Very good friends of mine moved to Nashville for work-related reasons a few months ago. I’d have gotten down there to see them sometime anyway, but when Nick Cave’s 2013 tour was announced, getting tickets for the Nashville show at the historic Ryman Auditorium was inevitable – my friend V and I always see Nick together: in DC, LA, or Tennessee!

Other than a brief sojourn through the very edge last summer en route to southwestern North Carolina, I’d never been in Tennessee before. I picked my weekend judiciously: Friday and Saturday temperatures were near 80. Heading south in the US is always a bit of a risk for a vegan; I have preconceived notions of endless barbecue pits, bacon-wrapped cheeseburgers, and gallon jars of mayonnaise. I am very pleasantly surprised to be able to tell you that Nashville is actually very vegan-friendly! The food situation was not at all what I imagined.

My first impression of Nashville was that it is very tiny. I flew in from Dulles on a tiny little commuter plane and arrived in tiny little Nashville International, where I strolled to my rental car on foot. Other than Charleston, which also has a teensy airport, I’m used to huge, sprawling airports – like Dulles – with shuttles, trains, multiple terminals, and miles upon miles of walking. Every time I visit the South I’m also immediately impressed by how friendly everyone is. People are nice in the South. Up here in the Midatlantic and north, people are BORED OF YOU and not afraid to let you know it.

I collected my car and headed to V and C’s house to rouse them from their 9 a.m. slumber. V immediately slipped into hostess mode and we were off to see the sights of Nashville. Which really aren’t that many as it’s a very tiny town. One of the more interesting and unexpected was … the Parthenon?!

Yes, that’s right. Nashville is home to the world’s only full-scale replica of the Parthenon, which I was told by the attendant is even better than the real Parthenon because it represents the Parthenon in its glory, not ruins. I have to admit, the top floor with its immense statue of Athena – created to look exactly as it would have looked in ancient Greece – was pretty interesting. To give you a sense of scale, here is me in front of Athena.

Another fun thing to do was the farmers market. The market comprises a flea market, food court, farmer stalls, and a garden center. V and C bought a bunch of plants to start a garden. And I’m wearing a hat C bought at the flea market.

Nashville’s greatest attraction, however, is Didi Mao! Didi Mao is the 6-month-old kitten belonging to V and C and she’s super, super, super awesome! She looks like Gomez and acts like Torticia. She’s very friendly and playful and we hit it off instantly. LOVE Didi Mao.

So, the food. When she first got there, V promised me there was plenty for me to eat, and although I would never accuse her of lying to me (except about bloody marys, boat drinks, Prosecco, hammocks, and guacamole), I wasn’t really expecting to, you know, see the word “vegan” right on menus. BUT IT’S THERE! Nashville knows what vegans are! Nashville seems to HAVE vegans! (Nashville also has really good beer, by the way.) After a long, adventurous day, we decided to settle in Friday night with a box of wine and what V claimed was the “best pizza in the world”. We got carry-out from Five Points Pizza, which not only has a vegan pizza on the menu, but will make any other pizza vegan with Daiya cheese. And V was right, the pizza was GREAT. Definitely one of the best I’ve had, and I love me some pizza. It may have been better than my pizza!

Nashville even has a few completely vegetarian restaurants. The Wild Cow is almost entirely vegan and really great. It’s one of those rare restaurants where I’m actually overwhelmed by the menu because I have too many choices. I ended up getting the Buffalo grinder, which is tempeh or tofu smothered in Buffalo sauce, with shaved carrots, pickles, and vegan ranch. I had a side of garlicky kale, which was perfect. I forgot to take a picture until after I’d eaten half the sandwich. I’m looking forward to returning here the next time I visit V, and I think she is too.

Across the street from the Wild Cow is Rosepepper, a Mexican restaurant, which we visited Sunday afternoon before I headed back home. I was pleasantly surprised to see a vegan burrito on the menu and it was HUMONGOUS, but I’m afraid it was also rather bland. It consisted of steamed carrots and cauliflower, a few black beans, and rice, and really could have used some spice.

