One Night Stanzas

1. Baked some tasty vegan treats.
The above cupcakes are triple chocolate ganache truffle cupcakes and yep, they’re totally vegan. Dark chocolate sponge with chocolate ganache in the middle, chocolate not-butter-not-cream frosting, and a Moo Free truffle added to the top for good measure! The rather beautiful cake dome was a Christmas present from the loveliest Lovely Boyfriend. Though it looks like a vintage one, it’s new, but it is made out of 100% recycled materials! Amazing gifting, methinks.

The aforementioned LB requested “a gigantic mince pie” for Christmas dinner dessert, so I duly made a full-size 9-inch diameter mince pie with rather delicious boozy mincemeat. I had some scrappy little bits of rolled shortcrust pastry left over, so I used them to make these: the world’s ugliest mince pies. They obviously still tasted great, though!

2. Had some even tastier vegan treats made for me.

I think I may have already mentioned here that Lovely Boyfriend is the best vegan cook since Isa Chandra Moskowitz, yes? Well, over our winter holiday he’s had even more time than usual to cook up a storm, so my belly has been extremely happy. Lots of people have been curious about how the heck you even do Christmas as a vegan — the answer is, the same as everyone else. You eat lots and lots of extremely tasty stuff! This was our Christmas morning breakfast:

That’s Isa’s own tofu scramble with a Lovely Boyfriend twist: a Christmassy spice mix featuring lots of rosemary, and extra mushrooms. All on a sesame bagel and served with champagne, because Christmas.

I didn’t get a pic of our Christmas dinner because it seemed rude to be a food-snapping hipster blogger in front of our guests (also I was too keen to just SCOFF IT), but again we are indebted to The Great Isa. We had a version of this stuffed seitan roast, with a more traditional sage-and-onion type stuffing to make it more Christmassy. Plus all the usual roast potatoes and veg type stuff, and then my uber-mince-pie with vegan ice cream and these to finish. Delish!

3. Received many amazing gifts.

I couldn’t really do a gratitude post at this time of year without thanking everyone who bought me gifts over the festive period. Thank you, amazing people of my acquaintance, for giving me so many thoughtful, useful and beautiful things. I especially want to thank the folk (a lot of you this year!) who shopped local, supported small businesses like mine, bought secondhand, and/or made charitable donations in lieu of presents. You rock.

I also love that so many people got me gifts that are so ‘me’. (This seems to happen a lot, so I hope that means I’m easy to buy for. Or perhaps I am just easily pleased!) This vintage typewriter calendar was clearly an obvious choice… and now I have one for home and one for work! Perfect!

4. Met the newest member of the family.

My parents have always been cat people. Seriously: their house is full of cat-related stuff. Cat mugs, cat ornaments, cat coasters, cat Christmas tree decorations… they really like cats. So they were devastated when their faithful furry friend Beatrice went to the great cattery in the sky back in 2012.

After a period of mourning for “Little Bertie,” as she was affectionately known, I was extremely excited to hear that they’d decided to rescue a new fur-baby. World, meet Benny! He’s been part of the family for nearly three weeks now, and he’s a super cute, slightly eccentric TOTAL BABE. As you can see, he knows exactly how beautiful he is and loves having his photo taken.

Like me, he’s also a stove-worshipper. Smart kitty.

5. Bought a lot of books.

I know, I know, so what’s new? In short, I made the mistake of going to Bookcase Books in Carlisle while on my New Year travels.

I’ve blogged about this place before. The bookshop occupies two big townhouses that have been knocked together, and there are books in every room, including the two basements and the huge attic. You can also buy the artwork, paintings and oddities (I found an antique book-press I so wanted) which are displayed in the various corridors and staircases. There are over thirty rooms full of books here. It’s AMAZING.

Hours of book-browsing fun, and only an hour on the train from Edinburgh. Just sayin’!

6. Did a lot of plotting.

I love New Year, perhaps even more than I love Christmas (and I really love Christmas). I’m very good at saying “yes” to things and ending up super busy all the time, and very bad at pausing to take stock. So during that between-Christmas-and-going-back-to-work lull, I try to do as much mental stock-taking as I can.

