Mayday Cafe covers my ass.

You know, food-wise.

When it comes to a good cuppa joe and vegan pastries, Mayday Cafe's got this shit on lockdown.

Check it out:

That's a vegan maple sconey right there. It was perfect-not too sweet, crumbly and perfect for dipping in my cup of light roast. Their coffee is excellent-lots of flavor and bite. Man, I love me some good black coffee.

Get there! I like Mayday a lot for its seating layout-it makes you have to get close to and even possibly have a conversation with someone else sitting near you. You know, forcing people to get out of their comfort zone and stuff like that.

GO NOW! BAH!

MN Vegan

The Donut Cooperative owns ALL.

HOLY FUCKING CRAP. MINNEAPOLIS HAS VEGAN DONUTS. AND THEY ARE SENSATIONAL.

We've actually had them for a while, but this is some serious shit right here. Like, monumental. Like, I don't even have to go to Portland this year if I don't want to, because The Donut Cooperative has my vegan-donut-craving-ass covered. Sweeeeeet.

Check out what I had there:

That right there is coffee (looking extra huge by the way), a vegan chocolate chocolate cake donut and a delicious vegan muffaletta-type sammy with vegan rinotta cheese. Fucking stellar. I left feeling like a blimp, but it was so worth it. Get here, people. You will not be sorry.

FUCKING GO NOW!

MN Vegan

Ha! Update!

Soooooo last night I went to see The Lion King at the Orpheum. It was, even though I was not high or drunk, trippy as shit. That is all I will say. You will have to see it for yourself if you'd like to experience what it's like to not be on drugs and still face the mind-blowing aftermath. Yep.

Well anyways, as you know my mother is a health vegan, which is cool. We eat all of the same things now so we had to find a place near the Orpheum (read: smack-dab downtown) that served vegan food. So that's why we chose CRAVE. When I called them, the nice woman on the phone said they had an impressive vegetarian sushi menu and that they'd be willing to make any dish on the menu vegan upon request.

COOL.

First off, let me say that this place is FANCY. Yep. Expect to pay out the butt, but the service and food is awesome.

So we started with dranks, of course. This here's is an agave margarita. Sorry for the bad picture-dim lighting, you know.

If you are a tequila fan (as I am), you will also think this drink is phenomenal. I like perfect balance of lime-y and spicy tequila-y and this had both. Perfect way to start out the meal. I probably would have been tanked if I had another one.

Next! We had some apps. We got the edamame and the mediterranean plate, pictured below for your viewing pleasure.

The hummus was fucking stellar. Absolutely delicious. The edamame was glazed in a sweet tamari sauce and made your fingers dirty when you ate them BUT! The nice waitress totally gave us some moist towelettes to wipe our hands onto. Nice.

Then! My vegan sushi!

This here's the "veggie platter" or something like that. It comes with cucumber, avocado, carrots and bunch of other veggies stuffed in there. It was absolutely divine. And since that word is way cheesy, I will break it down for you:

I've never met a vegan sushi roll I didn't like.

So! There ya have it. CRAVE in downtown Minneapolis will cater to vegans. That's pretty kickass.

MN Vegan

Bella.

Just thought you all should know this. It's pretty important:

Bella!

That is all.

MN Vegan

Getting back into the swing of things.

I have been slacking.

Like majorly slacking.

Like, there's no way you'd probably accept an apology. You're all fed up with me not posting, and quite fucking frankly, I am too.

So here we go.

I have made it one of my new years resolutions to pick up where I left off when it comes to many parts of my life (music, blogging, etc etc.)

I feel like things are finally going in the direction I want-I'm almost done applying for grad school, I am going to be playing some music with some kickass people, I'm applying for different jobs in the cities and I'm lighting a fire under my vegan ass to finally post about some delicious things I've been eating.

So here goes. An ode to HARD TIMES CAFE, my love.

Oh Hard Times, must thou be so delcious I can barely speak? Everything you make is done with such tastiness. The pinch of badass apathy you add into it only makes me want to come back for more. Why do you torture me so with your vegan biscuits and gravy, sexy hippies working the counter and coffee brewed to perfection, just for me? I love thee Hard Times. I love thee. Literally, your food makes me want to:

Cough. Moving on.

Anyways! Here's what I had a Hard Times this morning:

Vegan mushroom barley soup! I don't know how they make it so fucking creamy, but it was. It was, with a little bit of nootch and hot sauce, one of the best things I've tasted in a while. Delish!

Get down there. Like I keep telling you guys-it's good fucking food over here.

MN Vegan

MIDWEST VEGAN RADIO!

Heyyyyy guys.

I wanted to plug for the vegan podcast show that I'm the "networking administrator" (cough groupie cough) for. And to prove to you that you need to download the podcast (for free!!!) from iTunes, here is Ryan listening to the podcast from a squash and Dallas approving the entire thing. They are the hosts of the show and are clearly kickass.

So yep. Give them a listen, yo!

MN Vegan

Something I've been meaning to post for a while.

And now I finally have the ladynads to do it. I'm sick of people treating me like veganism is the only thing defining who I am as a person. They hear the word and shove me into this mold. One of the first reactions I get a lot is "you don't look vegan".

How is a vegan supposed to look? How am I supposed to even react to something like that? My first reaction would be to be slightly offended I guess?

Is it possible to "look" vegan?

What about "acting" vegan? I imagine this might entail a militant vegan response to every situation in life, but that is the EXACT opposite of the person I ever wanted to be. I do not agree with this and I will not stand to be treated this way.

I think one of the reasons I don't outwardly enjoy being defined as a vegan is because of the stigma that sticks to that word.

I am so many other things.

I am a music whore, violinist, baker, hippy, mommy to a wonderful dog, girlfriend to a fantastic man, best friend, daughter, lover, sister, godmother and many many other things. I am NOT just a vegan and I will not let it define me the way it has in the past. I don't enjoy that the first thing people ever find out about me is that I'm vegan. What about all of the other things I do?

This goes to say, I'm not ashamed of being vegan, it's just a facet of who I am. Veganism will never control everything I say and do and I think that is so freeing in a way. I've been putting too much pressure on myself to really wear veganism like a big, neon sign hanging around my neck. I'm ready to let the other parts of me shine through too.