vegetarian : Sheryl Kirby

Category : vegetarian

Mambo Vegan Italiano!

October 24th 2011 - Posted in events and festivals, Food, memorable meals, toronto, vegetarian
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When I interviewed Len Senater of The Depanneur (1033 College Street) a few months ago, he was adamant that the space wouldn’t just be a cafe serving coffee and toast. That was to be its daytime persona, but he also wanted the space to be home to the Rusholme Park Supper Club, a pop-up type restaurant that hosted byob events. It took some doing, but now that The Depanneur is open and running smoothly, Senater has progressed to the point where they’ve started doing dinners.

One of the first in the October series took place last Friday, when Emily Zimmerman took over the kitchen to prepare a vegan Italian dinner meant to evoke the casual Beatnik gatherings of the 1950s when even the most basic of Italian cuisine was considered avant garde.

Guests paid $40 for a 1-day “membership” to the supper club, and brought their own beverages to the 3-course meal, which is how the Depanneur gets around licensing issues.

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What Shall We Do With a Drunken Sailor?

January 5th 2009 - Posted in Food, recipes, vegetarian
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I can’t believe I didn’t think to put the two together before. Baked beans are a traditional down east dish that I ate regularly as a kid, and still make a couple of times a year. Served up with real brown bread (bread made with molasses, not whole wheat bread), this is a perfect dish on a cold Saturday night in the winter. Also traditional on a cold winter’s night is a glass of rum, and the flavours here combine really well. I was a little heavy-handed with the rum in my test batch, thus the restrained 2 tablespoons in the ingredients list, but rum lovers can add up to a quarter of a cup. Just be warned that not all the alcohol burns off, so these beans have a bit of a kick to them.

I used Sailor Jerry spiced rum because I have seekrit aspirations to be a hipster, but mostly because that’s what I had on hand. But any decently flavoured spiced rum would do.

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What Shall We Do With a Drunken Sailor

December 31st 2008 - Posted in downeast cooking, Food, vegetarian
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I used Sailor Jerry spiced rum because I have seekrit aspirations to be a hipster, but mostly because that’s what I had on hand. But any decently flavoured spiced rum would do.

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Apparently bitching and Complaining WILL Get you Somewhere

June 5th 2008 - Posted in fast food, Food, in the news, politics, vegetarian
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It’s okay to eat chicken again. Or at least chicken from KFC. In Canada.

After years of protests and campaigns by animal rights groups PETA, KFC has bowed to pressure and has agreed to work only with suppliers that can ensure less crowding for the chickens it uses, as well as phasing out non-essential growth hormones and drugs. KFC will also source chicken only from suppliers who slaughter birds with gas, considered the most humane method of processing.

An added caveat will be that KFC will add vegan and vegetarian “unchicken” options to its menu, making the chain a consideration for a demographic of customers who might never have eaten there, and allowing those of us who love the magical 11 herbs and spices coating to get our fix without guilt.

Full story at the CBC website.

The Fake Shrimp

November 15th 2007 - Posted in faux meat, Food, vegetarian
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And I’m the shrimp,
The smallest of all,
They call me the shrimp
Because I’m not very tall.

Who knew that my theatrical claim to fame would be at the age of ten, singing a song about fish, and being photographed in a shrimp costume?

Our school, not having the money to pay for royalties for a more well-known Broadway-style musical, instead, for our annual play, performed a creation called Time Fog, a historical tour of the history of Nova Scotia, as written by the school’s music teacher. It dealt with the expulsion of the Acadians, the founding of the City of Halifax, and even Confederation. One scene explored Nova Scotia’s rich fishing heritage.

I didn’t play the Shrimp in the stage version, I was a mere extra, but the play had gotten such a huge amount of coverage in the local news that the school was asked to create a recording and slide presentation to send around to other schools. The kid who played Shrimp was sick on recording day, and being the first person in the line of sight of the music teacher (being able to fit into the shrimp costume didn’t hurt) I was the lucky gal who got to wander through the school to the set, trying to keep the other kids from pulling off my many legs.

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The Way We Eat

December 7th 2006 - Posted in books, Food, vegetarian
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The Way We Eat – Why Our Food Choices Matter by Jim Mason and Peter Singer

I generally have two concerns with any book about food ethics. First and foremost, that the authors are inadvertently “preaching to the choir”; that is, unless you are already interested or concerned about where your food comes from, you’re unlikely to read such a book in the first place, thus the knowledge shared from reading such a tome is not reaching the people who need it most. Secondly, it’s important to know the author’s personal stance on the issues, because no matter how unbiased they might try to be, generally their own opinions show through.

Which is why Peter Singer and Jim Mason want us all to be vegans.

The Way We Eat examines the eating habits of three different families, and traces their food choices back to their point of origin. Singer and Mason visit with a family that eats the Standard American Diet (SAD); another who are split between a predominantly vegetarian diet focussed on organic foods and a small amount of sustainably-raised meat; and finally a family who are completely vegan.

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Cultured Meat – Frankenfood or Brave New World?

November 16th 2006 - Posted in Food, in the news, meat, vegetarian
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What if I told you that you could have a steak, or a breast of chicken or a nice slice of ham, without having to worry about antibiotics, hormones, over-crowding of factory farms, environmental damage or the death of an animal?

And how about if I told you that in a decade or two, you’ll be able to make that same steak or chicken breast yourself, on your kitchen counter?

Welcome to the wonderful world of lab-grown or “cultured” meat. Invented as a source of easily accessible protein for astronauts, cultured meat may be available to consumers in as little as five years.

To create the meat, small amounts of muscle cells are removed from an animal and grown in a culture or solution. Stem cells from embryos may also be used. This culture is usually made from bovine fetal tissue, although researchers have had some success with a mushroom-based solution as well.

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Dairy-Free Coconut Cream Pie

October 4th 2006 - Posted in baking, Food, pie, recipes, vegetarian
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It’s hard to be allergic to dairy and have your favourite foods be dairy based; cheese, ice cream, cheese cake, banana splits. It’s sad and lonely to stand by on a hot summer day while your husband eats one of those soft-serve cones from the ice cream truck and you can only live vicariously through him. It’s especially hard when your most favourite dessert ever happens to be coconut cream pie.

Thanks to the good folks at Tofutti, however, I can now make a variety of formerly dairy-based desserts with their soy cheese products.

Setting aside the controversy regarding whether soy is as virtuous as it seems (and that really depends on who pays for the study; studies paid for by the soy industry indicate that soy is a complete miracle food, studies paid for by the dairy industry tend to skew in the other direction), there are still some pros and cons, and the idea that soy sour cream is healthier than regular sour cream is not license to eat the whole pie.

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