21 Day Kickstart

Apparently, we are not original in our thinking. While researching the benefits and shortcomings of a vegan diet today (looking at everything from fish oil to weight-loss), I came across website that serves as a support network for your 21 Day Kickstart to a vegan lifestyle.

The major downside? You can't start until September 6th. That's a couple months too late for our experiment.

The Devil's Eggs

If you are like me (Suzy), then deviled eggs bring back memories of 4th of July picnics and your grandmother's house. But these are not the best of memories, especially from my grandmother's kitchen that had a bottomless cookie jar.

Deviled eggs: Hardboiled concoctions with their yolks pumped back into them via pastry bag--not my idea of the ideal appetizer. Give me cheese and crackers or ants-on-a-log any day over these hard-boiled egg white skeletons complete with repumped yolks mixed with mayo (topped with paprika, if extra effort is exerted).

Thus, imagine my surprise when the wise and food-loving Daniel Keyserling ordered just that this Sunday at The Spotted Pig where Brandt and I met him and our friend Conor for the blessed NYC Sunday brunch. From Brandt's, "I like deviled eggs, but am not in the mood" to my, "um...sure...get whatever you want" to Conor's outright, "I'm not a deviled egg fan" (and all of our clear memories of awkward, summer family picnics lingering in the midst) we were, to say the least, skeptical.


Until the first bite (and only bite, since four of us split 2). The mastery of flavors that The Spotted Pig achieved with this simple and all-to-familiar appetizer was palate-pleasing to say the least, and certainly worth a taste in your near future. Certainly the only way to follow up these eggy wonders was shoestring french fries, iced coffee, champagne toasts, and dark and stormies with dear friends.

Oh Mexico...

This weekend seemed to be particularly fiesta themed. After learning on Friday the history behind James Taylor's song, "Mexico," we still found ourselves oddly drawn to a variety of Mexican-themed fare. Friday night we spent the evening at one of Suzy's family's favorite NYC hangouts--the Willy Wall, an undiscovered gem out in the middle of the Hudson River. Our picnic in hand included Mango-Avocado Salsa and a number of other great snacks. We were one-upped by our Willy Wall neighbors who had the ingenuity to bring pizza out to the booze barge (we finished up the night with a slice ourselves...that mozzarella smell is really intoxicating, and will undoubtedly be a temptation for the vegan month of June).

Saturday continued the Mexican-themed festivities with outdoor brunch at Dos Caminos in Meatpacking. As we ate our meals and sipped our complimentary cocktails with our friends, Julie and Basil, the 4 of us planned dinner for the evening, which ended up consisting of shrimp tacos, micheladas, and fat witch brownies--Brandt's favorite is Caramel. All in all, a nice little Saturday (insert witty Spanish phrase here, because I don't know any).

Is Breast Milk Vegan?

This is Suzy. And I'd like to thank my somewhat skeptical, certainly comical and always supportive friend (for the sake of this blog, let's just call him C. Ahern or Conor A.) for posing this question. I did what any responsible, curious, researcher would do--I googled it.

As it turns out, there is quite a lot of information available on how to raise a vegan child. That rearing includes breastfeeding. Which leads me to believe that breastmilk is vegan. I guess it has to do with being species-specific, nutritious and natural?

However, there seems to be a new adult market for breastmilk--breastmilk cheese for a brief moment became the avant-garde offering at one NYC restaurant (I was told by a member of the NYC Health Department that this option was forced off the menu.) Whether or not breastmilk is available for public consumption or considered part of a vegan diet, don't expect to find it on any sandwich of mine anytime soon.

Nutrition Nut: Suzy's Rebuttle

If you saw poop on your steak, a worm in your apple, or mold on your (not blue) cheese, you'd say, "ew, gross." No wait...you'd say, "what the f***?! There's shit in my steak." Either way, you would put your fork down. We allow ourselves to be blissfully unaware of what we're eating. Unless we can see the "ew gross-ness", we don't care. It crushes my wholefood-, nutrition- loving self (who also likes to get coffee in the West Village) that at some point where our food comes from and what benefits or harm it brings our bodies ceased to matter. And, I hate to crush dreams out there, but we do eat to LIVE. Not a hippie notion--fact.

Anyone who has ever seen me unable to put down my spoon when faced with a bowl of ice cream (or guacamole) can tell you that I am not an advocate for food losing its celebratory and sentimental value. There is nothing survival-focused about my love for red wine, antipasti platters, and the looks on others' faces when they say, "Sweet Baby Jesus, that tastes DELICIOUS." Food brings people together in a way that nothing else in our culture does (clearly, I'm making the leap to count wine as a food here). But when did also caring about how that food will affect your physical and mental function become such a terrible idea? We should always care. I'm not saying that every little morsel you consume has to be the most healthful choice you've ever made, but health and wellness should be major factors each and every time you decide to taste, chew, and swallow.

