Some odds and ends from around the kitchen

One lone apple sat in the produce bin along with a couple of limes, a wilted head of basil, and the remains of parsley. There was no milk and even the supply of ramen was exhausted. I faced this situation half an hour ago when trying to decide what to have for lunch. After briefly considering the instant oatmeal box and the binder of takeout menus, I came up with a handful of ingredients.

1 can of chickpeas + 2 garlic cloves + 3 tablespoons of olive oil + the juice from 1 lime (the other was covered with mold) + a shake of red pepper flakes + 1 teaspoon of salt + about 1/2 cup of water went into the blender to make hummus.

3 roma tomatoes, sliced in half , sprinkled with salt, and placed on a baking sheet, went into the oven for 20 minutes. When the tomatoes were finished, I sliced each piece of tomato in half.

I spread the hummus on the crackers and placed a tomato piece on top. The once desperate lunch situation had come to a very satisfying resolution.

Pensive about Veganism

If you grew up near Berkeley, CA, you've probably had brushes with veganism. You have that friend who eschews altoids and glares at your vintage leather jacket. You like tofu, feel lukewarm about seitan and uneasy about TVP. You may have even given up meat for a month when you were seventeen until the family trip to France forced you to concede.

All these thoughts and more went through my head yesterday at Angelica's Kitchen, a vegan restaurant in the East Village. Angelica's Kitchen is the kind of place where there are sesame seed shakers and soy sauce on the hardwood table, and where your waiter looks like a cross between Ben Savage and Rider Strong. Lunch was fantastic, reasonably priced for New York City ($17 for two people), and filling. The vegan chili was better than many ground-beef chilis that I've had (and I feel very strongly that ground beef belongs in chili), the salad was crunchy and fresh, and the walnut "pate", curry spread, and "sushi" rolls were fun to eat.

I admit that some trepidation crept into my heart when the restaurant came up as a possibility. Would the food be flavorless? Would everything be over-salted? Would I have to shell out $15 for an unsatisfying dish and then sneak off afterwards for a pizza slice to fill up? All these preconceptions were swept away.

So in the spirit of "eating to live" rather than "living to eat" (some phrase I heard uttered on a show from The Food Network), I resolve to eat and cook more vegan meals this year. Don't get me wrong--I will not give up L'Exploreteur cheese or bun cha Hanoi or rare beef. And I believe that eating fish several times a week has physical and mental health benefits (translation: eating sushi makes me happy.) But for those Tuesday nights when I don't know what to make or the end of the week when I'm trying to cook something healthy and inexpensive, I'm going to turn to my vegan cookbook. First up tonight: Vegetable stew with sourdough bread and mixed green salad. Time to hit the produce section.