And the consumer becomes the consumed!

It’s October 31st, folks! You know what that means: Halloween and the end of VeganMoFo. Thirty-one days, thirty-one posts. I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted….and totally looking forward to VeganMoFo IV!

The Mr. and I will spend the day taking in an orgy of Halloween horror movies and vegan junk food, so I don’t have enough time to put together a cohesive post. But that’s okay, because hopefully you don’t have time to read a cohesive post.

On the schedule for today, movie-wise, is:

- The Alphabet Killer (2008)

The Alphabet Killer is based on the double initial killings in Rochester, New York in the early 1970s. Eliza Dusku stars as Megan Paige, a police officer who is highly committed to the job. She develops schizophrenia, lasting for more than six months, and includes one month of active symptoms such as illusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, and grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior. Megan’s obsession leads her to a breakdown and a violent episode which lands her in the hospital. She eventually loses her fiance, Kenneth (Cary), and her job. Two years later Megan is back working as an advisor, but her more or less normal life goes to hell again when another murder is called in. Her fire rekindled, Megan sets out to find the killer, and this time she plans to get the job done, with or without the department’s assistance.

Fairly B-grade stuff, but it’s set in my hometown, so it’s a no-brainer. Still waiting on the Arthur Shawcross Lifetime movie-of-the-week.

- Ginger Snaps (2000)

Is becoming a woman analogous, in some deep psychological way, to becoming a werewolf? Ginger is 16, edgy, tough, and, with her younger sister, into staging and photographing scenes of death. They’ve made a pact about dying together. In early October, on the night she has her first period, which is also the night of a full moon, a werewolf bites Ginger. Within a few days, some serious changes happen to her body and her temperament. Her sister Brigitte, 15, tries to find a cure with the help of Sam, a local doper. As Brigitte races against the clock, Halloween and another full moon approach, Ginger gets scarier, and it isn’t just local dogs that begin to die.

Feminist horror: yes, please! (See also: Teeth. No, seriously, go watch it. Now!)

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Update, 11/1/09: Shiny news! The Gentle Barn reported today (via Facebook) that a rescue group is set to take #A260656.

All is right with the world…or at least in Cage 25, Cell Block A at the Pasadena Humane Society.

Like the Gentle Barn, I don’t normally pass along notices of individual animals in need of rescue, but #A260656 really yanked at my heartstrings. The unnamed purebred Labrador is 11 years old, black, large – and has a tumor on her stomach. In case anyone’s counting, that’s four strikes; you do the math. If you live in or near Pasadena, and/or have any connections in the animal rescue community, please help this old girl out. She’s currently staying at the Pasadena Humane Society (Animal Shelter? one and the same?).

Feel free to crosspost or link to this alert; Gentle Barn also posted this to its Facebook album, here.

There are no such things as miracles – just kind, compassionate, caring people.

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: The Gentle Barn – info [at] gentlebarn.org
Date: Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 7:11 PM
Subject: Sweet Labrador Needs Your Love

Sweet Labrador Needs Your Love

Normally, The Gentle Barn doesn’t send out pleas to help place dogs or other animals. However, from time to time, one will slip through and pull at our heart strings. Below is just such a dog.

This senior purebred lab needs a home now! She is eleven years young and is the sweetest, most loving beauty. Just look at that face! I can’t believe the look in her eyes. She deserves a loving home and a family to love her, but because she has a tumor on her tummy, she is at risk for immediate euthanasia by strangers in a cold, scary room at the Pasadena Animal shelter.

She is great with other animals and kids. She has more life to live and more love to give. If you are interested in giving this angel a dignified retirement and giving yourself a sweet, black bundle of unstoppable love and cuteness, please ACT NOW! She may not be allowed to live through the weekend. Since The Gentle Barn offices are closed during the weekend, please contact the Pasadena Animal Shelter directly to save her life. Their phone number is 626-792-7151 and her shelter ID# is A260656.

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Since VeganMoFo is coming to a close, I decided to spend the afternoon experimenting with two recipes I’ve been meaning to try, namely, Green Tea Cupcakes and Black Bean Brownies. You may recall that I vowed to try the former at the beginning of the month – and what kind of VeganMoFo’er would I be if I broke that one teensy-weeny little promise?

