cereal and soy milk

at leona’s: minestrone soup; psychedelic salad with italian dressing; the big fat vegan burger (my new favorite vegan burger in chicago) with avocado and black olives

coffee

channa masala and aloo gobi from the vegan table; grilled flatbread from a recipe my mom found; soy yogurt; tamarind-date chutney from patel brothers grocery (a great place to get bulk spices, beans, grains, and some interesting produce); old moon zinfandel from trader moon wine co (vegan??)

mamajuana

trader joe’s everything bagel with tofutti better-than-cream-cheese; orange juice

sweet potato and black bean enchiladas made by my mom; green salad with raspberry vinaigrette; mango and pineapple with grated dried ginger

dinner at sabai-dee, chicago’s only laotian restaurant.  there weren’t a lot of vegan (or even vegetarian) options on the menu, so we talked to our waiter and he told us we could substitute tofu for any chicken or beef dishes.  a lot of stuff was also made with fish sauce, and he said he could just substitute salt, but it wouldn’t taste quite as authentic.  we ended up having a spicy green papaya salad minus the fish sauce, the coconut-galangal soup with tofu instead of chicken, and a tofu curry, all excellent, plus warm tapioca in sweet coconut milk for dessert (all the desserts were vegan, and also included mango sticky rice and custard sticky rice).  probably wouldn’t be my #1 choice to take vegan friends since so much of the menu was off limits, but they certainly did a good job of accommodating.

the restaurant is byob, so we brought a bottle of cheap red wine from the grocery store down the block.  here’s the issue with my wine habits and veganism: i drink really cheap wine!  if i have wine needs outside of the vicinity of a trader joe’s, i usually grab whatever’s on sale or the second-cheapest bottle (to retain a semblance of class).  the problems: 1) when i try to figure out if the wine was vegan, usually hours or days later, i can never remember the name of it, and 2) now that i have started noting the names and looking them up, there’s usually no information to be found on these random cheap bottles.  this one was a shiraz from kanga reserve, which i could find nothing about on the internet.  it kind of looked like yellowtail, so i looked that up and found that yellowtail’s red wines are vegan, but the whites and roses contain gelatin and therefore are not.  good to know!

banana

fritz pastry: blueberry muffin (ask about vegan options at fritz pastry because it’s not obvious; for example, all their cupcakes are vegan, they just don’t tell you unless you ask!), raspberry green tea

cedar’s: pita w herbed olive oil, salad, veggie-hummus sandwich, fries

amy’s cheeseless roasted vegetable pizza w added avocado

mango

victory’s banner (vegan/vegetarian/american/brunch): eggless wonder (marinated tofu with steamed veggies, rice, fried potatoes, hearth bread), coffee

apple & peanut butter

irazu (costa rican): boiled yucca with mojo, salad, spinach sauteed with peppers and onions, rice, refried beans, plantains, soy-based oatmeal-banana shake

patron tequila

marcy’s chocolate chip pumpkin cookies w trader joe’s vanilla soy ice cream

breakfast: bagel w horseradish hummus and cherry tomatoes, clementine

lunch: bob’s red mill lentil soup mix, bake-at-home ciabatta roll from trader joe’s

dinner at 90 miles cuban cafe in chicago il: tofu dinner (grilled tofu with peppers and onions, white rice, black beans, sweet plantains), soy empanada (filled with picadillo-spiced crumbled soy stuff), fried yucca, colada (i learned: cortadito=sweet espresso shot with steamed milk; colada=sweet espresso shot w/o milk)

patron tequila: vegan friendly (www.barnivore.com)