Eating your own

James McWilliams believes that the locavore's mistake is to advocate home slaughter. (No gory pics in this one) Needless to say I have some sympathy with that idea. I'm no fan of people killing chickens in their back yard. Where I part company with McWilliams is on how to approach this. He worries about the psychological effects in a neighbourhood where such things are normal, and aregues that killing should be kept at a 'graceful distance' in an automated slaughterhouse. Uh, no. I can tell you that having a chicken 'factory' in the neighbourhood isn't a brilliant thing either.

What's my take on this? I'm no fan of killing any animal anywhere. You may have guessed that. But remember what I said about nose-to-tail eating? It involved a lot of rather big ifs, and this is the same. IF people are going to eat meat, then maybe they should get up close and personal with where it comes from. IF people want to take the animal welfare line then maybe they should own the process from start to finish. IF people choose locavore over vegan when they want to eat in an eco-friendly way, maybe it's best that they don't get to sugar-coat the process and pretend that slaughter is anything other than bloody and nasty. And the botched kills? Believe me, they happen in the industrial killing process too. And many of the people responsible find it funny. So yes, IF chickens are going to die for people to eat them, bringing it closer to home could be a good thing.

But as I said before, those are big IFs. My view is that if people experience the slightest unease at the prospect of killing an animal, maybe they should think twice about doing it. And if you can't wield the knife yourself or watch your friend or family member do it, then you should have a big old think about whether you should be eating animals at all.

Branding (warning: post contains language fitting to the subject matter)

Apparently Russell Brand is now vegan, and for ethical reasons rather than weight loss or personal purity or (on the surface) attention-seeking.

'Vegan' celebrities can often be a liability more than an asset. I've seen a few come and go. Alicia Silverstone came to the conclusion that she should eat animal products in social situations so as not to appear 'rigid and unfriendly', and Natalie Portman had apparently no way of obtaining vegan versions of the baked goods she so desperately needed to get sufficient iron and B12 during her pregnancy. Sadly that is a mixture of direct quoting and paraphrasing, without any need for added satire.

Also, when a celebrity has a tendency towards offensiveness, this can have a certain type of impact on veganism and animal rights more widely. It's similar to the 'because you're vegan' phenomenon that occurs whenever one of us catches a cold, breaks a bone, gets the almighty scours (because *that* never happens to people who eat chicken, oh no) or gets hit by a rock thrown by some twit who must have been secretly monitoring the dietary habits of every passer-by in order to know the right one to aim at. Any and every illness is blamed on being vegetarian or vegan, and every vegetarian and vegan is tarred with the same brush. If the footballer John Terry makes racist remarks it's because he's a dick. If Morrissey does it (even in contexts that are fuck all to do with animals), it goes hand in hand with 'Meat is Murder' and we must all be behind him all the way. To which I say, no, he's a dick. A musically talented dick with one or two opinions that are right, but nonetheless a dick. And Brand has done one or two things that would make me mentally add 'twat' and 'arse' to 'dick' when describing his behaviour.

So Russell and Katy, if you're reading this, I'm very happy you have taken the plunge and wish you all the best for it. Seriously, we're all here for you, if you need recipes, advice on vitamins or toiletries or any of the minutae of vegan life, just ask. If you promote veganism, let people know why - fans going vegan purely because you do it probably won't stay that way, people who are clued up on the issues are more likely to keep it up. If you yourself can't keep it up for whatever reason, don't be a dick about it. And if you do or say anything twatty, I'm the first to say 'not in my name', right? If however you are happily vegan this time next year, you might like to submit your story here* to help other newbies.

Oh, and you might need this...

*In fact, so might other vegans reading this ;)

Giving it 95%

Up until now I've resisted the temptation to weigh into the debate surrounding Carpe Vegan and their approach to vegan advocacy. This is partly because I wanted to avoid a kneejerk judgement and partly because whatever I say on this issue is going to offend someone. But I have a period right now, so I'm allowed to be offensive.*

I do like the idea of 'decultifiying' veganism. I don't personally feel that it is a cult, although I do sometimes feel that certain individuals I've encountered would quite like it to be. I know, however, that some people do feel that veganism is overly cultlike, and that they are put off by it. So the idea of making it less exclusive, eroding crap such as 'you aren't vegan because you like the wrong music' or 'you aren't vegan because you eat cooked food/gluten/caffiene', strikes me as a good one. The glitch is that their approach seems to also want veganism to become inclusive of people who knowingly, consciously, with other choices available that don't involve pain or death, consume animal products. This is the 95% vegan.

