Vegetarian Star

Image: Hello ChateauHo on Flickr

Jennifer Swab, director of sustainability for the Sierra Club Green Home, took a trip to Chrissie Hynde’s vegan Italian restaurant, The Vegiterranean.

As expected, reviews of the restaurant’s food were great.

“So how was my meal at VegiTERRANEAN? Spiced tomatoes and chick peas with baby arugula, tofu feta and crustini. Fresh tomato and artichoke bisque with fresh dill. For the main course, fresh whole wheat linguini carbonara with smoked “gardein” chicken, asparagus and leeks. “Gardein” is a type of garden grown protein, actually quite tasty and fulfilling in a tofu sort of way for us “gotta have meat” types. Prices are moderate, the food was fabulous — kudos to executive chef J. Scot Jones — but the service was on the uneven side at best. Let’s just say the kitchen operations could use a tune up.”

Uh-oh. Uneven service doesn’t sound like a total kitchen nightmare, but could operations behind the counter be in need of a little Gordon Ramsay foul mouthed pep talk?

Ramsay should visit anyway, and be forced to down some tofu as punishment for his dozens of snide anti-veg remarks.

Visit The Huffington Post to learn more about Schwab’s experience.

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New York city councilman Tony Avella had plans to discuss removing horse drawn carriages from city streets at a public hearing today, according to the New York Post.

“In the last 18 months, there have been at least seven accidents involving horses in the city, with three horses killed and five people injured,” said Avella.

“And that’s only the ones we know about,” he said.

Several celebrities have shown their support to end the long tradition, including Alec Baldwin and Chrissie Hynde.

Baldwin once compared the industry to “drug dealers” and “public intoxication” and Glee star Lea Michele lent her face to a PETA advertisement, Buck Cruelty.

Cited by The Gothamist, New York state director for the Humane Society Patrick Swan said, “Carriage horses often work in oppressive and inhumane weather conditions, including in the sweltering heat and extreme cold. The horses were forced to work – despite the bitter cold, despite the icy, dangerous and slippery conditions, and despite current laws that say they should not have been out on the streets working and competing in the traffic with emergency vehicles.”

Avella hopes to take 220 horses off the streets of the NYC.

Will some of them retire through the Carriage Horse Adoption Program?

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Telvision hosts of The Hour Michelle McManus and Stephen Jardine summed up some of their favorite moments from the show during 2009.

McManus said hosting musician Juliette Lewis was one of her most memorable episodes and she was rewarded with vegetarian haggis in a Scottish goodie bag.

Jardine’s favorite interview was with none other than vegan activist and musician Chrissie Hynde.

The Hour returns to television January 4 2010.

If more moments like Juliette and Chrissie occur next year, producers might have to rename it The Hour of Veg Love.

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Scot Jones, executive head chef of Chrissie Hynde’s restaurant, The Vegiterranean, said the word “vegan” never appeared in his culinary classes.

Just goes to show you don’t learn everything you need in school, because now Jones teaches Thanksgiving cooking classes for vegans.

“I love Thanksgiving,” Jones said. “It’s the harvest month. You have such wonderful harvest. Squash, different nuts are coming into season, things of that nature — things that are great, like fresh cranberry.”

“If you concentrate on a side dish, and pack it full of flavor, you don’t miss the animal protein,” Jones said.

Jones taught his students to make dishes such as vegetable pot pie with tofu, raw honey cheesecake bars, and wild green salad with a tofu ricotta cheese.

This Thanksgiving, Jones plans to make a sweet potato, leek, soy mozzarella and thyme au gratin.

What’s on your menu for veggie Thanksgiving?

via stylemagazine.com

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Chrissie Hynde posed with these two lovely models in a photo shoot for the book Cows and the Earth: A Story of Kinder Dairy Farming.

The book by Ranchor Prime contains a preface by Chrissie, and details an experiment which ran a dairy farm without slaughtering animals or using fossil fuels.

Chrissie got to fulfill a lifelong dream and milk a cow.

“She said to me, ‘One of the things I’ve always wanted to do before I die is to milk a cow,’ so she spent the day hand-milking cows at the manor,” a source said. “She loved it, she spent the whole day there.”

