New Home.

Hey folks. I've moved this blog over to Wordpress. Click Here or enter the URL manually: wittslentils.wordpress.com.

I'll only be updating on that blog from now on.

R&R's house.

I'm at Rachel and Rob's house for a few days before I mosey on down to Blacksburg for a spell. The weather has been perfect (for some strange reason--It's late December), so I've been spending my days reading in their screened-in porch, preparing for next term (Heidegger and Russell--an odd combination if there ever was one). Last night I offered to make dinner for them. I went on over to Ellewood Thompson's and got some foodstuffs. We ended up having a Seitan (homemade) stir fry with brocolli and water chestnuts, peanut sauce (homemade), quinoa, and local beer. We ate it on the floor while we watched The Dark Night. A nice lazy Saturday, if there ever was one.

I hope I keep this blog going until the summer. Rachel and Rob have a fantasic garden. When the garden peaks in the summer they almost never buy food. They've grown onions, potatoes, garlic, watermelon, butternut squash, salad greens, dark greens, blueberies, blackberries, strawberries, thyme, basil, thai basil, rosemary, beets, pumpkin, tomatoes, you name it. It's such a nurturing experience to go into the backyard and dig the food you're going to eat out of the soil. It makes me feel rooted and empowered, as if I'm combating hyperreality one handful of sun-warmed soil at a time. I think Baudrillard would be proud! So come summer time I'll post some pictures of the garden.

And if you're ever in Richmond, VA, go to Ellewood Thompsons! It's seriously the best grocery store I've ever been to. They specialize in organic, local, sustainable, fair trade, healthy, veg-friendly food. They have a wealth of vegan options, and, if you're into that kind of thing, free range and "humane" meats, you know...if you're into that kind of thing. They're expanding and adding a fair trade, organic cafe soon. MacVegan paradise if there ever was one! Best of all, an Ellewood Thompson's is opening in D.C. in one year; me and my fellow districters can look forward to that!

I have my Christmas dinner photos, and I've been trying to upload them, but blogspot's been real cranky about those photos of late. I'll try again later.

Christmas Eve--Indian.

My family and I decided to make Indian food for Christmas Eve. We used to do a traditional Christmas Eve dinner, but since various scheduling factors have shifted our real emphasis from Christmas Eve to Christmas Day, Christmas Eve has become more of a warm-up party for us. Since then, we've started to make creative foods like Mexican and Indian on Xmas eve. This was a good opportunity to have a rematch with Chana Masala (see 'Curried Humility' entry), to see if I could make it a bit more edible this time. It worked out well. I also made homemade Roti, an Indian flatbread, and I thoroughly impressed myself. It was actually fairly simple. Again, mom made spiced basmati rice, which was great. We had some mango chutney, which I never got a photo of. We also has some Indian cocunut rice pudding with raisins and pistachios. It all turned out pretty well.

My Aunt came down from Manhattan for dinner today. It was nice to see her and cook for her. I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the family tomorrow.


Chana Masala (stewed chickpeas and potatoes w/ indian spices) with spinach. I took the photo really close because any wider shot didn't really show you the food anymore.



Spiced basmati rice with cinnamon, cardamom and cumin.



Homemade roti (indian flatbread, thinner than Naan) with vegan butter on top.



The whole shebang together with mango chutney and white wine.



Indian rice pudding with coconut milk, raisins and pistachios. I would have liked to use golden raisins, but didn't have any around.



Ye ol' hearth.


hat tip to Manjula's Indian Vegetarian Kitchen for helping me with the Roti. Here's the video. It puffs up when its cooking and forms an inner pocket like a pita. It looks really cool. Here's Manjula's video:


stay tuned for Xmas dinner tomorrow night!!!
happy holidays everyone!!!

"how hard is it to be vegan during the holidays?

Don't worry, I'm going to post whatever vegan concoctions my family and I cook up this year for Xmas when the time comes, but since I've been asked a million times before 'how hard it is to be vegan during the holidays,' and since I happen to have these photos from a year or two back on Thanksgiving, I thought I might as well post them, and then give a fuller and more thought-out answer to the question at hand. The quality is significantly better than the other photos on this blog that I've taken only with my MacBook. This is because my sister Vanessa was a photo major in her undergrad (She's since left photography for net.art).

Anyway, so here it is, what a vegan eats for Thanksgiving--
(not pictured are the cranberries, vegan raspberry swirl cheesecake and apple pie)

Faux turkey cutlets.

Stuffed acorn squash with wild rice and cranberries.

