My co-workers are standing next to me discussing the Il Buco pig roast. These are the same people who were so supportive when I came up with the idea to go vegan for a week and write about it. They went so far as to gush about how healthy I was going to feel and predicted that I would lose a whole mess of weight. And now I’ve been a vegan for 24 hours, and they’re talking about a crispy-skinned, juicy pig slow-roasting on a spit. I want to cry.

I’ve chosen to go vegan for a week and write a daily journal of the experience. “Going vegan” means no animal products-no meat, eggs or dairy. Many vegans also eschew refined sugar (the refining process uses animal bone char), although it’s possible to be a vegan and still consume it. In the interest of being hardcore, I’m going to attempt to avoid refined sugar, with the notable exception of my peanut butter (the organic stuff skeeves me out). I’ll be consulting some vegan websites (www.veganwolf.com and www.friendsofanimals.com) for tips, as well as a vegan friend of mine (hi, if you’re reading this).

Luckily, I’m not too carnivorous to begin with, so I’m not giving up a whole lot. My typical breakfast—a corn cake with peanut butter—is already vegan, so that’s squared away. I usually bring a veggie burger for lunch, of which the burger itself is fine, but I had to buy vegan-friendly burger buns (I went for the Ezekiel brand) and I had to give up the yogurts and puddings that I usually bring to go with it. All things considered, I think I’m going to miss pudding more than anything else. Those little 100-calorie six-packs of chocolate Jell-O pudding are my absolute favorite snack. They’re a deliciously refreshing little palate-cleanser after a hearty meal, and they’re also definitely a dairy product.

Other than that, the past 24 hours have gone smoothly. My last meal as a non-vegan consisted of two of my favorite now-forbidden foods-scallops and molten chocolate cake. My first official meal as a vegan came from the Brooklyn outpost of the famed Life Café on Sunday morning. I happened to be dining with my father, who decreed that I “wouldn’t be a vegan for ten minutes.” To prove my point, I went for the vegan version of huevos rancheros, which consisted of sautéed tofu with corn, peppers and onions with soy cheese over tortillas, served with brown rice and black beans and a side of guacamole. It was delicious, and I began to feel pretty good about this whole undertaking. Take that, Dad.

Good, that is, until I became ravenously hungry some time later. Vegan fare isn’t quite as filling as what I’m used to eating. Dinner was brown rice and broccoli with soy sauce, an idiot-proof and fully vegan meal that I often ate even before I embarked on this project. Unable to enjoy my typical post-dinner pudding cup, I had a few vegan gingerbread cookies, which were surprisingly tasty. These cookies are free of the nine most common allergens (eggs, dairy and gluten among them) and are thick and dense, but still moist and full of that gingerbread-esque spiciness.

Basically, so far so good.

-Elise Stern

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Photo Courtesy of http://www.sickonsin.com.

“A bacon, egg and cheese from Han's Deli; a great second breakfast. The roll was soft and fresh, and the eggs and bacon were cooked right–a little bit of crisp to the bacon–but nothing was dry. Sadly, and much to my dismay, the pepper and ketchup I requested were absent. And that just pissed me off.” A woeful (second) morning repast for this EATer.

“The warm tuna steak sandwich at Rare; solid meat-to-bread ratio. My juicy, perfectly rare tuna steak took up the entire slice of soft, buttery-tasting bread, and the thin-sliced cucumbers and avocados added a light, fresh taste. It comes with a heap of mesclun salad, too. Not that you’ll need them, but the cottage fries are delicious, and the chipotle dipping sauce [for them] is the best.” A satisfying last supper for this EATer experimenting with Veganism this week (see the Vegan Diaries)

“Devil’s food cupcake at Amy’s Bread: The cake is so soft that it literally falls apart as you’re eating it- messy, but in a good way! The frosting is thick and rich and doesn’t taste overly sugary. The perfect sinful indulgence.”

The “Marina” sandwich from Alidoro in SoHo
“Sliced chicken, roasted red peppers, fresh mozzarella, and olive oil on crusty white bread: delicious.  It’s so worth the ten bucks and attitude from the staff there.”
 
“If you’re hungry, getting out of a club, and just want to stuff your face with the greasiest meal that will guarantee a good night’s sleep, then head over to Los Perros. The Hamburguesa de pollo is delicious with “papitas” on it and mozzarella cheese. My salchipapa criollas side dish was intense: little fried yellow potatoes with cocktail franks.
If you love to mix ketchup and mayo, this place has you covered! They give you a healthy amount of the pinky goodness and a delightfully light cilantro sauce alongside.  Word to everyone: after eating here do not be alarmed by the fact that you can actually feel your arteries clog up with cholesterol. Eating here once in a blue moon is a treat though so check it out.”
 
