For those of you who don't already know, I'm a bit of a health nut. I've been a vegetarian for 13 years, and I've been vegan for the past 9 of those years. A vegan is a strict vegetarian who doesn't eat any animal products or by-products. Just to be clear, I practice a vegan diet, not a vegan lifestyle. I still wear leather, I still love honey (how can we avoid eating products from insects? They pollinate food. Duh), and I absolutely hate wearing hemp fabric. I also hate earth tones. I'm not gonna get into an argument with any self righteous vegans over me not "keeping it real" and renouncing leather and shit. Save the drama, baby. One thing is for certain... when the holidays roll around, busy vegans like me who don't have time to cook often end up getting the shaft.
Usually if I don't cook I'll order a meal from a vegetarian restaurant. This year, I'm trying a meal from Karyn's Cooked. For $40 it better be awesome, or they're gonna have a lot of explaining to do.
As any Chicago vegan who's worth their weight in tofu in already knows, Karyn's Raw and Karyn's Cooked are staples in the veggie community. Her meals are always vegan and always made of the highest quality ingredients. I like her food a lot, but many of the raw dishes tend to be kinda salty, and the cooked dishes tend to be a bit heavy in the carbs department. But its yummy, so... ya know... I still eat there. Plus the staff is so friendly and helpful that you can't help but become a regular after your first visit. Who doesn't like friendly people who give you scrumptious food? LOL.
On Thanksgiving,
Karyn's has a
$40 cooked meal that you can order ahead of time and pick up on Wednesday. She serves tofu turkey (I love me some tofurkey,) cornbread stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, gourmet cranberry sauce, string beans, candied yams, salad, a whole wheat dinner roll, and pumpkin pie. I'm in carbohydrate heaven. It better be good, or I'm gonna write SUCH a blog about it.
I've eaten vegetarian meals from other veggie restaurants in the past and they were pretty good. Last year I had
Chicago Diner's meal, which I thought was great, aside from the stuffing. I grew up eating soul food on holidays, so I'm accustomed to corn bread stuffing. Thats what I like and what I want. To me, bread crumb stuffing tastes like croutons that have been soaked in soup, then left out to dry on the countertop. Yeah, that bad. Aside from that, the rest of the meal was great, the flavors were clean and the meal was filling. I love their desserts, they have the best vegan baked goods in the city. And the service is always incredible.
Before that, I used to eat at
Soul Vegetarian every year. Their food is the closest thing that I remember to eating my family's cooking. Its soooooo good! But my only issue with them is that sometimes their food is UBER salty. I don't eat a lot of salt, so it can keep me from being able to enjoy the food. The awesome thing about them, though, is that you don't have to order your meal ahead of time. You can order it Thanksgiving day, and the portions are ample. If you love the taste of home cooking and food made with love and care, this is where you need to go for the holidays. Its affordable, too, and they'll allow you to carry out. Their service wasn't really great, which is why I hardly eat there anymore, but I've heard that it has improved in recent months. So I'd still strongly recommend their holiday dinners.
As we all know, Thanksgiving is not just about remembering how Christopher Columbus ran game on Native Americans and eventually contributed to the downfall of their civilization. Its really all about being grateful for what you have... and getting a mean food coma in the process. Why should vegans/vegetarians be denied of our right to a food coma just because we chose to go veggie? Thats no way to celebrate the holidays. Its unAmerican.
Love it. I went vegetarian at 13, too and I've been vegan for a few years. In the past, I did the Thanksgiving special from Victory's Banner in Roscoe Village and was not disappointed, but I'm trying to stay away from processed soy (I've blogged a bit about it in my Thriving on a Vegan Diet post..processed food is bad, whether it's veg or otherwise and soy is very mucus forming). This year, I'm getting together with other health-conscious friends and we're doing a (mostly) soy-free dinner. Yum. Definitely let me know how the Karyn's meal turns out! -- Maya
www.chicagonow.com/breath
Girrrrl, I have found that I have better breathing, better sleep, and less phlegm when I avoid soy. Its so yummy to me, though! LOL. Wish I'd known about your vegan get together before I dropped that $40 on Karyn's holiday meal, cuz I surely would've invited myself :o) But I have high hopes about her food. Keep your fingers crossed for me :o)
When it comes time for the prayer before eating Thanksgiving dinner, you could share the gobbler's plea to God, Ethic Soup blog's "A Turkey's Thanksgiving Prayer." It's short, funny and, at the end of post, there's a hilarious photo of a turkey's tombstone:
http://www.ethicsoup.com/2009/11/a-turkeys-thanksgiving-prayer.html
omg! that was so funny. and horrible. and funny. i think i'll print it and pass it around, rather than read it and incite a riot :o)
Um I know ya said you don't want ot hear but you ARE NOT A VEGAN SO PLEASE STOP CALLING YOURSELF ONE. Vegans dont wear animals for cheesy clothing such as yourself. You are a vegetarian that wears dead animals for clothing and if you dont care to hear that dont call yourself whatyou are not. I do respect your dietary choices but you need to pull your head out of your fill in the blank...
LOLOLOLOL. No, u don't sound like a self righteous doucher. Not at all.
I adopted the vegan diet for health reasons. I didn't become vegan so that I could pull off the whole "Holier Than Thou" act like you. Its not a status symbol to me. The only reason I've stayed vegan this long is because I learned about the environmental consequences of eating meat. We use a 3rd of the fossil fuels produced here to raise animals for food. There's serious air pollution from the manure and shipping of animals alone. Not to mention how much grain is used to feed them. Ya see, oh Mighty Righteous One, I'm of the opinion that if everybody does SOMETHING to help the environment, we'll fix our planet. There's power in numbers. If thats not good enough for you, then feel free to kneel down on your holy knees and kiss my black ass.
You are right. I was being judgemental and enforcing my beliefs upon you. I realize that I make myself look like a jerk by badgering people about their lifestyle choices on a blog's comment board. (This comment has been edited by Nikki Lynette)
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