Speciesist Vegan has come up with a scientific nutritional breakdown of exactly what being 95% vegan might entail. (He clearly has more time on his hands even than me :P) A commenter then raised the issue of how to account for animal products that are consumed by genuine accident or unavoidably. SV suggested raising the bar to 97%.

Let's look at what accidental and unavoidable means here. There's quite a wide range. Trace elements of dairy from cross-contamination in the factory. The crisps you eat before realising they taste different from the last hundred times and checking the packet to see the recipe now contains milk. The time early on in your vegan path when you forgot to pack a protein bar and are now on the verge of fainting so you decide to go back to being vegetarian to take advantage of what's available. The medication you have to take to be functional that has lactose in. The vegetarian meal in an omni resturant that has no obvious dairy ingredients that you wrongly give the benefit of the doubt to. The leather and wool in your wardrobe that you decide to use until you can replace those items. The small traces of nasty stuff that are in all sorts of products, probably more than you'll ever know about. Your mum's or friend's toothpaste that you use on an overnight visit because you forgot yours. You get the idea. Depending on circumstances, you're probably 95-99% vegan in any given year.

Now, some take that as an incentive not to make more effort - if you can't be totally vegan, why try? I take the opposite line. I aim for 100% in situations where I have control. I don't consciously or knowingly consume animal products when the alternative options are all tolerable. If the worst thing that will happen is I have to eat white bread because the wholemeal has honey in (admittedly I live in a country where that isn't usually a risk) or not get a piece of someone's birthday cake then yes, I'm going to take the 'worst' option and stay vegan. That's what 'as far as reasonably practical' means to me.


*This isn't sexist. Men are also allowed to be offensive if it feels like the carpet is being taken up in their innards. Or maybe if they get kicked in the balls while suffering food poisoning, which I guess would be an analogue. Although you'd have to be either very mean or heavily provoked to do that to someone who was already ill.

The vegan normal (?!) life and some housekeeping

As you may notice, I've been tidying my sidebar a bit. I've had a tendency to add blogs and websites, occasionally notice that one has stopped updating or vanished altogether. However, I tend not to be logged in when I notice this, so haven't done more about it.

The short of it is:
-Blogs have been removed from the main link lists and put in specific blog lists. I may seperate these out at some point, but for now they work as they are.
-If you want to see the blogs that updated less frequently, click 'see all'. I figured that was better than removing any, since this way I and anyone who uses my blogroll will see if there are any updates.
-The sceptics - these are vegans/plant-based people who take a more or less critical perspective. Sorry to segregate you guys - hope you feel speshul rather than insulted. ;) I have not included any full-on 'antis'. I don't altogether agree with these blogs (hey I don't agree with all the blogs on the original list) but do find it interesting exercise for my brain to engage with their arguments.
-The only links I've completely removed are those which no longer work or where the author has started eating animals again.

And on that note, I came across the following at The Vegan Good Life:
I simply can't relate to the blogs of people kissing their cupcakes or non-stop joyous attitudes. That's just not real life, that's an image you're trying to sell. There is a real disconnect to how veganism is being marketed to people, and how difficult people find doing it completely when they try it (so then not doing it at all, a great failure for animals).
I'm sorry to hear that Catherine found it this way. (Before y'all give her any grief, I don't know her well and having found time to read her new blog - so no idea how not-vegan she is. Doesn't seem that she's turned militantly anti though.) But seriously, my aim for a long time now has been to try to make the vegan journey easier for people. I do highlight when something is a pain in the arse (milk in cashew nuts anyone?). But is it so bad to also highlight the good bits, the cupcakes and cute sanctuary pics (not me so much, but others I read) and cool places to go and eat? This blog mirrors the part of my real life that pertains to veganism and a few bits that don't - not 100% of my life, sure, but you don't come here for that. Rest assured that while you get cupcakes here there is no other form of sugar coating...

