Restaurant Review: Life Alive Cafe (Overcoming Redundancy)

The other night, I decided to check out self-described "urban oasis and organic cafe" Life Alive's Cambridge location with my vegetarian friend Amanda. Edible Boston had recommended it in their feature on vegan-friendly restaurants, so I had high expectations. As an academic, I don't believe everything I read... unless it's in one of the Edible Communities magazines. Eat locally, people!

Before I could eat at Life Alive, though, I had to overcome the redundancy of its name. I don't like redundant things. I'm always circling them on my students' papers and writing in huge red letters, REDUNDANT! just to shame them.

But maybe Life Alive wasn't as redundant as it seemed. The restaurant could have been named Life Dead (which sounds like the title of a depressing avant-garde art exhibit) or Death Alive (... zombies). I'll take my life alive over dead any day. Plus, their website told me that I was "entering a world of pleasure. A world of delicious, organic, and therapeutic food, created with love to feed your vitality."

I read those words and was convinced. I wanted to feed my vitality. And if I had to be redundant to do it, well, I would be redundant to do it.

The menu at Life Alive consists of salads, tortilla wraps, soups, smoothies, "jubilant juices," and "fresh fantastic food." Amanda is even more into alliteration than I am, so she felt compelled to order a meal from the "fresh fantastic food" listings. She got The Swami ("Our Sweet Curry Miso Sauce saturating a flavorful mix of tamari almonds, raisins, shredded carrots, broccoli, dark greens, and pearl onions over brown rice with a sprinkle of nutritional yeast").

All the menu items sounds like cards in a Magic: The Gathering game. The Mystic Mountain, The Goddess, The Innocent, The Alchemist... The Hot & Healthy Bachelor (?).

I went for The Sufi Poet because it sounded the most peaceful and because it was hard to resist the menu description: "Delight in our red lentil hummus whirling atop cranberries, cashews, cucumber, granny apples, shredded carrots, and spring greens all infused by our Balsamic Vinaigrette and we promise you'll be ecstatic!"

What a promise! We also got the Spring Alive smoothie to share: blueberry, strawberry, pineapple, mango, spirulina, coconut-milk ice cream, and almond milk. It was kind of weird because it had small chunks of dried mango in it, and they kept getting caught in the straw. It tasted pretty good, though.

When my Sufi Poet arrived, I was, as promised, ecstatic. It was the perfect size and all the ingredients tasted fresh. For dessert, I ordered a package of Liz Lovely snicker doodle vegan cookies. The only way the experience could have been any better would be if we had gone on a Thursday night, when there's (Life A)live music.

Overall, my experience at Life Alive was just wonderfully wonderful. The food was deliciously delicious and the atmosphere was a satisfying blend of earthy and crunchy. After that meal, my life felt more alive than ever (if that's possible).

Beantown Spinach Artichoke Cannellini Dip

No idea why I look so joyful while mashing ingredients in.

I love artichokes. Seriously, I cannot overstate my love for artichokes. When I was in elementary school and we were learning how to make graphs by gathering information about each other and plotting it, I was the only student who answered "artichokes" for my favorite food. All the normal kids who answered "ice cream" or "pizza" made fun of me.

So I was thrilled to discover a can of artichoke hearts while nosing around in my parents' pantry. I knew that my mom also had a huge, Costco-sized bag of spinach she was trying to use up, so I decided to make spinach artichoke dip.

Spinach artichoke dip is, of course, usually quite cheesy. Most vegans substitute tofu for the cheese; you need to substitute something, or the dip won’t be smooth and spreadable. Unfortunately, I only had firm tofu and all the recipes I found online called for silken tofu (which has the most disgusting texture ever, but which is great in smoothies, desserts, and, apparently, spinach artichoke dip).

I was going to have to get creative. Back to the pantry. The only thing I could find in there that seemed like a reasonable substitute for silken tofu was a can of cannellini beans. I imagined the cannellini beans all blended up; they would have the same texture (and color, not that it mattered) as silken tofu.

I also considered the fact that I was in (a rural suburb of) Boston, otherwise known as "Beantown." I'm pretty sure that moniker originates from the dish Boston Baked Beans, which is just beans baked in molasses or sometimes maple syrup. So I convinced myself that it made sense to substitute beans for tofu when cooking in (okay, near) this city. I made the decision to use beans in my cooking as much as possible for the next couple of weeks, just to show respect.

