brunch: toasted everything bagel with tofu cream cheese, red onion, and tomato from A.R.E.A. Bagels; iced coffee from Gorilla Coffee

grapes

dinner: wild rice soup (bouillon, onion, celery, wild rice, red pepper flakes, black pepper; carrot and red potato; black pepper, garlic, ginger, olive oil, thyme, rosemary; veggie sausage fried in canola oil with garlic; parsley, scallions; I’ll add a better recipe soon, Stacey); JOOSE

beer at Pacific Standard Trivia Night: Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin Ale (vegan according to Barnivore); an I.P.A. (I can’t remember the brand!); a beer for the beer tasting trivia that I also can’t remember

breakfast from Babycakes: banana bread, “cheddar” (Daiya) biscuit, and coffee

lunch from Saigon Grill for Anita’s last day: basil vegetable and tofu lunch special with brown rice, specifying no fish sauce or oyster sauce (they said that most of the dishes use fish sauce, but some can be done without it; I didn’t clarify all the dishes that are or aren’t okay besides this one)

Babycakes snacks for Anita’s last day: portions of lemon cupcake, carrot cupcake, banana berry cupcake, vanilla cupcake, cinnamon sugar doughnut, brownie bite, and lemon poppyseed bread

dinner at Per Se for Michael’s mom’s birthday: vegan tasting menu. This was, by far, the nicest restaurant I’ve ever been so or will probably ever go to. You choose either a vegetarian or non-vegetarian tasting menu, but they invented a new one for me, of which only a couple things overlapped with the vegetarian one, so I think a lot of these things they prepared just for me. Not too many vegan protein options, but I think these were the tastiest vegetables I’ve ever had. I tried to jot things down on Michael’s dad’s Blackberry since I didn’t have paper or a pen, but it all went too fast to really write down everything. Here’s what I did write down:

1) Nutmeg gouger served with carrot puree with fennel oil.
2) Ginger beer sorbet with cucumber. Some cucumbers cut into thin slices, some scooped out into little spheres!
3) Mini baguette and sour dough bun served with two olive oils, one mild and one spicy.
4) Heirloom tomato salad with petite basil and something else (I think maybe chunks of macademia nuts?)
5) Fig salad with huge thin crispy somethings and other things.
6) Corn with compressed spinach, collard stalks, and fancy onions.
7) Radish-carrot-potato-fennel dish.
8 ) Truffle-infused risotto with compressed spinach.
9) (as a replacement “cheese course”) Endive and candied apricot with orange curry served with currant rye bread.
10) Peach sorbet with raspberries and pecans.
11) Chocolate brownie or cake with very dark chocolate chocolate sorbet and foamed coconut.
12) Homemade chocolates (I had the two vegan options, licorice and pistacio.)
13) cocoa-covered hazelnuts
14) hard candy in a bag to go
also, champagne, white wine, red wine, and dessert wine (all of which may or may not be vegan). Also, I got to go in the kitchen, and it was the most immaculate and organized kitchen I’ve ever seen.

In delicious contrast, at a midnight showing of The Room: JOOSE

Late-night peanut butter graham crackers and more hard candies

breakfast from A.R.E.A. Bagels: toasted (burnt?) everything bagel with tofu cream cheese, tomato, and onion; iced coffee

lunch: whole wheat English muffins with scallion hummus and fresh tomato slices

more whole wheat English muffins on subway

dinner: Indian lentils with vegetables from a can; cucumber salad (cucumber, apple cider vinegar, olive oil, black pepper, sea salt, and paprika); jalapeño potato chips; half a Sierra Nevada; three gnocchi; spoonful of dark chocolate coconut ice cream