Product review: Redwoods Soy-free cheddar

I should start by saying I've got no personal animosity towards soy. I wouldn't be thrilled if my diet depended on it for the good stuff, but in recent times my intake tends to be mostly milk in tea with the odd bit of mince or cheese or bowl of milky cereal. The fortified soy milk I usually get has the advantage of introducing vitamin B12 into a cup of tea, which feels like a bit of a triumph for some reason. So, not having any health issues with soy, I'm never likely to adopt a soy-free diet - on the other hand, I don't want it to become the mainstay, any more than any other one foodstuff. So I was slightly intrigued to hear of a soy-free vegan cheddar made by one of the relatively mainstream brands.

I don't rate this cheese very highly to eat on it's own - the normal Redwoods white cheddar is much better for that! The soy-free cheddar is however far meltier than the cheddar with soy. The consistency is similar to the melting mozzarella - ie while it doesn't do the 'stringy' thing dairy cheese does it does melt passably rather than staying solid and burning (Sheese I am looking at you...). Being a little on the orange side in colour, it worked brilliantly on a tray of nachos.

I'm told the soy-free cheddar is better than it's counterparts for baking - it has a stronger flavour than the mozzarella and melts better than white cheddar, let alone pretty much any other brand. I didn't personally get to taste any of my friend Kiwi's cheese scones, but I'll take people's word that they worked out. I feel the need to try this out sometime, but suspect the pile of marking about to land on my head won't allow for a lot of baking time this week or next. Or maybe I'll need to console myself by stuffing various types of fat and carbs down my throat...

I can, however, testify that it works well in cheese sauce - specifically cauliflower cheese for today's lunch. As with the mozzarella, it is a bit annoying and messy to grate, but it made up for that by melting without me having to do anything special.

Indulgences

This seems to be the week for celebrity carnists of one sort or another to come out of the woodwork and be annoying. Hugh F-W can kind of be forgiven, because he's currently big on eating your veg and his comments about pigs and puppies had the potential to provoke meat-eaters as much as vegans. Anthony Bourdain, however, does not get off so lightly, having announced in Playboy (of all places) that he thinks vegans are self-indulgent.

Ok, I'll throw my hands up and admit it. I am just the teensiest bit self-indulgent in my tendencies towards espresso, dark chocolate, olive oil, nachos, alcohol and overeating in general. I'm surprised if Bourdain thinks that's something to criticise though.

But 'bad guests and bad travellers'? Not so much. I realise that if I go to certain parts of the world I will probably have to take my own supply of nuts and Trek bars. Sometimes I have to do that for a day at work though. And being a bad guest in my view would be rocking up on the day and saying 'I'm vegan, what are you going to do about it' - I always declare my hand in advance, and prefer if people who visit me do the same regarding what they can't or won't eat.

As far as I'm concerned, Bourdain (much as I admit to rather liking his writing style - bet that would scare him) is one of the more self-indulgent people I can think of. Absolutely fine with taking other beings' lives for the sake of dietary whims, then writing huge swathes on how awful it is that some people don't like that.

Help a Grasshopper out!

Those of you who read Vegan Grasshopper might have noticed that things are a bit slow there. To an extent I'm fine with that - the information that's already up (including the blogroll) is useful to newbie vegans regardless of whether I add anything else, so there's no point adding extra froth unless I think of something good. However, I'm also aware that the blog is largely reliant on my perspective on going vegan. So I'm opening up the floor a bit and asking readers to share their new vegan stories - anyone up for it?

It doesn't matter if you are a current grasshopper or a seasoned old lag - your vegan wisdom can still be useful to a newcomer. One of my favourite vegan/animal rights role models has personal memories of the vegetarian rationing provisions in World War 2! Don't worry if you didn't have the smoothest transition to veganism - you could be helping other people in a similar position.

