Sunday 18 October 2009

VeganMoFo2009 #12: My Vegan 100

We are now over half way through Vegan MoFo... and I still have over 1,000 unread posts in my Google Reader!! I have been doing a lot of speed reading, but I am hoping to be able to comment at least a few times on everyone's blog. Does anyone else find themselves using the same words over and over again? Delicious, yummy, fantastic, scrumptious, beautiful, stunning, fantabulous, amazing, yummy... oh wait - I used that one already! It's the same sort of feeling you get when you have to smile so much taking photos for a wedding or whatever. Though to be honest I feel grateful that there are so many amazing vegan food posts in the world that I cannot come up with different words to describe them all! So please don't think I am not being sincere - I am doing the best I can with the limited vocabulary we have available to us. Apparently when they created the English language they didn't consider VeganMoFo!

Anyway, today I thought I would jump on the bandwagon of the Vegan 100, which came from a blog... somewhere... and has been posted on numerous others. Kudos to the source! Anyway, this is slightly biased against me because it is heavily US-centric (and NYC in particular), but I have done my best with what is available to me here in Brisbane!

Here are the rules...

1) Copy this list into your blog or social networking site profile, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out or italicize any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment on this post linking to your results. The Vegan Hundred:

1. Molasses
2. Cactus/Nopales
3. Scrambled Tofu
4. Grilled Portobella Caps
5. Fresh Ground Horseradish
6. Sweet Potato Biscuits
7. Arepa
8. Vegan Coleslaw
9. Ginger Carrot Soup
10. Fiddlehead Ferns
11. Roasted Elephant Garlic
12. Umeboshi
13. Almond Butter Toast
14. Aloe Vera
15. H and H Bagel NYC (Across the world... so no)
16. Slow Roasted Butternut Squash
17. White truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Freshly ground wasabi
20. Coconut Milk Ice Cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Orchard-fresh pressed apple cider
23. Organic California Mango (I am subbing in for delicious QLD organic mangoes!)
24. Quinoa
25. Papaya Smoothie (No... but I have recently discovered a love of papaya so much have one)
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet or HabaƱero pepper
27. Goji Berry Tea
28. Fennel
29. Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie
30. Radishes and Vegan Buttery Spread (No, but it sounds like a fantastic way to use up left over radishes)
31. Starfruit
32. Oven fresh Sourdough bread
33. Sangria made with premium fruit and juices
34. Sauerkraut
35. Acai Smoothie
36. Blue Foot Mushrooms
37. Vegan Cupcake from Babycakes nyc (Nope, but I have had some mighty fine ones from right here!)
38. Sweet Potatoes and Tempeh combo
39. Falafel
40. Spelt Crust Pizza
41. Salt and Pepper Oyster Mushrooms (not oyster mushrooms - portobello though!)
42. Jicama Slaw
43. Pumpkin Edamame Ginger Dumplings
44. Hemp Milk
45. Rose Champagne
46. Fuyu
47. Raw Avocado-Coconut Soup
48. Tofu Pesto Sandwich
49. Apple-Lemon-Ginger-Cayenne fresh-pressed juice
50. Grilled Seitan
51. Prickly pear
52. Fresh Pressed Almond Milk
53. Concord Grapes off the vine
54. Ramps
55. Coconut Water fresh from a young coconut
56. Organic Arugula
57. Vidalia Onion (I don't know that we have this specific variety here)
58. Sampler of organic produce from Diamond Organics (well... no!)
59. Honeycrisp Apple (Not available here)
60. Poi
61. Vegan Campfire-toasted Smores (We don't really have them here... would love to try though!)
62. Grapeseed Oil
63. Farm fresh-picked Peach
64. Freshly-made pita bread with freshly-made hummus
65. Chestnut Snack Packs
66. Fresh Guava
67. Mint Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
68. Raw Mallomar from One Lucky Duck, NYC (Again... hello different continent)
69. Fried plantains (Another note for Brisbanites - I get mine from Mango Mango on Turton St in Sunnybank)
70. Mache
71. Golden Beets
72. Barrel-Fresh Pickles
73. Liquid Smoke
74. Meyer Lemon
75. Veggie Paella
76. Vegan Lasagna
77. Kombucha
78. Homemade Soy Milk
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Lychee Bellini
81. Tempeh Bacon
82. Sprouted Grain Bread
83. Lemon Pepper Tempeh (No... but I want it!)
84. Vanilla Bean
85. Watercress
86. Carrot you pulled out of the ground yourself
87. Vegan In-Season Fruit Pie
88. Flowers
89. Corn Chowder
90. High Quality Vegan Raw Chocolate
91. Yellow fuzz-free Kiwi
92. White Flesh Grapefruit
93. Harissa
94. Coconut Oil
95. Jackfruit
96. Homemade Risotto
97. Spirulina
98. Seedless 'Pixie' Tangerine
99. Gourmet Sorbet, not store bought
100. Fresh Plucked English Peas