Wonder if Chrissie also got bovine autographs before the day ended.

Hynde has spoken out against the dairy industry, saying it “turns cows into robots” and uses “grotesque and archaic machinery”.

“We need to reassess our relationship to the natural world,” the singer added.

If experiments like the one described in Cows and the Earth can be applied to more dairy farms, would you consume milk again knowing no animals would be slaughtered?

via independent.co.uk

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"The Conscious Cook" Tal Ronnen

Chef Tal Ronnen is the author of The Conscious Cook, a hot new cookbook being snatched off the bookshelves by vegetarians, vegans and food lovers in general. Tal is the chef who helped design Oprah Winfrey’s meal plans when she went vegan for 21 days and has worked with Chrissie Hynde’s restaurant, The Vegiterranean. He’s been a vegetarian for 19 years and a vegan for 11 years. Tal took a few moments away from braising tempeh to give Vegetarian Star an exclusive interview.

Tofu, Tempeh, or Seitan:
It depends on the application. I think my personal preference for home is definitely tempeh. It’s a less processed product. It’s fermented so it’s got nutritional benefits from the fermentation process. With that said, it has to be cooked properly. People will just cut tempeh up and sauté it or stir fry it or something like that. [But] Because it’s so dense, it’s hard to get any flavor to penetrate. Tofu just acts like a sponge, it just sucks up all the marinade. [With] Tempeh, the best way to get the flavor in there is to braise it. So cook it in a flavorful liquid and the flavors can change based on the dish that you cook. So if you’re doing something like Tex Mex or South of the Border you can braise it in a stock that’s got chilies and peppers. If you’re doing something like Asian, it can have soy sauce or ginger. When you’re cooking it in a broth, you’re able to penetrate tempeh. After it’s cooked in a broth, you start cooking with it. So I can grill it or sauté it, but the first step for me whenever I work with tempeh is to braise it.

On Guest Chefs in The Conscious Cook:
We wanted to have a really broad view of what professional vegetarian cooking looks like. And [we did this] by bringing in people who have influenced me or I’ve influenced throughout the years. All the chefs that are highlighted in the book are people who’ve been a big influence in my culinary career or someone that I’ve worked with very closely. And by doing that we’re able to really show different perspectives in the book, not just my perspective with vegetarian cooking.

Favorite recipes from The Conscious Cook:
I love the celery root soup. I love the Gardein scaloppini with the shiitake sauce. And the banana  rum cheesecake I think is really great.

Learn how Tal got a school district in southern California to put veggie burgers on the menu after the jump… (more…)

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Chrissie Hynde. Image Credit: Hello ChateauHo on Flickr

Chrissie Hynde’s co-owned Vegiterranean vegan restaurant in her hometown of Akron, Ohio is celebrating Halloween in the kindest of manners this year.

Saturday, October 31, the restaurant will host a pumpkin carving contest from 5PM to 7PM. The entry fee is $10 and proceeds go to Happy Trails Animal Sanctuary, which, according to its website, “is a non-profit (501c3) organization that rescues, rehabilitates, and provides an adoption program for abused, abandoned, and neglected farm animals such as horses, ponies, pot belly pigs, farm pigs, chickens, ducks, turkeys, sheep, goats, and cattle. Happy Trails serves the entire state of Ohio, and works in cooperation with county humane societies, animal protective leagues, and local and state law enforcement officers.”

Prizes will be awarded.

Later at 7PM, the restaurant will have a fall Harvest dinner, then a Halloween costume party of 9PM, with appetizers, drink specials and prizes awarded for best costumes.

The Vegiterranean is located at 21 Furnace Street in Akron, Ohio.

via ohio.com

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Oprah Winfrey will host vegan Chef Tal Ronnen, author of The Conscious Cook today on her show.

Chef Ronnen helped design Oprah’s meal plans when she went vegan for 21 days and also played a huge role in developing the menu for Chrissie Hynde’s restaurant, The Vegiterranean.

We have a special treat for our readers next week involving Tal, the conscious cook.

Be sure to check back to find out more!

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