Pizza Pizza

Running my own store means I work 7 days a week. Bleh, I know. And three of those days are 11 hour days, more bleh. But Friday and Saturday my friend Anna and my mom work the last three hours so I don't want to kill myself. Every Saturday night my two gems (Damien and Mark) and I go out to our fave pizza place where the bartender hooks us up AND they have vegan cheese! I always try to make a different pizza every week since they have an ABUNDANCE of veggies to choose from.

Last night I got soy cheese, zucchini, mushrooms, caramelized onions and roasted garlic. Here are two of the last slices, sorry I forgot to snap a pic before I devoured 3/4 of it.

Yummmm

Life Cafe!

Hi bloggies!

The last two days I have been in NYC. Tuesday night I was asked to speak at a Young Women in Business Entrepreneurial Event, and it went really well. It was weird realizing just two years ago I was sitting in a classroom just like these guys listening to people who had started their own business and now I was on the other side. It was a very cool feeling and being in the city completely recharged my batteries. Such a refreshing place to be.

Lots of vegan food and drink was to be had. We had our first lunch at Gobo, one of my favorites, unfotunately did not take pics. Gobo

That night we went to Life Cafe where we all indulged on too many cocktails and french fries to appreciate the real goodness this place has to offer. Life Cafe is where the writer of Rent wrote the show, and is also where the dancing restaurant scene on tables takes place. I am in the center with my two friends on either side of me, and a new um... close friend Kenny on the far right.

Life Cafe is amazing. The next day I did venture back there for lunch and indulged on their vegan burrito with soy cheese and tofu sour cream and of course lots of guac and wine. So delish. I might have even met my fellow vegan alcoholic that day, but we can't jinx that one so hush on that for a while ;) Pardon the bad lighting below...It was amazeballs though.

ATTENTION and chocolate-pumpkin brownies

Since I started blogging again there is an issue I have been wanting to bring up and lucky for me someone wrote exactly what I wanted to say perfectly today, no preaching, no judging, just facts at "Where's The Revolution" Blog. In Praise of gluten and other yummy things.

I adore the list in this post above. It is perfect!

Since blogging again I have seen many vegan blogs (to my disappointment) that seem so restricting in terms of diet, and I even feel put-off by the lack of fun some people seem to have in exploring their lifestyle. I think if veganism is ever going to catch on at a successful rate people have to understand how much you DO have living a vegan lifestyle. Soo many foods I eat now I would never know exsisted if I never went veg. Does anyone else feel this way? (Disclaimer: I do not mean to direct this to people that for health reasons cannot eat wheat, gluten, soy, etc. Please realize I respect that for health reasons some people cannot eat certain things. This is not a post that applies to that.)

My friends ask me to cook for them all the time, they order vegan meals when we are out, are always up for veg restaurants and usually finish my meals when I don't. My mom went vegetarian after I went vegan. I want people to realize you don't have to be straight-edge or give up drinking, or cut out sugar, or even just shop at health food stores (although I do) because you are vegan.

To sum up what I feel: I am vegan but I love my fried tofu, my vodka, and my frozen meatless balls just as much as my trips to the farmer's market every week for fresh produce. I do eat almost all organic and whole foods, but I use vital wheat gluten for sausages and seitan like it's going out of style, and I could not live without veganaise. I am also a total nooche and salt whore. My mom bakes weekly and delivers her goodness to me. (She's a typical jewish mom, and if she's not shoving my fridge with food and baked goods, it severely disturbs her. Luckily, she totally gets the vegan thing.) It's not about restrictions, it's what makes you happy and what works for you to enjoy life while doing your part for animals and the environment and your own health at the same time.

Thanks for reading. Any thoughts?

Chocolate pumpkin brownies from VCTOTW :) Melt in your mouth delish. Thanks mom!

The Kind Diet

I know this is hard to read but Robert Cheeke wrote " To Jessica, you rock big time!"

Alicia Silverstone has always been one of my favorite people because:

a: Clueless was one of the best movies of all time and she totally rocked it out in that

b: She's a vegan, duh

c: She signed her new book to ME! I can just feel the jealousy ;)

I cannot wait to read this and cook some of her recipes! My facebook buddy/vegan body builder Robert Cheeke is featured in the book and also signed it to me and sent a few of his products Vega to me, which I am also looking forward to trying. THANK YOU ROBERT!

