Event Alert: Gentle Thanksgiving Dinner in Wayne, NJ

"Animal cruelty is not an American value. But for the entirety of their short lives, turkeys on industrialized farms know nothing but fear and pain at the hands of humans." - Farm Sanctuary's Thanksgiving's Toll on Turkeys. That's nothing to celebrate, if you ask me, and I will not feel the least bit deprived passing on the turkey again this year.


As I so enjoyed last year, I'll be feasting on Tofurkey instead at God Creatures Ministry's Gentle Thanksgiving celebration on Sunday, November 21st in Wayne, New Jersey. Learn more about this event if you are in the area. Please mail checks for the dinner by November 17th if you plan on attending. Flashback to last year's celebration.

Learn more about Gentle Thanksgiving, and get cruelty-free recipes.

Walk for Farm Animals: New York City

I walked. To take a stand against factory farming, a black mark on the heart and soul of humankind. To support the animals who live at Farm Sanctuary's Watkins Glen, New York and Orland, California shelters, who have endured the horrors of this very system. To spread the good word about a veg-lifestyle.


Upon seeing the large crowd in Central Park for Farm Sanctuary's Walk for Farm Animals (one of many walks nationwide), I thought of Michael Stipe's words in R.E.M.'s call to activism in "These Days."

"All the people gather...We are young despite the years. We are concern. We are hope despite times. Take this joy wherever you go."

This chicken and cow put a smile on the faces of the people they encountered, including my own.


President and Co-Founder Gene Baur's "Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Minds About Animals in Food" dispels all those childhood visions we have of happy cows, chickens and pigs out on open field with the red barn. Very few of the 10 billion land animals killed for food know such conditions. He introduces us to some of the animals Farm Sanctuary has rescued over the years.


I have a November birthday, and when my family asks what I want, my answer is always the same: a turkey from Farm Sanctuary! Learn about the Adopt-A-Turkey program, where for $30, you can sponsor a turkey that lives at their shelters. Sign their petition urging President Obama to send the turkeys pardoned each year at the White House to Farm Sanctuary.


I was so coveting the raffle prizes, including this one which included a $50 gift certificate to Blossom Cafe, one of my favorite vegan restaurants in New York City, which serves the best vegan chocolate cake, ever (in my humble opinion). Didn't win.

Every walker got an apple for breakfast, and assorted bagged lunches. Mine included a breakfast empanada from V-Spot Cafe. A humane way to refuel after our walk.


Eating chocolate for charity, oh yes! Rescue Chocolate donates all of its net profits to animal rescue organizations around the country, and its featured charity in October was Farm Sanctuary. Worth every penny of the $5 cost per bar. I wish I had some now...


Dapper Joshua Katcher (check out The Discerning Brute) was a featured speaker as was Leanne Mai-ly Hilgart from Vaute Coture, a super-stylish vegan fashion house. She also designed our walk t-shirts that simply but eloquently stated, "Compassion for All." Why do so many show compassion for cats and dogs, but choose to ignore the horrors of factory farming simply because it doesn't suit them?

I'm just saying, this man, NBA champion John Salley: a vegan! He was the shining New York City walk marshal.

Gene Baur spoke about in our world there is so much beyond our control. We can't stop the war. The state of our economy can leave us feeling helpless. But we can control our food choices.


Today is election day, and I hope every citizen of age is going to vote. I'll be enthusiastically voting at the booth, but I'll continue to vote against factory farming whenever I can when I sit down to eat, and hope you will too. No one can make ideal food choices all the time (I certainly don't), but we can strive for them as much as we can.

I vote: for family farms, clean waterways and air, animal and worker rights, and a better world than what exists now. Farm Sanctuary is helping us get to that better world, and I thank them.

Save The Date: For the Earth, Animals, and Your Fellow Citizens

Three causes, all very close to my heart, I wanted to share with those in my area.

Help fulfill Action Against Hunger's goal of reaching 100 tons of food for their food drive on Sunday, October 3rd in northern New Jersey. Click here for the dropoff locations and most needed items. Please, if you can afford to, donate food to this very worthy cause.



Gather by candlelight, enjoy music based on water themes, and hear readings of river stories at the Hackensack River Story Night to benefit BergenSWAN. This all takes place Friday, October 1st, at 8:00 pm, at the Church of Holy Communion in Norwood, New Jersey. Tickets are $25. Learn more.

