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Harmony - in harmony with the music!!

Just Chillin' on a Sunday Afternoon

There were children and adults of all ages with one commonality:  the healthy vegan lifestyle.

Just a few of the vendors!!

Kudos to Bob and all that helped coordinate this event. A lot of hard work and time went into it and they all deserve a huge round of applause.

Will this become an annual event? Only time will tell. If there is one next year I hope to see more of you at the Summer of Love Revisited!!

Ciao Bello/Bella,

Dancing Vegan & the Animals

The Reason We Are VEGANS!!

One intrepid dyke asks the age-old question: Do you eat meat?
By Sarah E. Brown

I recently had dinner with a lesbian friend of mine at a chic vegan restaurant in downtown San Francisco. While we were midway through our meal of lime-marinated oyster mushrooms and tofu-ricotta lasagna, my friend dunked her toasted crostini in sun-dried tomato pesto and was about to take a bite when she blurted out, “Do you see how many chicks are in this place? Why are so many of us vegan?”

Her question was one that I have fielded many times before. It is undeniable that both vegan and lesbian communities draw from each other, both for support and membership. Lesbian-oriented events in big cities are almost always catered vegan, or at least provide vegan options. Geographically speaking, communities with significant lesbian populations, such as Portland, Ore., Berkeley, Calif., and Brooklyn, N.Y., are also well-known vegan havens. Yet there still seems to be a lot of misunderstanding both within and outside the lesbian communities.

Why are there so many queer female vegans? While each person comes to veganism on her own terms, there are great incentives for women of all sexualities to be vegan. To understand the significance of the vagitarian-vegetarian connection, it is necessary to see the interconnected relationships among veganism, lesbianism and feminism.

In her essay “Pepperoni or Broccoli? On the Cutting Wedge of Feminist Environmentalism,” feminist Joni Seager argues that feminism and animal rights are directly related and that their goals are inextricably intertwined. Seager proposes that animal rights discourse reveals the problematic nature of concrete identity categories.

Many feminists have also advocated this approach to subvert traditional patriarchal gender roles.
Seager also speaks of a similarity in the ways in which both animals and women have been sub-ordinated: “Debates about animals unmistakably echo familiar racist and sexist ideologies about ‘natural affinities,’ categories authorized by nature, destinies inscribed in biology, and ‘scientific proofs’ of the limited capacities of the ‘other’ that have rumbled through the centuries to justify slavery [and] the oppression of women.”

Like other feminists, Seager suggests we critique structures that are simultaneously oppressive to both women and animals, arguing that their oppressions are interrelated.

In understanding that one can and must be interested in animal rights and feminist issues con-currently, it is clear to me that efforts to increase rights for animals and women of all sexual orientations are not mutually exclusive. Just as one person’s choice to invest in sustainable energy sources affects the global environment, the positive implications of veganism extend way beyond the individual or family dinner table. Eating and using animal products reinforces the universal oppression of women—lesbian or otherwise. us, negotiating both a vegan and a lesbian identity can provide a real opportunity for positive change.

So the next time you find yourself dating an herbivore, perhaps the real question you should be asking yourself is, “Why aren’t I a vegan?” ■

This article was originally published in November 2007 issue of Curve Magazine

Hi Everyone,

HappyCow friends at QuarryGirl.com recently launched an unprecedented investigation into the common ingredients used at a string of vegan restaurants in the Greater Los Angeles area.  The results are surprising, alarming, and worth taking a look.

QuarryGirl secretly tested the ingredients from 17 so-called “vegan” restaurants to see if they contained traces of egg, casein (a milk derivative), and/or shellfish.  Of 17 places they checked, only 10 passed free and clear.  Seven failed.  Among these were ones that I, a 20+ year vegan, routinely visit – so you can imagine the surprise and frustration I felt upon hearing about the results!