Farmer's Market Soup

As I mentioned in my previous post I have some gems of neighbors living in this lovely town of Northampton who distribute the leftover Farmer's Market goods to people downtown who just don't have the luxury of going on a Saturday morning. Owning my own store is a 7 day a week job and the thought of attending a farmer's market is a thing of the past but hopefully not for good. Anyways, I just thought I would mention in the month of Thanksgiving how lucky I feel to live in such a community where people are more then happy to have each other's backs and go out of their way for nothing in return.

On to the food! This week as I mentioned the main components were kale, turnips, peppers and carrots. When the weather starts to get chilly like it is here I could live off of good soups and good bread.

I saute onions, garlic and leeks in olive oil until cooked through. I then add in some veggie broth with the carrots, peppers and turnips to let it soften. Normally I use the ends of veggies to make home-made veg broth, but I was out! So organic Trader Joe's brand it is.

I wanted some spice and protein so in went a package of Trader Joe's soyrizo and the kale at the end. Since the soyrizo has so much flavor the only other spices I added in was a ton of nooche and salt and let it simmer for probably an hour altogether. I am a nuts for nooche and a total salt whore. (I put salt on my cereal and my soy delicious ice cream but that's a whole other post)

Soup simmering away...Sorry for the craptastic iphone photos you will most likely see again and again.

And in case you didn't see enough of me in a french maid costume, here is my pup Lutey and her halloween bow, so pretty, in my store on Saturday

Happy Tuesday!

Heyyyy I missed blogging!!!!

I'm back! My store, Layla Vera, has been open for exactly 3 months today! DAMN! It is going really well, and I am very much looking forward to the Holiday season. BUT I decided after everyday of getting into my store and checking like 20 of your fabulous blogs a day, I realized I needed to start again! I missed it! And I have a new apartment downtown Northampton where I do a lot of cooking, a lot of eating out, a lot in general, so I needed to fill my empty blogging void.

First this is just an introduction to see if anyone is even still reading this! If you are then YAY! I hope everyone had a great Halloween yesterday and of course enjoyed vegan mofo which was so much fun to follow. Here are just a few Halloween pics from last night, and tomorrow I will get to the food! I promise! Some dear friends of mine every Saturday take all the leftovers from the downtown farmers market and distribute out all the leftover goods for FREE, YES FREE to their friends in businesses downtown that don't have the time to go. AMAZEBALLS! So from yesterday I have two bunches of kale, some peppers, carrots, and turnips to play with tonight. Glad to be back!

Ok pics, I am the french maid with some friends in my apt.

More fun friends!

Dancing the night away

My mom and friend dressed as Yankees players...they're both from NY

Have you ever seen a ZOMBIE SMURF?

The good, the bad, and the wonderful

While sipping my organic vodka and lemonade cocktail, and snacking on some ridiculously too good too be true scrumptious plump dates with almond butter, I find it a good time to break this news. 

The Good: I am opening MY OWN high-end women's accessories boutique in Northampton, MA. It is a very very very exciting, overwhelming, fun, and crazy time right now for me. At the age of 24 I never thought I could accomplish this type of thing so soon after college. I have worked very hard in this type of field throughout school and in the last couple of years, the opportunity seems to have fallen into my lap. It is amazing for me and I will be sure to keep you guys informed as much as I can on the name, when I open, my merchandise etc. If any of you live in the Western MA valley, you MUST come find me :)

The Bad: The informing you as much as I can part will unfortunately not be that often. My hours and days and weeks blend together, and I don't even open till August! If you think my blogging has been slacking lately, just wait come then....literally ;) Don't get me wrong, there are so many things daily food wise I want to share with you fabulous vegans, such as today, I had vegan salami for the first time and loved it totally, anyone else?? But I just might not have the time to blog as much as I normally would love to, as I did last summer and up until the last couple of months. 

The Wonderful: I will still be checking your blogs and commenting as often as I can. It is much more soothing to see all yours for a few minutes then to write a post after an exhausting day for me, let alone take the food porn. Oh, the food porn....But I love love love reading your blogs, and seeing your posts daily. I will not be stopping that quick check every day, few times a day ;)

And, I hope you will keep checking in on me when I do post. Your comments and thoughts are always really great to read.

PS. I checked and knew it was coming, yes my vegan blog 1 year anniversary is July 8! My goal is to post before and on that! 

Happy Weekend!