Come to Our Eatery; We Have Nutmeatery

I do rather like it when the inside of a nutshell is referred to as the "nutmeat".
I also very much like this local-but-soon-unfortunately-moving-to-Portland band;
All The Apparatus (Formerly Haberdashery). Their sound is original and unique--a folkish, gypsyish, jazzy, Irish-jiggy, wacky-instrumented treat. They are a bunch of very talented, jovial weirdees who don various delightful garments. Do check them out. One of my favorite of their songs is "Lobsterface Mcgee", a sympathetic tale about a hideous pirate who marries an oyster-faced mermaid. They make my night every time I come across them performing on the streets of Chinatown or elsewhere.

Both them and nutmeats are rich and hearty. One, when ground, makes a good base for vegan creamy sauces, the other makes for a wonderful listening, jiving, jigging experience.

Portlandites: treat and enjoy them well. All The Apparatus, that is.

Recent Endeavors and Okinawan Sweet Potato

• Blackberries
• 15 grain rice--tinted so from black soy beans and black sesame seed
• Okinawan sweet potatoes, stewed into some sort of vaguely Caribbean-tasting concoction of cumin, chili powder, onions, carrots, etc.
  

Rooster fabric! I found a very Minnesota mom-chic skirt at Salvation Army, cut it to a more sassy and less ankly length, and hand-sewed two layers of rufflage onto the back. I think that I shall be bold and go for another layer of roosters?

Royal Tubers

Dissapointment. And Discovery!

Last night, while making what turned out to be mediocre-tasting Koreanesque spicy noodles, I absentmindedly took my scythe to the stem bottoms of some bok choi, and--hark!--roses!

!!!

Everybody Hail to the Pumpkin Song

Happy rather belated Halloween! I hope yours was mischievous and decadent and all of that. What was your guise? Word to Walt:


Wonderful and dearly missed friends from my study abroad program in Japan had come out to visit during Halloween, it was a corking good time.

In keeping with the theme:
I had taken my visiting friends to a gelato place in Waikiki that uses local ingredients. I asked to sample the pumpkin flavor, and the talkative young man behind the counter was eager to tell me that the pumpkins were grown locally on the island, (Hawaii) and that the the flavor is "more mild" than of those on the mainland (rest of the USA). This just struck me as very funny indeed. I don't really consider pumpkins to have a particularly aggressive flavor?

Now heed my word; pumpkin is sans jest my favorite wintery indulgence. I mean, it's definitely one of my favorite flavors and I find it to be silkily-velvety-autumnally-divine.

So I say, who in this beastly kingdom wants a mild pumpkin?

Foodlings! Mother. Fluffing. Foodlings.

My weeks have been filled with a mugwort amount of school work, general treason, and hob-knobbing and I haven't posted in what feels like many moons! Grovel, grovel.

A Very Generous Vegan Friend of mine created the first scrumptious three meals



Rice, steamed kabocha, sublime kabocha-chikpea-miso-konbu-carrot-onion stuff, hijiki, and what I believe is kale. Oh and giant coconut that my roommate *Aberforth *found somewhere! She and Very Generous Vegan Friend sought its inner meats, and broke open by dropping it off of our 13th floor balcony. Successful.

ezekiel toast, steamed kale, cream of wheat, and fru fru friends



Vegan bi bim bap; brown rice, korean roasted nori, fern shoots, kim chi, gochujang, mung bean sprouts, and carrot


baked tofu, 15 grain rice, steamed carrots and asparagus

Naughty little feathered creature that entered the apartment and WOULD NOT LEAVE! The roommates were out so this left only my cunning tactics and courage to work with. I at first cautiously approached it to say hello, only to make it petrified and flap wildly about. The door to our balcony was wide open, so I didn't understand why it wouldn't just haul arse....bother.
Persistant villain!
After several failed attempts at trying to coax it towards the door/offering to propose a duel, it occurred to me; "a watched pot never boils". So I sat down at a kitchen bar stool facing away from it, pretending to do homework. After about a minute or so I turned around and--lo and behold--Flappy was gone.
It was at this moment that I realized the apartment felt rather empty and lonely, so I grew forlorn and hung my head.
Fin.

Tofu Scramble and the Bard's Stockings

Here I am at a party I went to last weekend, being consumed by what appears to be mustard greens.

