My friends, gym-mates, and fellow vegans Shalon and Violet will represent Pacific Ring Sports on the undercard for an all-woman, Muay Thai competition on October 25 in Daly City.
I'm looking forward to watching them kick ass in their amateur debuts. Wish them luck! (And good luck to Diane, too!)
Last week, I helped Melisser prepare for a busy weekend at San Francisco's World Veg Festival with Sugar Beat Sweets. She had spent the previous day in the kitchen with the talented Carmen, baking hundreds of cupcakes and mixing up giant bowls of frosting. I came in on Friday for 11 hours of more cupcake making and non-stop frosting-piping. As much as I love baking, it was a long day!
On Saturday, Sugar Beat Sweets set up a booth at Veg Fest next to the friendly folks at Save A Bunny and their adorable, and amazingly calm, Mr. Pinkerton.
Cinnamon buns, brownies, and candy corn went quickly and were gone by the early afternoon.
We had 8 flavors of cupcakes: Chocolate, Vanilla, PB&J, Orange Dreamsicle, Snickerdoodle, Peppermint Patty, Peanut Butter Cup, and Chocolate Snowball.
It was another long day, but lots of fun! It was great seeing young children get excited at the opportunity to indulge in treats that they probably have watch sadly as their peers devour the conventional versions at school and parties. The crowd loved Melisser's recipes, with several repeat customers coming back again and again, claiming they were the best cupcakes they had ever tasted.
The kind Antonio of Flacos traded cupcakes for his crew, for a delicious lunch of tamales, taquitos, and pozole. Our friend, personal chef Jesse Miner gave a presentation about cooking and preparing heirloom beans and shared the leftover garlicky bruschetta with us. There were also samples galore from the various food and services vendors throughout the hall.
If you missed out on cupcakes and are in the Bay Area, make sure to stop by any of these locations that carry Sugar Beat Sweets:
Rainbow Grocery - 1745 Folsom @ 14th Street
Other Avenues - 3930 Judah Street @ 44th Avenue
Real Food Co. - 2140 Polk @ Broadway
Ike's Place - 3506 16th St @ Sanchez
Underdog - 1634 Irving St @ 17th Avenue
Harvest Urban Market - 191 8th St @ Howard
Melisser also takes special orders through her website.
October 4th and 5th brings the World Veg Festival to San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. There will be speakers, cooking demos, tasty food, and other good things.
Saturday & Sunday, October 4 & 5, 2008
$6 suggested donation
Free for Kids, Students, & Seniors
San Francisco County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park, entrance 9th Ave & Lincoln Way
Sugar Beat Sweets will have a booth with cupcakes and other goodies for sale. I'll be helping Melisser out on Saturday, so stop by to say hi!
Don't let these burnt cupcakes die in vain!
Thanks to Living in the O for the tip, and for those of you in the East Bay who don't already know, Middle Harbor Shoreline Park in West Oakland is just about the coolest park ever.
It's about 1 1/2 miles from West Oakland BART (or 3 miles from downtown, or a nice 6 mile cruise from my place in the North). Since it's in the Port, access can be a little sketchy during the week with all the semis and such, but the roads are like a ghost town on the weekends and very flat, with the exception of a slight grade at the underpass, making biking a breeze.
Gorgeous views of San Francisco, the bridge, and the bay; grassy fields and a little, sandy beach in the shadow of the cranes; plus trails and an observation tower.
Ever since he heard Becks mention it, shane has been fascinated with the idea of Pie, Mash, and Liquor. With the Premier League season now underway and his two favorite teams playing each other this past weekend, we decided it was due time for a pie mash party. I modified this recipe for minced beef pie, subbing seitan for beef; using extra mushrooms and carrots, plus some thyme, for additional flavor; and threw in a few new potatoes I had lying around.
We sauteed the onions and mushrooms first, to remove most of the water, then added the rest of the vegetables and seitan and let them cook for a few more minutes before tossing in the garlic and thyme until fragrant. Next came some tomato paste and mustard. Once mixed, I added a couple spoons of flour and stirred it in well and let the starch cook for a moment. Finally, I added some water to form a gravy. The whole mix was simmered for about 15 minutes until the potatoes were tender.
I made a basic pie crust recipe and rolled it out to line the individual pie tins. Each tin received a couple ladels of filling before getting a top crust put on.
They were baked at 350F for about 25 minutes until golden and served with mashed potatoes and parsley liquor.
Along with some root beers (thanks, Neel!), we had the perfect game meal. Arsenal had a sorry showing and lost to almost-relegated Fulham, 1-0.
To complete our fine meal, Pranjal brought a trifle of sponge cake, strawberry custard and jelly, strawberries, bananas, and whipped cream. It was like 5 delicious desserts rolled into one!
There's rumors of fry ups or fish and chips for next time. We need to put Neel's deep fryer to work!
I've been a bad blogger! I apologize for the lack of posts recently. I hope to have some new recipes up soon.
Meet Hiboux:
She's our new tortie from the East Bay SPCA They're currently having a deal on cat adoption fees, so please check them out if you're looking for a new, furry friend. She's been keeping us very busy!
Also, Melisser's bakery is up and running. Please contact Sugar Beat Sweets if you're in need of some tasty treats in the Bay Area for your special event.
And happy birthday to our comrades Sergio and Lizzi. We had the pleasure of enjoying some awesome vegan food at Sergio and Jo's lovely home this weekend, courtesy of Sergio's mom, and Josh and Emily and their vegan grill. I made a 4-layer, basil-lemongrass cake with tapioca filling and coconut frosting, but unfortunately didn't get any shots of it. I hope everyone enjoyed it!
So you don't own a turntable, or care for sneakers, but really want to stand in line for hours for some limited edition gear? Actually, there's no line-standing involved, just some button-pushing.
Buy a t-shirt from Zu Boutique and help my friend Danny support his life of leisure.
If you make a purchase, be sure to include a note demanding that Danny use this money to adopt a sweet dog in need of a loving home.
