Larkspur's profile

More About Me

Reasons why I prefer to eat vegetarian or vegan:

Primarily health reasons, particularly autoimmune arthritis. Secondarily because of factory farming conditions. I view cheese and dairy as being even less ethical than meat-eating. And thirdly, for environmental reasons. I am not 100% vegan nor am I 100% vegetarian, and I will eat dishes that contain fish sauce in Thai restaurants, or chicken stock in mainstream restaurants. I strongly prefer to eat vegan, and given a choice, I'll go for a vegan restaurant over a restaurant with vegan options.

I joined HappyCow Members Community because:

I need an easy way to see if veg restaurants are nearby. I've found Happy Cow strongly lacking in areas that don't have strictly vegan restaurants. In North Austin, for instance, it is easy to find restaurants with vegan options. Even a nearby steakhouse has vegan sides (if you ask them to leave the butter off, enough to fill a plate, but I have to do the legwork myself because Happy Cow for some reason doesn't bother to list more than two vegan restaurants in my area. It's frustrating. I also really like to be able to eat out with people who aren't necessarily vegan. I really like restaurants that offer more than just a dish or two and I think any restaurant that can and will provide me with a full, tasty vegan plate deserves to get listed, especially when nothing else exists withing a ten mile radius.

Here are some places I've been that I liked... and places that I would like to visit one day:

Vancouver BC Canada, Sweden, Denmark: all top notch. Belgium was a little hard to eat in, at least the smaller towns, but still pretty awesome. I'd love to visit some smaller cities in France, and I'd love to visit Germany, Finland, and Norway.

Some of my favorite veg*n foods include:

Curries! Especially thai, vietnamese, and indian. I love American Chinese and a few authentic Chinese dishes. I love fake meat, but I haaaaaate Gardein. Yuck. Too...greasily realistic. Mexican is at the top of my list, and great hash browns and breads and pastas. Gluten luuuuurves me and I love it back.

Here are some books, movies, magazines, and my favorites that I would recommend to other HappyCow members:

Gastronomica is excellent (not a vegan mag).