The party was the 22nd birthday soiree of my friend that I shall call "A" here--a costume party! I had received the proper Facebook notice, on which "A" had enthusiastically encouraged that everyone come dressed up. Welp, I sure did, but somehow misread the part where the invitation said "jungle"...

I went as Shakespeare.

Sigh. Worry not, I har-har'd. My vest and tights got a bit stifling while the others pranced about in their leopard print and feathers, though, so I eventually removed those. Only to be attacked by the upper half of another friend's awesome swamp creature costume.

Being the weirdo in the stuffy, frilly shirt isn't so bad, tis plain sooth.

On to the food porn! Breakfast for dinner:

• Tofu Scramble ( medium firm tofu, almond milk, nooch, mustard, spices, bell pepper, finely grated carrot)
  
• Homemade lentil sausages (vital wheat gluten, cooked red lentils, minced onion, sage and other sausagely spices--recipe soon!)
  
• Semi-wilted grapes
• Sensuous mango
• Black tea with almond milk
  

I had purchased this yummy looking local whole wheat pita bread from Down to Earth, an all-vegetarian grocery store, that I was excited about and planning to eat. Upon opening the bag, however, I was greeted (garrr) with a sour scent and many fuzzly little blue and green spots. I really didn't want to waste it, but it looked like no cigar. Sadly, my meal was pita-less, but not too sadly, oh no, for a hearty and numbly meal it was yet!

Premiere VEGAN MOFO Post, un peu tard

6 days in--I am but a worm. But I do have some pumpkin muffinry!

I based these on the "Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cupcakes" from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.

My tweaks:

• 1/4 cup less sugar
• Used steamed and mashed kabocha squash
• 1/4 cup more kabocha
• Whole wheat pastry flour
• Extra tsp. vanilla
• Almond milk instead of soy
  

I had to leave them unadorned on account of the fact that I do not have confectioners on hand right now. Well, they turned out delightfully moist and sweet...so all is well that ends well! I just thought these had come out more muffin-like. Going to school in sub-tropical Honolulu, I begin to miss the autumnally festive atmosphere of home (and other temperate zones). Pumpkin and cinnamon leave me feeling like crisp foliage on this balmy Tuesday evening.

WELL NOW I'VE GONE AND DONE IT

Somehow in my struggles I cracked and broke off a chunk of the plastic miso container. Grumble, wumble.

In other news; do these blackberries make you think of many small, curly-haired creatures? 'Cuz they do to me.

A Light Lunch on the Veranda

Or inside of my hot apartment. Nevertheless I found it scrumptious! Come to think of it, I'm not really quite sure I know what a veranda is...

• In the mug: simple konbu broth'd miso soup with onion slivers and melty kabocha wedges

• Onigiri filled with homemade hijiki nimono (a simmered seaweed dish, I didn't have aburage so I used pieces of leftover baked tofu)

• Kwees and kurrahts

3 Points of Mild Concern

• My roommate, one Aberforth Bottleslap, (Don't you wish that was her name? It's not. But close) has begun to call me "Little Muskrat".

• I wish to bathe in earl grey tea and almond milk, but know not how I could go about this economically.

• For some time I've been excited by the notion that dinosaurs could have been furry and we will never know; they existed some 60 million years before any human beans could have caught a glimpse, and skull structure might not say just everything. Yet of course, not only are there records of skin imprint findings, but likely a frillion other thoroughly scientific reasons as to why our extinct pals were, in fact, reptilian in nature. Huff.
  

"Everybody wants what a dino has; dinos, dinos, got pizazz"

Harvest of the Heavens

1:30 a.m. on a Thursday night. TGIF? I am about to munch on a late night black sesame seed onigiri, or rice ball. 9:10 a.m on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have a seminar class on the culture of Taiwan.

We recently learned about the significance of rice and its role in different aspects of Taiwanese society. Our professor showed us a video on rice cultivation and the very strenuous work the skilled farmers endure in the muggy, overwhelming heat out on the paddies. Since watching it, I find myself suddenly conscience of how often I eat rice and how much of it I see, everywhere.

I think this old expression that the video narrator mentioned is wonderful, meaningful, and amusingly graphic: "For each grain of rice, 1,000 beads of sweat".

