Back in my less ethical omni/dietary vegetarian days, I was a big fan of Doc Martens. And I say this as someone who was never really into shoes to begin with (certainly not in a stereotypically “girly” way, anyhow). In particular, I had this one pair of gold, glittery sequined boots that were just fierce. My shit kickers, I called ‘em, but not because they were designed for wear while doing hard, dirty labor – rather, they imparted a feeling of bad-assness (assitude?), such that I felt like I could cut through any amount of bullshit while stomping around in those bad girls. (Think definition #6 vs. #1 in the Urban Dictionary.)

So when the nice folks at Vegan Chic offered to send me a pair of winter boots for review, I jumped at the offer – more specifically, at their Workshoe-Inspired Women’s Vegan Boot. Alas, so did everyone else; in the time it took me to shoot an email to a Vegan Chic rep, my size sold out! Luckily, these shoes proved so popular that Vegan Chic recommissioned them. Score! I received my very own pair a few weeks ago, I am happy to report.

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My mother is notoriously difficult to shop for. If you buy her clothing, odds are she won’t like it. Give her jewelry, most likely she won’t wear it (allergies). She doesn’t have much extra time to read books or watch movies; now that her nest is empty, she works three jobs (making her kids look like lazy asshats in comparison!). Edible yumyums are a good choice, but I’ve fallen back on chocolates so often that I’m starting to look somewhat unimaginative. So when Mother’s Day came around, I found myself in bit of a pickle. And while I love pickles, it’s not my favorite place to be.

For whatever reason, Etsy came to mind, and I decided to check it out. The craftacular Etsy, by the by,

is a website that provides the general public with a way to buy and sell handmade items as well as vintage items and craft supplies. Handmade items cover a wide range including art, photography, clothing, jewelry, edibles, bath & beauty products, and toys. The site follows in the tradition of open craft fairs, giving sellers personal storefronts where they list their goods for a fee.

Etsy allows sellers to self-organize into different “teams” – which are kind of like plazas composed of similar store fronts. Teams can form around a location, craft, medium, interest, lifestyle, philosophy…I think you know where I’m going with this! Etsy boasts two teams of interest: EtsyVeg (tagline: “Your source for unique goods from vegan and vegetarian artisans”) and the more discriminating Vegan Etsy (“We Read Ingredients” – please and thank you!).

After much browsing – I am an obsessive comparison shopper – I settled on some baked goods from The Cupcake Mint: 1 Dozen Giant Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies; 4 Oatmeal Raisin Spice Vegan Cookie Cream Sandwiches; and Half Dozen Jumbo Vegan Cinnamon Rolls, samples of which are pictured above (photo courtesy my lil’ sis). Naturally, I cannot attest to the yumminess of any of these, since 1,000+ miles separated my mother the baked goods and myself, but I heard from my mother, my grandmother, and yes, even my sister that they were incredible: huge, gooey, soft, sweet – everything cookies and pastries should be. Win!

Anyhow, since my minor victory, I’ve taken to browsing Etsy in search of gift ideas. I prefer to support fellow vegans with my purchasing power whenever possible, and Etsy is home to some really talented vegans! (Many of them women, which is a double bonus for this vegan feminist.)

For example, the Vegan Etsy team features 146 members, including these storefronts, which are among my favorites:

* The Cupcake Mint, whose specialty is – duh! – cupcakes. Mark my words, cinnamon rolls – one day, you will be mine.

* KT’s Kitchen – Another vegan bakery, KT’s has a wide variety of goods, including Liz Lemon cookies, which makes me all smiley and happy.

* UberDuperCreations, which sells handmade dog dishes and treat jars, as well as vegan and animal rights zines. Dog treat production will be resuming sometime in the future!

* SweetFritsy is home to vegan baked goods and some homemade candies, too. Everything is crazy cute, especially the seasonal Halloween goodies.

* Cody Pendent rocks the party. And if you were to buy me the Little Red Riding Hood, you’d totally rock, too. (*wink, wink*)

* Starrlight Jewelry makes incredibly gorgeous goth jewelry – and for animal companions, too.

I could go on and on, but seeing as it’s 7PM and I’ve yet to eat dinner, probably all I’ll do is inventory vegan bakeries and drool on my keyboard, so it’s best to wrap this shit up. Etsy can be a magical place for vegans, especially if you know where to shop! Many of the sellers are individual DIYers or small businesses, so if you have a special request or need something made custom, Etsy is your friend. There are also lots of good deals to be had, plus the aforementioned fuzzy wuzzies that come from supporting Team Vegan.