There’s always a lot of journalling. This year, I’ve been reading posts like this and thinking about ways to make new year’s goals and resolutions (which I always make, regardless of how uncool everyone says it is) that are meaningful and will last. I prefer to set new year goals — a list of things to achieve — rather than make resolutions, because goal-setting feels way more positive than ’stop doing this thing you do because you like it,’ and ‘do more of this thing you don’t do because you hate it,’ etc. (For example, this year I’ve got ‘find a yoga class I like,’ rather than ‘do more yoga.’) But I have also committed to a couple of “higher resolutions” (the big stuff), which I hope to work on all year.

[One of them is: get better at being sociable. I am generally bad at making new friends, especially with women (this article, the part about rejection, rang so true with me). I have this assumption that most of the people who hang out with me only do it out of some masochistic form of politeness. I'm sure you'll all agree that that mindset is pretty toxic and needs to go. It's been with me a long time, but this is the year I intend to at least begin to cut that shit out. And the other big resolution is a secret for now, because I don't want to jinx it. If I manage to keep it, then all should be revealed in due course.]

Finally, I also use New Year as a time to think about the past year, and what I achieved. Every life coach/internet guru/mindfulness blogger and their dog is keen to point out that saying thank you for the good stuff in your life makes more good stuff happen. So that’s why I write Things I Love Thursday posts (still), and it’s also why every year I write a ‘in [year], I…’ post. Usually I have to go through my old diaries, Facebook updates, and blogposts to recall what I did. So much good stuff gets instantly forgotten and I’m always gobsmacked to revisit it… which is another reason why this process is useful.

If you haven’t done any 2014 plotting or 2013 revisiting yet, try it! The year is young! I highly recommend it.

What are YOU loving this week?

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Like shiny things? Check out Edinburgh Vintage, a totally unrelated ’sister site’ full of jewels, treasures and trinkets. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

This isn’t the first time that “autumn” has appeared on my Things I Love list… and I doubt it will be the last. It is my favouritest season for many, many reasons, and even more so now that I’ve moved house. I now live really close to the beautiful Goldenacre Path, and only a stone’s throw from Stockbridge. Both providing some beautiful autumnal foliage and last-ditch Scottish sunshine right about now!

The best thing about living on Edinburgh’s “path network”? The foraging opportunities! So far, I’ve scored elderberries, raspberries and tubs and tubs of brambles, which has made for some pretty delicious pies and scones, I can tell you. I’m hoping to learn more about wild greens next, so that in the spring I can get out there and gather myself a salad, too!
(Not foraged, but also delicious, is all the autumnal food Lovely Boyfriend — aka Lovely Personal Chef! — is cooking up now that it’s getting colder. His veggie stews are to die for.)

One of my autumn rituals is hanging out with my sister for Halloween. We always get together to talk costumes, watch Hocus Pocus and carve pumpkins (here are last year’s rather paltry efforts!). This year, we also found a massive spoon in a thrift store, and decided we needed it (for cauldron stirring, yeah?), and played a very scary game of Fiasco: the Halloween special!

This year, we really upped our pumpkin game. My delightful new workplace is running a pumpkin carving contest, no less, so I needed to really bring it. Like the owl? One of the fiddliest things I’ve ever done! I don’t know how these mad geniuses do it.
(And when I spotted Lovely Boyfriend stirring a big pot of soup with our pumpkin creations sitting right next to him, I couldn’t resist running to get my witch hat and taking a photo. Cruel, I know, but you’d have done the same, right?)

What have YOU been loving this week?

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Budding writer? Creative person in need of a fun job? Check out the various resources and services at Bookworm Tutors. Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, a totally unrelated ’sister site’ full of jewels, treasures and trinkets. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

I’ve posted a few recipes for vegan desserts here now, and hopefully you’ve tried your hand at making some of them! Since becoming vegan just over a year ago, I’ve been thrilled (REALLY) to discover just how many dessert options are still open to me and my chronic sweet tooth! However, we vegans do sometimes lose out when it comes to tasty dessert accompaniments. I miss very few foodstuffs, but one of the things I do miss is, weirdly, custard. For a good while I was desperately seeking a tasty, cruelty-free custard substitute… and then I discovered cashew cream.

The revelation happened at the wonderful Zeffirelli’s, where I ordered a vegan summer pudding (OMG) and it came with lashings of what I can only describe as “freakin’ delicious cashew goo” on the side. I have since learned that cashew cream is basically the best thing ever to go with any kind of fruity dessert — especially a good old fashioned apple pie.

