Vegetarian Star

Kate Hudson was spotted grabbing a bite to eat at New York City’s Angelica Kitchen after filming on the set of Something Borrowed.

The vegan restaurant, like many well known eating spots, has a cookbook for those that can’t make to the Big Apple or prefer it DIY.

Not only does The Angelica Home Kitchen contain dozens of recipes for dishes like 3 bean chili with seitan and pumpkin pate, author Leslie McEachern also discusses the economical, social and ecological impact of our food choices.

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Fat Mike "NOFX" Credit: Squirrelza on Wikimedia Commons

Although we’re still trying to figure out why the “Fat Mike” burger on the Thistle Hill Tavern menu is a beef one given the NOFX musician turned to vegetarianism several years ago, reviews of the restaurant in Brooklyn are good.

Martini Boys states that, “Chef Rebecca Weitzman has constructed a menu to appease both carnivores and legitimate vegetarians,” and recent reviews on Yelp! are praising the vegetarian options.

“For dinner, we had the vegan burgers – my fiance had his with bleu cheese, and i had mine with cheddar. we both agreed they were the BEST veggie burgers we’ve ever had! the buns were homemade and tasted like it! the fries were thick, crispy, and perfectly seasoned. and to top it off – the ketchup was also homemade! unbelievably good.”

And maybe even the meat eaters will trade the Fat Mike grass fed burger for the vegan one sometime.

“I think the coolest thing about the menu is that there is a ton of vegetarian options. I’m a meat eater, but don’t want a steak everytime I go out. More importantly, each of those meat-free dishes looked tempting enough to me to forgo meat for the night. I will definitely be back, and I will definitely bring friends.”

Green Pea Falafel, zucchini pancakes, charred kale and spiced nuts and seeds are several other  meatless options available.

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Einstein Bros. Bagels

Einstein Noah Restaurant Group, which owns several bagel and coffee chains, including Einstein Bros., has made the announcement it’s switching to cage-free eggs at its 680 locations in 36 states and the District of Columbia.

“We’re proud to be launching this initiative and believe that moving in this direction will help improve the treatment of hens,” said James O’Reilly, chief concept officer for ENRG.

The Humane Society of the United States commended ENRG for making the switch towards better welfare for chickens.

“Einstein Noah’s decision to phase in cage-free eggs represents an important step,” said Josh Balk, corporate outreach director of The HSUS’ factory farming campaign. “The Humane Society of the United States applauds the company for improving the lives of farm animals.”

According to the HSUS website, there are about 280 million hens in factory farm cages so small, they cannot even spread their wings.

Cage-free is not the most ideal environment, as birds may still have their beaks cut off and may be prohibited from going outside, but they have 2-3 times more space than caged hens, allowing them to perform normal behaviors such as walking, spreading wings and laying eggs in nests.

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When Gillian Jacobs moved from New York to Los Angeles to begin her career as Britta Perry on Community, she missed a lot of things about the Big Apple she couldn’t find in LA.

Like NYC’s Angelica Kitchen and its tofu sandwich.

Jacobs misses the sandwich so much, she told TV Squad it would be the number one thing she’d have her friends ship her across the country.

Note: The air travel from NY to LA totally cancels out the eco friendliness of eating a vegan sandwich, so hopefully she’ll only enjoy the meal when visiting home.

“This is gonna sound so boring and bizarre, but the thing I miss the most is this tofu sandwich from this vegan restaurant, and I’m not even a vegan. But I just really miss the tofu sandwich from Angelica’s Kitchen. I can’t explain it to you.”

The current menu at Angelica’s lists two tofu sandwiches, the “Sam or I” and the “Marinated Tofu Sandwich.”

Sam or I contains an herbed baked slice of soy goodness with marinated hiziki and arame, grated daikon, ruby kraut, sesame spread and lettuce between a mixed grain or spelt bun.

The marinated version contains a lemon herbed baked tofu with roasted vegetables, parsley-almond pesto and lettuce served on the same bread choices as the Sam or I.

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Chipotle is aiming to source at least 50% of one produce item locally this year in its restaurants.

The item will depend on both the region the establishment is located and the local growing season.

According to Westword, the 50% goal is up from 2009’s goal of 35% and 2008’s goal of 25%.

The company stated in a news release that it is working with about 50 local, family owned farms to obtain produce such as tomatoes and lettuce.

The locally grown initiative is one of several actions taken by Chipotle that reflect a desire to produce more eco and animal friendly products, including switching its pork supply to farms that do not use antibiotics or hormones, using almost 50% organic beans and using cheese and sour cream from cows not given recombinant bovine growth hormone.

And let’s not forget the vegan meat filling is slowly making it’s way into more restaurants.

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Otarian, the chain of vegetarian fast food restaurants created by the female half of the famous billionaire Oswal couple, provides a menu to its customers that indicates the amount of carbon used in creating the plant based meal versus a similar meat version.

Is that too much information?

An article at MNN, discusses whether we are getting information overload when we’re hungry, and if the calories, fat, carbon count and source of food may overwhelm the average consumer.

“At some point, having too much information might actually hurt, because it may start to confuse,” said Barry Popkin, a professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

As vegetarians, we usually never have enough information, as we demand all ingredients, the surface the food is cooked on, what it touches, etc.

Seems like there is nothing wrong with providing a pamphlet of information about the food you eat, as long as it is accurate. And it helps you make more healthful decisions, as some cities like New York and Seattle are requiring places to post calorie content next to items.

When it comes down to it, the hungry consumer will treat the extra information like a spouse treats a nagging partner: Take what you need from the conversation and tune out 99% of the rest.

Or, they’ll just double check for trans-fat before devouring the potato wedges.

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Fat Mike "NOFX" Credit: Squirrelza on Wikimedia Commons

Fat Mike, from the American punk rock band formed in San Francisco, NOFX, is one of the owners of the Thistle Hill Tavern in Brooklyn, New York.

Fat Mike once sang a song mocking vegetarians, and although Vegetarian Mumbo Jumbo contains phrases like, “I don’t feel bad about/Eating something that’s dead/So why should I be sad/For cows getting hit in the head?” he later became a vegetarian, citing that, “people change.”

Definitely for the better.

However, the menu at Thistle Hill Tavern co-owned by the NOFX musician has the “Fat Mike” burger being a beefy, grass fed one, despite the fact there’s a vegan burger also on the menu which comes with fried fennel.

Might this have been coined based on Fat Mike’s days of Vegetarian Mumbo Jumbo?

Or did Fat Mike make a change again for the worse?

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“It’s really about evaluating what you eat every day. If you’re familiar with the methane that beef production creates, it exceeds all of our combustion engines combined. Meatless Mondays is not that hard for anybody. It’s probably easier to do than organic. I’m trying to make sure we all have a bridge between ideology and reality.”

—Mario Batali, on why he chose to adopt Meatless Mondays in his 14 restaurants.

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