While these restaurants were likely buyers of mis-labeled mock meat products and NOT out to deceive their patrons intentionally, patrons and vegans who’ve heard about this investigation are now expressing anger at the findings.  It’s my personal belief that the majority, if not all, the restaurants that failed were using products that they thought were vegan (according to manufacturer’s labels) and were themselves deceived by the manufacturer’s labeling.

The good news is that starting July 1, new stricter laws are going into effect regarding vegetarian products labeling in Taiwan, the country origin of most mock meats / faux meats / veggies meats used in these vegan restaurants.  (link)

Of the 1000’s of restaurants listed on HappyCow.net, it now seems to me that likely at least some of the vegan offerings would fail strict contamination tests, especially from the places offering “mock meats” and “vegan’ cheese.” People have different reasons for avoiding egg, casein, and shellfish, with the most alarming being those who suffer extreme allergies, so improving this situation is important and exigent.

If you haven’t already done so, read QuarryGirl’s article:
http://www.quarrygirl.com/2009/06/28/undercover-investigation-of-la-area-vegan-restaurants/

…and then, if this concerns you, take action locally.  We are working on a list of reputable manufacturers of mock meats, soy products, and vegan cheese for distribution, and I suggest we share this with restaurants in our neighborhood.  I will post it as soon as it’s ready.

- Eric, aka Webmaster, HappyCow.net

Some still think vegetarianism is a fad as opposed to a lifestyle. While it is true that it came to national attention in the 1960s here in the United States, its origins are hundreds if not thousands of years older than that. Make no mistake, vegetarianism is a lifestyle and has been for a good long while.

In the western world alone, vegetarianism began to take hold in the mid-1800s in both Great Britain and the United States. According to the International Vegetarian Union website the word “vegetarian” first appeared in print in 1843. Four years later the Vegetarian Society was formed in Great Britain as a secular organization to promote this healthy, plant-based diet.

A few years after that an American Presbyterian minister, Sylvester Graham, helped to found the American Vegetarian Society in New York in 1850. Graham stressed the importance of whole-wheat flour and is, perhaps, best known as the inventor of the Graham Cracker. His followers practiced temperance (no alcohol!), vegetarianism and (I am guessing with tongue-in-cheek) washing Graham Crackers down with a tall glass of milk.

So if vegetarianism has been around for awhile, how about vegetarian recipes and vegetarian cookbooks? Think about it. Just because people included meat in their diet (and were therefore not vegetarians) it doesn’t mean they didn’t enjoy cooking and eating vegetarian dishes. If there were vegetarians before the psychedelic 60s, then there were, ipso facto, vegetarian cookbooks!

I have been the proud recipient of many cookbooks handed down to my parents and finally to me. When I became a vegetarian in 1975, I was also sent vegetarian cookbooks and cookbooks with sections on cooking for vegetarians.

One of the vintage, purely vegetarian cookbooks I acquired is a publication by Loma Linda Foods titled “Vegetable Protein Recipes”. It is undated but appears to be printed about 1967 as a means of promoting their “low fat, high protein” foods, many of which are still found at your local grocery store today.

Another fun cookbook is the undated “Recipes for Cooking” book printed in Fresno, California sometime in the 1930s. It has a full 5-page section titled “Vegetarian Recipes” which includes but is not limited to Baked Onions, Mock Whitefish, Vegetarian Hamburger Steak, Vegetarian Sausage, Macaroni Croquettes and Vegetable Oyster Pie. In this section there is a Kingsford’s Corn Starch ad and it looks like the woman in the ad is cooking on a wood-fired stove – something my wife grew up with but which our son would probably not appreciate or even understand today.

I remember visiting my friend, Gay, who was a nutritionist for a northern California coastal valley school district in the late 1970s. Her cook was an older employee (Gay was about 25 and her employee was about 65) who baked in an even older wood-fired oven in their central kitchen.

