Wow, have I been busy! I was thinking earlier today that it has been a while since I’ve made a post and lamented the fact it seemed it’d be even longer until I’d have a chance to do so, until I decided to make burritos for dinner and realized I could use and then write up my pickled jalapenos! Which I was trying for the first time and which turned out fantastic! So here goes! (I’m addicted to exclamation points today!)

Pickled Jalepenos

1 pint jalapenos
1 small carrot, sliced on the diagonal
3-4 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
2 bay leaves
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp Mexican oregano
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp peppercorns
white or cider vinegar to (just barely) cover other ingredients (about 2 cups)

Place all ingredients in a small saucepan.

Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer until jalapenos are soft, about 10 to 15 minutes.

Transfer to a clean glass jar.

Refrigerate for at least three weeks.

That’s it! The hardest part is not eating them for the three weeks. I actually ended up waiting four, but they were worth the wait.

Tonight I minced up a few …

… and stuffed them into a burrito. They were REALLY good! I don’t know why I’d ever buy pickled jalapenos again.

The second hardest thing about the pickled jalapenos was getting a picture of them that didn’t involve Gomez, who kept getting between the peppers and the camera. This picture was taken with Torticia climbing atop me as I squatted on the floor. SO MANY KITTENS!

Nona, if you’re reading this, I really do think he looks like a baby Crookshanks.

So. In other news. Boston. It’s full of Australians and vegans! Mark and I accompanied this handsome Australian fellow to Boston:

We stayed with a friend Smucky’s known “since birth”, Nick, and I’ve decided that all the Australians I know are the greatest people in the world. I’ve never met an Australian I didn’t love! And on top of that, I met a vegan! This is very exciting because I’ve never actually MET a vegan in real life, other than Mark, who converted after I met him and probably because I met him, and this girl who lived in the apartment above me in one of my places in Baltimore (who was probably my biggest inspiration when I went vegan because I figured if she lived in the exact same place I did and she could do it, I could do it). I’ve ALMOST met other vegans numerous times but this is the first time it actually transpired. Not only that, but Smucks, Mark, and I knew him through Twitter for reasons completely unrelated to veganism. So we met up with him on Saturday and he took us to The Other Side, where I ordered the raw Mock Chicken Salad:

Zach promised to take us to Peace O’ Pie on Monday, which I was extremely excited about, but then it turned out they are closed on Mondays and I shed tears of pain and grief (as we were leaving on Tuesday). Apparently the entire city of Boston shuts down on Mondays. Smuckalert asked us to walk along the Charles River with him so he could take pictures on Monday and I told him it was probably closed. (It wasn’t, but it was very, very, very hot. I thought Boston would be an escape from the heat?!) Zach mostly redeemed himself by suggesting we go to Addis Red Sea instead, which was conveniently located right down the street from Nick’s place, and although it took forever the food was fabulous (although not quite DC Ethiopian fabulous; that’s one thing DC does right). I LOVE Ethiopian food, so I was about to burst with excitement, as well as hunger. I was so hungry and excited, I quite forgot to take a picture of the grub, but I DID take this picture, which I wanted to submit to The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks, but it turned out too blurry.

Not too blurry for my own blog though! (Which may soon turn into the Blog of Unnecessary Exclamation Points.) It says, “Hi! My name is ‘MESOB’. I am serving you as a ‘TABLE’. Please do not lean on, I am very fragile.”

Busy upcoming weekend; it may be another few days before I’m able to post again, but I found a vegan grill cookbook in the library, so I’m looking forward to grilling up a bunch of stuff in the very near future and I’m sure I’ll have my camera in hand. Until then, mates, g’day!

First of all, I’d just like to state for the record that I HATE SNOW. I am definitely moving some place that never sees so much as a flake of the awful stuff. Mark and I had plans to surprise his mother for her birthday on Tuesday by visiting her in Charleston. Due to a snow storm on Saturday, the day we’d planned to leave, we didn’t get to Charleston until Monday morning. On Tuesday, her birthday, she had to work from 8am to 8pm with a couple hours off in the middle, during which we got lunch. Since she’s off on Wednesdays, the family celebrated her birthday with dinner that night, shortly before which I looked at the weather forecast for back home and realized WE’RE SUPPOSED TO GET TWO FEET OF SNOW FRIDAY AND SATURDAY. Which meant we had to leave three days early in order to rescue Brachtune, as the cat sitter wouldn’t be able to get to her during a blizzard. I set a land speed record of getting us from Charleston to Fairfax in 7 hours, because I’m a race car driver. I didn’t let Mark drive because he drives like a granny.

Anyway, the theme of our truncated visit, in my mother-in-law’s eyes, seems to have been “Convince Mark and Renae to move to Charleston”. High on her list of reasons we should move there are: 1) no snow and 2) no traffic. Both of which are excellent, and enticing, reasons, however, they are both countered with my reasons not to move to Charleston, which are: 1) no Asian grocery stores and 2) no Wegmans. So my mother-in-law set out to take me on a tour of Charleston’s Asian grocery stores to prove I could survive there. She did some googling for Asian grocery stores in Charleston and her top search result was my blog post complaining about the lack of Asian grocery stores in Charleston. Not a great start. Despite this setback, she dug up three addresses for Asian grocery stores, not in Charleston (which really has none), but in North Charleston, which is a whole other city about half an hour north, and she packed Mark and me into the car for a road trip.

This is the Asian grocery store at the first address she found:

If that looks a lot more like a deserted office in an industrial park than an Asian grocery store, that’s because that’s what it is.

Fortunately, the second address was more fruitful:

That’s Hang Lung Grocery (that’s what was on the receipt), and I’m pleased to say their selection rated a B-.

Just don’t wander into that Fresh Fresh Fresh Meat department in back. Trust me.

Korean specialties were lacking, though, and the produce department was very disappointing (this is pretty much all of it):

… but they did have many necessary staples. They also had the world’s largest whisk!

(I’m sorry that Mark does not know how to focus a camera; also he was incredibly embarrassed by my forcing him to take my picture in the store.)

