However, all combined and encased in the excellent bread, and with the same salad, it was tasty and I finished it happily.


My Blondie was big and delightfully soft and chewy. It was pretty sweet, but not being a sweet-tooth by nature it’s hard for me to judge. The chocolate chunks were just at that soft and semi-melted but not dissipated stage; the crust was not crisp or thick but of just the right consistency to both hold firm-ish and break off in bite-sized chunks; and the dough inside was on the right side of light and chewy.


A word on coffee: I can see why Starbucks does so well in the States. It’s oft repeated that prior to Starbucks’ ‘third place’ concept – the idea of a coffee shop being the third place between home and work where you could relax, hang out and bide a while – there was no such thing in the US. Starbucks began its success on the backs of urbanites who appreciated its plush velvet chairs, power points for laptops, and all the other soft-warm-welcoming design features. And from what I saw in NYC, this is a market niche otherwise unfilled. There aren’t really any other chain coffee shops and certainly none of the small, independent businesses or hole-in-the-walls we’re so spoiled with in Melbourne. What this makes for is that Starbucks’ cookie-cutter coffees are in fact the best cup available. They offer a standard taste, they’re familiar, and their stores are in fact used by people as their third place, which is nice in its way. One thing that did absolutely appal us though was the shocking and abominable practice of using pre-brewed coffee from tin coffee pots and then pouring freshly steamed milk on top. Shame! Surely this is corrupting the youth of America!

So back at Chez ‘sNice, we were served coffees that were the best we’d had Stateside. The were fine by Melbourne standards, but superlative in NYC, and I mean that as the highest of compliments to ‘sNice.

If this all sounds like Melbourne-centric arrogance, hubris, snobbery and plain up-yourself-ness – it is. Melbourne’s coffee is the PhD to NYC’s crèche. NYC might out-perform Melbourne in many (many) categories, but in this one, Melbourne is the one who rawks.


'sNice Redux:
We returned to ‘sNice a couple of times for the comforting and warm atmosphere, drinkable coffee and range of vegan foodstuffs– here are some of our meals and a few thoughts.

Below: Tempeh wrap with avocado, mixed greens, cilantro (that's coriander for you and me), tomatoes and spicy chipotle dressing. This was a little to smoky, and very Thousand Island Dressing-y. It wasn't as good as Buzz's satay 'chicken' wrap that he ordered again and part of which was stolen again by me.

Below: chocky-nana muffin (with free sugary bickies cos she forgot to charge me for the muffin and had to come over to our table to get more cash!). De-lish. Perfectly light, moist and banana-y. It was big but not mammoth, with more banana than chocolate - and this from a self-avowed muffin-ambivalent. The freebies were cute with their coloured sugar and animal shapes - they were quite 'buttery' but almost a little stale, although it goes without saying that they all made it into my tummy.

Below: finally, a cookie with no name, but by the loving tilt of this photo I can tell it was a good 'un. Just look at that choc-oat mix and just-crackled top.

Below: Thai salad with satay sauce, endamame and peanuts. Quite honestly, this was just a plain ol' green salad with a few beanshoots, a dollop pf stay and some peanuts. No lime, no chilli, no finely sliced nuffing' ... not really Thai at all except for the satay. A bit vinegary too.




'sNice Manhattan: 45 8th Avenue at W4th Street.

WholeFoods miscellanea, or: I upload a whole lotta photos on a Friday night

Here are some out'n'about shots from WholeFoods. Big snaps to Buzz who patiently waited while I snapped everything with the word 'vegan' on it and even lent a helping hand to hold up various pieces of produce to demonstrate their size.

I'm not really a soy-cream kinda gal (or should that be ice-soy cos it's the cream that I object to?) but this ... this really takes the ... cake? Soycream? IceSoy?

Just look at the soft and sticky swirls of fudge ... this bucket didn't last very long at all. Oh no it didn't!
A meal-in-a-bowl from the buffet.

Views from above - taken from the eatering area way up above the foodering area (don't ask where those words came from. But it makes sense doesn't it? The eatering are is where you do your eating, and the foodering area is where you pick your food).

All the little soy proteins ... maybe a bit too chemically and processed, but what a haul!






My first ever food tub from the buffet - layers 1 and 2. I was a full little girl.



Buzz has fairly large hands, and even they are dwarfed (kind of) by these bemusingly large red onions.

Slightly bizarrely arranged fresh produce. It's like someone's come along with a WhipperSnipper and buzzed off all the unruly ends.

Finally - why oh effing why does the one thing ever with my name have to be effing dairy? Tragedy!

Having now seen all these pictures together, I think I have also seen why I was so manic and determined in photographing all the special vegan food I could find. Certainly it was partly to demonstrate the range of products we simply don't have in Australia, but seeing now that so many of the items are those that are made in-store, I think my unrealised motive was to show that where there is a critical mass of people who are interested not just in veganism but in organics and other non-mainstream eating choices, market forces will lead to the creation of a new and expanded form of operation which sees these choices as crucial to their business.

Despite the concern about the role of WholeFoods as yet another giant supermarket chain - concerns that are valid and worth remembering - it's still pretty damn cool to get the incredible range of bakery treats above, bringing them out of the health food store and into a supermarket environment, which is the kind of food market where the vast majority of people in the US and Australia purchase their food. My position is that if this kind of ubiquity can help someone to think that veganism is something 'normal' enough to be catered for by a large supermarket chain, not impossible for that person themselves to cater for, and part of a movement large enough to command these things, then I say that this is a damn fine thing.