Spokane Food Blog

Ode to Meatless Mondays, Spokane Vegans cook up a few November events.

Even if you are not a vegan, you can still join these great events hosted by Spokane Vegans at One World Cafe.  You will find great inspiration at these dinners to refresh your menu ideas.  After all, even if you do consume animal products, it is unnecessary to consume animals for every meal — challenge your taste-buds and go vegan once a week.

November 6, 2009 5:30-8PM at One World Spokane, Guest Chef Stephanie Smith will prepare an entirely vegan meal.

Here is the official word from the Spokane Vegans‘ web site.

An Evening in the Garden of Vegan with Sarah Kramer

A Benefit for One World Spokane and Spokane Vegans

Join us Monday November 16th for a seasonal four course vegan meal lovingly prepared for you by the Spokane Vegans in partnership with One World Spokane. Best-selling cookbook author and vegan extraordinaire, Sarah Kramer will be our guest of honor and will be sharing some thoughts on veganism and celebrating the 10 year anniversary How it All Vegan.

This dinner is a benefit for One World Spokane, a unique organic community kitchen, and your friendly neighborhood vegans, us – the Spokane Vegans.

Doors open at 5:30pm, dinner will be served at 6pm

Tickets:

pre-order $20 adults and $15 children 10 & under

$30 at the door

Space is limited, so order your tickets now by following the links below.

Sarah Kramer’s books and 2010 wall calendar will be available for purchase at the event.

(Watch this space for more information, such as the evening’s planned menu.)

There was quite a bit of interest as well as a few questions about the meat brackets we mentioned a couple of days ago, so here are the official 7vs7: “Eat Your Meat” rules!

The Players

The players — and let us know if you’re interested in doing this — will, to the best of their abilities, eat their way through the bracket, and come up with a set of individual winners. If they already have eaten any of the types of meat, they do not have to re-eat it. Along the way, they can post blog posts (or comments, or whatever) about where to find the best quality and best deals for some of the meats. It’s a tough challenge, but somebody has to try it, for the sake of science.

The Spectators

Those who choose to not participate (at least officially — feel free to play along if you so like on an “unofficial” basis) can fill out brackets based on what meat they think will win. Haven’t eaten all? Or are you a vegetarian that has at some point eaten meat? Use your best judgment, this is bracketology after all. (I mean, had any of you watched Akron play before NCAA this year?) The one who gets most hits correctly might even win something.

The Brackets

And don’t worry — we will provide brackets that can be filled out online, instead of silly PDFs. It’s that Spokane Food Blog service mentality!

When will this go down?

If you’re a spectator the brackets will be up on Wednesday, April 8th. If you’re a player, well, you can start playing now, but the brackets will be up on the 8th for you too. Then the competition will go for two weeks, until April 22nd. The winner of the competition will be the one who has tasted the most meat from the bracket. (Honors system applies!)

And vegan and vegetarian brackets? We will do those when/if EatSpokane’s Veg Week happens this summer.

Let the great experiment begin!

Taste everything once?  That’s what I thought I might accomplish during my recovering vegetarian mission.  Along the way I realized there is no way I am willing to taste everything once, or whore myself out to low quality meat. Steve’s posts have been a reminder of this. I have never eaten meat from Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, Burger King, Domino’s, White Castle, Zips, Popeye’s, Red Lobster, Jack in the Box, Taco Time, Skippers… you get the idea, and I never plan to eat meat from any of those establishments either.

That is not to say I don’t want to try new things — I do.  When I saw a post from David Blaine linking to a “meat madness bracket,” I thought that would be the perfect way to challenge my meat eating abilities and the knowledge of the products in Spokane (& outside Spokane).  At quick glance I can say I haven’t even tried even 1/8 of the items listed, let alone know the best places to get them.

Here is the next 7/7 Challenge:  Pick your winners from this meat bracket and tell us where you can get the best food from each category, be it from a restaurant, your Grandpa’s recipe, or other.  Rumor has it some Spokane restaurants and those involved with the eatspokane.org google group will host an Eat Spokane vegetarian week this summer. Area restaurants will make their best veg dishes for a week of vegetarian dining out, possibly to honor Michael Pollan’s quote, “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants”.  I will also create a vegetarian and vegan bracket like this meat bracket and challenge you to find these great foods during the Spokane Vegetarian Week (suggestions for the brackets are welcome).

