- I came home Tuesday to find girl kitten (Yes, I still have her. Do you want dis kat?) had somehow gotten herself stuck in my tall kitchen garbage can. Who knows how long she was there but she was really happy to get out.
- Sal “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero just isn’t doing it for me as boy kitty’s name. I knew another name would come to me and it did today. When I pick him up, his limbs all just kind of dangle. This reminds me of Grover for some reason. So, Grover it is.
- Speaking of Grover, he’s huge! Seriously, check out the size of his feet. This cat is just now 4 months old, and his feet are bigger than his mama’s.
- Shuffleboard is fun even when you suck at it.
- If you’re veg*n and stuck in Sandy Springs, World Peace Cafe will take care of you. Our vegan lunch group hit it last Saturday and everyone enjoyed their food. I had the tofu scramble which was nice. Not too much nutritional yeast and greened up with broccoli florets. Oh, and I’ll say the magic word: dessert. They have vegan dessert.
- It had better mother fucking snow this winter after the hell we’ve endured this month.
- Took the peanut butter cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World to a potluck and they went over well. Next time I’ll use half the molasses. It was too strong for my taste with the called for amount.
- Why is my dog whining?
Category: atlanta
100% Vegan Shopping In Atlanta
Saturday evening was the grand opening party for the brick & mortar version of Cosmo’s Vegan Shoppe. And wow, a lot of people were there! And some nummy foods. I got my fingers on a brownie and a chocolate mint cupcake and both were delicious.
Here’s a big hint to anyone who feels like buying me stuff….go here. Everything is vegan. No need to fret over ingredients. Everything is acceptable! Shoes, purses, make-up, food, etc. All of it. And it’s conveniently located, well, here.
I had to pick up a few things while I was there. I just HAD to. A cute little English Retreads rubber purse, Lesser Evil peanut butter & chocolate popcorn (it’s way gone), smoked cheddar style Sheese, a Beauty Without Cruelty eyeshadow duo, and a couple of bath product samples. It has been my first experience with Sheese and it’s really good. It’s the first cheese substitute I’ve had that mimics a hard cheese pretty well. It’s a little crumbly and apparently it doesn’t melt. But I ate it sliced on sammiches, sliced on tortilla chips and just sliced and I was happy with it all three ways. As much as we all appreciate Vegan Gourmet, I don’t think anyone really considers cutting off a chunk and eating it plain. Ew.
Trader Joe’s – not as cool as I remember
I finally went to the Trader Joe’s in midtown on my way home from work Friday. Trader Joe’s isn’t new to me. My first experience with it was when I lived in the Berkeley hills and I went to the one in Emeryville, oh, about 1992. Back then I thought it was the shit. But back then I was just learning to cook and I wasn’t vegetarian, let alone vegan. I seem to remember a lot of yummy box food, similar to Nile Spice rices, couscous, etc. Easy for novice cooks and tasty.
Now, I’m the person the cashier dreads with usually 2/3 of my purchase come kind of produce. And not the normal stuff, but things like organic golden beets, galangal, random asian greens, etc. Side note: the produce section of the shopping cart needs to be much larger at the farmer’s market.
So, I already figured Trader Joe’s wasn’t going to be any good for my weekly shopping. And I was right. Although they did have a limited amount of fresh produce which I don’t remember from California. I was hoping for a bigger section of frozen veggies. That was actually my reason for stopping. I wanted a big bag of collards or mustard greens for my freezer. They had neither of those, but did have a pound of frozen organic spinach for $1.69. Not bad!
Another thing I remembered about Trader Joe’s is that they used to have a great selection of dried fruits and nuts. They did not disappoint. They had quite a few unsulphured, unsweetened fruits available. I got some mango. I also got some dried cherries that were sweetened. And I saw something that seems to be scarce around town, currants. So I’ll keep those in mind the next time a recipe calls for them. The prices were just average on the fruit. No deals here. But the selection will keep my home made muesli interesting.
The pasta section yielded a couple more things I could use. $1.99 for a jar of organic pasta sauce isn’t bad. And is good to have in the cabinet for emergency lazy food. And $.99 is unheard of for a pound of organic whole wheat rotelle. Now let’s see how it tastes. Because whole wheat pasta varies widely in its taste and texture. Hopefully this will be a good one.
Anyway, all in all I didn’t see any reason to go in there on a weekly basis. But since it is on my way home from work, I will probably stop in there more often than I would otherwise.
Cenci, new veggie restaurant in the ‘hood
At the vegan potluck last week I learned that there was a new vegetarian restaurant…right in my neighborhood! I really need to get out more. The place is called Cenci and is in the old Burrito Art space. Warning, that link is a myspace page, but here is the menu so you don’t actually have to defile your browser with the horror that is myspace: page 1 | page 2 | page 3 | page 4
The inside is really nice. Still casual but also would be nice for a date night. I read on EAV Buzz that they will have a liquor license soon. Most things on the menu are vegan and the server seemed to know which items were just vegetarian and was happy to answer questions. I’d actually like to see their menu marked kind of like Green Sprout does with the little egg next to the couple of things that have egg in them. Then at the bottom it says that items with the egg have eggs and they can be left out upon request. Maybe they could use a bee, an egg and a cow head for honey, eggs and dairy.
They have a bunch of nice sounding smoothies and juices so I went ahead and got the Royal Sun, a juice mixture of beets, carrots and blood orange. It was nice, just slightly. Wonderful color. Then I got the blackened fish sandwich. Sorry I was slack and didn’t have my camera with me. I’m not a fan of fake shrimp, but have been wanted to try something fishy for a while. The blackened seasoning was spicy but not hot. I could use some hot, but it was also good as it was. I don’t really know how to describe the “fish.” They were like thin fillets and the texture was something between tofu and seitan. I liked the texture but it wasn’t really reminiscent of fish. Which is perfectly fine with me. It did taste of the sea and seemed to get that flavor from sea vegetables. All in all a satisfying sandwich. You get the choice of a side salad or fries. I took the salad and it was huge! I’d also like to know where they found flavorful cucumbers this early in the season. The basil vinaigrette was also very nice and seemed fairly light on the oil. I was sad that they didn’t have desserts yet, but they will soon. Right now they’re sort of in a pre-opening status. Anyway, I can’t wait to go back and try some more things.
Cenci 1259 Glenwood Ave, Atlanta GA 30316 (404) 627-0533
The yard of many snakes
I refer to my yard as the yard of many snakes. I see them all the time. I actually like reptiles so that’s not a problem for me. Just now I saw one of these ringneck snakes. Unfortunately, it looked like it had been partially mauled by one of the feral cats. I just left him be and kept Tak away from him. He was moving around. Maybe he’ll recover.
