vegan chai

have you had the dandies?

i'm sure you've all heard by now that there are new vegan marshmallows on the market. they are called dandies, and they have been brought to us by the very same people who brought us temptation ice cream and teese: chicago soydairy. i know that it's been a little tough for people to get their hands on these little lovelies, but i was SUPER lucky and happened to snag a bag at just the right time. and let me tell you, they are amazing! they taste seriously for realiously exactly like you remember marshmallows from the pregan days. they are soft, chewy, pillowy, a little powdery on the outside, sticky inside, sweet, and delicious. i haven't even made anything with them yet, i've just been eating them out of the bag in stunned (and happy) silence. 

i've already heard many tales (and seen a few blog posts, with pictures... here's one, for example!) of people getting marshmallowy with their dandies, though, and it appears as though they behave beautifully in cocoa, in s'mores, and in krispie treats. hooray! when they become more plentiful again, i'll buy a few bags and start baking and whatnot, but for now i'm happy to pop them as mini-snacks. 

now, if only we could get someone to make the weird hard marshmallows vegan, so i could eat lucky charms and oreo o's again. heh.

anise toothpaste

about a year ago, i started searching for a new toothpaste. my ol' standby (tom's of maine cinnamint) had been retired, and i was kind of heartbroken, and i had to start from scratch. i tried a few that were "just okay" and honestly at this point i can't remember what they were anymore. i know we used JASON orange-cinnamon-mint nutrismile for awhile, and liked it, but after a few tubes i felt like it wasn't really as "fresh" as i like my toothpaste to be, and i didn't always feel squeaky-clean after brushing. i'm sure this is more my own issues than anything to do with the actual toothpaste; it's probably just a preference or something i'm used to or whatever, but i decided to start experimenting again. i believe i tried the cinnamon-mint powersmile, and i honestly can't remember anything about it, so it must have been one of those "just okay" tubes. 

at some point i switched from JASON over to nature's gate, because my co-op was having a huge sale on them, and i picked up a tube of their cool mint gel. it was a blend of spearmint and peppermint, which i thought would be great, but really i thought it was almost overly strong, and decided to try something else when we finished that tube. for reasons completely unknown to me, i decided to give the creme de anise a shot. maybe it was the box's promise of "deliciously fresh breath," or maybe it was the pretty star-shaped anise on the front, i don't know. my grandpa always loved anise candies, and i loved them as a kid because i loved him, so maybe that's what did it. anyhow, i brought the weird toothpaste home half-expecting to hate it, but i actually loved it! my husband was a little more skeptical, but eventually came around (mostly). 

the weirdest part is that i absolutely cannot stand black licorice; i think it's disgusting. i always sort of equated black licorice with anise in my mind, with the weird exception of anise candies (i know this makes literally no sense whatsoever), and i still compartmentalize them in my head. i did some wikipedia-perusing, and apparently there are some similarities/connections among licorice, anise, and fennel... which is another thing i've always hated. so how the heck do i come off loving anise toothpaste but hating black licorice and fennel? it's a mystery.

to make things more complicated, i should share that the entire basis of my fennel-hate is rooted in my mom's penchant for putting whole fennel seeds in lasagna when i was growing up. barf, i hated when i bit into one of those seeds. but! when we were on the vegan cruise last month (right in the midst of my new love affair with anise toothpaste), i had the opportunity to try a bowl of fennel soup. guess what? i really liked it! it tasted kind of like celery to me. this whole thing just keeps getting weirder, i know.

the only thing i can figure is that i'm one of those people who picks up on subtle differences in flavor, so anise = tasty while black licorice = disgusting, and fennel seeds are the devil while fennel soup is actually kind of nice. i can't explain myself, i can just talk up the weird anise toothpaste and tell you it's my new favorite.