Who’s up for the 7/7 Challenge #3: “Eat Your Meat”?

If you want to sign up, let us know, and we will mail you a better quality, high resolution bracket.

This is the first post from our Dubai correspondent, Rahul.

I was asked to guest write for Spokane Food Blog. I’m going to soapbox  about something that had been bothering me for a bit.

My cousin bet me a full steak dinner that I couldn’t go for a month being a vegetarian in 2005. It was the longest month of my life. In that time, I realized how pervasive meat is in our daily lives. In my desperation, I started looking at fake meat and realized that a lot of vegetarian options mimic meat dishes. Most vegetarian dishes seem to have been inspired by meat in some form. I didn’t find anything that celebrated the vegetable-ness of vegetables and wondered why that was the case.

I came across the “pseudo-vegetarian” who chooses to follow vegetarianism and yet crave meat all the time. It does seem like most vegetarian restaurants cater to them. I think that these poser-mobiles need to just accept that they are “non veg”.

Look, I can understand the people who have religious, diet or other logical reasons to stay vegetarians and fully well support their decisions. But for those who go around looking for the latest in tofu breakthroughs while craving a good BLT, I say, eat the damn bacon and accept that you will forever enjoy a good steak or some fried chicken.

For those who object to eating an poor animal that was killed, while wearing those “killer” leather Cole Haan shoes, I say, eat the damn bacon and accept that animals have been killed for their meat since the beginning of time. Meat in combination with vegetables is a well balanced and healthy diet.

I could go on, but I believe my point has been made. Just eat the damn bacon already.

After a graduation ceremony at Kabul Medical University, I was asked to meet with the Chancellor and two of his staff members for lunch. I was escorted up 6 flights of stairs to a large office. Dr. O was waiting to start the meeting, and greeted me with a few questions about Spokane, as he had been there in the summer of 2008 when I first met him. Of course, no meeting in Afghanistan can start without tea, so the tea and cookies topped with pistachio sprinkles were served before the meeting began.

A conversation about the previous day’s attacks on the ministries started the meeting, and Dr. O prayed for two of his close family friends who died in an explosion at one of the ministries. The men discussed the fundamentalist groups living along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. That attacks typically occur on Wednesdays in Kabul because it takes that long for the groups from Pakistan to reach Kabul after resting on Friday for the holy day. They spoke of the need for the Obama’s Administration to talk with people who live in Afghanistan now and not Afghans who have been living in the USA for the past years. They discussed a person who will be traveling from Pakistan to Kabul this week to meet with President Karzai of Afghanistan about USA foreign policy, and pointed out again that in the 60’s and 70’s some women in Kabul wore mini-skirts, quite the contrast to today.

The tea maker for Dr. O’s office came to take the lunch orders. The staff ordered me lamb kebobs and kabuli palow. Having met Dr. O last year, he knew I was no longer a vegetarian and wanted to offer his Afghan hospitality of serving meat. The food came, one serving was enough to feed a family of four. I tried my first lamb kebob in Afghanistan, which was very good but I admit I was worried about getting sick as I routinely get TD when traveling.

The meeting continued with needs and desires for Kabul Medical University. The list ranged from medical English training for faculty members, to equipment for a digital library, to EMT training, and so on.

After lunch, I called to have a guard (a guard without a gun) come to meet me at KMU to walk with me back to Kabul University. At this point I am used to being escorted but during my first trip to Afghanistan it was hard to get used to. Dr. O also had guards meet him, although his were bodyguards with guns. We all walked out together, and Dr. O drove away in one of his armored SUVs after having offered me a ride. I declined even though it was snowing, because the walk from KMU to KU is one of the few places outside compound walls that is “safe” for internationals.

Later that day I arrived back at my guest house thrilled that I had not gotten sick from the few pieces of lamb kebobs I ate. The kebobs in Afghanistan have always looked interesting and I am happy I finally tried them. Although, Afghanistan does have several excellent vegetarian dishes that are not presented to most visitors because it is common hospitality to serve meat and not vegetables to guests.