Compiling various vegan spinach artichoke dip recipes I found online (and, of course, substituting cannellini beans for silken tofu), I came up with the following recipe:

1/2 yellow onion, diced
1 8.5 oz can artichoke hearts
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 15.5 oz can cannellini alubias beans
2 handfuls of spinach
2 tsp. minced garlic
1 tsp. basil
1 tsp. parsley
1 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar

I preheated the oven to 350 degrees. While it was heating up, I cut up the onion and artichoke hearts and started grilling them in the olive oil. The kitchen already smelled delicious.

Then I dumped the cannellini beans, spinach, garlic, basil, parsley, salt, and apple cider vinegar in the blender. My mom grows basil and parsley out in her vegetable garden, so I was working with fresh herbs (to counter the less-than-exciting Costco spinach). Here's what the blended ingredients looked like:

It was pretty gross-looking. But I had faith that once I added in the grilled onions and artichoke hearts and baked the whole thing, it would come out tasting great. I ended up baking it for 18 minutes, until it was just barely brown on top. Here's what it looked like:

I scooped it out and served it warm with vegan chips, brown rice, and snap peas to my dad and to myself, like so:

I think this dip was my most successful vegan cooking endeavor in a long time. The texture was perfect, just like the spinach artichoke dip you'd buy as an appetizer in a restaurant. It tasted awesome, and it's totally healthful! The recipe made quite a lot of dip, about 12 servings I'd say, so there's a lot left over for me to snack on in the next few days.

I think I have a new favorite food, just in case you're a second-grader collecting data for a graph. It's called Beantown Spinach Artichoke Cannellini Dip, and I invented it!

Confession: I Cheated on My CSA

I often write about how much I love my Community Supported Agriculture membership at Fairview Gardens Farm in Goleta, CA. It's been invaluable to my vegan cooking efforts, since I get weekly helpings of all my favorite fruits and veggies (and some random ones I don't quite know what to do with).

But I'm in Massachusetts right now, and my CSA farm is all the way across the country, so... what happens in Massachusetts stays in Massachusetts, right? Today I hit up another CSA... with my mom.

My parents are members at Powisset Farm in Dover, just a short drive from their home in Westwood. Here's what the farm looks like:

 

Look how beautiful it is. How could I resist?

There were thirteen different items out on tables for us to pick up: lettuce, kale, basil, fennel, chard, beets, cabbage, onions, carrots, kohlrabi, potatoes, squash, and mizuna. I was intrigued by the mizuna. I'd never even heard of mizuna. Turns out, I got all excited for nothing: it's just a kind of bland green to mix into salads.

But we also got to go out in the fields and gather our own flowers, herbs, snap peas, and fava beans:

Just in case you can't read it, the sign says, "These are ready when they are huge, plump, and even with a few brown spots!" I read it and chuckled. Then I got up in there and picked myself some fava beans. I never get to pick my own fava beans at Fairview. I felt like a real-life farmer - granted, one who has had everything planted and tended for her. Some people would probably say it's more convenient to have all the vegetables already collected for you, but I think there's something fun about going out and getting them yourself, if you have time.

The folks at Powisset keep a blog with recipe ideas involving the produce they offer. You can search by ingredient (but not by "vegan," unfortunately). Fairview has a blog, too; theirs is arguably more helpful, since it gives you a heads up about which items you're going to get that week. If you're the type to plan recipes ahead of time (and I assure you, I am not that type) then this is a really important feature.

So which CSA is better? Luckily for me, I don't have to choose. I can have my (eggless) cake and eat it too, visiting Powisset while I'm out here and resuming my relationship with Fairview when I get back home. But shhh! Don't tell.

Super Easy Superfood Sundae

I’ve been hearing the phrase “superfood” tossed around a lot recently, and obviously it has made me curious. Why, I asked myself, would I waste my time nomming on mediocre, everyday food when I could be ingesting super food? With, I presumed, super powers?

I did some digging around online and discovered that (surprise!) a lot of so-called “superfoods” are vegan. I also discovered that their super powers are limited to lowering cholesterol and inflammation, helping arthritis, preventing osteoporosis, and reducing the risk of heart disease, diabetes, and cancer (there might be some other things, too).

…so they can’t turn invisible? Bummer.

Finding out about superfoods’ pretty disappointing super powers made me grumpy. Good thing one of their other lame super powers is improving your mood.

You know what else would improve my mood? Eating a sundae for breakfast. So I decided to layer all my super ingredients in a sundae dish. Here are the superfoods I used (and what’s so super about them):

Walnuts: omega 3s, monosaturated fats
Blueberries: antioxidants, phytoflavinoids, vitamin C, potassium
Oranges: vitamin C, folic acid, potassium
Oats: fiber, protein, magnesium, potassium
Açaí: antioxidants, monounsaturated oleic acid
Ground flax seed: omega 3s, monosaturated fats

I was working with frozen Sambazon açaí juice; a better choice would have been to use their little packets of açaí pulp, but I didn’t have any. First, I cooked the oats and mixed in the ground flax seed. Then I began layering the ingredients in the sundae dish.