BergenSWAN's good work is evident in Pascack Brook County Park in Westwood, New Jersey, where I so admire the trees they planted this year. On the way to my local farms and the park, I drive by the Emerson Woods Preserve, which they were crucial in helping to preserve, and participated in a clean-up of those very woods with them a few years ago. Your money will be well-spent. Communities need these environmental friends and watchdogs.

A favorite ode to the river is certainly Natalie Merchant's Where I Go.


Farm Sanctuary's annual Walk for Farm Animals, a nationwide event to raise awareness and funds, is coming to New York City's Central Park on Sunday, October 24th. Come here Farm Sanctuary Co-founder and President Gene Baur, enjoy a bagged vegan lunch, a raffle and much more.

The Biggest Loser celebrity trainer Bob Harper is the first-ever celebrity spokesperson for the Walk for Farm Animals. Read his interview here.



One of my earliest entries on this blog was about my visit to the Watkins Glen, New York, sanctuary, which I had to visit after reading Gene Baur's moving and compelling Farm Sanctuary. I enjoyed vegan eats all around town, and have fond memories of my visit there.

The Word on the Street: Vegan

With more consumers interested in vegan options for a host of reasons (health, animal ethics, and environmental, to name a few), vegan food, as it should, is taking its rightful place in society - closer to the mainstream. Here are some places it's showing up:

At non-vegetarian restaurants, like New York City's Blockheads (various locations). Co-existing alongside meat and dairy dishes on the menu, you'll find tofu, tofu sour cream, and vegan soy cheese.

Two grilled tofu tacos (hold the Monterey Jack cheese) with fresh grilled corn salsa, served with rice and beans, and of course, I requested tofu sour cream. A feast for $8.95, at lunchtime it came with chips and salsa and a drink (my pick: fresh brewed iced tea).


Great vegan good is not just in New York City or Los Angeles (find veg eats near you with help from Happy Cow). In New Jersey, the owners the Rutherford Pancake House have crafted a loyal following, knowing veg enthusiasts will 'follow the tofu' so to speak. The vegan menu has expanded to offer comfort foods like sliders and pizza. But at a diner or pancake house, breakfast food just calls my name.

The vegan Roman tofu scramble: garlic, scallions, tomatoes, peppers, Italian sausage, and mozzarella, $9.95, served with home fries and...

toast with strawberry jam and soy butter. Coffee $1.79, with soy milk (rice milk is also available), and orange juice, $1.99 for a small.


In every media outlet from non-vegan blogs (check out food writer David Lebovitz raving about New York City vegan bakery Babycakes) to The New York Times, which had a headline that said it all: "Tasty Vegan Food? Cupcakes Show It Can Be Done."

My favorite vegan bakery: Sweet Avenue Bake Shop in Rutherford. Behold the sight of their seasonal pumpkin spice cupcakes, $3.50 each.



At street festivals and fairs. Remember the vegan coconut macaroons at the Bastille Day celebration in New York City? Well, my heart went aflutter when, surrounded by people eating turkey legs at the New York Renaissance Fair in Tuxedo Park (more about my visit and eats there later), I saw this sign at a Mediterranean food booth. Super Vegan is not only a fitting name for a wrap, but also a vegan cartoon character! Now if only I could sketch...

In the movies.

Okay, this technically counts as a vegetarian reference, but still!

In the film Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert's (via Julia Roberts) first boyfriend after the end of her marriage is a vegetarian. There's a scene at a dinner party where someone asks him why he became a vegetarian and he mentions seeing cows being slaughtered. At night's end, the same man asks for the slaughterhouse video and that he's interested in learning more about factory farming. In a film largely about personal and spiritual growth and enlightenment, being enlightened about what one puts in their body, and the reality behind, seems only logical. I was thrilled for the reference, and cheered silently in the theater.

And I'm cheering here, out loud for the animals, that slowly but surely, great vegan food is becoming more available and accepted.

Every Farm Animal Deserves

Americans have a bill of rights, but what about the rights of farm animals, 10 billion killed annually in the United States? They live (if you can call it living, it's more like endure) in the shadows, forgotten by most of society who seems to comfort themselves with the notion that if they don't think about the suffering, it doesn't exist, or it's someone else's fault.

Whatever your dietary stripe, here are some basic rights I believe all farm animals should have (and hope you do too).

To never see the inside of a gestation stall, ever.


To not be cramped into a wire cage the size of a filing cabinet with five or six other chickens so we can buy 99 cent cartons of eggs. A chicken's labor should be worth more than 8.25 cents an egg.


For poultry, to be included in the federal Humane Slaughter Act.


To not be de-beaked, de-clawed, de-anything.


Never to be force fed, ever.

To have free range conditions be, indeed, free range.