And what about the main attraction – aside from Didi Mao (oh, and that minx V, of course) – of the weekend? Nick Cave was amazing!! Of course. He always is. I’ve seen a LOT of shows over the years and there are some performers who just have an incredible stage presence and can really rock a live show…and many more who can’t. Nick Cave is one of the best live performers I’ve ever seen. And the Bad Seeds are really tight.

I generally hate seated shows, and the Ryman, being the former home of the Grand Ole Opry, has rather church-like pews, but it didn’t seem as bad as most seated shows, and in fact, most people stood most of the time. You were also allowed to take drinks into the venue, which I’ve found is sometimes not the case in the more theater-like venues, such as the Strathmore, where yes, I’m going to see Nick in tomorrow night…

Nashville isn’t a city I’d have gone out of my way to visit, but you have to like a city that identifies so closely with music, and it’s super-easy to get around (there’s no traffic!), there’s a lot of beer, and it’s surprisingly vegan-friendly. I’m looking forward to visiting V, C, and Didi Mao again soon, so SOMEONE HAD BETTER GET THAT HAMMOCK HUNG.

Mark and I have just returned from 5 days in Charleston, SC, where his family lives. You know you like your in-laws when visiting them is your idea. Mark’s uncle, Jeff, is an avid gardener who owns two properties, both of which sprout delicious vegetables year-round. My dream is to one day live close enough to Jeff that he’s able to garden on my property, giving me rights to forage a salad from his plants every day. Many of us pitched in at dinner time while we were there, but Jeff and Mark’s aunt Joyce were able to provide fresh lettuce and other veggies plucked fresh from their gardens. It’s things like that that tempt me to submit to their hints that we should move down there from horrid, freezing Northern Virginia!

Jeff is a big fan of Middle Eastern food and one night treated us to one of his favorite meals – one I’ve never had before – an Egyptian dish called foul mudammas (“foul” is pronounced “fool” and it’s far from foul). Per my request, he and Joyce shared a recipe they originally got from the internet and have been making frequently since then. Foul Mudammas is a peasant food: cheap, filling, delicious, often served as breakfast, and depending on how poor you are, possibly lunch and dinner. Although we had it for dinner, I can see its appeal as a savory breakfast, especially in the summer, its bright bite a lovely way to begin the day for those of us lacking the sweet tooth most American breakfasts appeal to. I think Jeff has made this dish so many times he operates on instinct now, but here is the original recipe he worked from.

Foul Mudammas

1 lb cooked fava beans (either canned or soaked and cooked dry beans)
1 lb cooked chick peas (either canned or soaked and cooked dry beans)
1 cucumber, diced
1/2 cup chopped tomato (about 1/2 can diced tomato)
1/2 cup lemon juice (about 2-3 lemons, squeezed)
1/2 cup parsley, chopped
1/4 cup olive oil
2 large radishes, sliced
several cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1 tsp salt
1/4-1 tsp cayenne pepper (the recipe given to me calls for 1 tsp, which seems like a lot to me…and I like things spicy)

Warm the cooked fava beans and chick peas, then transfer them to a large bowl. Add the lemon juice, garlic, and salt and mash together until about half of the beans are broken down and the rest are still whole. Add the remaining ingredients and combine well. Serve with pita bread.

We served this with pita, hummus, sliced cantaloupe, tossed salad, and Joyce’s crunchy, spicy black-eyed peas, which I should have demanded a recipe for as well. Scrumptious! Have I mentioned that Mark’s entire family happily eats vegan whenever we’re around? Sometimes I forget that’s probably actually unusual, but they are people who frequently eat vegetarian and vegan anyway, so I know we aren’t putting them out. Still, I love it and I know I’m lucky.

Mark’s mom never fails to find some new adventure for us to try while we are down there, with a heavy emphasis on nature, animals, and photo ops for my sake. Mark’s parents, aunt, uncle, and cousins moved to Charleston about six years ago, so it’s not like this is their hometown, but the more times we go down to visit, it’s probably getting harder and harder for my mother-in-law to find new places for us to go. I’d tell her not to worry so much about entertaining us except, well, I LOVE nature, animals, and photo ops. She outdid herself this time with Cypress Gardens, about 45 minutes north of the city of Charleston. Cypress Gardens has several attractions, including a lovely butterfly house that I loved, a very small aquarium which I hated (I do not like aquariums or zoos), and a black swamp which I loved, loved, loved. If you can get past the fact that there is an aquarium there, the swamp is TOTALLY worth the drive if you ever find yourself in the Charleston area.