I started with a little açaí (it had the texture of shaved ice), then put in the orange slices, then a layer of hot oatmeal/flax seed, then more açaí, then a handful of blueberries. I topped the sundae off with walnuts. It looked like this:

I wanted to take this photo in natural lighting, like all fancy food photos are taken, so I went outside on my parents’ deck. Unfortunately, it was about 90 degrees outside, so the frozen açaí melted immediately and it all started looking pretty messy. If only açaí had the powers of Mister Freeze.

But it tasted great! (Of course, it’s possible I only think that because those sneaky superfoods improved my mood.) It's awesome that these foods that taste so yummy and seem like a treat are good for you. In fact, it's pretty super.

See, This Is Why People Hate Vegans

I hate passive aggression, so I love passiveaggressivenotes.com. It's been one of my favorite time-wasting sites for years now. My friend Linda sent me a link to this recent installment, in which a self-righteous vegan leaves her omnivorous roommate a (not so passive aggressive) note, making ridiculous impositions. In case you can't make it through the whole thing, here are a couple quotations:

"I can no longer tolerate seeing meat, eggs, dairy, honey, or any other products from animals in our kitchen or anywhere else in the apartment. Do you understand?"

"You could at the very least eat these things away from me, like when you're out of the house. You could have done it in your room. That second suggestion isn't an option anymore, though, since I told you I will not allow these types of food anywhere in the house."

Photo: passiveaggressivenotes.com

Photo: passiveaggressivenotes.com

As a vegan, I am embarrassed by things like this. I understand the note writer's disgust toward being around animal products, and I even understand where her outrage comes from. But her attitude demonstrates why a lot of people think vegans are intolerant (and intolerable). I almost wish this note hadn't been posted on passiveaggressivenotes.com because it represents vegans so poorly.

The appalled reactions in the comments section reflect the damage done. One commenter writes, "She's obviously a zealot. There's no reasoning with them." Them? Crap.

I don't want people to hate vegans. I want people to love vegans and I want them to want to be vegan. So please, the next time you're going to write a crazed, intolerant letter to your omnivorous roommate, stop yourself and leave a note that says, "I made some extra tabouli for you. It's in the fridge. Help yourself!" instead.

The Rime of the Vegan Mariner

"Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink."  - Samuel Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

In case your 9th-grade English teacher didn't require you to read Coleridge's 1798 classic, here's a brief synopsis: a wedding guest runs into an old, decrepit sailor (a.k.a. "the ancient mariner") who really likes to hear the sound of his own voice. The wedding guest really just wants to get to the wedding, but instead he gets roped into listening to the Mariner tell his depressing life story:

The Mariner's ship gets stranded in Antarctica and a helpful albatross (which is, apparently, a type of bird) leads the crew out of harm's way... and then the Mariner takes it out with his cross-bow. No reason, he just feels like it. Obviously, the creepy sea spirits get pissed and curse the whole crew with devastating thirst. There is "water, water, every where, nor any drop to drink." The crew blames the Mariner and makes him wear the dead albatross around his neck. A dead bird. Around his neck. Blech.

I'm going to stop there because the poem isn't called "epic" for nothing, and I'm bored of summarizing it. The point is, I really related to the Mariner on my trip to Costco today.

I tagged along with my dad and my Uncle Stephen because I was interested to check out what kinds of vegan treasures Costco might carry. Obviously, there is a huge produce section (some of which is organic), a lot of different nuts, and a whole aisle of bottled water. But aside from that, Costco's vegan options are pretty much non-existent.

There I was, standing in an enormous warehouse of bulk food, and there was nothing for me to eat. Somewhere along the way, I must have killed an albatross. I wouldn't be surprised - I've done a lot of weird things.

I wandered up and down the aisles, feeling lost and depressed. There were sample tables set up at the end of every other aisle, some nearly overwhelmed by hoards of people desperate to try a quarter of a lobster ravioli, but none of the samples was vegan. I had wandered to the farthest reaches of the store, beyond the walls of toilet paper rolls.

It was then that I looked up and saw it: an unassuming sample table manned by a nondescript Costco employee. There was no line. And in each of the little paper cups arrayed in rows was a blob of Summer Fresh Tuscan Bean Salad. It was delicious and it was vegan! I snatched up a tub of it immediately. Its ingredients are: barley, navy beans, chick pea, green pepper, red pepper, green onions, canola oil, sundried tomato, pesto sauce, garlic puree, white vinegar, sea salt, spice, citric acid. I just ate some for dinner in a wrap with hummus.