To be treated with kindness and respect by the farmers raising them. The consumers eating them should not shift the blame to the producers for deplorable conditions if they are contributing to the demand.


They should not be viewed as just another dish on Thanksgiving (or any other time) without any thought to the life of the turkey that ended up on your plate.


All farm animals deserve these rights.


A moment of solitude on a fine summer day at the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary for these animals, who are victims of a factory farming system which have found safe refuge here.


Veganism or vegetarianism may be not everyone's path in life, and I respect people's choices, but know that deplorable factory farming conditions exist because of society's demand to have a meat, milk and eggs so heavily in daily diets at the cheapest prices available. Eating veg as often as possible is the ideal. But at the very least, if everyone ate a little less meat and animal by-products, paid a little more, and wasted less food, the conditions of these animals would improve exponentially. They are living, breathing, sentient beings the same as our cats and dogs and deserve to be treated with common decency - and not viewed just a commodity - especially if they are going to give up their lives for a meal.

That is my declaration for farm animals.

The Loving Hut, Revisited

Seeking flight from cramped cubicles, computer screens, and interruptions, I dined with a friend for lunch at New York City's vegan eatery Loving Hut.

Several pro veg messages adorn its walls. Learn about the effects of factory farming on the environment from Farm Sanctuary.

As do photos of famous vegetarians and vegans.

Did you know that Princess Diana shunned fur, refused to participate in hunting expeditions with the royal family and was responsible for a 17-course meatless dinner served by the British Embassy during her first visit to the United States in her honor? This according to European Vegetarian Union News.


My friend's udon noodles with tofu and veggies, $7.50. I sampled this, and liked it better than what I had.

My mushroom, corn, and pea quesadilla with Daiya vegan cheese, guacamole and a side salad, $7.50.


In a Seinfeld episode, Jerry compares black and white cookies to a metaphor for racial harmony and that people should "Look to the cookie!"

I looked to this cruelty free, and tasty, version, $1.75. Veganize it at home.

Another Night With Chefs: How I Did This Time.

My sweetheart and I attend two annual events with his fellow chefs: a picnic in late summer, and a fancy dinner dance in spring. I was extremely tardy in posting photos of both events, but always love to examine what the vegetarian or vegan options are, so thought they were worth belated blog entries. This year's dance has now come and gone. Thankfully, the veg options were drastically more inspired. The food at the picnic is the same each year, and always delicious.

This time it was at the Grand Hyatt in New York City. I love what candlelight does for a room.

The cozy atmosphere extended into the dining room. An edible centerpiece: asparagus.

Everything better with butter? Not tonight. Not a pat of butter on the table. Instead, organic olive oil, which was the perfect dip for rosemary olive bread.


First course: I'm afraid to say veal carpaccio and avocado terrine. If you don't know what's wrong with veal, please visit Farm Sanctuary's NoVeal.org site. A few years ago, it was just as horrible - foie gras.

My course, much better, don't you think? Can you imagine the suffering that would have been avoided if everyone ate what I had instead?


Next: seared sable and salmon graviox pave with white asparagus.

Instead of fish, I got seared tofu. Even though tofu is such a staple in many veg diets, I don't think I've ever gotten it at an event like this.


Entree: Noisette of lamb niçoise natural jus with potato and spinach.

A tart with broccolini, roasted red peppers, olives and capers in a marinara sauce and a slice of potato. I was stunned (and delighted) to get served something other than a plate of bland, steamed vegetables.



The cheese and salad course. I use salad lightly, since there wasn't much here.

Salad of petite mache, poached pears, walnuts, and warm mountain shaft blue cheese. I gave the cheese soufflé to my boyfriend. A few pondered, "is this breakfast?"



Dessert: Spring melange of berries in tuile with warm balsamic peppered infused syrup.

Some winced at my table at the simplicity of this (someone called it a dessert taco!), but I loved the berries. Who always needs a heavy cake, especially after a multi-course meal?


Portion sizes were thankfully smaller and the cocktail hour was pared down to a few passed hors d'oeuvres and some stations. I don't know anyone (short of the catering sales manager) who actually wants the massive excess of food at most celebrations. "The best" to me is not offering food that will go uneaten.

What did I wear? A black Laundry dress from the Revived Attire consignment shop. I paired it with my $4 dress shoes from C.A.T.S. Resale Shop I wear only at such events (oh, how I prefer flats). I also had an evening bag and wore a pin that had belonged to my grandmother, and used a wrap I've owned for ages. I did my own nails to save money.