So if you have vegan guests coming over and you want to make sure they don’t just have to look sad while everyone else tops their tasty dessert with ice cream or custard, TRY THIS. It is so, so easy.

Ingredients

200g of cashews (pro tip: buy cashew pieces from your local healthfood store. Cheapness!)
A 200g block of creamed coconut
400ml water
1/2 cup of agave nectar
Vanilla extract

First, roughly chop your cashews. They don’t have to be evenly sized, or cut too small. Basically just make sure there are no whole cashews left.

Soak ‘em in cold water for a little while. I did mine for about two hours and that was plenty. Once they’re good n’ soaked, put them into the blender or food processor, along with the creamed coconut, which you should break into small chunks. Pour in the 400ml of warm water, and whizz for a good while.

You’ll end up with a mix that looks a bit like this. ^ (Warning: you will not get it to go totally smooth, ’cause yaknow, nuts. It’ll still be a little gritty. To reduce the grittiness, soak your cashews for longer.) At this stage, you can stir in your agave nectar and add vanilla extract to taste. That is LITERALLY IT.

NB: your ‘cream’ may seem a bit watery. If you want to eat it right away (as I did, obv), you can seive off some of the liquid (useful for vegan milkshake?). However, know this: the cream will firm up quite a bit in the fridge, so maybe prepare it a little ahead of time so it has a while to chill out.

Best served with pie, if you ask me! Enjoy!

You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

What have I been up to…? More baking.

These are triple orange vegan cupcakes. Zesty orange sponge, orange fondant filling (and some on the top), not-butter-not-cream icing, made uber-yellow by Lovely Boyfriend’s fancy-ass confectioner’s food colouring. And chocolate ganache. And fresh orange. And sugar stars. I basically decided that when it came to topping these babies, more was more. They were certainly appreciated by the gaggle of hungry board-gamers who sampled them!

Lovely Boyfriend requested these instead of a birthday cake. They’re vegan peanut butter cupcakes with not-butter-not-cream icing, chocolate ganache and a smidge of added peanut butter. We snuck them into the pub and enjoyed them over birthday pints with friends. The best way to spend an evening!

These were another request: my lovely sister wanted DINO CAKES for her birthday. These are classic double chocolate with chocolate ganache filling, not-butter-not-cream icing, and the required dinos. They look like they’re frolicking on tiny, daisy-spotted hills.

And these are espresso cupcakes with espresso icing and dark chocolate flowers. For when you’re really, really tired and you need a caffeine hit AND a sugar high! These were produced, again, for a bunch of ravenous board gamers, and saw them through a particularly epic session of Eclipse!

Aaaand as well as cupcakes, I’ve also got well into baking pies. Yet again, this is thanks to my personal GODDESS, Isa. They’re weirdly difficult to photograph, so my previous efforts (all-American cherry, and blueberry-and-maple) have gone sadly undocumented. This baby is a classic, like-your-gran-used-to-make apple pie, and I think was my best effort yet (BRAG BRAG BRAG). So good with soy whipped cream, which I have just discovered exists… and it’s so good!

Want to see what else I’m eating? I started a Flickr set for all the things that are making my belly happy. PROOF THAT BEING VEGAN IS TASTY.

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You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

Har! Brilliant lateral-thinking literary Halloween costume idea right here!

It’s pricey, but this is one of the coolest notebook ideas I have seen in quite a while!

And speaking of notebooks, here is a list of cool crafty bookish DIY projects for you to try, if your weekend’s looking empty!

We have forged something beautiful together,
in spite of all the darkness.

I love this beautiful, autumnal poem from Kerri Ni Dochartaigh.

IF YOU CLICK NOTHING ELSE IN THIS POST, click here for some WTF sci fi book covers. Amazing! (Thanks Adam!)

This passive-aggressive note got the English teacher treatment! (I also love these grumpy Halloween ones!)

I do not understand—I will not understand, I refuse to understand—why rape has to be on the table for every story with a female protagonist, or even a strong female supporting cast. Why it’s so assumed that I’m being “unrealistic” when I say that none of my female characters are going to be raped. Why this “takes the tension out of the story.” There is plenty of tension without me having to write about something that upsets both me and many of my readers, thanks.

Things I will not do to my characters. Ever. is great great great. A must-read for novelists.

Also fascinating: Saeed Jones on writing the second chapter.

These author-quote illustrations are pretty fabby (though, as with everything, Needs More Women & POC).