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Today was a gorgeous autumn day: warm and sunny, not hot, not cold – the perfect t-shirt weather.

(Lucky for me, the UPS delivery person brought me a shiny new animal rights tee this very afternoon, along with some replacement Dandies and nomnomnom! Go Max Go bars from Vegan Essentials

- but I digress, big time.)

Because it’s also likely that today was the last such day this season (oh 10-day forecast, why must you mock me so?!), I spent much of it outside, doing yard work (redundant much?) while the dog-kids frolicked, burrowed, grazed, lounged. They’re delightfully exhausted now – it was all Rennie could do to lift her head upon hearing Ozzy’s hungry meows echo from down the hallway – and so is their mommy. But whereas those lazy fuckers can nap ’til dawn, I still have a VeganMoFo post to write!

‘Tis a good thing I hit the kitch today. While waiting for the weather to warm this morning, I made the dogs a pot of (Liquid) smokey, (nutritional yeast) cheezy potato soup. Having finished their sweet potato soup yesterday afternoon, I wasn’t left with much of a choice now, was I? (Eat their kibble plain? Blasphemy!) I needed a replacement, and fast. I was too rushed to find and follow a recipe, so I improvised. ‘Twas a success all around – I liked the dish (well, up until I mixed in the nutritional yeast – I’m not a fan), and come lunch time, they gobbled it down with gusto. Maybe your dog-kids would enjoy this gravy on their kibble too?

Cheezy Smokey Potato Soup

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A while back, I purchased a few boxes/bags each of the Sweet & Sara and Dandies vegan marshmallows, with plans to pit them against one another in a vegan marshmallow cage match. True to form, though, I’ve proven agave nectar-slow to testing them under similar circumstances. Since I’ve already shared my marshmallow-laden Chocolate Coffee Marshmallow Swirl recipe, though, I think the time has come (and nearly gone), preparedness be damned.

v.

Aesthetics

Whereas the pillowy shape of Dandies resembles that of traditional, gelatin-based marshmallows, Sweet & Saras are square, squat and dense.

Winner: Dandies are cuter, but I’m loathe to endorse lookism. Tie.

Flavors

Sweet & Saras come in three flavors: vanilla, vanilla coated in toasted coconut flakes, and strawberry. In addition to marshmallows, the company also sells S’Mores (both “plain” and peanut butter flavored) and Rocky Road bark. I can vouch for the yumminess of all, save for the strawberry marshmallows, which were not available when I placed an order.

Dandies are, as of this writing, only available in one flavor: vanilla. Give ‘em time, though, they’re still noobs.

Winner: The point goes to Sweet & Sara for creativity.

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Vaute Couture –

Perhaps you’ve heard of them? They’re a vegan fashion house based in Chicago? Supportive of emerging artists, eco-friendly and cruelty-free? Founder Leanne Mai-ly Hilgar was recently named one of the “20 Under 30″ by VegNews magazine? (You remember! – the list that made the rest of us vegans feel like sorry slackers?)

- anyhow, in 2008, Vaute Couture announced that they wanted to design and launch a special new winter coat, the sale of which would benefit Farm Sanctuary. VC left the specifics of the planned peacoat up to a popular vote, which closed last October. The result? A seriously cute pea/dress coat, dubbed the Vaute Coat (and also known, quite appropriately, as the “Farm Sanctuary benefit coat”). Naturally, it’s 100% vegan and way too expensive for my pocketbook. But if you *heart* fashion and Farm Sanctuary – or *heart* someone who does (a blogger, by any chance? maybe she has a potty mouth and wears a size medium?) – the Vaute Coat would make a sweet x-mas gift, just not to die for.

Here are the details, via Farm Sanctuary:

Introducing Fall/Winter’s Must-Have Item: The First High Style + Function Coat with a Conscience

– Sales of Vaute Couture’s 100% Vegan, Ethically Produced Coat to Benefit Farm Sanctuary’s Rescue and Rehabilitation Work for Abused Farm Animals –

– Activist Fashion House on Forefront of Vegan Fashion Trend –

Chicago, IL – July 14, 2009 – When Michael Jackson sang about turning up the collar on his favorite winter coat in “Man in the Mirror,” his anthem to discovering your ethical core, he very well could have been singing about Vaute Couture’s mission to change the world one fabulously chic, vegan, eco-conscious coat at a time. This fall/winter, the Chicago-based activist fashion house is “gonna make a change” for farm animals with the launch of their limited run “Vaute” coat. Already on the wish list of conscientious fashion forward women around the world and guaranteed to become your favorite winter coat, all profits from the sale of this runway-worthy coat are being donated to Farm Sanctuary, the nation’s leading farm animal protection organization, to support their vital mission to end cruelty to animals and promote compassionate living through rescue, education and advocacy.