After finding the Tuscan Bean Salad, I gained confidence and was able to discover a few more vegan options: Edy's all-natural fruit bars, Sambazon acai juice, and a very large bag of quinoa.

I really disliked feeling like a vegan mariner, stranded among insane amounts of food but unable to eat any of it, so I'm not going to invest in a Costco membership back in California. But I know every Costco is different and that the stores switch up the products they carry quite frequently, so maybe I'll venture back in after a while.

And now, go like one that hath been stunned and is of sense forlorn. A sadder and a wiser (?) man (or woman), arise the morrow morn.

Vegging Out in France

Long ago, I decided that I would switch to vegetarianism during my trip to France with the UCSB Chamber Choir. We have had a lot of group meals that were provided by host families or prepared especially for us by restaurants, so I knew sticking to veganism would be difficult, if not impossible, and I didn’t want to be living on Clif Bars (though I did pack about twenty of them just in case).

It’s not that it makes any less sense to be a vegan in France. In fact, I was tempted to launch into an aggressive tirade on more than one occasion when some of my traveling companions ordered foie gras. Foie gras is goose liver, after the goose has been force fed corn. In terms of animal cruelty, it’s about the equivalent of drowning a kitten… and paying an exorbitant amount of money to do it.

I’m back to being a vegan now, and I’m still in the airport in Paris. That’s because the airport in Paris is the most vegan friendly place in France, apparently. Right next to my departure gate, there’s a restaurant called EXKI. Its slogan is “natural, fresh, and ready,” and there is a picture of a carrot instead of the “I” at the end of the word, so obviously I headed there immediately. All their food is organic and much of it is gluten-free and/or vegan; I got a lentil salad (organic green lentils, peas, sweet and sour onions, red pepper, artichoke, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar) and carrot and coriander soup.

Despite the amazing EXKI in the airport, France doesn’t seem too concerned about catering to vegans. If I had been able to cook my own food I would have had no problems, but as I said, I was usually grabbing lunch at a restaurant with a group of five other people. But eating vegetarian in France has been quite easy. I have eaten a lot of veggie quiche and unpasteurized cheese, going out of my way to eat vegan whenever I can.

At first I thought it would be possible to put meals together the way I do at vegan-unfriendly places in the United States: by combining many different vegan side dishes. But I soon realized that wouldn’t get me anywhere. That’s because restaurants in France love to douse things in mayonnaise. It’s as if someone gifted France a huge tub of mayonnaise and France thought to itself, “How am I ever going to use up all this mayonnaise? I know. I’ll put it all over everything, no matter how ridiculous the combination.” So you think you’re going to order a delicious side of raw mixed veggies? Sorry, they’re covered in mayonnaise. Enjoy.

I used Yelp.com to research vegetarian-friendly places in Paris, and on a few occasions I was able to convince a good chunk of meat-eaters to accompany me to check them out. The most successful vegetarian outing in Paris was to Pom’Cannelle, a cozy little restaurant on the isle of Saint-Louis. The servers were quite accommodating and friendly, pointing out all the different vegetarian options on the menu. I went for the Quiche Provencal, which came with a mixed salad and looked like this:

The best part about Pom’Cannelle was that everyone who went with me said it was the yummiest meal they had eaten so far. They got meat dishes and I got a veggie dish and everyone was happy. I love it when that happens.

In Tours, our meals were provided by a restaurant called Cinema Studio near the Conservatoire Francis Poulenc. I was delighted to discover that almost every meal was vegetarian (and fresh). Tours is much more compact than Paris, obviously, so it was easier to find tasty veggie dishes for the meals we had to buy ourselves. One night, I stumbled upon a little place called L’étape à pâte (81 Rue Colbert). I got a simple pasta dish with vegetables and olive oil (and, thank goodness, no mayonnaise):

My best vegan meal, though, was in Nanclars, a tiny village in the southern part of the country. The choir was being put up with host families, and on our last evening there they prepared a potluck dinner for us. Many of the residents of Nanclars tend their own organic gardens, so the dinner was quite vegan-friendly. Obviously, there were tons of different cheeses and quiches there, too (as well as some nasty-looking meat concoctions), but I managed to pull together a vegan meal of lentil salad, fresh tomatoes, and three different types of cous cous!

Now I’m about to head home to Boston for a few weeks, and I’m pretty excited about exploring all the different vegan possibilities there.