There were plenty of butterflies fluttering around the butterfly house and perhaps I’ll share some pictures in a later post, but today, how about instead a butterfly-to-be?

In addition to butterflies and caterpillars, inside the butterfly house there were a few turtles, an ankle-biting duck, an observational bee hive (which would have upset me except the bees were free to leave through a dedicated bee exit to the outside), and few different birds including these pudgy quail:

They had to drag me out of the butterfly house, but only because I didn’t know how awesome the swamp was going to be. So, the swamp is black because the cypress trees leach tannins into the water. My mother saw my pictures and freaked out about the alligator (!!! yes!), but until then it hadn’t occurred to me that some people might not find a combination of alligators, vultures, and black water to be the greatest experience ever, but I was in heaven. Almost literally: I commented it was like being in a dream. We were fortunate to be there on the one really nice day (out of a couple very cold and one rainy day): sunshine and 60′s – very beautiful – but really almost any weather is going to give you a variety of awesome photos, beautiful for different reasons. I’m itching to go back on a foggy, misty day. There is a walking trail around the swamp, but what you want to do is take one of the paddle boats for either a self-guided (included in the admission price) or guided (for an extra fee) tour. We paddled at a leisurely rate (or rather, Mark and his mom paddled at a leisurely rate while I sat in the middle seat and rapturously snapped hundreds of pictures), and it took about an hour to complete the loop around the swamp.

The swamp pictures are best viewed in high-res, so the rest of the photos in this post are linked to big versions; just click on them for the full-size version.

The black water is almost mirror like, adding to the dream-like aura. We encountered only one other boat during our winter Presidents’ Day sojourn, so it was extremely serene. This is an accurate photo of what it looked like:

This photo has been color manipulated…because I finally found a RAW image editor for Linux I like so I celebrated with a pink sky.

I was totally focused on how amazing the trees and black water were, but when I managed to look up, I found VULTURES! This involved a few demands to stop the boat so I could take pictures and generally rhapsodize.

The water was very, very calm, with little visible life teeming around. I saw a turtle or two sunning itself, but the greatest part was when Mark claimed he saw an alligator. Now, there was a sign where you get into the boats saying there may be alligators, and a wishful-thinking Renae even boldly exclaimed, “I sure HOPE there are alligators!!” as she stepped into the boat, but neither his mother nor I believed wolf-crying Mark when he cried alligator. Except he DID see an alligator and soon we did too!! We paddled right by him!! How awesome is that??

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know what’s coming next: the infrared shots. Yes, the swamp, like a lot of South Carolina locations, lends itself very well to infrared photography. This one incorporates several elements: you can my mother-in-law’s paddle in the lower left, the super reflective water, and in the distance a couple of park benches framing the trail around the swamp.

Another infrared:

I chose to include this one because it shows one of the white arrows (on the tree in the middle; it’s hard to make out if you aren’t looking for it, but it’s the lighter-colored rectangle on the tree bark) that mark the route that you are supposed to row, although I then realized that if you look at the photo above this one, also on the middle-most tree, there is also a white arrow. Because the swamp is a complex and fragile ecosystem, you don’t have free reign to row willy-nilly throughout the swamp: you are to follow the unobstrusive arrows through a set path. Fortunately, it’s a long, meandering, very interesting route, although you do have to go under a couple of low-clearance bridges, which I found to be part of the charm.

This one really emphasizes the reflectiveness of the black water and the dream-like quality.

Who says I have to convert all my infrared pictures to B&W? How about blue to convey the winter season?

That’s all for tonight…I was going to show you a dog picture or two, but I think I’ll save those for next time.