(Actually, funny story. When making the black bean brownies, I spent five+ minutes trying to coax the cover of the food processor to lock into place. Turns out I had it on backwards the whole time. But wait! That’s not all! Later on, I set the oven timer to what I thought was 30 minutes. It went off 30 seconds later. Oy. Turns out I’m not much of a MoFo’er after all!)

First up: Green Tea Cupcakes with Matcha Glaze from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World. Two words: Fucking. Awesome. Seriously, these things rock. Assuming you like green tea, which I totally do.

The Matcha Glaze is kinda funky; before looking the recipe over, I thought the frosting would be a variation of Isa’s iconic vegan buttercream concoction, but as the name implies, it’s really a glaze. It’s different, but nicely so. Also a bit of a relief, because the sugar-heavy buttercream tends to give me a sugar headache. (Any tips for reducing the sugar content? Should I just add more shortening/less sugar? Anyone?)

Matcha is on the expensive side, but most recipes don’t call for all that much. I originally purchased a small box to try out in the Green Tea recipe from Wheeler del Torro’s The Vegan Scoop (also awesome, btw); now, methinks it’ll remain a pantry regular.

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Though I hope to eventually pen a piece about canine nutrition vis-à-vis veganism and vegetarianism, this isn’t it! Since I don’t have much time for background research, and don’t want to half-ass it, I’ll have to save that topic for another time. Instead of convincing you to feed your dog-kids a vegan or vegetarian diet – assuming you have dog-kids, that is – this VeganMoFo post is all about feeding your dog-kids a vegan diet (or foodstuffs), frugally.

Granted, commercial vegan and vegetarian dog foods are more expensive than their non-veg counterparts, and feeding your dog-kids a diet consisting solely of homemade food requires enough expertise that I don’t recommend it. Or rather, I can’t advise you on how to do it. You see, even though I occasionally feature recipes for homemade dog food, I primarily feed my kids commercial kibble: ’twas Nature’s Recipe Vegetarian formula for awhile, but we recently switched to V-Dog. Though it’s a little more expensive, it’s also confirmed vegan (DelMonte never would respond to my inquiries). The homemade goodies are more of a “topping,” if you will, to add a little variety to their meals. So all in all, we do spend a pretty penny on dog food in the Garbato-Brady household, homemade goodies notwithstanding.

Luckily, there are other ways to cut costs:

- Make your own dog treats. As with vegan dog food, vegan dog treats can be a little pricey, so you can save some cash by baking treats yourself. In contrast to food, which must meet your dog-kid’s nutritional requirements, treats are extras, so diy is just fine! Just go easy on the fat, salt, sugar and calories, mkay? Also, always check and double-check the ingredients to confirm that they aren’t harmful to canines.

Dogs also tend to be less discriminating eaters than people (well, me), so experiment with abandon, and don’t be afraid to substitute in less expensive ingredients when necessary. Chances are, your kids will enjoy whatever you create. Plus, is there anything cooler than giving your dog-kid a treat you baked especially for her, with nothing but love? (And an oven!)

For treat ideas, check out It’s A Vegan Dog’s Life, Yummy for Dogs and the Innocent Primate Vegan Blog, for starters.

The obvious downside to baking your own biscuits is that they don’t keep as well as the store-bought stuff, so it’s a little harder to keep some on hand at all times (you never know when you’ll need to entice your dog-kid away from a found animal corpse, am I right?). However, this brings us to the next tip:

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Though I’ve been focusing on healthy, frugal vegan foods this month, I have a confession to make: I’m a pizza addict. The Mr. and I have pizza for dinner several times a week. And it’s not exactly the healthy, low-fat, veggie-loaded, cheeseless kind – not even close!

Usually, we make these cute lil’ mini-/personal pizzas using pita bread as the base, but every few weeks or so, we go all out and make large pizzas from scratch.

Okay, well, not totally from scratch: the dough is fresh, but the sauce is canned, as are the black olives. I guess you could say that the faux pepperoni and soy cheese are made from scratch, just not by us (our artisans of choice are Lightlife and Follow Your Heart, respectively). The sundried tomatoes may or may not be homegrown and homemade (read: dried); while I still have a batch from 2008 stashed in the freezer, our garden was a huge fail this year, and we’ll probably deplete our stores by the end of November. But it’s too painful a subject to discuss quite yet. Sigh.

Anyhow, the pita pizzas make for a quick and convenient meal; not only does the pita bread allow you to forgo the dough-making step, but the pita is also small enough that the pizzas are edible as-is, no cutting required. The larger pizzas are another story.