I think Mark, whose idea of a fun day is NOT a tour of Asian grocery stores, actually found as much stuff he wanted to buy as I did, his favorite being:

Thai Red Bull. At $8.99 for 10 bottles, it’s quite a bargain compared to the American stuff. Unfortunately, poor Mark was disappointed to find it tastes like syrup and is not carbonated. So I’m actually going to try using it as an extract and carbonating it myself through fermentation. I’ll let you know how that goes.

And in my final Charleston talk, another complaint of mine has long been that the food is terrible. Not only is it full of meat, meat-flavoured vegetables, meat, and more meat, but it’s all deep-fried. Mark ordered a lettuce and tomato sandwich one time and was horrified to find the tomato battered and fried. There have always been a few reliable places we could go, but overall, I have found Charleston to be pretty un-vegan friendly. But this seems to be changing! We went to the Mellow Mushroom and got a great pizza with vegan cheese (the vegan cheese is not on the menu, but you can ask for it). I was so surprised! Then we went to Three Little Birds, which is hidden behind a shopping center, but is worth seeking out, because they ALSO have vegan cheese! (And vegan soy milk and vegan yogurt.) This BBQ Tempeh Melt on spelt bread (I’m pretty sure that’s a Tofutti single) might not look that great, but it was really tasty:

All in all, Charleston’s definitely making headway, but something must be done about the Asian grocery store situation.

Now, did you think you’d ever get to today’s recipe? I got only a couple hours’ sleep last night, got up at 5:30 am (which is typically a bedtime for me), drove across three states, battled pre-blizzard crowds at the grocery store when I got home, unpacked, did laundry, and basically ran around all day like a lunatic, all on a single meal of cold cereal eaten at 6 am (and a few snacks in the car), which, believe me, is extremely unusual for me: I get irritable if I go three hours without food. So when I finally had a moment to stop and make something to eat, I was exhausted and wanted something in a hurry, but it had to be “real” food and not just another snack. So here’s the nearly instantaneous soup I threw together.

Spicy Rice Vermicelli Soup

4 cups vegan broth
2 Tbsp gochuchang (Korean red pepper paste…if you live in Charleston, you’re out of luck with this, I’m afraid)
2 Tbsp rice vinegar
1 small can mock abalone
4 oz firm tofu, diced
1 large or 2 small carrots, julienned
2 cups tender pea shoots (or other green, such as spinach)
small handful dried cloud ear fungus (No, I have no idea why I own or can tolerate this ingredient.)
4 oz (?) thin rice vermicelli (I forgot to weigh this for you before adding it to the soup, although I used too much anyway; use what you think is appropriate for 2 or 3 servings)
1 tsp chili oil

Bring the broth to a boil, then whisk in the gochuchang and rice vinegar. Add the rest of the ingredients, stirring the vermicelli well to avoid clumping. Heat for three minutes or until vermicelli is cooked. Note that the vermicelli likes to absorb liquid and will drink it all up if you give it a chance (so don’t overcook).

We seasoned ours with sriracha for additional spiciness.

Now excuse me, I’m going to go pass out.

Mark and I returned from a simply wonderful trip to Disney World, where we celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary, earlier this week. Mark ran around like an exuberant child the entire time. He looked like this, constantly:

Unfortunately, he developed a bad cold or virus as soon as we got home Tuesday night. Considering the number of coughing children we encountered in Disney, I guess that’s not too surprising. He’s feeling better now, but he’s still quite stuffy, so I wanted to make him something sinus-clearing for dinner tonight. I can’t rightfully call what I made pho – it’s even less authentic than the last time I made it – but it’s “pho-inspired” and it was really quick and easy. It’s so quick and easy even the somewhat ill could make it for themselves. It’s also really good and you don’t have to be sick to appreciate it. I’m not sick and I thought it was great, too!

Spicy Rice Noodle Soup

6 oz rice noodles (linguine-shaped)
3 large shallots (or 1/2 onion), thinly sliced
4 cups vegan “beef” broth
2 star anise
1 small stick cinnamon
1 1/2″ chunk of ginger, grated
1/2 tsp MSG (optional)*
1/2 jalapeno, sliced
8 oz seitan, thinly sliced, or firm tofu, cubed
1 carrot, julienned
2 cups baby spinach
1 cup bean sprouts
cilantro, to taste
4 scallions, chopped
lime wedges
sriracha, to taste (optional)

Cook or soak the rice noodles according to the package directions, drain, and rinse with cold water to stop cooking. Set aside.

Heat some oil in a soup pot, add the shallots or onion, and saute for about 5 minutes or until soft.

Add the broth, star anise, cinnamon, ginger (I just grated it right into the pot), MSG (if using), and jalapenos.

I used a small can of “chili chick’n” braised gluten for the seitan. You can find similar products in Chinese grocery stores. This particular kind comes in chunks that are comprised of several thin layers of seitan that I pulled apart and shredded with my fingers as I put them in the pot.

You can also use thinly-sliced homemade seitan, or cubed tofu. In either case, place in the pot and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes.

Add the carrots and simmer for an additional 3 minutes, then add the spinach and cilantro and cook for another minute. (I didn’t have fresh cilantro and instead used two cubes frozen cilantro from Trader Joe’s.)

To assemble, place some of the rice noodles in each bowl …

… then ladle some of the broth over them, top with bean sprouts and scallions, squirt with sriracha to taste, and squeeze the lime wedge over it all before mixing it all up. Top with additional fresh jalapeno slices if so desired.

As you can see, this is really fast to make, and Mark reports that it was “really, really, really good”. In fact, he was quite disappointed to find there were no leftover rice noodles for a second helping, so he found some leftover rice and ladled the rest of the broth over that for his second bowlful. And he sounded less stuffy afterwards!

