Note: I'm not including every single item that enters my mouth, just assume that any given day includes some snacking on fruit, vegan cookies, vegan pretzels, et cetera.
Day 39 - 11/1/07
For lunch I made some egg rolls, and dipped them in my HGOV. By "made" I mean that I took them out of the freezer and put them in the oven for ten minutes. As far as egg rolls from the frozen section of the grocery store go, these weren't too bad - as good as any non-vegetarian ones I've had.
I had dinner at Kohana Mongolian Grill. Tasty as always, it's the one vegan place I can go and just pig out. Good thing there's no weight loss component to this bet.
Day 38 - 10/31/07
Happy Halloween! Not much to report today, just a vegan pizza for lunch and Boca burgers for dinner.
Day 37 - 10/30/07
I had lunch at a Microsoft cafe. I was in a part of campus I don't normally go to, so I was in a new MS cafe. This one had a nice little vegan station where I loaded up on Caribbean stew, sweet corn, and cumin rice. The corn was served hot and heavily seasoned, with a flavor I swear I've never encountered before. It's tough for me to write about food - I don't normally read food reviews so I don't know the words to use to describe new things.
Today was Greg Long's birthday and we celebrated in style with about 15 people at the Metropolitan Grill, probably the finest steakhouse in Seattle. I organized the dinner and while I was tempted to send everyone to the Vegetarian Tea House, I decided that it wouldn't be a good idea since the birthday boy probably wouldn't have shown up. It was quite torturous to watch everyone eating tasty looking steaks, but the waiter hooked me up with a vegan version of their vegetarian plate that was actually pretty good. Portobello mushroom, specially prepared mashed potatoes, asparagus, and spinach. The spinach was a little dry without the cream they normally put in it, but it wasn't bad. Although, as my friend John Ratte said, "this is the first time I've ever seen someone pay $40 for a mushroom and it wasn't at a Phish concert".
Day 36 - 10/29/07
Lunch was some Pho from Cafe 121. I like how they cut the tofu up so that I don't notice it's there. I've decided the larger chunks I eat tofu in, the less I like it. It's taste is pretty slight, I just don't like the texture. Therefore cut into small enough pieces and smuggled into another dish, I like it just fine. Dinner was a frozen entree from whole foods - Indian Channa Masala with Naan bread. I've decided Indian food doesn't lend itself well to the frozen entree market.
Day 35 - 10/28/07
Chicken-free chicken nuggets, dipped in the HGOV. Enough for both lunch and dinner (I know, you all wish you were me). They were decidedly better than the actual chicken nuggets served by the Edgemont Elementary school cafeteria circa 1987.
Day 34 - 10/27/07
I've done it! I found what I've been searching for all this time. My long quest is finally over - I have located non-dairy Ranch dressing. It's not the best Ranch I've ever had, but honestly store-bought Ranch never is, dairy or no dairy. Henceforth in this journal I will refer to it as my Holy Grail of Veganism (HGOV). I had lunch at Whole Foods (beet salad and daal). For dinner I made pasta with olive oil.
Day 33 - 10/26/07
Lunch was a tofu scramble Hot Pocketish kind of thing.
For dinner I tried to recreate the quesadillas that we had at the vegan dinner party. Needless to say, me cooking alone in my apartment does not produce nearly as high-quality a result as when I have several people helping me. I can follow a recipe OK, but simple tasks like cutting up an onion take an inordinate amount of time and I seem to make a giant mess no matter what I'm doing. I always have these moments of self-doubt, as well, thinking "am I using the garlic press correctly?". The quesadillas turned out OK, but they weren't as good as the ones from the party.
Day 32 - 10/25/07
I actually ate breakfast today, in the form of a "breakfast burrito" from Amy's. I ask the question - in the absence of traditional breakfast foods like eggs and bacon, what makes a burrito a "breakfast burrito"? Is it just because it has potatoes in it? I found it no more breakfasty than a normal burrito, but it was tasty.
I'm really a two meal-a-day kinda guy, so I didn't need lunch. For dinner I ate a couple Gardenburgers, with an added twist - sauteed mushrooms! I'm like Bobby Flay all the sudden.
Day 31 - 10/24/07
I can't believe I've been doing this for a full month. It's really flown by. For lunch today I met my friends Greg and Brian at a flatbread sandwich shop called Cosi. After being assured by the nice girl at the counter that the bread contained no eggs and butter, I ordered a "Vegi Muffaleta", which was mostly eggplant, banana peppers, and olives. It was outstanding. I would definitely order it again, however if I weren't a vegan I doubt I'd be able to pass up their bleu cheese pork tenderloin sandwich.
For dinner? More vegan pizza! I'm a creature of habit. Take my habits away and I quickly form new ones.