Will the US FDA guidance on regulating genetically engineered animals change your omnivore or vegetarian diet?

“The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday issued its final regulations governing the approval of genetically engineered animals. The rules do not require consumer labeling for foods from these animals.”

- Steven Reinberg

Genetically engineered foods are all over the grocery aisles and are not labeled on packages as such.  Soon, genetically engineered meat will also be available on store shelves, all without labels.  Some groups approve of the genetically engineered animals because they are raised without the “pain” gene. Others think it is outrageous and strongly feel consumers should be advised if the meat they buy is genetically altered.

Next week, local bloggers will take on a challenge of eating natural, non-processed foods.  The fact that it will be a competition to avoid human altered foods might seem strange to the generations before us who only had the option of eating foods provided by small farms and gardens.  They might not have been able to imagine superstores with chemically filled foods.  Not to mention the vegan diet from only a few decades ago, when the only food options were whole and natural compared to the numerous processed items available as demonstrated in the I Can’t Believe It’s Vegan site.

Will you eat genetically engineered animals?

Warning: becoming a recovering vegetarian may affect your blood sugar levels. The same might happen to those who have eaten meat for many years and then change their diet to vegan or vegetarian.  This is one thing I was not warned about before becoming a recovering vegetarian. Your blood sugar might bounce all over the map.

The decision to conscientiously eat meat after so many years of staying away from it was, for me, more about breaking down barriers I placed upon myself at six years old.  I finally got curious enough to want to know what all of the fuss was about. More than that though, I got tired of labels.  I wanted to be lableless and boundlessness when it came to eating or not eating meat.  I tried to do a bit of research to find out what would happen to me if I ate meat.  That might sound odd, but I really thought I was stepping into an extreme world that I had not ventured in to before.  So, I called my nurses hotline to ask whats going to happen to me when I eat meat.  The nurse politely responded with a statement about how I will be fine and just to take it slow.  I could tell by the sound of his voice this was not a question he was expecting when he picked up the phone. After that, I read a few books on eating, consulted WebMD.com, looked through online sources and blogs, then took a bite of meat.  To my surprise the world did not end.

We are one of the few lucky states to have naturopathic doctors covered by many health insurance plans.  If you have those benefits, I recommend taking full advantage of them.  (I will save you from my rant about my opinions of exclusive heath care – for now). Before eating meat again, or giving up meat, you may want to consult a nutritionist or naturopath, and watch you blood sugar levels along the way.  This could save you from added anxiety later.

I saved trying bacon for a friend of mine in Philly.  She loves bacon and also knows it is one of two meats (salmon being the other) that I remember eating in my youth.

We went to the Down Home Diner at the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia to eat bacon.  I think the meat came from Lancaster and was raised by the Amish community.  I will admit the bacon tasted great, though it seemed completely unhealthy. If you were to choose eating a piece of chocolate fudge or a slice of bacon, both items probably would probably have the same affect on your body.  Although the bacon was good I am not planning on adding it to my diet.  I have enough “bad” foods that I love and do not feel I need one more to add to the mix.

The Reading Terminal Market is an indoor market that is open year round.  It would be a great concept to bring to Spokane especially given our weather patterns.  Take a look at the website for a list of fantastic vendors and restaurants.  If you find yourself in Philly be sure to stop by.

A place more fantastic than this indoor market lurks just two blocks away in Chinatown.  Go to Kingdom of Vegetarians.  It is an all kosher vegan restaurant featuring all you can eat dim sum for $12.00.

In 1988 I apparently thought turkeys had three feathers, human like faces, and a bit of a villain look.  I had just turned 5, not too long after I decided not to eat meat.

In 1991, I did not eat meat and soon after discovered the words “vegetarian,” “vegan,” “lacto-ovo vegetarian,” and “fruitarian” from my subscription to Vegetarian Times Magazine. I think my turkey looks pretty cute.

In 2008, I thought my turkey looked gross.  I even thought the red thermometer was blood.  I did not touch my turkey until it was cooked. but…

…sure enough, I liked the way the cooked turkey tasted and not one hour after my first bite I took a nap that lasted about 11 hours.