* About the MSG: I know some of you will find my use of MSG appalling, but I don’t have a problem with it. I keep it on hand for just a few different recipes, but tonight I really felt like upping the umami in my broth (with as little work as possible) and felt it gave it a little extra something. If you have it on hand, add it if you want to. If you are among those who revile MSG, just pretend you didn’t even see it in the recipe. As long as you use a good broth, it will have plenty of flavor anyway.

Back to our trip to Disney: it was relatively easy for us to eat there. Most of the restaurants are extremely accomodating, but we managed to find enough stuff that we didn’t need to have special dishes created for us. I did take a supply of energy bars everywhere we went in case of emergency, however, and we ate most of them. The best meal we had ended up being the Seared Marinated Tofu with Mango Glaze at the Sci-Fi Diner in Hollywood Studios – I need to recreate it because it was delicious. We got sushi for our anniversary dinner. Here’s what happens every time Mark uses chopsticks:

The resort somehow knew it was our anniversary and gave us a free upgrade to a really nice room with a balcony and a view of the water. We also got “Happy Anniversary” buttons that earned us anniversary greetings from just about every “cast member” we passed (as well as a few patrons), as well as free champagne at one dinner and free cake at another. Here we are in Epcot on our anniversary:

Because our anniversary is on Halloween, Mark let me wear my chicken hat that day. Ordinarily he hates the chicken hat, although I don’t know why because it brings joy to everyone who sees it. I also took Pig everywhere.

In the spirit of Halloween, Mark even wore the chicken hat for a while:

Then the sun started to go down:

… and eventually Epcot put on a light show for our anniversary. It was called Illuminations: Reflections of Earth or something that sounded a wee bit silly. It was cool, though.

Mark commented that I was obsessed with taking pictures of Cinderella’s castle. I guess it’s sort of compelling. I also like castles. We were married in a castle!

In my next post, I’ll have to tell you about the greenhouse tour we took at Epcot, because that was really interesting and actually food related!

And finally, I’ll leave you with an obligatory Mickey shot from a random Magic Kingdom parade. Boy, they sure love parades and fireworks in Disney World, let me tell you.

This is a bit late in coming, but to continue my record of my adventures in San Francisco, V took me to Medjool for sangria on the rooftop for the view. The sangria sucked, I’m sorry to say. In fact, I made V drink the entire carafe. V didn’t complain:

I really needed a tripod, but this was the view through a 50mm lens; it reminded me a lot of Baltimore.

We moved onto Casanova Lounge where I partook of some beers. And took pictures of the ceiling because it was entertaining.

Me! V was extremely amused that there was a butt next to my head. The decor at Casnova is…interesting.

Friday morning I decided to trek over to Rainbow Grocery. Because I think going to grocery stores when on vacation is a fun thing to do. Rainbow Grocery was amazing. I thought I was spoiled with my proximity to Wegmans, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, and Super H, but, wow. Rainbow Grocery has EVERYTHING. There are so many signs saying “vegan”; it was incredible. Vegan cookies, vegan cakes, GOOD vegan cheese (Daiya and Teese, though no Cheezly, which is my favorite), and on and on and on. I’m not sure I can live without Rainbow Grocery now that I’ve been there.

Funny story about lunch after Rainbow Grocery. Earlier in the week, V had wanted to take me to a restaurant near her apartment that she’d always wanted to go to but had never made it to, but she’d been researching it beforehand and read on Yelp that they fried their vegan stuff in the same oil as the fish. She didn’t remember the name of the place, but I was perplexed about why they had vats of of oil they were frying fish in, because I was under the impression it was a burger joint she was talking about. (I think she thought it was.) Well, I’d always wanted to go to Weird Fish, so after Rainbow Grocery, I dragged her over there, and she said, “hey, this is the place I wanted to take you but they cook their vegan stuff in the fish oil!” So she asked the waitress if that was true and the waitress said, no, they have dedicated oil and cooking implements for the vegan stuff. Woo! V sort of surprised me by ordering a vegan meal; I think it’s the chico taco. She said it was really good.

I got the fried seitan and chips.

I’ve never had fish and chips before and I’m not sure it was really supposed to, but I know this tasted NOTHING like fish. What it tasted exactly like to me was my Thanksgiving seitan “turkey”. It must have sage or something in it. It was good, though not at all fishy, and it was a HUGE amount. I could barely finish one piece.

This is what it looked like inside:

Later that day I helped V pack up her belongings for her move to LA and I took these pictures of her Mission kitchen.

Now what you may be waiting for are my pictures and review of Millennium, the all-vegan gourmet restaurant in the heart of San Francisco (if you consider the Tenderloin the heart of San Francisco, which I do). Unfortunately I didn’t want to take my dSLR and my iPhone pictures SUCK. Badly. And there’s not much I can do to make them any better. So you’re going to have to suffer through this because I’m going to post them anyway because the meal was sooooo good. The pictures do NOT do it justice AT ALL.

Here’s V looking smart:

And me looking stupid:

For starters we got the house-pickled vegetables and the roasted beets glazed in balsamic and rosemary. DELICIOUS though the photo is atrocious.

They also provided free bread with a yummy “cheesy” tofu spread.

V ordered some Italian-sounding eggplant dish that this photo makes look like a disorganized pile of stuff but which was in reality nicely presented and which V – ordinarily a very light eater – ate every bite of, save the bit she reserved for me.

We got a side of garlic chard with caramelized onions to share.

I had the Korean BBQ tempeh with homemade gochujang.

It was excellent, though about the limit of smokiness that I like. I don’t think I’ve ever had properly cooked lotus root before because it’s the first time I ever really liked it.

We also killed a bottle of wine during dinner. For dessert, I wanted the peanut butter chocolate cake, but as one of V’s few defects is she doesn’t like peanut butter OR chocolate (I know, I know, WHAT?) I had to force her to get the sorbet sampler instead. I know one of these is fig but I don’t remember what the other two are. We also had Prosecco with dessert because we’re lushes.

An absolutely TERRIBLE picture of my cake, which came with a small scoop of sorbet and was amazingly delicious, although extremely rich, so much so I couldn’t finish it.