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Update, 5/19/09:

Stephanie (of the Animal Rights blog at Change.org) also wrote about That’s Why We Don’t Eat Animals, and the importance of children’s books in fostering compassion in the next generation. Check it out – as a former nanny, her thoughts on this are quite relevant. (Me, I don’t even have so much as a niece or nephew, and haven’t really been around a young’un for twenty years or so!)

—————-

A few days ago – possibly while browsing Vegan Dad’s archives in search of yummy vegan recipes – I stumbled upon a link to That’s Why We Don’t Eat Animals: A Site About Vegans, Vegetarians, and all Living Things. Populated by whimsical drawings of chickens, pigs, cows, dolphins and bugs, and aimed at the naturally animal-loving training wheels set, TWWDEA, is so ridiculously cute that it kind of makes me want to be a kid again.

Better yet, the website’s actually a supplement to an upcoming children’s book by author/artist/teacher Ruby Roth (who herself is a bundle of vegan cuteness) called That’s Why We Don’t Eat Animals: A Site About Vegans, Vegetarians, and all Living Things.

That’s Why We Don’t Eat Animals takes a candid, compassionate look at the plight of animals on factory farms, using gorgeous artwork and lively text to introduce vegetarianism and veganism to early readers.

An endearing cast of animals is shown both in their natural state—rooting around, bonding, nuzzling, cuddling, grooming one another, and charming each other with their family instincts and rituals—and in the sad conditions of the factory farm. The book also addresses the effect eating animals has on our environment, rainforests, and endangered species. At the end, a section entitled “What Else Can We Do?” suggests ways children can learn more about the vegetarian and vegan lifestyles.

The boldest step yet in children’s literature, this heartfelt, informative book offers a key resource to inspire parents and children to talk about a timely, increasingly important subject.

Ms. Roth explains the genesis and gist of the book in this video, also available on the site:

The book is geared towards kids aged 4 to 10, and has received endorsements from an impressive and lengthy list of advocates and activists, including Jane Goodall (herself quite the children’s writer/educator), Alicia Silverstone, John Robbins, Ed Begley, Jr., Ingrid Newkirk and Rory Freedman.

You can view more of Ms. Roth’s artwork on her Flickr stream, where she shares some super-sweet bumper sticker style drawings. They’re all adorable, but I especially love this one:

Probably due in no small part to my recent thoughts on animal agriculture and its effects on the parent/child bond, which is as strong (if not more so) in many non-human animal species as it is in homo sapiens.

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A few months back, Vegan Chic (formerly known as Vegetarian Shoes and Bags) contacted me about doing a link exchange and asked if I’d like to review a product from their spring line. Whee! Free shoes! Who could resist? Not I!

The link exchange was easy enough, particularly since I’d already included the company – under the old name and URL – in the “online vendors” category of my blogroll. (I’d link to the category, but Shane hasn’t set up the permalinks yet. Drats. Just look to your right, and down.)

Unfortunately, it’s taken me much, much too long to review the shoes, for which I apologize to Jessica and Chris profusely. My mailing address is a PO Box, and as it’s a good 25-minute drive from my home, I don’t always make it down there on a weekly basis. And of course, by the time I retrieved the shoes (or rather, sent the Mr. to do so), I was out of commish for a few weeks while my immune system struggled to overcome (succumb to?) the attack of the Killer Juniper Trees. But it’s still May, and seeing as these cuties are for spring/summer wear, I’m right on time!

So. The shoes!

Allow me to introduce you to the Ines by Neuaura:

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A belated shout-out to Columbia University Press, who sent me a copy of Dr. Paola Cavalieri’s latest, The Death of the Animal: A Dialogue, a few weeks back. You may know of Dr. Cavalieri through The Animal Question: Why Non-Human Animals Deserve Human Rights (2001) and The Great Ape Project: Equality Beyond Humanity (1994), which she co-edited with Peter Singer.

The Death of the Animal looks to be an intriguing mix of philosophy, ethology, psychology and anthrozoology:

While moral perfectionists rank conscious beings according to their cognitive abilities, Paola Cavalieri launches a more inclusive defense of all forms of subjectivity. In concert with Peter Singer, J. M. Coetzee, Harlan B. Miller, and other leading animal studies scholars, she expands our understanding of the nonhuman in such a way that the derogatory category of “the animal” becomes meaningless. In so doing, she presents a nonhierachical approach to ethics that better respects the value of the conscious self.