The wonderful Captain McGuire WROTE A POEM ABOUT BROCCOLI, you guys!

Looking at [the word 'fat'] as a neutral descriptor also steals its ability to insult. “You’re fat!” “Your observational skills are stellar!”

Everything Liss writes about fat acceptance is always so spot on. The above is from this post.

I had an article posted at xoJane! Everlasting squee!

I love Ruth’s photos of dewy, early morning plants and spider webs.

Next week I’ll be reviewing Patrick Green’s new album, Melodrama. Get the jump on my review by listening to the album in full here!

There’s three main reasons men (or anyone) don’t cook: Not caring what they eat, thinking someone else should cook for them, or not knowing how to cook. All three have different solutions and not one is “baby him along like you’re trying to convince a timid puppy to go out in the snow.”

I so love The Pervocracy’s monthly “cosmocking” of Cosmo. This month is particularly excellent.

Here are some fantastic photos of what President Obama has been doing to help with the Hurricane Sandy aftermath. And here is an article on why he’s a great (GREAT!) president (NB: go ye not below the line, there be assholes). Finally, in President-related news: this. (via)

Want to make your own colourful bird wings? OF COURSE YOU DO.

“Six people battle to save hedgehog trapped in crisp packet”? That’s my kinda news headline.

Food is lots of things. It’s comfort, it’s calories, it’s communion, it’s history and tradition, and it’s fucking yummy. Two things that it isn’t is GOOD or BAD (unless, you know, e coli). And you are not a good or bad person for eating.

21 Things To Stop Saying Unless You Hate Fat People WINS ALL THE INTERNETS.

I love everything in this amazing Etsy shop.

…and speaking of which, THERE’S NEW STUFF UP AT EDINBURGH VINTAGE!

Guys, please support my lovely friend Hannah, who’s doing Movember even though she’s a girl!

It was close, but I think this has to win cat gif of the week.

Look at this amazing time-lapse of Hurricane Sandy hitting New York City — check out 1:02 when the power goes off!

Lindy West at Back Fence PDX from Back Fence PDX on Vimeo.

Lindy West remains my heroine.

This is GREAT.

So is this.

Have a great weekend!

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You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

(Photo credit)

Disclaimer: I am not this Claire Askew. That Claire Askew has been a vegan and vegan activist for many years, from what I can see. I am by no means trying to hijack her bandwagon, and I do intend to buy her book. You guys should, too.

The thing I’ve been loving a whole load this week is also something you can read. I LOVE IT WHEN THAT HAPPENS.

Isa Chandra Moskowitz
This lady is the thing I am loving, and I am loving her a whole, whole lot. As most of you probably know, I recently — and rather inexplicably — became vegan, and wrote a post about it right here. Some lovely folk came to comment on said post (and on my Facebook and Twitter), to give me words of encouragement, hints and tips. All of this was much appreciated, but a special shout-out must go to Regina Green. Not only did she give me a ton of feel-good encouragement, she also pointed me in the direction of Isa Chandra Moskowitz. AND I AM SO, SO GLAD that she did.

Ms Moskowitz — who you can learn about in this kick-ass interview from the New York Times — is a tattooed punk chef who believes in culinary activism and cupcakes for all. She’s written several extremely popular vegan cookbooks including one that’s all about pies, another that’s all about cookies, and for those of you for whom those are dirty words, there’s also a low fat book. When I hit the website, The Post Punk Kitchen, I really was spoilt for choice.

However, I eventually decided on Vegan Brunch. One of my all-time favourite things in life is breakfast, and one of the things I’ve missed most about becoming vegan is breakfast pastry. I thought I’d never eat a croissant ever again, until I came across the Gopal Deli in Barcelona and discovered that actually, vegan pastries are in fact possible. But although Edinburgh has plenty of places that’ll whip you up a lovely vegan lunch or dinner, the only place I know of that’ll make you a vegan breakfast or brunch is David Bann’s. (And they only do it at weekends. And yaknow, eating there twice every week is probably not good for my wallet.) Therefore, I was very happy to find a cookbook that would enable me to provide my own vegan breakfast goodies without too much fuss.