So, sadly I have only eaten 58 of these. What a poor showing! I guess I have some new food goals to reach for!


OK, so I have to have at least one food photo for the post!


Chocolate-Chocolate Chip-Walnut Cookies from Veganomicon are some of the most amazing cookies ever... except with pecans instead of walnuts. The right mix of chewy and crunchy, full of fantastic chocolate chips and crunchy nuts. Just wonderful!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post


The is Bobby. When I was in my final year of vet school I had to go on rotation, and one of those rotations was to a rural mixed practice. I am a city princess cat lady vegan geek, so one can imagine that spending four weeks in a country town, away from my beloved cats and having to continually explain my vegan ways to farmers who were doing the very things I felt so strongly against was not high on my list of things to do! Thankfully I was able to get a placement at a clinic owned by the husband of my then boss, who was well aware of my outlook, and only two and a bit hours from Sydney so that I could motor home on the weekends and spend them with my cats in my little city haven! The other plus was Bobby, the clinic at. Bobby is actually a supermodel!! He was chosen over many other cats to be a model for Friskies brand of cat biscuits. Only thing is, little 2 year old Bobby was picked for the SENIOR cat boxes... ouch! ;) Bobby got his name because he has a bob tail of unknown origin. He was an awesome little friend to have around when I didn't have my own kitties! In a sweet twist to my time there, one of the vets invited me over for dinner with her and her farmer husband. They still cooked a meat roast for them, but for me they made a Sanitarium roast and made sure all the vegetables hadn't come in contact with any animal products and even went looking for special vegan snacks! Everyone tried some of the vegan roast, and our farmer had two slices and took some leftovers in his sandwich for lunch the next day! He was really curious and interested about my veganism, in a totally respectful way. And when we were first sitting down he uttered the rather hilarious (but kind of sad) line: 'Wow... I didn't think vegans actually existed!'. While he isn't going to change anything he does or eats, it was good to be able to have a really nice discussion about being a vegan without encountering prejudice and scorn! Oh, and for the record the four weeks were not too horrific, it turns out I kick butt at giving cows epidurals! Still, I am glad to leave that aspect of vet life behind me in vet school, where it belongs! Cats FTW.

OK, that was a rather long paragraph! Time for sleep now. Tomorrow I need to read another bazillion posts!

7 comments:

  1. what a super fun post - i'm gonna have to do this one, too! i can't believe i'm never had fennel before.

    Bobby is such a handsome man - i love his color! that's too funny that he modeled for senior friskies. ah ha ha!

    also: hooray for a positive experience with a curious omni inquiring about veganism. :) you're right in often times those conversations can get kinda negative (i find that so many people get downright defensive, and almonst offended, when they find out my spouse & i are vegan) - but that's great that you had such a cool encounter!

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  2. That survey is worded so oddly in places! I mean, farm-fresh picked peaches? Well, no.. i've gotten them from farmer's markets though, that counts right? :P Anyhow, I shall steal this and do it as i'm starting to run out of MoFo steam. NooO!

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  3. Those cookies look sooooo good. I have to got to try those.
    Debra @ Vegan Family Style

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  4. I think my vegan 100 list would be even shorter than yours...is that sad? Wow, those chocolate cookies look amazing! And I adore the photo of Bobby :)

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  5. Those biscuits look yummy. And Bobby is so cute! Thanks for sharing that story about vet school--it's good to know that there are people who are not automatically hostile to veganism, even in farming communities where their life depends on animal agriculture!

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  6. I'm jealous you have had some of these things in Brisbane and I haven't found them in Melbourne.

    I agree, tt was a very US-centric list so I did my own mods to make it a bit more Melbourne friendly!

    http://melbourneveganesque.blogspot.com/2009/10/vegan-100.html

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