While fresh-made dough requires some planning ahead, it’s more time-consuming than difficult. Rather, we’ve found ourselves plagued by a problem of a different sort: namely, slicing the layer of thick, gooey vegan cheese and through the crispy crust underneath. Though I’ve never had dairy-based cheese (I’m allergic to milk, making the transition to veganism that much easier), Shane swears that pizzas with vegan cheese are infinitely harder to cut than their non-vegan counterparts. For a while I assumed that the problem lay in our cheap-ass cutlery, but we always manage to make a mess of our pizza toppings, no matter the sharpness (or dullness) of the knives used. We even tried a few of those charming little pizza-cutters-on-a-wheel, with little luck.

About twelve months ago, Shane started going on about an idea he had for “the perfect pizza cutter.” I rolled my eyes not a few times, especially since he was going through this Billy Mays* / Anthony Sullivan fascination phase. But he kept on with it, contacting local metallurgists and welders in his spare time. I more or less humored him, thinking that it would be so insanely expensive to commission a custom-made piece from a professional that the idea wouldn’t go anywhere. And a few metalworkers did give crazy high quotes – we’re talking $500 and up (thanks, but no thanks). Still he persisted, and got in touch with a welder – with experience in kitchen utensil development, to boot! – who was willing to do the job for fee low enough that I couldn’t say no.

And so the Perfect Pizza Press was born!

I have to hand it to him: he came up with a really kickass idea.

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Okay, so this might seem like a rather obvious tip, but it’s been a long, exhausting day, and I just have to do this one last thing before I can retire to bed with a pint of Purely Decadent and the remote control. I will have a perfect VeganMoFo III record, dammit!

So, where were we? Ingredient prep. When you purchase ingredients that have been prepared beforehand – for example, lettuce that’s already been shredded, pre-mixed spices, growth-stunted carrots, etc. – you’re paying not just for the price of the food, but also for the additional handling and processing, as well as the added convenience to you, the consumer. Sometimes the cost is negligible; other times, the markup can be significant. By purchasing raw, unprocessed ingredients and preparing them yourself, you can save a little extra money every week. Time spent in the kitchen translates to cash in the wallet.

For example:

- Baby carrots usually cost more per pound than full-sized carrots. Whereas you have to peel, wash and slice large carrots, baby carrots just require a quick bath in the kitchen sink before they’re ready to eat. Luckily, peeling carrots: not that hard. Just invest $5 in an ergonomic peeler, and you’re good to go.

- A whole head of lettuce is cheaper than bags of shredded lettuce or pre-made salad. Again, lettuce isn’t that hard to prepare for use. However, unless you’re able to consume a whole head before it goes bad, bagged lettuce might prove less expensive in the long run. On the downside: all that wasted packaging.

- Corn that has been pre-husked and tethered in plastic to a Styrofoam board: just don’t do it. Seriously, no.

- Spice mixes are sometimes (but not always) marked up more than the cost of their individual spices. Before you buy a seasoning blend, ask yourself if it’s something you could make on your own. The most egregious example of this I’ve seen is a newer phenomenon: cinnamon and sugar packaged together in a blend. I bet I could teach my smartest dog-kid to combine 1 part cinnamon with 1 part sugar in a small tupperware container and shake ’til mixed. Hell, I do it in a half-groggy morning stupor once every few weeks – and I don’t function well before 10 AM.

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There are several “actionable items” – not quite action alerts, but rather opportunities for participation, if that makes sense – I’ve been meaning to share, but just haven’t had the time to blog about in depth. Rather than neglect these projects altogether, here’s a handy-dandy roundup. Please scan through each item and help out where you can; these virtual volunteer opportunities are perfect for activists who have more extra time than they do money!

1. Science

It really chaps my rotund hide when speciesists claim that animal advocates are “anti-science.” Being all diverse and stuff, I’m sure the animal rights and welfare movements are home to a fair share of science-averse humans, but for the most part, we’re hardly anti-science. On the contrary: many of us harness the power of scientific research to demonstrate that veganism is a healthier alternative to “meat” and dairy consumption; that nonhuman animals can experience complex thoughts and emotions; that our exploitation of nonhumans animals is both unnecessary and harmful; etc., etc., etc. (you get the idea). On the whole, I don’t think we’re any more anti-science than our omni counterparts.