I am here to put on public record that Brandt does love fruits and vegetables (GASP!). Just as much as I do (GASP! GASP!). In fact, when asked what he would like from the grocery store, vegan things are most often on his list: beets, almonds, oranges (three gasps is excessive, I'm sure you're on to this).

While I don't believe this month-long experiment in veganism will for a lifetime turn me away from yogurt, cheese, and pastries, why not spend a month figuring out how my body fares without animal products? I believe that there are alternatives to eating 24oz (6 day's worth) of meat in one 15 minute period. And my initial thought on this blog was that it would be a good way for us both to be creative in exploring those alternatives. And it also wouldn't hurt to catch Brandt up on vegetables missed during his past few years of ordering beef with a side of bacon.

Meat Head: Brandt's Explanation

Do you see those pictures up there? They look great, don't they. They're my meals from our trip to Miami--bone-in ribeye medium rare with cheesy, creamy potatoes and Macallan 21 from Council Oak; cheeseburger with french fries and Diet Pepsi from Casola's. Now I could write you a paragraph about where the food was sourced from, and I could tell you the fries are fried in organic oil. I could tell you the steak comes from a small farm not 10 miles from the restauraunt and I could tell you the scotch was aged for 21 years (21!). But I don't have to because when you look at those pictures the only thought your brain can put together is "Sweet Baby Jesus, that looks...DELICIOUS." If that beautiful slice of heaven found its way to a table near you, you'd know what to do. Now if on the other hand you were faced with some strange mixture of wild grains and weeds, or "vegan snacks," you would want, no you would NEED a full adjective ladden paragraph before you even considered letting it near your mouth, and you would certainly need the explicit promise of some kind of health benefit before you'd even consider investing in a bite.

I say all of this to give you an idea where I stand on the issue of veganism, lest you be confused by my presence here. I am firmly of the mind set that "I didn't climb all the way up the food chain to eat leaves."

Now frankly I don't have a good reason for why I agreed to do this. I attribute it to whatever genetic defect it is that makes me prone to random road trips, bad ideas, and a general inclination to say "sure, why not" when faced with a unique proposition. I am also so far behind a healthy lifetime level of vegetable intake that this really can't hurt. Plus it will give me a conversation topic while waiting for coffee in the village. Most importantly though, what the hell anyway, "why not."

Miami Vices

We took a 5-day trip to Miami (hence the week with no posts). In addition to wonderful time in the sun and days exploring beaches, casinos, and the South Florida mecca, we enjoyed meals consisting of wine, red meat, and Levain Bakery cookies which we had purchased in NYC as a gift to our host (if you live in NYC and haven't tried these, go TODAY; if you live outside NYC...they ship.)

More to come in Food Logs on some of the fabulous meals we experienced (and a few photos). But for now, we are "detoxing", and by that I just mean including the lower parts of the food pyramid in our diets instead of focusing on beef, sugar/added fats, and alcohol.

Regrets from the week of indulgence? None.

This is how we eat

this is how, this is how, this is how we eat.

In order to lend credibility to this experiment in veganism, we thought it necessary to first document for the whole world to see that we really do in fact love cheese, meat, and many other non-vegan foods. We will do this through a semi-regular Food Log.

In T-22 days, when the vegan adventure begins, you can expect these logs to be a bit shaken. But for now, check out some of the amateur but tasty recipes coming out of our UWS kitchen and our typical daily food choices.

In the beginning, there was meat...

And it was good.

Today we embarked on one blog-recorded month of meat-allowance prior to our 30-day vegan adventure.

After beginning the conversation of a "month of veganism" in April, the following questions have arisen:

• What will we ever do without cheese and yogurt? We are both skeptical about the commercial animal-free options (for health and taste reasons), so we shall see starting June 1st.
• Is alcohol vegan? To our surprise, it isn't always. Animal products sometimes are a part of processing. Here is the most comprehensive website we found for quickly gathering consumer information: http://www.vegsoc.org/info/alcohol.html
• What about honey and leather? Suzy, the less-meat-eating of the duo, will be giving up her leather bags and shoes starting June 1. As for honey, it's only a month, and since it does come from bees, it's out from June 1-July 1.
• Where will we ever get a good meal out of the house? Luckily, vegan restaurants and cafes are all the rage in NYC, so we (read: Suzy) are not too worried. Luckily, we also eat most meals from our tiny but amazing NYC apt kitchen. More to come in future postings on how we feel about these restaurants.
• Finally, "our" final question: Really, Suzy? Why the hell are we doing this?