The book arrived last week and, as you can imagine, last weekend was a massive brunch-fest as a result. On Saturday morning, Lovely Boyfriend — even though he’d been off work sick for two days, bless him — got out of bed to make me Isa’s Perfect Pancakes, a vegan take on the traditional American fluffy pancake. While he was whipping up batter and manning the frying pan, I put together some of the cookbook’s Chocolate Drizzle to go on top. Both recipes were extremely simple, required a few cheap and easy-to-get ingredients, and were ready pretty quickly. The fact that I made enough Chocolate Drizzle for about ten people was the only real issue. Tip: if there’s just two of you, halve the ingredients suggested! The result of our labours is in the photo at the top of this post. It was one lush brunch, I can tell you. (Neither of the recipes are online, but Isa does have another pancake recipe, for super-fluffy cakes that look amazing, right here.)

Next, I tried the recipe for Cinnamon Rolls. I am obsessed with anything cinnamon-filled, cinnamon-topped or cinnamon-scented, and I was beyond delighted to discover that the aforementioned Gopal also did a great line in huge swirly cinnamon buns. I never thought I’d be able to make such things myself, but of course, Isa proved me wrong. These were time-consuming, but easy to do — I am a very basics-only kind of cook, so if I can do it, anyone can — and a lot of the time was down-time, waiting for the dough to rise. The rather dark (sorry) photo above shows the rolls fresh out of the oven, before they were iced. Lovely Boyfriend and I tried one at this point and were worried it was too breadlike and not sweet enough. However, the next morning I iced them (and not heavily, either), and it made all the difference — suddenly they were sweet, sticky and perfect. You literally can’t tell the difference between these and their all-butter non-vegan cousins. The recipe for these isn’t online either, but it’s worth buying the book just for these babies! Excellent with a good cup of tea.

Finally, on Sunday morning the loveliest Lovely Boyfriend decided to tackle Isa’s standard scrambled tofu, with with a Lovely Boyfriend twist. As well as Isa’s cumin and thyme spice mix — which sounds a bit curry-esque but actually works beautifully for breakfast — he also added some broken-up mushrooms, finely chopped onion and torn spinach. The end result was one of the best breakfasts I’ve had in my life, vegan or otherwise. The recipe calls for extra-firm silken tofu — we could only find the firm stuff, so as a result the pieces broke down quite small while cooking. However, the chunky mushrooms kept the consistency from being too bitty. On top of a wholemeal bagel it was utterly lush, I tell you. There are plenty of other uses for tofu in the Post Punk Kitchen, too.

So yes — I’m in love with this cookbook, and with its author. You can guarantee that I’ll be buying more of her books in the near future, and I cannot wait til next weekend when I can try out more brunches (look out, waistline…).

If anyone loves me or ONS enough to help keep me stocked with Things I’m Reading Thursday fodder, you can check out my Amazon Wishlist!

Honourable mentions:
Sunshine. It’s still disturbingly cold outside, but at least it looks pretty // Starry Rhymes — you can finally buy it in the Read This Press etsy store! As I was listing it, I was re-reading some of my favourite poems, and oh my goodness, it’s good // Thrifting with my mad and lovely sister. Morningside has all the best finds! If you’re a fellow thrifter, check out my vintage store, Edinburgh Vintage, for some pretty bargains // feeling busy and productive, but not stressed. This is a rare feeling — long may it last! // Lazing under my duvet and plotting for the future. So much stuff, so little time! // Netflix. We just got it. Goodbye, what spare time I formerly had… // The West Wing. We’ve been trawling through every episode ever in order and we’re nearing the end of Season Six. Only one more to go! I never want it to end!

What are you loving this week?

If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

Disclaimer: I am not this Claire Askew. That Claire Askew has been a vegan and vegan activist for many years, from what I can see. I am by no means trying to hijack her bandwagon, and I do intend to buy her book. You guys should, too.

So, I’ve been vegan for nearly three months now, but I’ve been trying not to tell people. Not because I’m ashamed, as such, but because one of the first friends I told — the artist formerly known as The Boy, in fact — reacted in a very angry, aggressive way. “Why have you gone vegan?” he demanded to know. “That’s ridiculous. You don’t have a reason! People like you just become vegan so they can tell people about it and get ethical brownie points.”

I was kind of shell-shocked by this outburst. I mean, I should have expected it — this is my ex-boyfriend, who has never really trusted me 100% since he found out that in my whole life, I have never eaten steak, spam or a kebab. But his accusation about just wanting “ethical brownie points” has floated through my head every time I’ve uttered the v-word since. Because actually, I don’t really have a reason for going vegan. I don’t want anyone’s brownie points, but I don’t have any other real motivation.