All in all an AMAZING meal, and even more amazing because I had fully intended to treat V since I more or less forced her to go with me, but she absolutely insisted on paying for everything as my birthday gift. Wow!

….aaand finally, speaking of birthdays, MARK TURNED 30 YESTERDAY!! I had a surprise party for him because I’m sneaky!! I had to have it in a bar because I couldn’t have pulled it off at the house, so I for once didn’t have to spend two entire days cooking before a party.

I baked him a cake at home …

… but couldn’t sneak it to the bar, so his mom came up with the idea of sneaking jelly candies into the bar and sticking birthday candles into them so he could blow out candles, be sung to, and thoroughly embarrassed.

One of Mark’s gifts, from his friends Brad and April …

… which was later used on my cake at home:

And with that I take my leave: we have guests who drove down all the way from Bethelehem, PA to be at his party and I need to get back to entertaining them!

Hello from San Francisco! President Obama stopped by to see me – his cavalcade drove right past my hotel a short while ago. I was here for work for the first half of the week but now I’m just here for pleasure. And pleasurable San Francisco always is. SF never fails to disappoint literature-loving vegans. Obviously I’ve not been cooking anything, but I have managed to snap a few photos of stuff I’ve eaten. Although I brought my dSLR, this has been a more shopping-heavy rather than scenery-heavy trip so far, so I haven’t actually taken it anywhere with me and these are all iPhone photos.

I arrived Saturday morning and met up with my friend, V, who quickly whisked me off to vegan brunch in the Mission near her apartment. Here she is awaiting her next mimosa:

My hotel is close to Golden Era, where I ate several times last year. I’ve only made it over there once so far this year, and I got the pho.

It’s a little culty at Golden Era: these Supreme Master postcards are slipped under the glass on every table. Nonetheless, the food is amazing so I keep going back.

I should have taken photos of the crazy weather on Tuesday, but I was in my work conference and didn’t have a chance. It was like a hurricane though, with severe winds and heavy rain. From the hotel in which the conference was being held, I watched about a dozen people have their umbrellas turned inside out and then whipped out of their hands (Tuesday night, the streets were positively littered with broken, abandoned umbrellas), I saw two newspaper vending boxes blow over (they are so heavy and squat I found this amazing), I saw a man get beamed in the head with a flying sign, and I feared the street lamp by the hotel was going to blow over. It really did look like a hurricane. By the time my sessions were over for the day, it had calmed down, and I never got caught in any heavy rain myself.

Although I usually run through Chinatown on every trip, for whatever reason, I’ve never devoted a few hours to really exploring it. Until yesterday.

I was very happy to finally visit The Wok Shop in person, and they have a bunch more stuff than they do online. Amazingly, the only thing I walked out with was an Italian oil can: nothing really wok-related. I’ve been needing the oil can for a long time, though, and it was cute and I was trying to be on my best behavior, purchase-wise.

There’s a vegetarian Chinese restaurant in Chinatown, but they were closed on Wednesdays. Fortunately, nearly every restaurant has several veggie options. I got a lunch special that started off with hot and sour soup …

… and ended with “hot tofu”.

Another thing I’d never done before was head over to Berkeley, although I did want to go to school there. A friend’s co-worker had sent me a list of Bay Area used bookstores and as most of them seemed to be in Berkeley, I figured I’d better check it out. It was amazing. SO MANY BOOKS! I was in book heaven! One bookstore even had FOUR resident kitties! When I’m away from home, I really miss being able to pet kitties and end up chasing down any strays I find and showering them with (sometimes unwanted) attention. Here are two of them, waiting to be fed after scampering around the store being totally adorable:

Between City Lights yesterday (which is located right on the edge of Chinatown, and which one of my very favorite bookstores in the world, and which is where I bought four books) and Berkeley today, I have purchased over ten books. I’ve also already read 3 and a half books since I got here; three of which I brought with me. I have a lot of books to lug home.

Another great thing about Berkeley is it’s very vegan-friendly. Soy cheese is an option at every pizzeria, for example. Not by the slice, though, so I had to order an entire pizza for myself:

I just took what I couldn’t finish back to the hotel with me and ate it a few hours later.

And my food adventures don’t end there! Tomorrow night I have booked a table for V and myself at Millennium for a special pre-birthday dinner for myself. I’m very excited! That will be my last night here, then Saturday I head home to Mark and Brachtune. Mark reports that Brachtune is doing very well and is pigging out, eating 3+ meals a day, which is great news.

And with that, I need to go get ready to hit the town with V tonight. I will report back on my Millennium experience in a couple of days!

We’re back from the beach! Although now Mark wants to move to Charleston….

I did some refrigerator restocking this afternoon but have mostly been just relaxing today and didn’t make anything elaborate: just the usual tofu and pizza (I need to show you my new crust made with 00-style flour!). It was nice to be back in the kitchen with all my own stuff, although I did enjoy making Carolina Red Rice for Mark’s family one night at the beach. Next year I am definitely taking my own chef’s knife, however! Anyway, since I didn’t have time to make tempeh this weekend, I sucked it up and bought some, although store-bought just does not compare to home-made. The night before we left for Charleston, I had moved my latest batch of sauerkraut from its crock to the refrigerator after a 6-week fermentation and it is really, really good so I wanted to incorporate it into dinner tonight. Here is what I did:

Mustardy Vinaigrette Potatoes

5 medium red potatoes, chopped into bite-sized chunks
1/2 red onion, chopped
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 Tbsp German-style mustard
2 tsp sugar or 4 drops stevia
1 tsp dried parsley
1/2 tsp dried or 2 tsp fresh thyme
1/2 tsp coarse or flaked sea salt (like Maldon)
freshly ground pepper to taste

Wash and chop the potatoes …

… and the onion.

Boil the potatoes until fork-tender …

… then drain and rinse under cold water to stop the cooking process.

Whisk together the remaining ingredients in a small bowl.

Put the cooked potatoes and the chopped onions into a bowl …

… and toss with the dressing.