Personally, I love science; once upon a time, I wanted to be a clinical psychologist, specializing in anthrozoology and world vegan (then vegetarian, but wev) domination. I still peruse research articles and scientific journals (of a social nature) on occasion, just for the fun of it. No, it’s not science per se that I take issue with. Rather, I object to the imprisonment, torture, killing and exploitation of sentient, non-consenting animals, usually for redundant and frivolous research.

So I’ve become increasingly interested in “vegan” science, particularly in supporting such endeavors whenever possible. For example, I would love to donate my body to science when I die. The thought of spending my “afterlife” rotting away on a body farm somewhere brings a smile to my face; doubly so if my remains can save a nonhuman animal from being birthed, tortured and killed in the name of science. Oooh, Dr. Brennan, pick me, pick me!

Anyhow, when I saw an ad for research volunteers in the latest issue of Best Friends magazine, I immediately fired off an email to Dr. Frank McMillan to see how I might help. He pointed me to five open surveys, all of which are related to studies he’s conducting at Best Friends (as described here):

Dr. Franklin McMillan has been the director of well-being studies at Best Friends since October 2007. As director of well-being studies, Dr. Frank assesses and studies the mental health and emotional well-being of animals who have endured hardship, adversity and psychological trauma. Through these studies, he hopes to learn what the effects of trauma are – the psychological injuries and scars – and how best to treat them in order to restore to these animals a life of enjoyment rather than one of fear and emotional distress.

He is currently conducting such studies on cats from the Great Kitty Rescue in Pahrump, Nevada – an institutionalized hoarding situation – and the fighting dogs taken from the estate of former NFL quarterback Michael Vick.

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Green Giant Steamers, I can’t believe this is the last week of October – and of VeganMoFo 2009! It’s been rather exhausting, this daily blogging, and yet I feel like I’m just getting started – there’s so much more to say! It’s all good, though; since I’m vegan 365 days a year (366 in 2012), I can get my VeganMoFo on whenever, wherever, with whomever I want. (Um, just don’t tell Shane I said that.)

Anyhow, for our very last Monday Mashup of the month, I decided to go with a frugal vegan theme. All of these dishes are made with relatively inexpensive, readily available ingredients. You name it, we’ve got it: veggies, fruits, pasta, grains, beans, tofu, pancakes, cookies, pie, breakfast, lunch, brunch, dinner and dessert – represent! Veganism: truthy, yes; inconvenient, not so much.

Now if you’ll excuse me, those twice-baked potatoes are calling my name…

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Astute readers may notice that I linked to this particular Kinship Circle alert several weeks ago as part of my weekly link roundup. Even so, since this shooting occurred in Raymore, Missouri – i.e., in my neck of the woods – I formatted and posted the alert in full on the KC Freecycle blog, and figured I may as well repost it here as well.

This is just one of several animal cruelty cases highlighted by Kinship Circle in the past month; see also:

10/20/09: Two Dogs Shot At Point Blank Range In New York

10/13/09: Get Serial Cat Killer Off New York Streets

If you choose to contact officials in any of these cases, feel free to append this animal abuse reference list to your correspondence.

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Kinship Circle – info [at] kinshipcircle.org
Date: Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 4:36 PM
Subject: Act/ Cop Shoots Deaf, 19-Year-Old Family Cat

KINSHIP CIRCLE PRIMARY / PERMISSION TO CROSSPOST
10/10/09: Cop Shoots Deaf, 19-Year-Old Family Cat

Tobey the cat who was shot and killed by Raymore, MO police. (source)

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———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Kinship Circle – info [at] kinshipcircle.org
Date: Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 3:48 PM
Subject: Act/ Pass Calif Declaw Bans, So Other Cities Follow

KINSHIP CIRCLE PRIMARY / PERMISSION TO CROSSPOST

10/8/09: Pass California Declaw Bans, So Other Cities Follow
**SEND COMMENTS BEFORE 10/27/09, WHEN SANTA MONICA MAY VOTE ON A BAN**

EVERYONE SHOULD SEND COMMENTS to Santa Monica and Malibu city officials.
Opposing lobbies such as the CVMA and SCVMA certainly will. Let’s be louder. Declawing hurts. It’s a “surgery of convenience” for people with no benefit for cats. Every city that bans it sets an example for the next city…

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