It’s been an unexpected transition. Less than a year ago, I was still a carnivore. I’ve always been extremely squeamish about meat, admittedly; I have many vegetarian relatives and was a committed veggie myself as a teenager. But then I moved in with the aforementioned Boy, to whom a meal without meat just wasn’t a meal, and who didn’t really cook. So mainly out of tiredness and convenience, I started eating what he ate, which meant meat.
I wouldn’t eat beef or lamb, and so our lasagne and chilli were always veggie. I started sneaking Quorn chicken into some things I made to see if he noticed (he often didn’t). I’d cite expense as a reason for not buying any meat in that week (a fair point) — so I wasn’t exactly an enthusiastic carnivore.

Therefore, when I broke up with the artist formerly known as The Boy (amicably, and nothing to do with steak) it was easy for the artist now known as Lovely Boyfriend (many years veggie) to swoop in and convert me. I became pescetarian pretty much as soon as we got together. For a while I clung on to my love of seafood, but then, “I just like it” began to seem like a bit of a weak argument, particularly since I only ever ate seafood when dining out in fancy restaurants (so, not often). So I reverted to veggie-ism, and didn’t miss a beat — it was very easy.

But why become vegan? I still don’t know, really. My best friend in the whole world, Martyna, is a committed vegan and animal rights activist. For a while she shared a house with the artist formerly known as The Boy and I, and she and I would chat a lot about veganism. I’d also had chance to observe her habits. More recently, I’d had chance to observe Lovely Boyfriend’s brother, Dave, also long-time vegan and animal rights activist. Lovely Boyfriend — an incredible chef — cooks vegan food for Dave whenever he’s home in Scotland, and makes light work of it. I guess all of this demystified veganism for me — many people have no experience of it at all, and just find it totally scary.

I toyed with the idea for a few days, and then I just did it. I decided to do a one-month trial, to see how it went, and to be honest I fully expected I’d be back eating cheese within about three days. But it just kept being OK… then it got to be normal. Comfy. I still don’t know why I made the change. I suspect a combination of factors, mainly to do with (of course) books. I’d started reading about ethical shopping in some books and pamphlets I’d picked up from Word Power, and as a result I was confronted with some grim facts about the lives of dairy cows. I also read Oryx and Crake and then The Year of the Flood back-to-back (if you’ve ever fancied reading either of these, this is the way they ought to be read, I’m convinced). The former includes a bit about Atwood’s imagined future society’s inroads into the world of test-tube meat (ew), and the latter focusses on a vegan sect whose members seem to be the only people who’ve noticed that the dietary apocalypse is coming. Atwood’s depictions of these vegan folk are actually pretty tongue-in-cheek, but I think they got ideas about veganism buzzing in my brain, and it seems that’s all it took.

So what have I learned that I can pass on to other hapless veggies, thinking about taking the vegan plunge?

It’s easy…
People talk about going vegan as being really, really hard. I used to talk about this, too. “Oh, I don’t think I could manage without cheese!”, “what about Dairy Milk?!”, etc. But actually, I’ve barely missed cheese at all. I’ve got used to dark chocolate and love it now. I haven’t really missed anything with the sort of passion that I initally missed bacon sandwiches when I first became veggie as a teen. For the first few weeks, I kept waiting for it to get difficult. I’d convinced myself it’d be a real fight and probably one I’d ultimately lose. I kept waiting for the fight to start… then it just didn’t.

…if you live near a really good grocery store…
However, I can see how it’d be hard if you lived in darkest Northumberland, or somewhere. Edinburgh isn’t Portland by any stretch, but it’s still pretty hip to the hippie, vegan vibe. I’m lucky enough to live a block away from the Tollcross branch of Real Foods, which has made my vegan transition incredibly smooth. I just had a totally lush, raw, vegan cheesecake from there the other day. If you have a vegan-friendly store near you, you can literally still eat anything your heart desires, in some form.