Serve warm, room temperature, or cool.

For a protein, I made an improvised tempeh thing. I cut the tempeh in half, then cut each half into two slabs like this:

Then I whisked together a tablespoon of German mustard, a half tablespoon of soy sauce or Braggs liquid aminos, and a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar.

I brushed both sides of each tempeh slab with the mixture, then fried on both sides until golden:

I topped each slab with a slice of vegan “cheese” (I used the swiss uncheese recipe from The Uncheese Cookbook). I also put a dab of habanero sauce on each slice.

This photo is blurry, but I wanted you to see that when I removed the tempeh I was a little worried that the uncheese was setting up and baking instead of melting:

But I smeared it around with a spatula, mixing the hot sauce in, and all was well:

I tried heating up the sauerkraut to serve it warm, but decided it tasted much better cold, which meant it was raw and probably even healthier. Mark made a sandwich out of the tempeh and sauerkraut and some rye bread; I served mine without bread. Mark’s meal was probably a little better, though, because the tempeh was a little dry: smooshing it together with the sauerkraut probably improved it. What Mark had, therefore, was a super-healthy reuben, minus the fattening Thousand Island sauce!

As promised/threatened, I have some travel photos. Mark’s mom arranged a salt marsh tour for us and it was rife with photo ops. This is the Morris Island lighthouse.

There were a lot of birds on the island we stopped to explore. This guy didn’t budge regardless how close I got to him and had what I thought was a funny expression on his face.

My college roommate’s father was an artist who named all his works “Sentinel”. I named this photo “Sentinels” in his honor.

This guy left his post:

This one is facing the wrong way!

This one is a loner. I identify with him.

These pelicans didn’t let me disturb their wading.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m from Baltimore and that the single non-vegan thing I probably miss most is steamed crabs covered in Old Bay. As you buy bushels of crabs still alive in order to steam them, I’ve seen plenty of living crabs. My uncle thought it was amusing to chase me around the house with them during family crab feasts after I went vegetarian. However, I’m used to the appearance of Maryland blue crabs. We saw what I’ve identified as ghost crabs, which look quite different, scuttling around the island:

He ran away from me – sideways of course! – as fast as he possibly could (which is quite fast), but he needn’t have worried because I haven’t eaten a crab in more than 20 years!

I had another lesson in seafood on the boat tour as well. These are birds standing on oyster beds:

I never knew what oysters looked like in the wild. In fact, I’ve never even eaten an oyster and don’t even know what they look like on a plate!

The best part of the tour, though, was getting to see some dolphins just a few feet from the boat, and the captain kindly cut the engine for several minutes while I snapped away. It’s hard to get a picture of a dolphin, especially through a telephoto lens, because by the time you hear them surface and focus your camera, their faces are back in the water again and you have no idea (because the water is not clear) where they will resurface. Here’s what I managed to capture, though:

You can’t really tell from the photo, but the fin in front of the mama dolphin belongs to a baby!

And that’s how I spent my week at the beach: hanging out with dolphins, swimming in the ocean, reading, enjoying the company of Mark’s wonderful family, reading some more, and swimming some more. Pretty idyllic, really. It was sunny and hot in Charleston, and at an amazing 83 degrees, the ocean temperature was a good ten degrees warmer than the water in my pool when I left it. When I got home, I found the pool had actually also warmed to 83 degrees, which was nice. What was definitely NOT nice was that the filter broke while we were gone and my pool was a green, swampy – but finally temperate – mess. So while I thought I’d spend my transition day from vacation to work week poolside, what instead transpired is I spent an hour cleaning the pool, which I couldn’t get in, and then it rained and was overcast all day anyway. Yeah, hello, Virginia. Can’t say I missed you or your lousy excuse for a summer.

In happier news, however, Miss Brachtune missed the heck out of us. She hasn’t left my side for 24 hours. I’ve never seen a cat so incredibly happy to see a human being before. And she’s doing great! The cat sitter said she was a perfect angel when getting her sub-q fluids and she seems to have eaten pretty well, and she just looked healthy. So that was a relief! And now I guess I have to confront the fact that I need to be at work in 10 hours. I did realize today that thanks to the Fourth of July on Saturday, I have a 4-day work week – woo!

I don’t patronize zoos. I think it is inherently wrong for humans to cage and gawk at animals, and when I find myself in situations where I see a caged animal, I get rather upset. I either have to hold back tears, or I get very angry. So a zoo would be a bad place for me even if I were willing to give them my money. Smucky, however, confronted me with the fact that the only place I was going to see a kangaroo while in Australia was in a zoo. This despite the fact that nearly every Australian I talked to spent about 15 minutes telling me what a horrible problem all the rampant kangaroos are and how they need to be culled (“culled” here is a euphemism for “killed”). And also despite the story Smucky told me last year about the night he and his friends were at a beach house (not Smucky’s family’s in Mollymook) when they heard what they thought was a burglar on the front porch, only to be very surprised to find themselves face to face with a prowling kangaroo when they opened the door. So you’d think I’d be bumping into them everywhere!

But I guess I can’t realistically expect to find kangaroos hopping around the streets of Sydney. Smuck suggested we visit Koala Park, where I could not only see but pet a kangaroo, instead of a regular zoo. I liked that Koala Park doesn’t have any non-native animals, so the animals are in their normal environment. And I liked that they do koala rescue. And I liked that some of the animals – including all of the koalas – are allowed to roam the entire park at their will: none of the koalas are kept in cages. So I agreed to go. I’ll be honest though: I was a bit torn about this. I still have major issues with even a place like Koala Park. Some of the animals were in cages. And even the animals that weren’t are still kept within the confines of the park (although the koalas could probably escape through the tree tops if they wanted, though I doubt it’d be a good idea on their part). And although I confess I really did want to pat a koala pretty badly, I do not agree with humans patting koalas for kicks. So it is with some amount of guilt and a large feeling of hypocrisy that I present these photos. I am glad I had a chance to interact with a koala and some kangaroos, but at the same time, I think it is wrong. I’m planning to donate some money to an Australian animal welfare site to help offset my sin, though I also don’t think that throwing money at your wrongs is the answer either.

