Day 31

October 31 marks the one year anniversary of when my boyfriend and I first met, and it is also marks the close of my first month as a vegan.

Day 28

I was feeling pretty darn lazy today so I ordered pizza delivery. Vegan pizza ordered online and delivered to your door seems almost too good to be true.* Pizza Fusion in Santa Monica is almost too good to be true. And their prices vouch for that.

So first of all, it took almost three hours to get my pie. Apparently, they don't deliver from 2-5 and I called at 3pm. They said that I would be the first to go when they resumed deliveries at 5, but given the time of day (rush hour in Venice is a bitch) my food didn't arrive until 5:45pm. That's ok. I knew it was coming. The pizza was tepid. whatevs. I was so hungry by then that I shoved a slice in my mouth before signing the credit card slip.

I ordered a large multigrain "Very Vegan" pizza which comes with crimini mushrooms and whole roasted garlic cloves, marinara and Daiya brand cheese. I actually found Pizza Fusion through the Daiya website which I was introduced to via a Whole Foods vegan quesadilla. I added sundried tomatoes to my pizza and with the delivery charge + tip the whole thing turned out to be about $25.00. Now that's a lot of money to pay for a pizza, but I figured, hey, it's a large, I can easily stretch a large pizza over 3 meals. I usually max out at 2 slices a go, so I even invited my co-workers to partake. Well, there were about 8 slices in this incredibly thin crust pizza and it was a lot smaller than I thought a large would be. In spite of the fact that the dimensions were specified I thought it would be much bigger. I can't really think spatially so maybe this was my fault, but ultimately the smallness of the pizza minus the thinness of the crust equaled me eating half of it in one sitting.

It was really good, but not worth the money. Maybe for a special occasion. If they start selling Daiya in the stores that would be great. This is a remarkable product. But Follow Your Heart cheeze is just as good.

*I realize that ordering cheeseless pizza is also vegan, but to me it's just not pizza without the cheese.

Day 27

Today I went on a field trip of sorts with my co-workers Sarah and Shawna. We motored down to La Jolla in Sarah's Prius to check out some galleries in the area. Before leaving Venice we stopped at the Venice Whole Foods. I got a smoothie. It was amazing. So a good vegan smoothie can be done (not that I doubted it, I just wonder how J's went so awry. See Day 25 for my sad, sad review.)

In La Jolla the necessity of preparation as a vegan became very apparent. Finding a vegan friendly lunch spot without the benefit of yelp was a crapshoot. Finally we ended up at a yuppie proper bistro called George's. What George lacked in vegan friendly options he more than made up for with an amazing ocean front terrace and my lady friends and I sipped on fancy cocktails by the sea. I will say that in spite of the mediocrity of my cobbled together vegan entree (pasta with veggies) our server was very accommodating and didn't seem annoyed at all by the curve ball I threw him. And believe me, I was a difficult patron BEFORE I went vegan so I can imagine how horrific I must be at present.

PS Hi Tara, wish I could have seen you today :(

Day 26

I have discovered silken tofu, and it is good.

Another fun knitting day with Laura and this time she stayed for dinner. Honestly, I love cooking with another person and last night was a great team effort. I planned a Mexican extravaganza inspired by my urge to cook with pattypan squash again (I had a lot of fun with it in the summer and I noticed their numbers were dwindling as the farmer's market bows to the fall). That night we devoured refried beans, chipotle quinoa, and squash with cauliflower & fresh corn in cilantro-basil pesto. But the surprise of the night for me was the cilantro "sour cream." It was AMAZING. The recipe was adapted from Isa Chandra's but I accidentally (shhh) forgot to add the oil and it was still amazing. Honestly, I don't see why it needs oil. Leaving it out is so much healthier anyway. And nobody missed it. So good! I highly recommend trying this recipe.

Day 25

On Sunday I got a smoothie from J's Vegan on Abbot Kinney. I've been so reluctant to talk about J's because I think its great that there is a vegan place walking distance from work and the staff is just as friendly as can be, but it is SO overpriced and the food is really hit & miss. Or just mediocre. My $5 smoothie was miserable. It was so sweet and loose, not like smoothie consistency at all. I felt like an idiot for having paid so much for something that I could have done better at home for a fraction of the price. That and I had the breakfast burrito and it was bland. This is not a yelp review, and I don't think too many people are reading this blog so whatever, I won't feel too bad posting this. But they frustrate me so! Anyway, if you are on AK, and you do go to J's then I would suggesting getting something from the deli case. You can sample anything in the deli case first so you can pick something you really like (and they do have some standouts like their seitan in the peanut sauce.)

Day 24

Saturday after work I raced from Venice to Hollywood (well you can't really race in a city bus, but you know what i mean) in my gigantic fake fur coat (thanks Matt) for Dia de los Muertos at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. As soon as I got off the bus I saw that the sidewalk was packed with street vendors selling bacon wrapped hot dogs (bye bye rat dogs!) and other traditional Mexican food. I was starving and can never resist the allure of the portable kitchen so I found the only vegan thing I could find: a huarache stuffed with beans. I asked if there was lard in it and she said no, but really, how could I know for certain? Anyway it was delicious and spicy and kept me satisfied for a bit. Dia de los Muertos was amazing, I wish I hadn't spent half the time in line for the bathroom. I met up with my friend Ck and her posse and as it turned out, half of the group was veggie and the other half wasn't. I was pretty happy with that ratio. After the event everyone was hungry so we went to Swingers on Beverly. Swingers is a great veggie friendly place, especially in the wee sma. I ordered the veggie wrap which was yummy, but didn't have enough of filling. The sauteed quinoa that came on the side made up for it though. They don't mess around with their grains.

Day 23

I enjoyed the polenta so much last Monday that I decided to do it again Friday night. This time, I used chopped Italian parsley in the polenta and fried it so it was really crispy (so much for being healthy.) I topped the fried polenta cakes with garlic sauteed spinach and a really hearty sauce I made that was sort of like a lentil marinara and a sprinkle of more fresh parsley. My boyfriend loved it, so I guess it was alright!