…and if you can cook.
I can’t cook. Not really. But I’m lucky enough to live with Lovely Boyfriend, who, as I mentioned, ought to be a pro chef (his reason for not being a pro chef? “If you like sex, you don’t necessarily become a prostitute, do you?” Touché). Although he’s still a cheese-munching veggie, he’s cool to cook all-vegan, or to cook dishes where any dairy or egg type stuff can be added right at the end, after a vegan portion has already been served up. I’d imagine that if you’re a hopeless cook and not in love with the world’s greatest chef (seriously, folks), you might end up turning to beans on toast a bit more often than I have to. So learn to cook, before you leap. Or yaknow, find a cute Scotsman who knows how to wield a wok.

It’s not that expensive.
Yes, bottles of vegan wine are more expensive than their non-vegan cousins, usually. You either have to seek out all manner of seaweed and odd veggies or take vitamin supplements if you want to keep your calcium, vit B12 and iron levels happy, and either option costs money. However, these costs are, I reckon, balanced out by other stuff. Because my place of work has two main lunch options — vending machines and/or a canteen that specialises in burgers and greasy breakfasts — I’ve started packing my own lunch and have saved a wee stash of cash each week that way. If you eat out, veggie options are always cheaper and a lot of restaurants — particularly pizza places — will knock a bit extra off, too, if you ask for a veggie dish with the dairy taken out. I really haven’t seen a dip in my finances at all since taking the vegan plunge — although I have only just discovered those mini cheesecakes, and they’re £3 a time…

You can still have nice things.
So, it turns out — cheese-less pizza? Way better than regular pizza (no, really). I can still order a curry, as long as it’s not one of the creamy ones (pretty icky anyway). Wagamama, one of my all-time favourite places, have several dishes I can order. My all-time most-loved food is Mexican, which I can still eat with aplomb as long as I hold the sour cream and cheese. I am still a regular at Illegal Jack’s. I’ve been amazed by the number of restaurants who have a veggie-dish-that-is-also-a-vegan-contingency, and places that don’t will usually be happy to make Something Tasty for you from scratch. I even got a from-scratch vegan meal made for me in a very old fashioned pub-grub, only-one-veggie-option type place in rural Cumbria. People are starting to hear about veganism. It’s not all celery sticks and hummus.

You have to love hummus.
That said, you do have to like hummus. If you don’t, I have no idea how you’d survive. Big chain coffee and sandwich shops are starting to do an obligatory vegan sandwich/panini option (Pret have a nice one), but it almost always contains lashings of hummus. When you go round to the houses of enlightened carnivore friends, hummus is what they’ve bought in for you, 99% of the time. Fortunately, I love the stuff — and Lovely Boyfriend’s homemade brand is the best, obv.

Some dairy substitutes are actually bloody excellent.
But you do have to be willing to try and fail. All the vegan cheeses I’ve tried so far have failed to impress, and I only tried vegan mayonnaise once before deciding ‘never, ever again.’ I’m cool with soy milk, but I know not everyone likes it and some folk would rather take their tea black and give up cornflakes than consume it. However, it is worth trying vegan versions of dairy things, even if some of them make you retch, because sometimes they’re incredible. Booja Booja vegan ice cream is bloody delicious (the maple pecan one is hands-down the best of the range). I’ve discovered that cashew cream is pretty much the best thing ever to happen to dessert. These things are also super healthy, too — often raw, often sugar free, gluten free, etc. At the risk of sounding like I’m after “brownie points”, this is kind of how food should be, really.

You have to be willing to get yelled at.
The most difficult thing about becoming vegan, for me? Other people’s responses. I’ve had eye-rolls, I’ve been laughed at, and I’ve been yelled at. I’ve had concern-trolling like crazy: “but you’ll make yourself ill!”, “it’s tantamount to an eating disorder!”, and the classic “your mother must be worried sick about you!”. I’ve also had a lot of folk — usually carnivores — smugly tell me that it’ll only be so long before I “crack”, run out and scoff a whole wedge of Edam. And people demand, really demand, to know why… before, usually, dismissing you as a poser hippie. I’ve tried really hard to understand the aggressively anti-vegan stance so many people take, and I just don’t get it. Are they frightened? Do they think veganism is some sort of cult? Are they worried I might try and convert them? (NB: I don’t do this. Martyna used to, but I’m happy to sit next to a friend who’s chowing down on a steak. Whatever.) Je ne comprends pas. But it happens. And as I tentatively start to tell people I’m vegan, it this that’s really hard to get used to.

Got any vegan tips? Good stores? Tasty treats? Vegan “coming out” stories? I WANT TO HEAR THEM! Get ye to the comments!
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