bo obama

so, yeah, i'm definitely disappointed at the about-face on the president's decision to accept a dog from a breeder rather than adopt from a shelter. i imagine we all are, to some degree. i think it's kind of been done to death in the media, and honestly i'm not even bothered by that, because i do think it's a big deal. i'm not going to yammer on and on because it would be preaching to the choir, but i did want to share this article, because it's one of the more interesting ones i've read on the matter. i almost came away with the feeling that there was never a true intent to rescue from a shelter, which bums me out. meh.

vitasoy rumor

i just heard from a friend who manages a retail store that vitasoy is going to stop peddling their wares in the US. what the hell, people? peppermint chocolate vitasoy will cease to exist? that is completely unacceptable. i think there is a conspiracy against me.

RIP, peppermint ritter sports

okay, i had worked up a whole desperate ranty piece of work about peppermint ritter sports, but then after doing some more research (i.e., discussion board stalking) i learned that not only am i late to this party, but it looks like it's somewhat final and basically a lost cause. so, i guess i should instead be happy that i had several extra months of ignorant bliss compared to some PRS-lovers, and do my part in spreading the word (but please don't shoot the messenger!).

if you didn't already know from my previous ramblings about peppermint ritter sports, they are one of my very favorite treats in all the land. i had to have a Serious Talk with myself when i went vegan, understanding that i would never again have a PRS bar, and made my peace with it... only to learn that they were in fact vegan, and i could keep eating them forevah! hooray! well, then they suddenly became really impossible to find in the US, which created a bit of a problem for me, but my husband's discovery of online german candy companies and my girlfriends in canada helped a sister out from time to time, and i was still able to have my lovelies. most recently, a friend of mine went to germany, and she brought back ten bars for me. i still have three left, which is pretty good considering they were delivered to me four months ago. i am capable of restraint! who knew?

well anyhow, a couple of weeks ago i was chatting up the good folks at vegan essentials in an effort to see if there was any way they could figure out how to stock PRS bars, and in the process of researching everything together, we stumbled upon a bittersweet revelation: (a) peppermint rittersports are once again available in the US--woohoo!!!, and (b) they now include butterfat--WTeffingF?!? 

apparently, this has been true for awhile now, but i've been living in a bubble, so to speak. i saw them in the store just last week and indeed, they include butterfat on the label now. the bars i have from germany are still clean, and i've heard that there are still some bars in canada that are clean, but it looks like the butterfat versions are snaking their way around the world now, as the old stock sells out. grrrrr. a few people have written to the company, and been given a line of total hoohaw regarding "bloom" and maintaining the integrity of the chocolate. to which i say, give me a break, because the marzipan and dark chocolate ritter sports remain vegan regardless of the possibility of "bloom." so lame.

back when they started becoming super-scarce in the US, the rumor was that there was some kind of weird ingredient that the US didn't allow, so they could be sold all over the place, just not here. i never learned what that ingredient was, but it looks like they took it out and added butterfat in its place. boo on you, ritter sport. you just lost a small but previously-very-loyal fanbase, for no reason whatsoever. 

i'm starting to get extremely frustrated with companies that add non-vegan ingredients to otherwise-vegan products. first hemp organics added beeswax to their tinted lip balms (otherwise known as "my only lipstick," thank you very much), then alba added beeswax to their hawaiian lip balms (otherwise known as "my very favorite lip balm"), and now ritter sport. :angry face:

but, those two experiences taught me something very important: no matter how distraught i am at the time, i always find something suitable as a replacement. so my new mission is going to be tracking down those divine after-dinner mints that i told you about a few months ago. they are really really tasty, plus they're fair trade, which makes me happy. they appear to be just a holiday thing, but maybe if there's demand they'll sell them year-round? (and if that works, you're next, peppermint chocolate vitasoy and pumpkin silk!) ah well, a girl can dream.