Day 30 - 10/23/07
I had lunch with my friend Brian Hart and introduced him to the wonders of Whole Foods. They didn't have my favored potato samosas, but I made do with dolmas, dal, and tabbouleh. Also, mini corn. I love mini corn.
Dinner was a vegan pizza from Amy's. It does nothing to satisfy my craving for pizza, but it's good in it's own right - as a giant onion biscuit.
Day 29 - 10/22/07
I ate the final bowl of corn chowder for lunch today. Victory is mine! I'm really glad we made it, but if I ever make it again I'm not going to double the recipe (for the record, multiple people warned me we were making way too much soup, but I ignored them). For dinner I ate some burritos.
Day 28 - 10/21/07
I know I ate soup today but I can't remember what kind. Maybe it had corn in it? I'm not sure.
Day 27 - 10/20/07
I needed a day off from the corn chowder, so I made pasta. I didn't have the faux-steak strips available this time so I used some sliced up Tofurkey. Did not work out as well, although enough MCB Magic Dust covers the taste of anything. Dinner was faux-breakfast sausages and three bowls of Cocoa Krispies.
Day 26 - 10/19/07
I will eat the last of this corn chowder if it kills me.
Day 25 - 10/18/07
Corn chowder, got to love it.
Day 24 - 10/17/07
Corn chowder again for both meals. I need the fridge space!
Day 23 - 10/16/07
Took Chris to the airport this morning and came back to do dishes. I have an enormous container of leftover corn chowder taking up space in my refrigerator. I filled my only large tupperware and took it to Microsoft, where I gave it to my friends Mark and Zoë, but for the rest of it, I'm just going to have to power through it over the next several days. Ate the soup for both lunch and dinner. Which is fine because it's really tasty.
Day 22 - 10/15/07
Today is my 28th birthday and the midpoint of the six week challenge. I took my out-of-town friends to do some exploring of downtown Seattle during the day, where we wandered around Pike Place Market and did the Underground Tour. We had lunch at a Vietnamese Pho cafe. The vegetarian Pho was very good, I even ate the chunks of tofu in it.
Dinner was my vegan dinner party, which you can read more about here.
Day 21 - 10/14/07
Chris and I met up with our old friend Soren, his wife Lindsay, and their baby Kai, for the Seahawks-Saints game. Chris and Soren are both big Saints fans, which is what prompted the mini-high school reunion this weekend. Chris and I ate an early lunch at Whole Foods, where I downed some potato samosas and dal.
Everyone else ate at the Kidd Valley at the stadium, which made me jealous. Baby Kai, lacking teeth, was in a similar situation. I felt my situation was better though, since I had beer. I went home after the game and we made a late-night Jack in the Box run, where I gorged on fries and eyed Chris's taco hungrily.
Day 20 - 10/13/07
My buddy Chris is up from California and staying with me for the weekend, so he's been involuntarily drafted into the vegan movement. I made us some tasty Gardenburger vegan patties. They weren't that great, I found them significantly better than the Boca Burgers.
For dinner Chris, Raazi and I drove over to the U District to go to my first vegan restaurant: Chaco Canyon Cafe (thanks to Lara Brown for the recommendation). I liked it quite a bit - I had a plum chutney sandwich with what tasted like real cheese. This was my first positive experience with vegan cheese, and it's good to know that at least some of it isn't terrible. The sandwich came with some tasty tabbouleh, and they had all sorts of weird juices - I got one called the "Swamp Monster" with pear, carrot, golden beet, apple, and kale. Very odd. Chris and Raazi didn't like the place as much as I did, although all three of us like the juice bar. On an unrelated note, Raazi was the definitive winner of our post-dinner arm wrestling contest.
Day 19 - 10/12/07
I had a bowl of Cocoa Krispies for breakfast. For lunch I decided to brave the vegan station in the Microsoft cafeteria where I often work. Today's specials were "Sweet and Sour Tempe" (tempe is like tofu only more rubbery), acorn squash, zucchini, and rice. It was all servicable but none of those foods really taste good to me. The tempe looked like french toast sticks, but tasted more like pencil eraser.
For dinner I had a "Tofu Scramble" from Amy's Kitchen. It looked like a breakfast Hot Pocket, and actually tasted OK. I think tofu is much better when it's masquerading as eggs than when it's trying to play the role of meat.
Day 18 - 10/11/07
Oddly, I'm 18 days into this experiment and I haven't eaten tofu yet. Today I decided to change that. I went to Whole Foods and got three kinds of tofu - Indian curry tofu, Chinese sweet and sour tofu, and American-style roast leg of tofurkey (OK, I made the last one up). It all fell into what I call "the cauliflower category" - food that tastes neither bad nor good, just sustenance. I'll eat it again if it's served to me but I won't be going out looking for tofu in the future. Bought some dolmas for dinner.