But on with the photos! One of the first animals we saw as the wombat. I thought wombats were much smaller than this!

We also saw a wallaby, which looks like a small kangaroo:

Smucky’s been trying to tell me for years that they have penguins in Australia, which I thought was crazy talk. “You mean Antartica,” I’d say. “No, they are Australian,” he’d insist. Turns out he wasn’t lying! These are called “little penguins” and apparently Tux the Linux mascot is in fact an Australian penguin.

Smucky had also been warning me about the cassowary for quite some time. He described it as “prehistoric-looking and very scary”. He got the prehistoric-looking part right, but I thought he was a pretty charming guy!

Probably my least favorite part of Koala Park was the dingo cage. I didn’t feel the dingos had nearly enough room, especially as they were all very frisky. I thought they were quite cute and looked friendly, although you have no idea how many times I heard “the dingo got your baby” when I was near their cage. One of the park employees had a big jeep in the cage at one point as he was doing some yard work or something and the dingos were all running around and jumping on it and all over it. I felt very sad that these poor animals were contained the way they were.

Echnidas look like large hedgehogs with anteater snouts and they waddle around in a most delightful manner.

As we were walking by, this little guy started shouting demands our way! “Got a cracker? Got a cracker?” he kept repeating, until Luke gave him some leftover ‘roo food to shut him up.

Smucky said that the emus were usually allowed to roam freely in the kangaroo petting area, but they were behind bars the day we were there, which seemed just as well with Smucky who finds them a little nerve-wracking. Since they were in a cage, I was unable to recreate my family’s famous “Carol Amongst Emus” photo: a shot of my mom surrounded by emus at the Catoctin Petting Zoo, which we visited when I was young. Maybe mum will post it for you when she sees this post.

Pig managed to get in on some emu action, however.

Now the part you’ve all been waiting for, maybe….the koalas! The park has 3 koala feeding times during which visitors can pat – if they are lucky – a koala. Koalas are nocturnal animals and as they are given free range of the park, most of them were actually asleep high in the trees above our heads and invisible to us, however, they select a few to hang out in an enclosure during feeding time. Here are some of the sleepyheads:

The park employee selects one koala to wake up and feed, although visitors are told that if the koala hops down and runs off or if he climbs back up in the tree, they are not to follow him or try to pat him. You’re only allowed to pat him if he feels like cooperating. Fortunately, our koala decided an extra serving of eucalyptus was worth being manhandled by about 20 children and tourists.

Koalas sure love eucalyptus. It’s the only food they consume, and their only source of water. We were told if you want to give a koala a treat, you give him more eucalyptus.

He was so soft! His fur isn’t silky like a cat, rather more fluffy like a sheep, but oh my god, he seems so cuddly! I just wanted to hug him and ran off with him!

I mean, who can resist this face?!

Next it was time for the kangaroos. They are in a large gated area into which you can freely walk, and you can purchase kangaroo food to hand-feed them. Kangaroo food appears to be Cheerios. Not sure how natural that is.

What I found very interesting was there were no employees in the kangaroo enclosure, so they must really trust both their kangaroos and the visitors! I’d think in America they’d be so worried someone would get bitten and sue that someone would be on-hand at all times to supervise, but this place was very laid back. You just wander in and start patting ‘roos.

Having watched a lot of Bugs Bunny cartoons as a kid, I was under the impression that all kangaroos bounce up and down constantly and box people. Turns out they are pretty lazy.

(I gave this one a lot of food for being such a good sport about Pig’s antics.)

A few did get up and hop around a bit.

But probably the best one was the mum and joey. Awwww!

And that was the last day of my trip! The following morning Luke and I began our 30-hour journey back home (which oddly ended just 5 hours after it began…) I have to give a shout-out to Qantas. I was very worried that the 14-hour flights to and from Sydney were going to be utter hell, and that I’d start to feel confined and that they’d mess up my meals and I wouldn’t be able to eat…and if I don’t eat every few hours, I get nasty. Qantas, however, is the ONLY airline that has managed to serve me an entirely vegan meal every time. British Airways usually does okay, but always manages to give me butter or non-vegan salad dressing. All four meals Qantas served were entirely vegan and actually edible! And I got served first! And booze was free! Plus I took a sleeping pill that knocked me out for almost the whole trip. Though it was two and a half times longer than the United flights to and from DC, the Qantas Sydney flights were actually much better. Which is great because I definitely plan to visit Australia again!

Funny story about coming home, though: since we switched airlines in LAX, Luke and I had to collect our luggage there and turn it back in for our next flight. As we are waiting for our bags to come out, a TSA employee with a sniffer dog approached us. The dog was all over my carry-on bag. “Do you have any fruit in your bag?” The TSA guy asked me. “No,” I replied, then, “oh, wait, I have a fruit cup!” I had purchased a fruit cup in the Sydney airport to eat on the plane, but then Qantas served me fruit and I never ate it. The TSA guy inspected my fruit cup, returned it, marked something on my landing card, and went away. Five minutes later the dog returns and is all over my bag again. “Do you have fruit in your bag?” the guy asked me again. “Uh, the same fruit I had last time,” I said. It seems he had forgotten he’d already found my illicit fruit. After I went through Customs, because I was branded a fruit smuggler, I had to go through extra security, whereupon my fruit cup was confiscated and I was reprimanded. WHO KNEW THEY HAD FRUIT-SNIFFING DOGS AT LAX? THEN they threw away the bottle of water I ALSO forgot I had. Frankly, I can see the fruit thing, sort of, but these liquid restrictions are really getting on my nerves. I’m pretty sure it’s just a way to increase bottled water sales in airports.