thank you

i just wanted to say thanks for all of the sweet comments, both on my last post and privately via email. you guys are awesome, and it means a lot to me. i'm going to try to get back to "normal" posting now, but i appreciate the willingness to listen to me be serious and emotional when i need to be. i'll keep you posted, okay? xoxo

let's get this part out of the way

i'll update you on the sad/scary stuff so we can get it out in the open and move forward, how's that? once i've cleared the air i'll feel more normal about posting silly frivolous things.

so, i mentioned in my last post that i had some family health drama over the past month or so, which coincidentally centered around the time we were about to leave town for ten days, which made things even more frustrating and created a lot of uncertainty and weirdness over vacation. my grandmother, whose health had been failing, really started to go downhill about ten days before we were supposed to leave. she was fighting breast cancer that had spread to her bones, and in the past year or so, it was getting the best of her. this was horrible, because she had actually been fighting breast cancer since 1980(!), when she had her first mastectomy. she had another bout in 1995, which resulted in a second mastectomy, and then a few years ago it spread to her bones. she did pretty well at first, but then after awhile it took its toll, and it was terribly difficult for her (as well as for the rest of us). she was such a fighter, and such an optimist--she never EVER complained and she was always certain that things would work out okay. she was usually right, too. 

the week or two before we were supposed to leave town, her health declined dramatically, and there was a lot of stress over whether to use hospice or a nursing home, and in the end we tried both. my family absolutely insisted that we go on our vacation anyway (saying that even my grandma would insist if she could), so we did, but we were pretty sure that my gram wouldn't survive to see us return. i was able to spend a lot of time with her and say my goodbyes and i love yous, but it was still awful having to leave, knowing that i wouldn't be there with everyone. she passed away the day after we left town, just a few hours before our ship pushed away from the dock. as i said, i was prepared for it to happen, but it still sucked pretty bad. my grandpa is absolutely heartbroken--they had been married for 60 years and were still madly in love. in the end, it was a blessing, but still, so very sad.

and if that weren't enough...

the evening before we left town, my little sister was diagnosed with breast cancer. she called to tell me, and i was a useless pile of crap, because all i could do was sob quietly and listen to her talk. she had found a lump a couple weeks earlier (i knew this already), and had gone through the whole thing with her doctor, and eventually had a mammogram and an ultrasound and a biopsy, and then they called her immediately the next day with the news. she is 31 years old, with two little girls (four and a half, and fourteen months), and a wonderful husband. the word suck doesn't even begin to describe this. anyhow, she also insisted that we keep our vacation plans, because she was going to have two different tests while we were gone and she "wouldn't even know anything" until we got back anyway. so, we went, knowing that she had cancer when the rest of my family (still dealing with my gram's impending death) had no idea. i pretty much had a stomach ache the whole time, when i wasn't secretly crying somewhere.

once we got home we learned more about her diagnosis... she has a pretty aggressive form of breast cancer (she's triple negative, if that means anything to you), but as far as they can tell (after an MRI, CT scan, and bone scan) it hasn't spread anywhere beyond the known mass yet. she started chemo two weeks ago, and will undergo a total of 12 weeks of treatment (four cycles of a three-week treatment) before having surgery this summer. after she recovers from surgery, she will have another 12 weeks of chemo (a different drug than she is getting now) and we will go from there. she is being really awesome and strong, which i believe is really important, and i'm super proud of her. but i'm still totally scared and freaked out when i let myself think about it too much, which i suppose is normal.

she is being tested for the BRCA gene, and depending on her results, my mom and i will get tested too. it's quite likely that she does NOT have it, but she wants to check just in case; it could affect her treatment decisions, and it would potentially have an impact on me, my mom, and my nieces. i went for my mammogram last week (i'd never had one before; i was "too young"), and it came back normal. my mom also went for one, and they have an "area of interest" that they want to do ultrasound on (tomorrow). sigh.

i'm trying really hard to report "just the facts" and not get all overly emo on you guys, since that's not usually what i'm about... but at least this somewhat explains where the eff i've been lately. i've probably rambled too much, so i'll stop. the next post will be more upbeat, i promise.