Some questions that might help (not a prescriptive list/structure!):
What inspired you to go vegetarian? What inspired you to go vegan? Was there a gap between the two?
What was the hardest part of going vegan? How did you get around it?
What stage of life were you at when you went vegan?
How did the people around you react?
What are the main features of your life, other than veganism?
What are your favourite foods as a vegan?

Stories can be emailed to veganicity@googlemail.com. I'll come up with a posting schedule when I see how many I get. I reserve the right to edit for spelling and so on if necessary, because I'm a pedantic git. Longer stories may be divided into more than one installment. I'm happy to link to your own blog if you include the URL. I can't currently upload photos - I'll let you know when that changes. Stories shouldn't advocate illegal activity - I take no issue with what you do elsewhere, but this isn't the space for it. Insulting people who are less far along the vegan path than you is also a no-no.

Quick snack

I have a cold, which for some reason seems to be making me extra-hungry as well as tired and bunged up. I've also struggled through a few days where I couldn't just give in to it, and am feeling the effects now. Also, my partner is at work late, so dinner will be late. I generally deal with this by snacking. This particular snack involves tomato and mushroom - two of the main vegan umami foods, in case anyone was wondering - and chilli-flavoured olive oil, because it tastes nice and spicy stuff is good for counteracting bunged-upness. It doesn't have magical powers of resurrection or anything, but I feel a little less out of it than I did earlier this afternoon!

-1 large tomato
-4 closed cup mushrooms
-Chilli oil (enough to cook the veg and still have a bit left over)
-Two slices of bread

Heat the chilli oil (not too hot, olive oil reacts badly to overheating). Chop the tomato and mushrooms small and cook them in the oil.
Toast the bread.
Pour the mess from the frying pan over the bread. Preferably on a plate rather than straight onto the worktop/table.

And yes, I'm a vegan, admitting publicly to having the same annoying but ultimately minor illness that many of my colleagues and students have had/will have in the course of a semester. Such is life. Detractors will be coughed on.

Fearnley-WTF? Pigs, puppies and (potential) prats

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall advocating vegetarianism? I knew it was too good to be true. When I saw his initial article on the subject a few weeks ago, my first thought was to double check that I hadn't somehow gone into a coma and woken up on April 1 (in a fit state to go out and buy a newspaper). This is, after all, 'Hugh Fearlessly-EatsItAll', known for butchering wildlife on TV and advocating the 'nose-to-tail' style of eating animals. Carnism with integrity, certainly, but not a natural ally for anyone who might object to eating animals at all.

The upshot is, he isn't going fully vegetarian - at least not permanently, he seems now to have done so for the sake of his new show - but he is drastically cutting his meat consumption and advocating that others do the same. My feelings on that subject are similar (i.e. mixed) to my response to Meat-Free Mondays a while back - great if it encourages people to think about the issues involved and possibly go further than eating a bit less meat, but a bit crap if it is pushed too heavily as an end goal.

His latest foray into the world of the thinking carnist is to make a point that many - vegetarians, vegans and omnis - have made before: the arbitrary nature of the distinction between those animals we see as our adored companions and those 'we' (in the loosest possible sense) regard as food.

This is far from a new point. One of my earliest memories of the Vegetarian Society involves a picture of a puppy sitting on a plate, and the legend 'you eat other animals don't you?' More recently animal rights campaigners set up fake 'dog meat' stalls at farmers' markets to highlight the hypocrisy of eating some animals rather than others. In between, there was a mild shitstorm when Nigel Slater printed a dog recipe in the Observer food magazine. (In his 'apology' he again referred to the disjuncture of eating some species but recoiling at the idea of eating others, and also iirc said the recipe would work just as well with a 'nice fluffy bunny'. Charmer.)

Part of me is utterly delighted that this point is being made in a way that nets it the widest possible audience. Another part, however, worries that carnists will get ideas from HFW's words, and investigate the possibilities for dog-eating in the Western world. (They'd have trouble getting it too far, purely because the UK at least has more stringent animal welfare regulations for dogs than for pigs...) Although I agree that there is no difference, I can't see that adding more species to the butchers' counter can be in any way a good plan.

I am, however, curious to see how some of Hugh's more hardcore fans - the ones who are attracted to the ferretting, butchery and nose-to-tail - will take to a series that seemingly requires him to renounce meat for several months...

