If your bread’s wheat is sweet its probably got honey in it.

For those of you living in the LA area, have you ever been to the cute little area of Larchmont Village?

If not, its basically a couple blocks of cute little boutiques, cafes and restaurants situated in mid-city.

We usually are in this area to dine at Cafe Gratitude, however one day while taking a little post meal stroll we discovered there was this (not so little) cafe, Larchmont Bungalow that also offers vegan fare. In fact, it’s kinda awesome because they clearly mark what is vegan on their menu’s and have quite a few options to boot.

We haven’t tried everything and the couple times we have been there I usually go for the Maple Bacon Tempeh Club just because I am a real sammich fan.

Maple Bacon Tempeh Club, I must admit those fries are damn good!

Bad news is, this looks a whole lot better then it tastes. Up until last time I couldn’t pin point it, but I realized they don’t season the tempeh at all, so its got that semi nasty nutty flavor to it, which I can tell you really isn’t very good in a sammich.

Now the good news is I also discovered last time we were there that they have VEGAN MOON PIES**!

Vegan Moon Pie — As you can see me and my girlfriend couldn’t wait to sink our teeth in!

My friends and family know that following a recent trip to CT to visit with my sister and her husband (whom turned me on to these tasty treats which are offered at Whole Foods over there) I have been OBSESSED with finding the same here in Los Angeles, but sadly continued to come up short. I was thinking I would just go ahead and make these from scratch one day but then after seeing Moon Pies in the case at Larchmont Bungalow I just had to ask if they had any vegan desserts! So I ask the cashier, crossing my fingers tightly as she explained they only have ONE vegan dessert available, and that is the VEGAN MOON PIES! I like literally jumped in the air in excitement and said I will take one! And believe me, it was definitely worth the wait!

The Final Verdict: ♥ ♥

Vegan Edge gives this spot a 2 out of 5, which would be 1 out of 5 if it weren’t for the amazing vegan moon pies!

Larchmont Bungalow has the right idea when it comes to being an omnivore establishment serving vegan options; the staff is well versed in vegan food, they have decent options and fucking VEGAN MOON PIES but outside of the moon pies the food is extremely mediocre at best. They really just don’t give any thought to it, basically taking cafe classics and throwing them together with unseasoned tempeh or faux meat and/or cheese without any further thought.

Further, I stumbled on some disturbing news on this joint while putting together this post. It seems this place isn’t even legal and is battling the city in court! Eek! Better get on over to get those moon pies before this joint gets the boot!

Larchmont Bungalow
107 N Larchmont Blvd between Beverly Blvd & 1st St
Los Angeles, CA 90004

Hours of Operation
Sunday – Saturday
7:30am – 9pm

** I was looking for a description of a “moon pie” for your reading pleasure and it seems that vegan moon pies are not really like a traditional moon pie. According to Wikipedia (which can be viewed here), a traditional moon pie is like a graham cracker cookie type thing with marshmallow. A Vegan moon pie (in my experience) is simply cream stuffed in between two round chocolate cakes parts. Now that I have found this, I think I am going to totally be on the hunt for a more traditional moon pie, or maybe even make one myself because it looks DAMN GOOD too!

Did you know that Wendy O. Williams was a vegetarian?

Ok, let me back up here a sec for those who don’t know who W.O.W is.

The late Wendy O. was this amazing bad ass of a woman in this band called the Plasmatics (then later a successful solo career) who rocked a Mohawk like no other, chainsawed guitars, blew shit up on stage, sometimes wore nothing more then a shaving cream bikini and is definitely top 5 on my ‘chicks I think are the raddest ever’ list (yeah, so, I am kind of obsessed and this is sort of an excuse to talk about/post pics of her teehee).

You know instead of describing the epicness that was Wendy O. Williams, why don’t you just have a look at this video here:

So while Wendy O. appeared to be someone that would rather hunt her own meal then to be compassionate towards animals it totally wasn’t the case. From an article off Wikipedia (yes, I am whipping out my Wikipedia diploma again) —

“Despite her reputation as a fearsome performer, Williams in her personal life was deeply devoted to the welfare of animals, a passion that included a vegetarian diet, working as a wildlife rehabilitator and being a natural foods activist. In one TV talk show appearance on KPIX’s The Morning Show, she openly accused Debbi Fields (of “Mrs. Fields” cookie fame) of being “no better than a heroin pusher” for using so much processed white sugar in her products.”

Nuff said!***

So Wendy O. Williams, Vegan Edge salutes you for being one super rad animal welfare fighting individual and showing us (or should I say naysayers) that you can be a bad ass and compassionate all at the same time!

*** Disclaimer: I realize Wendy O. could possibly be rocking some animal products like leather but I choose to believe that it was pleather as to not taint one of my idols ok?!

The movie Rubber is totally not vegan friendly

As spring is now upon us I have been cooking up as many fruits and veggies that are in season as possible. So, after noting that jackfruit is in season (even though I planned to use canned lol) I thought it was finally time to cook up some jackfruit “carnitas” as my girlfriend and I deeply miss Pure Luck’s Jack’s Super Burrito Wrap (btw they really need to note on their site that the they aren’t open anymore I just realized!). Anyways, the Vegan Girl’s Guide to Life has a pretty awesome looking recipe, so we decided to finally make a trip to the Asian market near our place to pick some up.

What does this have anything to do with a Tom Kha Kai recipe? Well the ingredients are found at the Asian market of course! So as to not waste the trip and because my girlfriend has a deep rooted love for this particular soup we decided to give it a go and I must say, it came out effing awesome!