There were no gauges on the oven so when Gay showed me the dessert they were baking that day, I asked “How can you tell how hot the oven is without some sort of temperature gauge?” Without saying a word, Gay’s cook opened the massive oven door, knelt down and stuck both of her arms in the oven. It took me a full minute to pick my jaw up off the floor.

Gay explained that her cook had a 40-year relationship with this specific oven and knew it so well she could not only tell when the temperature was just right, she could also tell if it was heating evenly from one side to the other just by sticking her arms in the oven for a few seconds. I again picked my jaw up of the floor. I could only wonder what it must have been like for my ancestors who cooked in dutch ovens over camp fires as they migrated west from Pennsylvania in the 1850s.

I like to tell folks that this image is a photo taken in my test kitchen but they know better. It is a photo from a cookbook printed about 1927 by the Jewel Tea Company and titled “Mary Dunbar’s Favorite Recipes”.

My favorite cookbook is dated 1908 and titled “Merced Carnival Cook Book”. It has sections on soups, salads, vegetables, pickles, breads, cakes, cookies, pudding, pies, candies and “miscellaneous”. It is encouraging to note that the first page is composed of totally vegetarian soup recipes!

Under the miscellaneous category there are three recipes for “Cheese Straws”. They must have been popular at the turn of the last century. To make them you take a “Heaping cup grated cheese, level cup flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, pinch cayenne pepper and salt. Mix well with water. Bake in hot oven.” I’m gonna try it.

What I like best about this cookbook is written in the preface. It is here that the authors divulge their “Recipe for Successful Cooking”. It is as follows:

Take 2 lbs. of the best control,

1 lb. of justice,

1 lb. of discipline,

1 1/2 lbs. of consideration,

5 lbs. of patience,

Sweeten with charity and let the mixture simmer well,

Keep constantly on hand.

Fun stuff! If you have a favorite story about vintage cookbooks and/or recipes, please leave a comment!

Earth trine. Two separate words when combined have a special meaning. Earth is self explanatory. But what is trine?

The man behind the successful Earthtrine Farm, Robert “BD” Dautch, explained that trine refers to an aspect in astrology. As applied to one of the Ojai Valley’s most successful organic farms, it is the conjunction of the astrological signs for BD, his wife and his son. All three have “earth” signs. All in harmony with the earth.

In a lengthly article last year in Ventana Monthly, BD was called an “Organic Alchemist” who turned dirt into gold. Having toured his farm I can say he is that for sure. I see him more as a Renaissance Man with an important twist. Instead of helping to bring about a revival of art and literature, Dautch brings a revival of interest in small farming, as opposed to large corporate farming, with a focus on organics.

In talking with BD on his farm one can tell that he is one with his crops, the fields, and the earth under his feet. He is completely and literally “at home.” In addition to his passion as an organic farmer, BD is a family man. He has a son and two daughters at home and feels it is important to spend time with them before sending them off to school each morning. And, oh yeah, did I mention he is a Vegan?

Prior to 1974, when BD began his career in organic farming, he planted and attended to community gardens in Isla Vista. Today he farms two locations in Ojai: 10-acre and 3-acre organic farms near the Nordoff Cemetery. In addition, he farms five acres of organic produce in Carpinteria.

Although the majority of land on his farms supports oranges, he also grows an abundance of other fruits, vegetables and herbs. He not only harvests over 100 different varieties of produce throughout the year, he harvests and distributes edible weeds that sprout up naturally on the farm. The farm motto? “Go wild. Eat Weeds!” Naturally.

BD strives for a balance with nature and says that this is not always easy especially on an organic farm. When asked to elaborate he said “You can’t count on consistent weather. Inconsistent weather affects the timing on insect hatchings.” He implied that you have to be ever vigilant for insects that will eat the produce or kill the trees. “Work on a farm”, he said, “is never done.”

In sum, BD is a person of many talents including organic farmer, business man and family man. Look for him and his crew at the Ojai Certified Farmers Market each Sunday under the Earthtrine banner.