Hanging out with the omnis

This is one of those subjects that occasionally generates controversy, I'm not always 100% clear why because only at very low moments has it been an issue with me. Nonetheless, because it is subject to much discussion, it probably warrants some coverage here.

I have some very nice vegan friends. Some of them comment here. I also have some very nice friends who aren't vegan, some of whom also comment here, although not to the same extent. I don't use veganism as the sole criteria for whether someone is a decent person or whether I like them. Maybe that's the controversial bit. I have encountered vegans doing the whole grandstanding 'I don't want to hang out with *those people*' thing, and in most cases if you probe a bit it turns out to be just that - grandstanding. They don't like what their friends eat, certainly won't facilitate it (guess what, neither will I), but don't actually boycott 'those people' to the extent they'd have you believe. Then there's the quieter sort of vegan who is unahappy about seeing people eat meat, would prefer if all their friends were vegan, and sometimes avoids events where meat is front and centre. I have a lot of sympathy with that view. However, if you try to tell me to cut off half my friends on that basis - well, I'll respect your opinion and your right to choose your friends on whatever criteria you like, but I'm unlikely to go along with your (obviously equally respectful) suggestion.

The nature of my friendships, vegan and otherwise, aside, the way I see it is that a vegan bubble isn't necessarily the best way to go about things. Sure we can insulate ourselves, only form meaningful relations with other vegans, avoid facing any criticism of our beliefs from anyone we care about, forget that the rest of the world exists. I'm not sure how that helps the animals though. (I'm assuming that if you avoid hanging out with non-vegans you must be vegan for moral reasons, otherwise it would be like me refusing to sit next to someone who was drinking diet soda) Promoting a vegan diet and lifestyle is a pretty good way of helping the animals, and promoting these things to other vegans is a wee bit pointless.

Let's try a quick thought experiment. I'm a philosophy tutor so I rather like those. Say you're a meat-eater (we could push it a bit and say vegetarian, but let's go with what the majority do) and you're on the verge of hearing about veganism for the first time. How keen would you be to adopt a lifestyle exemplified by the work colleague who eats alone in a corner every day and never joins in social activities? With the promise of that person as your only friend? Or would you find it more convincing from someone who is like you in every way other than the whole animal use thing?

The non-vegans in my life get to know a real-life vegan. They get to see that a vegan is as healthy as they are (not making any grand claims there, think I'm about average among my friends), eats tasty food and does, for the most part, the same things they do. (not triathlons or rock-climbing, but you get my point) I'm not kidding myself that all or even most of these people will go vegan. But I like to think they'll get a little less anti-vegan, less likely to be hostile to the next of their friends to go vegan, and less likely to freak out if one if their children starts to link sausages to pigs and act on the knowledge. I think I benefit from the interactions as well - my vegan beliefs are a whole lot stronger now than they were when not dealing with any serious considered criticism.

Making soup in the oven

This is currently one of my favourite things to have when I'm home alone at lunchtime!

-One tin of cannelini or borlotti beans (borlottis have more of their own flavour, cannelinis go mushy which helps the texture)
-One onion, four medium garlic cloves (or both)
-Olive oil - more than you think you'll need
-Two teaspoons of yeast extract dissolved in a coffee mug of hot water (just off the boil is best)

Tip the beans into a roasting tray. Add the chopped onion and/or crushed garlic and stir it in. Cover everything with olive oil and put in a hot-ish oven (200C or thereabouts). Take out after 20 mins or so and add the yeast extract liquid. Put back in the oven for another 20-odd mins. Take out and eat.

Veganism, skinniness, rawness etc

I've managed to get this far with life and veganism without encountering JL goes Vegan, but a brief exploration of the blog suggests I might have been missing out. I found JL's blog via somebody's link roundup on weight and body image, specifically a post titled Veganism is not a crash diet. Of course I agree totally with that idea. Long-term readers of this blog may remember my feelings on the subject of Skinny Bitch - a book which equates vegan with skinny and skinny with healthy, and in my opinion verges on pro-ana in places.