The book was published in January, and is available on Amazon. Currently, it’s sitting at the bottom of a very large book pile, but I hope to read and review it – some time before the paperback edition is released, perhaps? I kid, I kid. By July, it’ll be so hot, it’ll be a chore just to peel myself off the couch – plenty of time for catching up on my reading!

Until then, here’s some additional material to sink your teeth into, courtesy Philip at Columbia:

Columbia University Press is pleased to announce the publication of The Death of the Animal: A Dialogue by Paola Cavalieri with Matthew Calarco, J. M. Coetzee, Harlan B. Miller, Cary Wolfe, and with a foreword by Peter Singer.

The book sets these thinkers in a unique dialogue as they expand our understanding of the nonhuman through a discussion of the idea of the “animal,” ethics, moral perfectionism, and the value of the conscious self.

We have also posted one of J. M. Coetzee’s responses in the book: “On Appetite, the Right to Life and Rational Ethics” as well as the Table of Contents.

* I really need to grab a new Shout Out! screenshot, dontchathink?

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I was channel surfing last night, and accidentally stumbled upon an infomercial for the Topsy Turvy Tomato Tree. I’m not usually one for infomercials, but I caught the program title (Tomato Tree), mistook the channel code for SciFi instead of SRI, or whatever it was, and thought the show was a cheesy SciFi original about a killer mutant psychic tomato tree…and naturally, I just had to stop. Still, I ended up watching this for a full 15 minutes before changing the channel. I blame it on all the gratuitous food porn closeups.
 

 
Anyway, TOTALLY WANT. I bet this would be great for growing tomatoes indoors, during the winter. Just as long as the mutts don’t knock the stand over. Normally, Shane’s the one cajoling me to buy crap marketed on late-night teevee, but I might have to add this one to my birthday list.

Sigh. Next thing you know, I’ll be wearing a Snuggie. Or a Slanket. Probably a Slanket. For some inexplicable reason, they’re currently donating a portion of their proceeds to NRDC.

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The husband and I finally (!) tried Follow Your Heart’s Vegan Gourmet soy cheese last week (don’t ask me why it took so long – I’m already kicking myself). We’ve been searching for a suitable vegan soy cheese for some time now, so when Shane spotted Vegan Gourmet during his last Whole Foods run, he picked up a few bricks of the cheddar and mozzarella flavors. We (ok, he) made two homemade pizzas last Saturday, in anticipation of a Lost marathon – one topped with mozzarella, the other, cheddar. As you can probably surmise, it was effin yummay!

Admittedly, I haven’t sampled many of the newer vegan cheeses (Teese, Sheese), but Vegan Gourmet is the best I’ve tried thus far. The mozzarella has a bit of a salty taste; Shane says it tastes very much like “real” (read: cow’s milk) mozzarella (I wouldn’t know; I’m allergic). The cheddar isn’t as salty (though it contains more sodium – go figure), but has a “cheddary” taste. (Again as per Shane; a direct quote: “They’re very reminiscent of real cheese.”) Since I don’t have any experience with dairy cheese, I’m having a bit of trouble putting the taste into words; suffice to say, both the mozzarella and cheddar and very tasty. Though, I do have a slight preference for the cheddar, probably because it isn’t as salty as the mozz. (The cheddar is healthier, too, what with less fat and more protein – yay!)

True to Follow Your Heart’s promise, both cheeses are uber-melty: They Melt! Almost too well, actually: it’s really difficult to slice a large pizza right out of the oven, because the cheese is so melty. It practically liquefies under heat! We had to let the pizzas sit for about ten minutes before we could cut and serve the slices, and even then, it proved messy.

Naturally, we made a second batch of pizzas last night. (I expect it’ll be pizza 24/7 round these parts, now that we’ve found an edible soy cheese!) This time, we tried “pressing” the bricks of cheese like tofu, in order to draw out some of the excess water – the suspected culprit in the greasy/watery/liquid-y consistency of melted Vegan Gourmet. We also spread the shredded cheese on a large baking pan, and let it sit out on the counter for about an hour prior to making the pizza, hoping that any excess water might dissolve into the ether. All this helped a tad – the melted cheese wasn’t quite as watery – but it was still a lil’ messy to work with. Still, it’s a huge improvement over the alternatives, namely, cheese-less/-free pizza, or pizza laden with cruelty (i.e., dairy cheese). 4.9/5 stars!

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