I do not speak Thai but according to my Wikipedia diploma Tom Kha Kai literally translates to “chicken galangal soup” but don’t fret, this is one of those recipes that so easily translates well veganized that you wonder why it wasn’t simply plant based to begin with. The real source of the flavor in this flavor powerhouse of a soup is in the galangal, lemon grass and also in the kaffir lime leaves. At its core these 3 magic ingredients are all that is needed to make a rocking Tom Kha Kai worth writing home about.

Here’s what we rolled with (adapted from this recipe here)

• 2 cups coconut milk
• 3 cups no chicken stock
• 3 stalks lemongrass, bruised then cut into 2″ pieces
• 4 kaffir lime leaves, torn
• 4 (3”) slices of galangal
• 1 medium onion, roughly chopped
• 3-4 Thai bird’s eye chilies, stemmed
• 1 cup mushrooms (of choice), sliced
• 3/4 tsp agave
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 3 Tbsp lime juice
• 2 Tbsp Shoyu
• 4 Tbsp minced cilantro

Directions:

1. In a stock pot bring the no chicken stock to a boil. Add galangal, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, onion and agave to a boil. Simmer 10 minutes.
2. Add coconut milk, chilies, and shoyu. Simmer 10 more minutes.
3. Add mushrooms and heat through until mushrooms are tender.
4. Remove the pot from heat and add lime juice and cilantro.

Note: You can actually put whatever veggies you want in addition to or in place of the mushrooms. We did a second batch with cabbage, bok choy and I think it was carrot and it was also very good.

This dish is also traditionally served with some sort of rice, usually jasmine so I also did up this amazingly good Coconut Curry Rice w/ Golden Berries:

I’ll give ya a deal and give ya two for one today, here’s the recipe (which was adapted from this recipe here)

• 1 1/4 tablespoons Earth balance
• 1  small onion, chopped
• 2 teaspoons curry powder
• 1 cup jasmine rice
• 1/3 cup dried golden berries
• 1/2 cup coconut milk
• 1/2 cup no chicken broth
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1  bay leaf

Directions: Melt butter in a medium saucepan. Add onion, and sauté until tender. Add curry powder and rice; cook 2 minutes. Stir in remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes or until liquid is absorbed. Remove bay leaf.

Damn, I think I am hungry now…

Hi :) I bet you’re thinking, ok what the heck is this one about now? so here’s the scoop….

Name is Brandi and I currently reside in Los Angeles, CA. I am a young vegan, following a plant based diet for just a little over a year now (since March 2011) and more recently completely embracing a vegan lifestyle as much as possible as well.

Why’d I become vegan? Well.. I’ve always been a bit of a sickly girl, cursed with health issues that have gotten worse as I have gotten older. These issues might be viewed as minor by some but are actually quite crippling me for me; such as allergies, migraine headaches, and worst of all fatigue…  a fatigue that would come on each and every time I ate ANYTHING and would cause me to become a complete non functional zombie (and that’s really putting it mildly, seriously). So after a couple years of majorly struggling with this, visiting doctor after doctor who offered absolutely no insight, I felt like maybe I needed to detox my body and put nothing but “good stuff” in it in an attempt to eliminate these awful problems.

As luck would have it right around the time I was thinking it was time to make a diet change, I was at my allergist office reading through the health mags they had to offer and came across a headline on “Natural Health” mag which announced in large green font: SUPER SIMPLE DETOX — A cleanse so easy you’ll want to stick to it for good. “Hm, whats this all about, maybe this is what I have been looking for?” I thought to myself as I flipped to the article and then became immersed with what this article was offering.

It turned out to be a semi-brief write up based off the Crazy Sexy Diet, a book by Kris Carr. It stated “You’re literally sick and tired of being sick and tired” which really hit home for me and I became so intrigued by the entire thing that I bought the book on Amazon, dove feet first into it, to which I have not looked back since (though it should be noted that I am not always perfect on CSD and have been known to indulge in some seriously naughty vegan fare teehee).

While I totally credit Kris Carr’s amazing book for bringing me into this world, if it weren’t for all the awesome vegan’s that maintain blogs I am not sure I would have come to love being vegan and all that comes with it as much as I do. Blogs like Vegansaurus, Fat Gay Vegan, Quarrygirl and many many many others show us all how downright effing amazing being vegan can really be. I want to pay this forward so to speak by posting my own personal adventures in veganism to the digital world in hopes that I also help to inspire, motivate, and keep other young vegans (and even old ones alike!) on track to not break vegan edge.

So that’s what this sucka is going to be about — information on anything vegan; be it home cookin, eating out, travel, products, fashion, vegan doggie stuff, whatever and wherever I have had personal experience and feel is useful information to share with this community.

Now that all that is out of the way, I am sure you are still thinking to yourself, “well, ok, but what the heck is vegan edge anyways?” so let me cover that too. The title of this blog is inspired by a scene from the movie, Scott Pilgram vs The World. Check it out here:

Funny shit right?

Really though, I also find this to be true to some extent because if you eat a well balanced plant based diet there is no doubt you feel lighter, guilt free on many levels, more focused, got that skin glowing, etc etc not to mention that it can prevent and sometimes even cure some of the most major diseases that plague our society, alleviate global warming, help end world hunger and on and on… And listen, if that ain’t some super powers then I don’t know what is!

…. and so vegan edge begins.