JL has started a new blog called Stop Chasing Skinny, and the post that reasonates with me there (having not had much time to explore either of her sites) was this one - dealing with the flipside of the Skinny Bitch phenomenon, the person who gives up veganism because they are losing too much weight and, quite frankly, because their interpretation of the vegan diet is no fun at all and seems to be based on deliberate self-denial. Fine if you like that sort of thing, personally I don't care if you live on bread and water and put upturned nails on your chair at mealtimes, but it isn't a great representation of veganism - especially if you are suffering rather than thriving.

Veganism doesn't have to be raw or low-fat or gluten-free, and I am living evidence that it doesn't have to involve cutting out caffiene. It doesn't have to be healthy - you can live on chips and doughnuts and still avoid animal products. It just has to be vegan, and people of all shapes and sizes can do it.

No actual dragons were harmed in the making of this meal

Sorry for disappearing for so long, especially on the tail of a post about suicide - I hope nobody jumped to the wrong conclusion there! It's been a bit of a stressful time, and to be honest might remain so for a while yet. Posts are going to be a bit sporadic, but for the sake of making life as normal as possible I'm going to try to post when I have the time and energy.

Today's recipe is known chez Duck as green dragon pie. I have no idea if it has any other official existence. The original inspiration was a 'red dragon pie' - made with red lentils, kidney beans, carrots and tomatoes - that I had in a pub a long time ago and must have reproduced thousands of times over the years. I can't remember how green dragon pie came about, except as a way of having a bit of variety. I do remember dishing it up for some friends, along with a red dragon pie, when cookware constraints meant we had to do two seperate pies rather than one that was big enough for everyone.

This dish can be a bit of a faff if you do everything from scratch, although (as with most recipes I post here) well worth it if you do enough to last for two meals. I've had convenience versions before, involving various combinations of tinned green lentils, mushy peas and instant mash - one of the better things I can do in a rush!

Ingredients:
4 medium potatoes
Green split peas - start with half a margarine tub of peas, fill to the top with water, leave in fridge overnight. (Or use mushy peas from a tin)
250 grams of green lentils (dried weight)
Mint (fresh or dried, optional)
Seasoning to taste (I use celery salt and black pepper)
2-3 onions

Cut up, boil and mash the potatoes
Boil the dried lentils and soaked split peas for half an hour or so with the mint and seasoning - the peas will go mushy.
Fry the onions (can also add some fresh or frozen spinach if you have it) and stir into the mixture
Spread the mashed potato over the top and bake in the oven at 200 for half an hour or so - basically until the top of the mash is crispy and brown. You can stick some tofutti slices on top of the mash.

You might as well live*

I'm all for diversity in how we approach animal rights/vegan advocacy - to a great extent each person or group of people can be most effective doing what works for them. It isn't a one size fits all thing. Also, I can accept that it isn't all bunny-hugging and flowers and unicorns farting rainbows and crapping candyfloss** - if you let yourself dwell on the animal cruelty angle, even to the extent of motivating yourself to act or informing yourself so you can inform others, it can get downright depressing, and dealing with certain people's reactions can be demoralising and make you wonder whether you will EVER get anywhere. Trust me, I've been there, I'm not glossing over that. I feel that these are necessary disclaimers, because the other day, via a question on my Formspring,*** I came across an approach that in my view takes that latter point too far and is beyond what I can remotely get behind. The basic premise was that veganism isn't a zero-harm lifestyle, nothing is in fact, and that animal rights will never be accepted by most of the population - and hence, the best thing animal rights advocates can do is commit suicide.

That's right, commit suicide in the name of human extinction, as this is the only viable way to help animals. Now, human extinction isn't a new concept - but for the most part it's limited to not creating more humans. Controversial, sure, but at the end of the day breeding or not breeding is not such a drastic decision as deciding to no longer live.

