Tag Archives: vegan

Pure Food and Wine

First of all, thank you so much for all the nice and helpful comments on my last post about my digestive issues. I’m sorry some of you have had to go through the same experience, but it gives me hope.

With my stomach issues and my job search, it hasn’t necessarily been the easiest summer for me, but fun nights like last night are what keep me going.

Last minute yesterday, Gabriela invited me to dinner with her and Chelsey, who’s visiting her. Gabriela’s a ton of fun, so I knew Chelsey would be, too.

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[photo via Gabriela]

We went to Pure Food and Wine, an awesome vegan and raw food restaurant in Gramercy that I’ve heard a ton about but never been to. Well, now I am no longer a Pure virgin. I could never see myself eating vegan all the time, but I do like trying vegan restaurants and food, because the flavor combinations are always so different from non-vegan food.

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The menu is relatively simple–one page of starters, one page of entrees, one page of desserts, but I was still incredibly overwhelmed by this unfamiliar food.

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Okay. That helped.

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Gabriela said that the Raw Zucchini and Heirloom Tomato Lasagna was one of her favorite dishes, so I trusted her recommendation. I nearly got the pad thai because it looked like it was made without peanuts (which I’m allergic to), but when I realized I’d have serious food envy of Chelsey’s lasagna, I got it, too.

In between the zucchini and tomato was pumpkin nut cheese, pine nut pesto and marinara sauce. (I know my mom is gagging and considering this a bastardization of lasagna.)

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Bloggers will be bloggers.

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Dessert was where I did get some food envy. I decided to go with the passion fruit panna cotta, since I’ve been craving lots of fruit and fruit flavors lately, but Gabriela and Chelsey got the mint chocolate chip sundae. They made a way better decision than I did. After dinner we went to Rye House for one more cocktail.

Thanks for inviting me ladies! I had such a good time.

Adventures in (Vegan) Cheese

Since I started reading healthy living blogs, I’ve been exposed to all kinds of different foods and eating styles that I’d never known about before. (And I’ve tried a lot of foods I’ve read about on blogs!)

I’ll try different foods, but right now, how I’m eating mostly works for me. I generally eat almost anything but am trying to go light on fried food, wheat and dairy to see if it helps my stomach.

There’s one problem with that.

I LOVE CHEESE.

Like, so much so that I joined French club in high school because my friend told me they did cheese tastings. DONE. This was obviously the club for me.

But I don’t think my stomach loves cheese. (Jerk.) I knew vegan and other dairy-free cheese alternatives existed, but I didn’t want to try them. They wouldn’t be as good as the real thing.

But for some reason, I decided to try vegan cheese last night.

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(Um, technically it’s a “cheese product alternative.”)

I was having my friend Eileen over for tacos/fajitas, and I didn’t want to buy a bag of cheese I wouldn’t use again, so I decided to try this cheese. I was going to trick her and not tell her it was vegan, but at the last minute I told her and she didn’t seem too weirded out.

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Maybe it was the wine.

Edited to add: The cheese wasn’t bad! It was in such a small quantity, though, that I wasn’t sure, so I tried it after dinner melted on a tortilla chip and it passed that all-important test.