“Checked out Basta Pasta this week, which serves Italian food with a Japanese flair (I know, weird, right?).  In actuality, the Japanese element is kept to a minimum so it is basically just an Italian restaurant but with Japanese servers and the occasional fish roe found in a dish. Pasta was decent and the open kitchen was cool for a while until it started stressing me out because everything was so fast paced.  Maybe that’s why I ate so quickly…” 

 
“Went to Kefi. My branzino was wonderful and tasted great with the olives and potatoes. I’m interested to see if anything will change when it moves locations next month!” À la Kefi's #1 fan.

Cassie, where are you?!!
“The goodies from the new cupcake truck in SoHo, Cassie’s Cupcakes, were amazing! Oh wait, nevermind, I HAVEN’T FOUND THEM YET!”

Dine daily on a full serving of fresh news every morning.  Why?  Because it’s cheaper than your morning latte and more informative than your average nutritional label.

FOOD! Relishing the Ridiculosity

• I know we're all getting geared up for November, but here are some changes to our food and food supply that it's hard to get some consumers to believe in.   And it's coming soon to a theater near you. Eating never sounded so deliciously scary. 

• We heard about BPA-containing plastics and its link to everything from heart disease and Alzheimer's to depression and diabetes.  On the flip-side, a company's now making probiotic-rich straws.  But will they come BPA-free first?  I suppose my next question is this: what is the point of adding neutriceuticals or vitamins to our plastic, if the nasty stuff is still in there?    

• If you're tired of your Hungry Man and Stouffer's, but are allergic to the stove, this familiar box of electromagnetic radiation still can cook you up a mean meal.  Or, at the very least, real, factory-free food.

• Question: what kind of fakery is this?  Rest assured, they have sent this inedible-looking meal to the cakery.    

• Getting to know your sweet, mass-produced chocolate.

• Now here's a potentially weird surprise: Google expansion into the beverage industry.  Huh?  Yeah, well, since the food industry these days makes absolutely no sense these days, there is no reason for us to hold the beverage industry up to the same standards.  

• You know what else doesn't make sense?  Asking a food blogger if food blogging can be considered an eating disorder.  That's like asking an alcoholic if it's okay to go to the bar.  

Photo courtesy of BoingBoing.net

-Alice Shin

It’s a favorite after-hours game among chefs: If you were going to die tomorrow and had to pick your last meal on Earth, what would it be? 

Got it? Okay. Now wouldn’t you be curious to try other people’s “last meal” scenarios, just to experience what someone else perceives as a meal so significant that he or she would want it lingering on the palate as they bid goodbye to this cruel world?

You've probably never really thought about that part, until now. A Toronto company called Last Meal Delivery Service will bring you, for the bargain price of $20, the last meal of a death row inmate, complete with a DVD (of what, we’re not quite sure) and a paper mask of the inmate whose last meal you’ve ordered. Unlike the inmates, however, you don’t get to pick the meal-you pay, it shows up a few days later and you pray not to have incurred any bad karma from eating it.

Here at EATS, we’re all about new food concepts, weird gimmicks and the like. The last meal part might even be an interesting, if not slightly morbid, idea. But the paper mask of an executed inmate? That seems to be taking the experience a bit far. And what is on that DVD?

-Elise Stern

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Photo Courtesy of http://www.ojinaga.com

Harvest in the Square, presented by the Union Square Partnership (more on that below), went on without a hitch or much of a distraction from a protest planned to derail or at the very least disturb the patrons partaking. The night was lovely, magical even, full of people bound by their love of good food and wine, and there were copious amounts of both. The purpose of the fete was to raise funds for the “ongoing beautification efforts” of the park by the aforementioned partnership; the basis of the protest circled around the latter’s attempt to turn the Park’s breathtaking limestone pavilion into a restaurant (the idea was thwarted by a judge in June who proclaimed one "shouldn’t have to buy a $15 appetizer to have access to [the] building.")*.

Some (blurry) behind-the-tent action!

Though the protesters banged pots and pans it was only a faint accompanying din to the conversation and music within. The food was delicious, though some more successful than others. The meat was my calling, and I dabbled in more than a couple porcine-based delicacies (The City Bakery’s Grilled Farmstead Cheese & Artisanal Bacon Sandwich for one–I had a mere bite of course), as well as a multitude of ribs (Duke’s especially did themselves proud) and a dessert or two (or three). The highlight in fact may have very well been the Marshmallow Shake from Stand (a place I bashfully was unfamiliar with)–cookie and cream-ish, accented by fresh whipped cream and served in a classic champagne glass with a tiny straw protruding–classy, low-brow and really really good.

The wines were beyond par, but I most especially enjoyed the Robert Mondavi selections, both the fumé blanc and the chardonnay. I wanted another glass of the former, but was told they “stopped serving it at 7:30” (what a wine neophyte am I).

It is an event I would delight in seeing every season, but it makes autumn all the more charming, and all the more anticipated, as the crisp air comes, so does the Harvest…and the accompanying rioters (this is New York City after all).
 

-Elisabeth Norton 

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  *see http://gothamist.com/2008/06/05/rev_billy_2.php