Now, I suspect there may be other issues at play here. Certainly I have known of animal rights activists who have committed suicide, for reasons related to the ones listed above. But they weren't killing themselves 'for the animals'. Being depressed at the state of the world in general and people's treatment of animals in particular, to the point of wanting to leave the world, is not the same as dying for the animals, and I'd suspect the friends of the people concerned would realise that. I'm not going to criticise those people. At the end of the day, taking your own life is a personal decision - certainly it can have negative effects on those around you, but at the end of the day it is your business. Advocating suicide TO OTHERS as the ONLY way to help animals, however - that, I feel I can have an opinion on. And that opinion, quite frankly, is that it sucks. Pushing these ideas to a movement with a high proportion of young people (including teenagers going through the normal adolescent crap and often having to defend veganism to hostile family members and friends) and fragile people is quite frankly irresponsible. To get a bit personal for a minute, if I'd seen the website in question at 17 Veganicity might not have come to exist because I'd have been dead for a decade and not doing a whole lot for animals in that time.

And that's another thing. How does removing the animal rights advocates from the world make said world better for animals? I will admit that the vegan lifestyle isn't zero-harm, because such a thing is pretty much impossible. All you can do is minimise the harm you do. Even if we're being strictly instrumentalist, isn't it better to hang on and promote animal rights than to leave? Then there's the question of whether we should be instrumentalist about our lives - I'd argue not. If someone genuinely believes that the lives of their own species, including or especially those members who are actively trying to improve things, have no value whatsoever - there is a lot going on there and none of it pleasant.

Also, having this sort of thing around as anything other than really obvious satire does absolutely nothing for the public's perception of veganism and animal rights. Seriously - 'changing your lifestyle and promoting change to others is pointless so DIE!!!' - such a great message to send out. I can see how that would convince people to do, well, anything other than just keep on eating meat and dairy, using animal tested products, etcetera ad nauseum, because cutting these things out will have no effect. Can you read the sarcasm in that sentence? And it promotes the idea that veganism is either a sign or a cause of being unbalanced - there's enough of that anyway without animal rights advocates joining in.

I would like to believe the website I saw was satire, but unfortunately I have encountered a few people in real life promoting that sort of attitude - and was lucky not to get too far caught up in it. All I can say is, if you are having suicidal thoughts and someone tells you you should go through with it because that will do more good for animals/the environment/other people than staying alive - please get as far away from that person as soon as possible.

Fluffy-bunny posting will be resumed shortly...






*Dorothy Parker
**Probably just as well given the subsequent dilemma about whether vegans can eat the candyfloss a unicorn happily deposited on the living room floor
***Currently underused, feel free to change that

Tagine-ious!

I'm guessing that some folk out there like to imagine that, as an outreach-y sort of vegan, I make a habit of inviting non-vegan friends over and berating them about their choices over three courses of raw tofu and twigs. And some of these folk will encounter just such a setup for the first half hour or so of being in the house, because there is a lot of fun to be had in confirming prejudices.* For the less judgemental type, i.e. most of my friends and pretty much anyone I would voluntarily opt to spend the evening with, I'm more likely to dish up some tasty food, answer questions on veganism if they come up, and defer heavier conversations on the topic to an arena where there isn't alcohol.**

Anyway, this brings me to last night's dinner. This is a pretty massive quantity of tagine - dinner for three last night, lunch for two later today, and two margarine tubs full just went in the freezer.

Olive oil
2 medium red onions, chopped small
5 medium garlic cloves, crushed
3 large sweet potatoes, chopped large
1 large carrot, chopped large
450g pre-soaked dried apricots
2 x 240g tins of chickpeas, drained
1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
1 x 500g carton passata (the tomatoes and passata are probably interchangeable, your mileage may vary about whether you like chunks of tomato or not)
1 x medium aubergine, roasted in segements with salt and olive oil then chopped a bit smaller. (optional)
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground coriander
1tsp tumeric

Heat the olive oil in a pan. Turn the heat down to medium before it gets too crackly. Cook the onions and garlic for a bit, then add sweet potatoes, carrot, apricots, chickpeas, aubergine and spices. Stir around for a bit until the spices are evenly distributed. Turn the heat up and add the passata and tomatoes. You may also need to add some water. When it starts bubbling, turn the heat down and stick the pan lid on. Simmer for an hour or so. (Perfect if you're having guests and want something you can leave while getting yourself ready!) Serve with couscous and flatbreads, or pittas if you want bread without washing a mixing bowl.