I decided I couldn’t stand to be in Virginia or even the United States for my birthday this year, but after our two-week European vacation earlier this year and summer trip to the mountains of North Carolina, Mark was low on vacation time and our vacation fund was low on cash, so I needed to find something exotic I could do in just a few days. I did some googling, looking for cheap, close-but-not-that-close, vegan-friendly places and soon found something rather unexpected: a vegan B&B in Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico wasn’t really near the top of the rather-long list of places I want to go. In fact, I’d been trying to make Ireland happen, but Ireland was just too much for a few days. I quickly realized, however, that Puerto Rico was genius. It’s a U.S. territory, meaning no Customs hassle – and Mr Best Friend with the expired passport wouldn’t have an excuse not to accompany me – yet not like the U.S. at all. It’s only a 3 1/2-hour flight away. I’d been lamenting the fact we never made it to the beach this summer and Puerto Rico would more than make up for that grievous wrong. It’s inexpensive. According to my adventure map pretty much the entire island is a wildlife refuge. There was someone willing to make me three vegan meals a day in a very meat-centric culture. Puerto Rico it was!

One small drawback is although the flight from the East Coast to San Juan is short, which is great, we had to immediately follow it up with a 2 1/2-hour drive across the island to get to Maravilla Guesthouse. If you make the same trip, follow Margo’s directions instead of your GPS because the route our GPS took us was a tiny, treacherous mountain road that was over an hour of constant hairpin turns and, though hopefully this won’t happen to you, it’s a common occurrence on the island – I had to drive it all in a raging thunderstorm. Was I ever happy to finally arrive at…

We dashed inside out of the rain and Margo showed us to the second floor, our home for the next four days. There are two bedrooms, which four of us were sharing. This was Mark’s and my bedroom. That’s a king-sized bed, which was super comfortable. The other bedroom is nearly as cute, but this one was my favorite.

The hosts, Margo and Mark, are artists, and made much of the furniture and art. It’s an adorable, very comfy, and charming place. Here is the living room. Not shown is a large DVD collection of quirky titles that shares about a 90% overlap with our own collection.

There are also games and books, although we had absolutely no time for any of them!

After we dropped our bags, Margo opened the balcony doors…and our harrowing drive was instantly forgotten. Even in the rain, the view was amazing. The balcony peeks out over a canopy of tropical trees, beyond which stretches hills punctuated by pockets of civilization, the lights of which twinkle bewitchingly at night. Margo showed us how to hang hammocks on the balcony but had just one request…that we keep quiet out there so as not to disturb…THE NESTING HUMMINGBIRD in an eave just next to the balcony!

Staying in the cottage is just one option at Maravilla. Also on the large property is a cabin. I didn’t choose the cabin because it doesn’t have electricity, but if we ever go back, I think I’d like to try it out for a night or two. Yes, there is a cabin in this picture, in the midst of the tropical forest.

Not only does it not have electricity, but parts of it don’t have walls! (And the top floor doesn’t have a roof!) (This is actually neater than it probably sounds!)

I think it’d be fun to cook outdoors…sometimes. There’s propane in the kitchen, so despite the lack of electricity in the cabin, the kitchen is actually more functional than the small one in the cottage, which only has a microwave and toaster.

The cottage kitchen may not be very expansive, but that doesn’t matter because Margo is a great chef! We requested “DIY” breakfasts and lunches and full-service dinners. What that meant is upon our arrival, our refrigerator was stocked with homemade waffles, bread, muffins, pastries, ginger tempeh, fruit, empanadas, bean burgers, cookies, and beverages, all of which we needed only heat up if we wished, and all of which packed well to take with us on adventures. Then at 7 each night we sat down to a 4-course meal by candlelight. I didn’t take my camera down to dinner the first night, but I did take (somewhat crappy) pictures the second two nights. Friday was my birthday. That dinner started of with a green salad (grown on site) with orange fennel dressing:

Followed by walnut soup …

… and vegan cheese cilantro quesadilla with guava topping:

This picture does NOT do the main course justice AT ALL; it was MUCH tastier than it looks here. It’s spinach-stuffed seitan in a wine sauce served with cassava with onions and peppers:

Oops, started on the chocolate cake with orange-chocolate sauce before taking the picture!

Saturday night began with a chayote-apple salad with orange-fig balsamic dressing and cold coconut cilantro soup …

… and breadfruit tostones with Puerto Rican dip (we scarfed these down so fast Margo and her helper felt obliged to make us another serving…soooo good!):

And a main of coconut-fried tofu on rice noodles with vegetables.

Cardamom banana ice cream with chocolate truffle cookie for dessert.