Day 17 - 10/10/07
Cocoa Krispies lasted me till dinner, where I went to Naan and Curry again with Raazi. I've decided my favorite vegan dish there is something called Bengan Bharta, which is baked eggplant simmered with onions and peppers in a coconut milk curry. Excellent stuff. Ate enough naan to fill up my carb quota for the week.
Day 16 - 10/9/07
Lunch was another vegan burger (pretty much my go-to quick at-home meal these days).
For dinner I decided to try something different. One of my favorite foods from a restaurant is the "Rigatoni D" from Maggiano's. It's a delicious pasta with chicken, mushrooms, and a creamy marsala sauce. I attempted to create my own version, the "Rigatoni V". I cooked up some penne pasta, improvised my own sauce with various ingredients, and used some vegan-meat steak strips as the meat. If I hadn't been too lazy to go to the store and buy mushrooms and onions, it would have been top notch. Here's a pic.
Day 15 - 10/8/07
Lunch was a black bean burrito. For dinner I attempted to make a "tuna fish sandwich" with mashed chickpeas on bread. The less said about this the better, I ended up eating a jar of pickles instead. I have officially adopted the menu of a mentally-ill pregnant woman.
Day 14 - 10/7/07
Still in a funk over the end of USC's season, I ate 12 soy-based ice cream sandwiches today.
Day 13 - 10/6/07
Not an eventful day, foodwise. Made another burger for lunch and some more pasta for dinner. Trojans lost, I'm too depressed to write more.
Day 12 - 10/5/07
I woke up late and decided to trek to my new favorite place to eat, Whole Foods. The prepared food counter and the salad bar (which has way more than just salad) are truly a blessing for vegans. Not everything is vegan, but everything is clearly labeled and there's lots of good options. I got more of the dolmas that I loved from last time, plus some Indian daal and little potato-filled pastry triangles (I wish I was better at describing food). The downside of Whole Foods is the expense, I bought enough for both lunch and dinner but it cost me $30. Yikes.
Day 11 - 10/4/07
Breakfast was a plum, lunch was a can of shitty soup. The less said of that, the better. I tried to make a "Soyrizo" sausage instead, but it failed the microwavablity test and had to be discarded.
For dinner I decided to make cheeseburgers, which you can read about in my review.
Day 10 - 10/3/07
I was at Microsoft all day today so I tried the sushi again. This time, no hidden crab.
We went to the Comedians of Comedy show tonight (which was phenomenal) and I had very little time for dinner, so I wolfed down a can of vegetarian chili (not great) and an apple. I was doing fine until we walked out of the theater and I was confronted with the nemesis of all vegans: the hot dog vendor. His cream-cheese and onion covered polish dogs called my name like the Sirens of Greek myth, but I avoided being smashed on the rocks of my lust for pork products.
Day 9 - 10/2/07
I had a project interview today and I was pretty nervous about it, but a black bean burrito from Amy's helped calm my nerves. I also found some great chips. If they put more than 10 chips in a bag I would definitely buy them again.
For dinner I boiled up some vegan hot dogs, and since I lacked hot dog buns I ate them pigs-in-blanket style in a tortilla with some Red Ale barbecue sauce and Vegenaise. It was pretty good. My favorite part is the originality: I'm probably the only person on the planet, out of six and a half billion, who has ever eaten that particular combination of food. Can't say that about a meal from Taco Bell.
I had to eat well because tonight was poker night, and I knew I'd have to watch my friends eat Zeke's pizza in front of me. It was tough, but taking their money made me feel better.
Day 8 - 10/1/07
Breakfast was an apple, lunch was sushi.
For dinner I had some vegan meatballs. They were surprisingly good. You could tell that they weren't actually meat (a bit more dry, for one thing), but only if you were eating them straight up like I was. If you put them in spaghetti or stroganoff I'm not sure I could tell the difference between them and actual frozen meatballs. I ate them with a variety of condiments, ultimately deciding they go best with my Beer N' Brat mustard.
Day 7 - 9/30/07
Slept through any reasonable breakfast time. Lunch was a frozen pizza from our friends at Amy's Kitchen. See my review.
After seeing 3:10 to Yuma (which I recommend), Greg and I went to Kohana Mongolian Grill in Bellevue. I had called ahead to make sure that their noodles were egg-free, and the person I talked to was confused by my question but seemed to assert that the noodles were safe for vegan consumption. I took advantage by downing two large plates of heavily spiced up noodles and vegetables.