From the clothes to what I ate, I did things in accordance with my own beliefs. If you are the lone person eating veg at your table (I often am), or wearing a second-hand dress - take pride. You don't have to do things the way everyone else does them.

I Can't Believe It's Vegan: Chocolate Cake Edition

It was hard to top the vegan lemon blueberry cake, but co-worker extraordinaire Kathy outdid herself with this vegan Mexican chocolate cake from RecipeZaar at our Tuesday tea breaks.

After most of the day in my cramped cubicle (doesn't working in New York City sound glamorous?), a cup of tea (I went for Tazo's Awake this time) and a slice of cake lifted the spirits.


Non-vegan crumb cake was also offered. Veganize it with help from VeganYumYum.

I cannot imagine my life without something a little sweet. I have no desire to a) be a size 2, b) live to be 110, or c) deprive myself of one of life's greatest pleasures – soul-nourishing food.

I go back to what Michael Pollen said about the French associating chocolate cake with celebration and Americans associating it with guilt. I guess I'm a Frenchie at heart.

Find vegan baking tips at Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale, including endless recipe ideas. It often just involves a few swap-outs and ta-dah...it's vegan.

Vegan has a stigma. It shouldn't. Eggs from chickens in battery cages don't seem to have a stigma. Those should. Eggs should not cost 99 cents a carton (that's 8.25 cents per egg). Those low prices come at a very high cost to living, sentient beings.

This Garnered Oooos and Ahhhs...

...by the woman sitting next to me and the three guys next to her table at the Loving Hut.

Vegan cinnamon rice pudding with mangoes, blueberries, and strawberries, $5, from their specials menu. So comforting on a chilly February day. Make your own at home with help from The Vegan Chef.

I just popped in to drop off literature for my friends from Farm Sanctuary's Advocacy Campaign Team, but couldn't resist something sweet. It was nice to see business was booming at this fledgling vegan restaurant.

Visit the Loving Hut, 348 Seventh Ave. between 29th and 30th Sts., New York City.

Are you an on-the-go activist? Promote veganism in 10 minutes or less.

Eating for Two Great Causes

Eating and charity. Separately, two of my favorite things. Combined, a heavenly marriage.

On February 1st and 2nd, dine out at your local Bergen County Blue Moon Mexican Café, and 20% of your bill will be donated to Hackensack Riverkeeper with this coupon. Learn more. Dine on guacamole, vegetarian chili, veggie fajitas, margaritas and more. (Note: Old Tappan location is closed)



Their 2010 Eco-Program calendar is coming soon, with opportunities for bird walks, eco-cruises, and my favorite, river cleanups, which kick off usually in April. I've done multiple clean-ups with this group, one of which brought me to tears after leaving. I was so disillusioned at how so many are trashing the planet. I hope to see you at a clean-up if you are local this year, and will be blogging about the clean-ups and how to reduce your impact. If you are not - trash is sadly everywhere, and you can pick it up with a group or just on your own.

On a sweeter note, treat your sweetheart, your loved ones or even yourself to this Sjaak's Organic Chocolates to benefit Farm Sanctuary, $14.


Why do I love and support Farm Sanctuary? Because thanks to them, abused farm animals find safety and love at their New York and California shelters, cruel confinements systems like battery cages and gestation crates of sows are being phased out in many states, and so many are learning about the benefits of embracing a veg lifestyle. Need I say more?

Blossom: Part Deux

Since I was so close by, I dropped by vegan eatery Blossom Uptown after the Macy's balloon viewing. I'm rarely in this part of the city, except when I frequent Central Park in the summer. So I figured...pourquoi pas?

To drink, my favorite of late: New York City tap water.

Possibly the best butternut squash soup I've ever had. Served with cinnamon croutons and a slice of bread, $6.

When ordering, my eyes were bigger than my stomach. The soup would have been enough.

Fettuccine in a cashew alfredo sauce with soy cutlets, $17. Their version included spinach, garlic and mushrooms. Good thing I brought my reusable container. I brought more than half of this heavenly dish home to enjoy again.


I didn't have room for their chocolate cake, $6, which is making my mouth water just writing about it. But I will be back. The quality of the food and the friendly service makes Blossom (both Chelsea and Uptown) one of my favorite veg spots in the city. I like both Blossoms, but lean slightly toward the Uptown location.

Visit Blossom Uptown, 466 Columbus Avenue (between 82nd and 83rd), New York City

While there, I dropped off some literature for my Advocacy Campaign Team friends at Farm Sanctuary. Lit dropping is a super-easy form of advocacy for busy, on-the-go activists.