Eating all of this delicious food was probably the highlight for me, but there are plenty of non-food-related things to do on the grounds. One of my favorite activities was chasing lizards.

Friday morning while waiting for the boys to wake up, I took a walk by myself. So lush:

Gorgeous views:

Lemons and limes all OVER the place. And bananas!

In fact, I ran into a sweet couple picking bananas; they very kindly obliged when I asked with gestures to take a picture. I wish I spoke better (read any) Spanish so I could ask them why they were burning the leaves.

Yeah. The tropics.

It started to get hot and humid, so I headed back to the cottage and rounded everyone up to head to the beach. We drove towards Rincon and stopped at the first beach we found, Tres Hermanos. There was NO ONE there but us. The water was close to 80 degrees. It was SOOOOO serene and peaceful. I happily swam for a couple of hours and can’t imagine a better birthday!

Margo and Mark also have a beach house near Rincon, although we didn’t go there so I don’t have pictures. But if we go back, I’d definitely spend a couple nights there as well. I’ve never had an entire sea to myself before!

Saturday we found Gozalandia waterfall, which is about an hour from Maravilla. We had to pay $5.35 to park, although that’s apparently a lot better than how you used to have to access it, which required trespassing on private property, GPS coordinates, and a lengthy hike. Now there’s a parking lot just a 2-minute hike from the falls. Two minutes if it HASN’T JUST RAINED, that is. Of course, it began pouring as soon as we arrived, so we got back in the car and ate our Maravilla empanadas until the sun came back out. The rain had made the very steep trail extremely slick, so we had to be very careful not to break our necks or my camera equipment. It was very much worth it, however. The only bad part was we hadn’t brought our swimsuits, which sucked because the falls pour into a gorgeous swimming hole and the people in it looked like they were having a blast.

How cute are Fortinbras and his boyfriend Stephen??

The SECOND I packed up my camera, the skies opened up again and there was a HUGE downpour. Completely unprepared (although I do very fortunately carry a protective rain cover for my camera bag everywhere I go, so my camera was prepared), we got DRENCHED. And I do mean DRENCHED. I was more wet after walking back to the car from the waterfall than I had been stepping out of the sea the day before. Probably because we had TOWELS the day before! Despite looking and feeling like drowned rats, we headed off to the Arecibo Observatory. A still-drenched Renae:

Arecibo is home to the largest radio telescope in the world. Mark wanted to see it because of its connection to SETI and the X-Files. I wanted to see it because I like astronomy and physics. Fortinbras and Stephen wanted to see it because Science, and it’s been in a lot of movies and even a video game. It was really neat and worth the scary drive that Stephen’s GPS once again tortured us with (we took a more road-like road back home). It looks like alien technology to me! (Please note: I do not really believe aliens made the telescope at Arecibo. Or the pyramids. Or anything else the History Channel insultingly thinks humans are too stupid to have invented.)

Whew, still with me? I’ll let you go in just a sec, but in conclusion, I had a FABULOUS birthday and I highly recommend Maravilla Guesthouse for a vegan, Caribbean getaway. Puerto Rico is an interesting place. It’s quite lovely, although I was disconcerted by the number of dogs on the side of the roads. You can’t drive 50 feet without seeing at least one dog – and perhaps a horse, and often some chickens – lying on, sitting in, or running along the side of the road, which I find terrifying, although only one of them got too near my car. (Well, two if you count one of the dogs at Maravilla, but I was in HER driveway!) You also can’t drive 5 feet without seeing the face of a political candidate stuck on a tree or post. They apparently take their elections very seriously. Although by “seriously” I also mean they drive around in parades, honking horns, with giant flags poking out their car windows, shouting over enormous loudspeakers, encouraging you to vote for their candidate at all hours of the night and day. Between the dogs and horses and chickens and ad hoc political parades and narrow mountain roads without guard-rails and oncoming traffic driving in the middle of the road and 10″-deep rain gutters and rain spilling out of those gutters and constant switchbacks…well, driving in Puerto Rico is an experience. Totally worth it though! Even if the one cat I managed to get near HATED MY GUTS. Look at him run from me!

Aaaand finally, it’s almost over, but today is Mark’s birthday! (Yes, our birthdays are very close, and our anniversary is next week!) Happy birthday, handsome husband!