Once your favorite fruit smuggler was allowed on the United flight, we were delayed for FOUR HOURS – on the plane – for various mechanical and missing-pilot reasons. The final hour was because – and I’m not making this up – the IT department at LAX could not fix a broken printer and the pilot wasn’t allowed to take off until they had a printed copy of the repair documents. I happened to be seated behind Michael Chertoff, the ex-secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. I never would have recognized him, but Luke did. I kicked him. It was an accident but I didn’t feel bad about it. Take that, Homeland Security!

Still at Mollymook Beach and enjoying the ability to make meals at my leisure and an oven that works, after the frantic pace of seeing Sydney and an inoperational oven at Smuck’s. Luke had been talking up his specialty dish, Mexican Chicken, which to Smuck’s delight he was planning to make during our stay here – apparently Mexican food is fairly rare in Australia and good Mexican is practically nonexistent – and since I would obviously not be partaking in that endeavor, I thought it would be sporting to have a Mexican meal myself. In the tiny grocery in Mollymook, I was amazed to find several different kinds of vegan canned “meat” and quickly decided that along with a taco kit and some chopped veggies, I’d have myself a nearly instant Mexican meal I could make quickly without getting in Luke’s way or fighting for use of kitchen appliances.

Ironically, although I found the canned meat I needed, Luke did not! Turns out Luke’s recipe calls for tortilla chips, Ro-tel tomatoes, Velveeta, and some product called “canned chicken”. Luke had already come to the conclusion he was going to have to buy a fresh jalepeno to add to his tomatoes because Ro-Tel does not exist here, and I guess he was planning to use real cheese instead of that Velveeta crap, but what tripped him up was the non-existence of canned chicken in Australia. Talking about the recipe in the car with Smucky’s mum, she said no such thing existed in Australia and had no idea what he was talking about. I also had no idea what he was talking about. I had no idea they put chickens in cans. Faced with the fact that he was able to procure just about none of the ingredients of his much-hyped dish, Luke gave up. He ended up – and I’m sorry to have to report this – grilling kangaroo meat instead. He and Smucky both liked the kangaroo meat (Smuck hadn’t had it in ages; it’s really not very popular here); I found it quite disgusting (though I obviously didn’t eat it). I still made my tacos though. It’s rare I make dinner in all of 10 minutes, but I did and it was not bad!

Mollymook Tacos

1 taco kit containing taco shells, taco seasonings, and taco sauce
1 can vegan “minced meat”
2 leaves lettuce, torn or shredded
1 small tomato, diced

Remove the “minced meat” from the can and place in a microwave-safe bowl.

Add the taco seasoning and stir well. Heat in microwave for 3 minutes or until warmed through.

For easier application of taco sauce to tacos, remove from foil pouch and transfer to another vessel. I found this little plastic shot glass, or as Luke assessed it, “old-fashioned eye wash cup”.

Heat the taco shells in the oven for 5 minutes or until warmed and crisped. I think the box said to use a 190 degree Celsius oven – I have no idea what that is in Fahrenheit and as I’m typing this up at the beach without internet, I can’t check – but I just stuck it in the already-warm oven at whatever temperature Luke had just baked frozen chips (fries to you Americans).

To assemble the tacos, fill first with the “taco meat”, then top with the lettuce and tomatoes and finally the sauce.

This isn’t something I’d make at home very often, if at all. I usually avoid “kits” of any sort in preference of making my own seasonings and sauces. It’s also not something I’d ordinarily risk insulting your intelligence in regards to by posting as a “recipe”. The point of this post has really been to demonstrate that it’s possible to make a easy, cheap, convenient vegan meal in a tiny beachside town in Australia.

In regards to the “minced meat”, I’m pleased to announce it was actually pretty good. In fact, both Luke and Smucky tasted it and gave it their approval, Smucky’s enjoyment of it coming as a total surprise as he is quite scared of fake meat and vegan food in general. Luke said he would be willing to purchase and consume this product, and coming from a man who’d just eaten kangaroo for dinner, that’s saying quite a bit. I’m a bit skeptical of canned vegan “meats”, myself, but I’d buy it again, although at home I’m more apt to make something myself using whole foods.

I leave you with images of something I’ve never before witnessed. Smucky doing dishes!

He was so very intent on it! I found it hilarious!

I spent the day after making these tacos swimming in the ocean and lazing on a sunny beach while Mark was at home shovelling what he described as “a foot” (but what I believe was a few inches) of snow from our driveway at home. I felt a little bad about that…but not so bad that I didn’t think it was great! The water is so clear here that standing in it chest-deep you can see your feet. I can’t see my feet in inch-deep water at home!

After enjoying some time on the beach, I went for a walk around the neighborhood and took these pictures:

I wanted to swim in this pool, located at a hotel called Bannister.

There is, of all things, a small rain forest that overlooks the beach just down the road from our beach house. Halfway through there is a park bench situated on a clearing overlooking the beach. Pig enjoyed the view.

Mollymook Beach.

I don’t know what this is.

On the return home, about 20 rainbow lorrikeets flew out of this bush (which I happen to be obsessed with). I wasn’t quick enough to capture their flight and they refused to come back.

Just outside the house, I found another native animal:

After staying overnight with Smucky’s mum and dad who live about half an hour outside Sydney, his mum drove the three of us three hours south to his family’s beach house on Mollymook Beach. The first thing we did was stop by the small neighborhood grocery store and buy a few provisions, including sandwich ingredients. Here is the sandwich I made:

Mollymook Sandwich

2 slices multi-grain or wholemeal (whole wheat) bread
hummus
lettuce
sliced beetroot (beets)
sliced tomato
sliced cucumber
salt and pepper, to taste

Spread one side of each slice of bread with hummus:

Top one slice with lettuce and beetroot:

Top the other slice with tomatoes and season with salt and pepper:

Add the cucumber slices atop the tomatoes:

Close the sandwich:

Enjoy, preferably while listening to waves crash on the Australian shore!

Americans may be surprised to see beets make an appearance here, but it is a very common sandwich topping in Australia. In fact, though he hates most vegetables, Smucky always buys tinned beets when he stays with me and Mark and puts them on his turkey sandwiches. It’s strange to me because beets are such an (unfairly) maligned vegetable in the States. Personally, I think putting beets on sandwiches is brilliant! In fact, this sandwich was unusually tasty dispite its simplicity.