My Not-Yet-Complete Assignment on Post-WWI Iran Sighs Up At Me

Hear the words I sing,
war's a horrid thing--
still I sing, sing, sing,
ding-a-ling-a-ling.

Grub.

For dinner: Baked tofu, steamed spinach and steamed rounds of satsumaimio (Japanese sweet potato), a simple salad with a dressing of olive oil, apple cider vinegar, and grated carrot, rice with Korean olive-oil roasted nori.

For the baked tofu; I combined 1/4 cup of shoyu, 1/4 cup of mirin, and liberal ginger gratings, marinaded one sliced up 20 oz block of tofu, sprinkled with black sesame seeds, and baked in oven at 375 degrees for 25 minutes. Paku paku!

Evening jams.

Thingamabobs from Etsy I Would Buy, Had I Monies

Who-zits and What-zits galore.

Head adornments for a bona fide forest critter

Hair-a-glimmer at a ragtime affair

For all your flouncing needs

These charming undergarments are handmade by an artist called Clare Bare, and she is kick-arse. She creates awesome unmentionables with vintage fabric and organic cotton. I want to point her out because I've seen her items elsewhere, and would like to share! And no, that is NOT me--some people were confused.

Lentil Curry in a Hurry

Din-dins one night last week. I had very hungrily thrown the ingredients together without really paying attention to what I was doing. So, while this Indian-inspired concoction luckily turned out pretty sassy, I will recreate it and record my steps so that I can write out a recipe. In the meantime...food pr0n?
How do you feel about lentils, do you prefer the green ones used more often in Mediterranean as opposed to Indian cuisine? Moi, I find myself partial to the red ones.

Harrison Ford and Numbly Treats

Prancer's got some attitude and no antlers. I, however, acquired like, ten rice balls. Fo' free! Every Friday, my school hosts a viewing and small forum discussion on a culturally/socially relevant film, and there is usually pizza. This past week's was Blade Runner, and instead of pizza there were rice balls galore. There was a curry one which I found particularly groovy. After the movie there were still many rice balls left, so a friend and I saved them from some other fate and (with permission) eagerly brought home a stash each. Above is shiso flavored konbu and ten-grain konbu.

It was the first time I had seen Blade Runner, it was very neat. I figure the rice balls were added a novel touch to the movie's Asia influenced dystopia concept? There was fruit too, and all was well.

Pan-a-cakes!

It is a Friday morning, the palm trees are swaying, and I do not have a class until noon-ish, so I thought this morning a fit one indeed for a breakfast-ly treat. A very generous vegan friend of mine recently offered me a bunch of baking ingredients that he wasn't using, and among this fountain of abundance is some Ener-G egg replacer. I've never used it before, and until now when I have tried veganizing things I have used the 1/4 cup of tofu, mashed banana, etc=1 egg substitution method. The egg replacer was easy to use and worked really well with these pancakes. This recipe is flexible and the major ingredients in these can be easily substituted, I just used what I had on hand. These were yummy adorned simply with a drizzling of agave nectar.

• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
  
• 3 tsps baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 "egg"
  
• 1 1/4 cups + 2 tlbs almond milk
• 2 tlbs walnut oil
• 1/4 cup oat bran (hot cereal)
• 1 tsp vanilla
  

Combine the dry ingredients in a medium to large bowl. Add liquid ingredients, stir just until lumps of flour disappear. Cook over low/medium heat. Stick to your chest with agave nectar and wear as pasties; shimmy.

While mine came out pretty silly looking, were they to come out as uniform rounds, I would say this recipe makes 12 small to medium sized pancakes.

Oh-ho, Dear Readers

Hello, ladies and sirs. My name is Brittany. I am back from spending my junior year abroad in Japan, during which I started a blog I had intended to be on vegetarian and cultural findings and conundrums. Now that I am back in the New World and can be a bitch in the kitch again--I had no access to cooking facilities in Japan--I thought I'd start a new, more organized and, um, consistent one. I still plan to leave my Japan blog; The Ninjin Tales, up for memory lane-ing.

Here, I will post on vegetarian culinary deeds, seeds and daily blundering about. While many meals I make for myself are vegan, I do dabble in the dairy a bit. Those recipes should not be non veganizable, however! Please, if you might, read on, and tonight--give in to your tempeh-tations.