*I should come clean and admit to never having done this. And sadly I've now exposed it as a prank so can't do it to anyone who might have read my blog.
**And probably not lunchtime in the canteen. Environments where food is a major factor aren't the best place to have vegan/non-vegan dialogue, as when people are eating they tend to be easily put on the defensive about what they are eating.

Flatbreads

Yesterday I made a bit of a snap decision to go to a Scottish Vegans potluck hosted by this lady. That left me with the morning to make something. Once I'd decided that, choosing what to make was the easy part - we have a colleague coming to dinner this evening and I was going to make tagine and flatbreads, so I ended up doing the flatbreads a day early. (Which also makes today more relaxed since I've already got a stack of bread and no mixing bowl to wash today - that's my least favourite part of making bread, it ruins my nails and almost always means throwing out a kitchen sponge afterwards! Anyone fancy a bit of washing up in exchange for bread?)

Since this is something I haven't made before, I had to do a bit of 'net searching to find an initial recipe. Luckily they all seem to be basically vegan, so no need for substitutions. Here's the basic recipe - one of Allegra McEvedy's for the food geeks out there. I had wanted spicy bread, so adapted the recipe a bit by adding a heaped tablespoon of tumeric, the same of dried coriander leaves and a couple of sprinklings of cinnamon. I should also admit that I used a sachet of fast action yeast - I've never got the hang of the other sort, which is sad and something I want to remedy when I have the time and energy. But the recipe does work if you 'cheat'!.

The Grasshopper has Landed

New post up at Vegan Grasshopper - The Joy of Pot! On the uses of a decent-sized stockpot in making veganism easy.

Chocolate/cherry/chilli cupcakes

I wasn't sure these qualified as bloggable, but since they went down pretty well at last night's potluck (apart from inadvertantly poisoning a friend with a chilli allergy I didn't know he had - sorry again!) here's the story.

I used this recipe as a base, but since it is for a large cake with none of the ingredients listed in the post title some adapting had to be done.

First change: I used double quantity, because I wanted enough cakes for the potluck and to have some to eat at home.
Second change: adding chocolate. I replaced an ounce of flour per quantity with cocoa powder, i.e. 16oz flour and 2oz cocoa.
Third change: adding chilli. I put in two teaspoons of cayenne pepper, one per quantity. Halve this if you want a milder kick. Leave it out if you just want chocolate and cherries. Anyway, the chilli went in with the dry ingredients.
Fourth change: adding cherries. I put six tablespoons of cherry conserve (posh jam) in with the custard.
Fifth change: baking time. Cupcakes would be incinerated in the time the recipe suggests - I got them out of the oven after 20 minutes.

The recipe in question is one of my favourites, precisely because it is so plain - it can be adapted all sorts of ways and still work, or it can be dished up plain with icing, which is what I did for my boy's last birthday. (Making it was easy enough, getting it from one county to another was more perilous...)

Big basic balti

It's all go chez Duck at the moment, we both have stinking colds and, just to make it more fun, an appointment that means going out around the time I'd normally start to cook and coming home just after we normally start to eat. So I decided that a nice balti (literal translation - bucket, refers to slinging anything to hand in a cooking pot with random spices, or any curry that doesn't have a proper name) would be the thing. It can sit around while we're out, so the vegetables can absorb the spices - curry generally is the one thing I've found that benefits from being left hanging around.

So here goes;
-Sunflower oil
-Two large onions
-Cumin seeds
-Half a dozen garlic cloves
-Six medium potatoes
-Four large carrots
-A handful of green fine beans
-A tin of chickpeas
-Dashes of coriander powder, tumeric, ginger, cayenne pepper (SMALL dash) and paprika

Cook the onion and garlic in the oil until they soften
Add the cumin seeds and cook until they crackle
Chop and stir in all the veg, then the chickpeas, then add the spices
Add water until everything is covered, simmer until the veg is soft. Then leave standing for ages if the need takes you! I'm hoping this will do for tomorrow's lunch as well...

Help, there's a vegan coming for dinner!

Interesting and generally positive article about cooking for vegan dinner guests.

(Thanks Mylene)