Day 6 - 9/29/07
Today was tough because of the USC-UW football game, which took up most of the day and prevented me from being able to eat at home. I had a bowl of Cocoa Krispies for breakfast and stuck an apple in my coat pocket, and then met up with my friends to go on a pre-game boat cruise sponsored by the USC Business School. They served lunch on the boat but there wasn't anything that looked safe to me. Concessions at the game were not vegan-friendly either (I wasn't sure about the Karamel-Korn, and got nothing but a strange look when I questioned the vendor).
After dinner was the worst, as we went to one of my favorite restaurants, Duke's Chowder House. I haven't made it over to Duke's in over a year, so it was painful to watch my friends eat various types of chowder in sourdough bread bowls while I munched on some sweet potato fries.
Day 5 - 9/28/07
My friend Zoë isn't a vegan, but she's dairy-free and has some specific dietary needs that have taught her a lot about buying food for alternative diets. She introduced me to the wonder that is Whole Foods. I'd never been inside a WF before, but I was pretty impressed. Their prices are a lot higher than Safeway and QFC (the big grocery chains in these parts), but the selection of vegan-friendly fare, and the labeling of such, was much better. I was especially impressed with the deli-salads counter, which had a number of tasty-looking dishes with ingredients labeled on little placards so I could verify the contents. I ate some dolmas stuffed with rice, lemon juice, olive oil, and herbs. They were amazingly tasty, definitely something I would eat for lunch even if I didn't have to eat vegan. I also got some lentil salad, which I thought looked good but tasted like mud (OK, mud with carrots in it). Can't win 'em all.
For dinner I went with some friends to Hector's in Kirkland. Hector's is a great place but they have nothing for vegans on the menu except the most basic salad, which I picked at listlessly while I watched my friends eat beef brisket and meatloaf. I hurried home after dinner and made more of the olive-oil pasta.
Day 4 - 9/27/07
Breakfast was a bowl of Cocoa Krispies (with soy milk, naturally), lunch was a black bean burrito from Amy's. It was far better than their Macaroni and Soy Cheeze, although a frozen burrito is a frozen burrito. That might be one of the few areas where meatless is better, because I've never microwaved a burrito that had anything resembling tasty meat inside.
For dinner I made pasta. I'll admit I never made pasta before that wasn't packaged with it's own flavorings (e.g. Ramen Noodles or Kraft Mac & Cheese). I cooked up some macaroni and dumped about a fifth of a bottle of olive oil into it. Hey, you can't just give up saturated fats cold turkey. I also added some Caribbean Jerk seasoning. It was pretty tasty, although it cried out for parmesan.
Day 3 - 9/26/07
Breakfast was a plum, lunch was Amy's Kitchen Macaroni and Soy Cheeze. See this article for more info.
For dinner Raazi and I went to his favorite Indian restaurant, Naan-N-Curry. I love Indian food but don't normally eat the meatless variety. I ordered Bengun Bharta (an eggplant dish) and Alu Gobi Masala, both with maximum spiciness. The restaurant owners assured us that both the dishes and the Naan were Vegan friendly. It was delicious and I went to town. Not quite as good as Lamb Vindaloo, but I'd rate vegan Indian food at about 80% as delicious as regular Indian Food.
Day 2 - 9/25/07
Lunch was a can of mandarin oranges and some pickles. The kitchen is officially bare.
Dinner was chips and salsa at our company happy hour at Azteca. It was Taco Tuesday and everyone else had the all-you-can-eat taco bar. The refried beans were calling my name, but I sensed the presence of lard, and wisely refrained.
After dinner I hit up Safeway. I'm going shopping at Whole Foods on Friday with my friend Zoë (who knows a thing or two about weird diets), but I needed some things to tide me over until then. I struggled with ingredient lists and eventually bought a few things, mostly fruit.
Day 1 - 9/24/07
For lunch I met my friend Brian Hart at Jimmy John's, my favorite sandwich shop. I didn't think any sandwich from JJ's could be unappetizing, pretty much everything there is delicious. Everything except the "Deluxe Veggie Club, hold the cheese, hold the mayo, extra mustard". Biting through layers of whole wheat bread, cucumbers, tomatos, sprouts, avocado, and lettuce, I felt like a little kid on Christmas morning, opening package after package of socks. I kept thinking the next box would have the toys in it, but there was nothing but socks.
I went to an Arcade Fire concert tonight in Seattle and by the time it was done I'd missed the last bus back to Bellevue. I took a bus to Kirkland and decided to walk from there to my place. It was about two miles, mostly uphill. By the time I was home it was after midnight and I was ravenously hungry. The pickles and canned spinach in my apartment looked about as appetizing as dryer lint. I hopped in the car and drove to Jack in the Box for two large orders of fries.
Hey, it doesn't matter how I got there, Day 1 is in the books. 41 to go!