Cornbread stuffing with apples, rosemary and sage

Roasted sweet potatoes with toasted pecans and brown sugar.

Green beans with fried onions

Garlic mashed potatoes


This is why I usually just laugh it off when people ask me how 'hard' it is to be vegan during the holidays. Being vegan is as abundant a lifestyle as I could ask for. I don't 'miss' anything at all from when I ate animals. If I had it, I wouldn't enjoy it. This is what I eat not because this is what I am allowed to eat, but because it is what I choose to eat, and in that I see an abundance I never imagined would come from conscious eating. The holidays are not just a time to unreflectively gorge on the foods that slowly kill us, made by the corporations that don't give a damn about us, relieved that 'today doesn't count,' and feel terrible about it the next day when you draft your new years resolutions. The holidays are a time to celebrate the abundance of resources that we have, and I'm thrilled that those resources allow me to give back to the world, my body, and other animals not just in spite of the holidays, but especially during the holidays, a time when the delicate, awesome power of the environment, the gift of our health and embodiment, and the welfare of the least among us should be at the forefront of our minds. For me and other veg*ns, the holidays are not a time where we grit our teeth and grudgingly surpass the turkey's breast or pig's leg because we 'have to.' For me at least, the ever-threatened, ever-abused 'true spirit of the holidays,' and the reasons that I choose veganism aren't in conflict--they flow from the same part of me--the part of me that embraces community, compassion, and respect for life. So in answer to the omnipresent puzzlement "it must be hard to be vegan during the holidays!?" my best and most honest response would be to laugh and say "how hard? as hard as it is to feel charitable during the holidays, as hard as it is to feel compassion during the holidays, as hard as it is to feel love during the holidays. The flavors of animals are long-gone from my palate. I don't even remember them anymore, so how could I miss them? The foods on a vegan holiday table are overwhelmingly flavorful, rich and healthy. Nothing is missing. I would choose them over meat and dairy even if I got a no-strings-attached option, just once a year, that let me eat meat that no animal had to die for. I would still choose these foods. A vegan holiday is not one of sacrifice and self-discipline. It is not one of bland flavors and colors. A vegan holiday is one of abundance, compassion, health, flavor, growth, community and joy."

...that's how hard it is to be vegan during the holidays.

BBQ seitan.

This was a tag-team operation. My sister and I wanted to make something warm and heavy on account of the weather, but still make it as healthy as we could. We made this entire meal from scratch--every bit of it. It took us two hours, but they were enjoyable. I made homemade seitan with homemade bbq sauce. Vanessa made mashed cauliflower w/ homemade gravy. She also made this kick-ass broccolli slaw. All things considered, we did pretty damn well.

By the way, a lot of people assume that when vegans eat something out of the ordinary, it's because its more ordinary counterpart isn't vegan. This isn't the case. V made mashed caulifour because its a lot healthier than vegan mashers and tastes (almost) the same (V claims that they taste better than real mashers. I disagree. In fact, if it were up to me, we probably would have made regular mashers instead. I'm glad we did the cauliflower though). Anyway, my point is we didn't begrudgingly do cauliflower mashes because regular mashers 'aren't vegan' or something. It was just easier and healthier.

I feel manly when I make cookies.

I wanted to embarrass myself as go as Martha Stewart as I possibly could once this Christmas, so I decided to do bracket my masculinity for the day and make vegan pinwheel chocolate peppermint cookies. The recipe wasn't vegan, but it was easily veganized, as 90% of baked foods are. I just did margarine instead of dairy butter, soymilk instead of cows' milk, and bananas instead of eggs (though there are many other ways to get around the egg thing). The non-chocolate parts of the cookies had crushed candy cane pieces in them. Look at them. They're adorable.

In other, completely inedible news, I really like to run, and when I was training for a marathon a couple of years back, I completely messed up my right knee, ignored it, and did what seems to be permanant damage. I can still run fairly long distances, around ten miles, but if I increase distance too much from run to run, or if I push fifteen miles in a single run, my knee inevitably acts up. After some research, I'm pretty sure it's iliotibial band syndrome. Anyway, against my best judgment I increased my distances a bit too quickly this break and my IT band is in some serious pain. It would be wise to steer clear of running for five days or so, but I keep ignoring my own advice. I ran a 5k today, and I plan to do a 10k tomorrow. My knee is KILLING me.
But this is supposed to be a vegan food blog.

Anyway, hopefully my next entry will be more veg-full. I'm missing fruits and vegetables.

Breakfast, too.

PANCAKES~~what of it?!?
--and vegan sausage too.