After lunch, Smucky’s mum took Luke and I for a walk around the neighborhood and down to the beach. On a hill overlooking the beach there is a small rainforest, with which I was enchanted.

Smucky’s mum pointed out a kookaburra in a nearby tree:

Shortly after espying the kookaburra, she a bit nervously gave a wide berth to this creature, the name of which I can’t remember (if you know, please tell me!), identified by its long legs and yellow beak. They should be avoided because they very aggressively protect their young and will attack humans.

Here’s Mollymook Beach in all its glory:

Down on the beach, we found hundreds of the bluebottles I’ve heard so many warnings about. Apparently their sting is extremely painful. These were washed ashore – likely in such plentiful numbers due to the earlier rain – and were waiting for the tide to take them back in.

The neighbors have a brick oven that I want badly:

Hanging out on the porch of the beach house a little while later, Smucky’s mum pointed out a couple of rainbow loorikeets on the neighbor’s deck:

The next day, Smucky, Luke, and I took a walk along the beach and watched the waves crash on the rocks:

Here is some round thing that looked a bit like a coconut covered with shells:

Me and Pig:

Backtracking a bit, here are some shots I took of the lovable Max Powers as we were waiting for Smucky’s sister to come pick us (including Maximillian, who is staying with their parents while we are at the beach) up.

Greetings from Sydney!!! I LOVE it here! My friend Luke and I touched down about 8:15 a.m. Sunday morning. I was surprisingly un-jet lagged and we spent Sunday walking around Smucky’s neighborhood. We decided to take it easy the first day so I cooked the three of us a meal. At the grocery store I found these:

So kangaroo pasta it was!

The challenge was cooking the meal. Smucky has lived in his house for nine months now, so you’d think it’d be reasonably stocked. However, Smucky does not cook – at all – and it was painfully obvious. His oven was pleading for help. I’m not kidding: the clock/temperature window read “H E L P” when I got there. I assuaged its pain somewhat by setting the clock, but between the three of us we were unable to get the oven – other than the clock – to work. Smucky claims it’s been used since he moved in, but it definitely doesn’t work now. And he didn’t even know!

Before leaving the States, I had asked Smucky if he had a decent knife, planning to pack my chef’s knife if he didn’t. He stated he had a “big knife”, so I didn’t bother. Smucky’s “big knife”, however, turned out to be nothing more than a glorified steak knife, accompanied by about 20 steak knives. So after an hour in King of Knives, I bought him a cheapish but somewhat decent chef’s knife. I can’t live without a knife!

Smucky’s mum has stocked him with a few pots and pans that he’s never used, so I did find a nice pot for cooking the pasta and a large skillet. After a few minutes of panic (on my part), he even managed to scrounge up a cutting board. So I was finally in business. Kangaroo pasta and a tossed salad! A quick and easy meal prepared in a woefully underused kitchen!

Kangaroo Pasta

1 pound kangaroo-shaped pasta (obviously you can use any pasta but unless it’s kangaroo shaped it won’t be Kangaroo Pasta)
olive oil
1 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbsp capers
1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
1 can diced tomatoes
1 tomato, chopped
1/2 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp chili flakes (I added this to my dish separately since I was dining with spice sissies)
sea salt to taste
fresh basil

Bring a large pot of water to a boil.

Add the pasta and cook until al dente.

Mince the garlic and chop the onion.

Chop the sun-dried tomatoes and measure the capers.

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet. Add the onions and garlic.

When the onions are translucent …

… add the sun-dried tomatoes and capers.

Cook for a few minutes, then add the fresh tomatoes …

… and the tinned tomatoes. Season with oregano, salt, and chili flakes.

Let the tomatoes cook down for a few minutes, then add the basil and the pasta and allow to warm up.

I also made a tossed salad.

For a dressing, I just mixed together some olive and balsamic vinegar, along with a bit of salt and garlic. Smuck doesn’t have a whisk, can you believe that?! I used a fork.

I had also bought a baguette: if Smucky’s oven doesn’t work I can’t bake my own, unfortunately. Here’s the table:

Smucky’s father had suggested a good Australian red for us. And here’s the pasta plated:

Luke – who couldn’t tolerate a vegan meal and cooked up some sausages for himself and Smucky- adds some dressing to his salad:

Smucky was very happy to enjoy a home-cooked meal for once!

Happy as the Smuckster was, I was not that happy with the meal, unfortunately. First of all, I didn’t let the pasta warm up enough after adding to the sauce and it was not as hot as I’d have liked. Secondly, I don’t think this is really the thing to make with kangaroo-shaped pasta. This dish is really better with penne or something like that. I think kangaroo pasta is crying out for a more mac and cheese approach. I have another box of it though!

Now that the food is out of the way, meet Max Powers!

Max is Smucky’s cat, whom I LOVE! I always feel a little sad and lost when staying in a catless home, so I was very happy when Smucky got Max, and not only that, but Max is very friendly and loves me too! And he’s so handsome!

And now if you will indulge me, a few photos from my trip so far…

My dear friend Smucky in his natural habitat:

We visited the famous Sydney Opera House:

And then the Botanical Gardens next door:

The greatest thing about the Botanical Gardens, though, is the BATS! I have a life-long love of bats and the Sydney Botanical Gardens are home to a very large breed of macrobat called flying foxes or fruit bats and they are really, really neat.

He’s sticking his tongue out!

There are also wild parrots!

Today, we walked from Bondi Beach to Congee Beach, which is a beautiful (but long!) walk. Here’s me and Pig early in the walk:

Here’s Bondi:

And some waves:

It’s February and I was hanging out on the beach! I’m sunburnt! I’m sure I’ll be back with another post before I return home next Friday, but please forgive me if my posts are sporadic and possibly non-food related. Eating vegan is easy in Sydney, though. Cheeseless pizza on its way to me as I type!