vegan chai

bacon is the new zombies

okay, seriously, i am really really over the trend that is bacon right now. the 'bacon is a vegetable' t-shirts, the weird thing where you can "baconize" any website (wtf?!)... the overall kitschiness that bacon apparently bestows on hipsters these days is just making me roll my eyes over and over again. there is bacon in chocolate, there is bacon in ice cream, there is some kind of perverse bacon-weaving challenge, and the other day i saw something that can only be described as an explosion of sausage vomit wrapped in a billion strips of bacon (complete with photo tutorial!). dear god, make it stop. *retch*

"for more sustenance"

yesterday i went to a coffee shop with a friend, and i hadn't eaten anything yet so i was contemplating getting a breakfast burrito. on my way to the counter to order, however, i saw that "tomato basil bisque" (or something like that) was their soup of the day. i can almost never resist soup, so i switched gears right then and there and asked if the tomato soup was vegan. the guy taking our order gave me kind of a blank look, and then turned around to ask the girl behind him. she, looking much more confident, said "no" right away, and explained that it contained half-and-half. i thanked her and she wandered off to do something somewhere else. i then followed up with, "the curried potato tofu breakfast burrito is vegan though, right?" and he said, "no, it has eggs." 

allow me a quick aside here: i have looked at this menu several times, both in person and online, and have never noticed eggs in the description for this breakfast burrito. it has always struck me as their token vegan option; the other three breakfast burritos, including the veggie one, list eggs explicitly in the description, while this one does not. so even though i was asking, i was 99% certain that he was going to tell me yes, it's vegan.

anyhow, when he said that it had eggs, i'm sure i made a totally weird WTF face (not a mean one, but a weird one for sure), and i said, "it DOES?" and he was all, "yeah, they all do," and i was all, "but it has tofu, that seems kind of weird..." and he said, "huh?" and i said, "well it has tofu," and he got defensive and said, "just because it has TOFU doesn't mean it's VEGAN," and i was all, sheesh dude, and i said, "well yes i realize that, but tofu is kind of doing the job of the eggs in that burrito, is all," and he goes, "well it has eggs, too, you know for more sustenance." 

at which point i just had to keep the eye-rolling and the snarky comments to myself and i just said, "okay, i'll have a soy chai then." *big smile*

after we had completed the transaction and were waiting around for the chai to be ready, my friend and i walked over to the giant menu sign and scrutinized it. she agreed with me that it seemed (from the description) not to include eggs, and she encouraged me to ask someone else. i tried to seek out the girl who knew about the soup, but wasn't able to get her attention in a sneaky fashion, so i just stood around until a different guy wandered over to ask me if i needed something. i asked him, and he said, "i'm not sure, let me go check!" and then we giggled about the fact that i'd probably get busted out when he went to ask the same guy i'd just been bickering with. he didn't, thank goodness, and he returned in a moment to confirm that the tofu burrito was in fact vegan. yay! and also, duh, because that makes SO much more sense.

of course, by then i felt too awkward to order it, since i'd have to go right back to the guy who just insisted that tofu-eaters need eggs for sustenance, so we just went to sit down with our drinks. about five or ten minutes later, the guy showed up at our table and said, and i quote, "okay, just for future reference? i'm the idiot; there are no eggs in the tofu burrito, and it's vegan." hee! i thought that was very nice of him, and totally endearing. we exchanged pleasantries and he went on his way. i never ended up ordering it after all, but i plan to do so the next time i stop by.

i haven't disappeared

i promise, i haven't gone away. i'm just in that awkward spot where i was posting every day for over a year, and then i took a "short break" that turned into a longer break, because i started worrying that i wouldn't post something good enough. heh, i suck. anyhow, i'll get it back into gear soon, because a couple of you have asked about my well-being, and i suppose i have some stuff to talk about. for now, though, i'm just planted on the couch watching inauguration footage (and, let's be honest, american idol). whee!

tara and bella

i have never tried to embed a video before, but here goes!

...well, that crashed and burned. instead i will send you over to tamara's blog to watch it there. holy smokes, i burst into tears like crazy, but in a good way. enjoy!

vegan chili cheese dip, revised

almost a year ago, i wrote this post about veganizing a pregan favorite of mine, chili cheese dip. well, in the meantime, tofutti has released a new product that made this recipe even closer to the original: their cheddar flavored cream cheese. i'm happy to say that we tested out this new variation (one tub tofutti cheddar cream cheese, one can amy's chili) last night, and it was delicious! it's such a ridiculously easy recipe, there's no excuse not to try it. go on, you know you want to!

happy new year!

i'm all old and whatnot, so i'm ringing in the new year wearing my pjs and watching movies, but i wanted to say happy new year and thanks for reading all of my boring-ass posts all year long. i can't believe i've posted every night for 13 months! i'm sure i had a lot more boring entries than exciting ones, so maybe i should scale back a bit. heh. in any case, i hope you're all having a fantastic night, and here's to a wonderful 2009. enjoy!