James McAvoy is Fine, but Cyrano is Bloated & Exhaustingby Randi / February 10, 2022I think we all need something wonderful to look forward to! With impeccable timing comes the 2nd Annual Vegan Family Reunion, the brainchild of host Rooted Vegan Cuisine of San Antonio, Texas. This special occasion is THIS WEEKEND, Sunday March 6, and promises to be an epic day of food, fun, festivities, and community building. Featuring more than 30 Black-Owned small businesses and artists, the event will benefit local nonprofits and support local charities, including the Black Birth Fund.
San Antonio’s Rooted Vegan Cuisine, once a pop-up vegan restaurant and now a maker of incredible frozen vegan foods, hosts the Vegan Family Reunion for the second year. From 12-5pm on Sunday, the pop-up market and party at the San Antonio Food Bank will convene more than 30 Black-owned and vegan small businesses, artists, entertainers, and more to celebrate “food, fun, and Black excellence!”
The event celebrates the intersection of Black equality and veganism, raising funds that will pour back into the local Black community through small businesses, artists, and charities. It will do all this while highlighting the importance and benefits of veganism and its direct impact on the Black community.
WHAT YOU’LL FIND
- VEGAN FOOD
- PRO CHEF DEMOS
- MUSIC
- LIVE DJ
- VEGAN RAPPER GREY
- DANCING
- PONIESSSSS (from Ponycycle)
- HAYRIDES
- LIVE ART PRESENTATIONS
- PET ADOPTIONS!!!
- BOUNCY HOUSES (YESSSS)
- NUTRITION SEMINAR
- VEGAN BEAUTY & HAIR DEMOS
- MINI SKATEBOARD PARK
Did I mention it’s free to attend? It’s free to attend! But please RSVP in advance so they can anticipate the crowd size. Book your space here and register either for your free space, or with a donation (omg you’re so awesome!), or as a VIC (Very Important Charity). More ways to contribute – including from afar! – are listed further down.
I must take this time, before I forget, to tell you that there will be two bounce houses – one for kids and one just for adults. LITERALLY THE DREAM.
The strength of a local community is so important, and that’s clearer now more than ever. So many different businesses, organizations, and various community members are coming together to make this happen. Host Naomi of Rooted Vegan Cuisine said the list of participants and supporters is “incredible and humbling”.
She also said she’s bringing to-go containers to make sure she doesn’t miss any of the amazing food…so…follow her lead!
Some of the food vendors expected to blow your minds on Sunday include: Wheatsville (I know, one of our faves!), Vegan Sushi Spot, Alamo City Cakes, The Vegancy, Chef Cidney, and Bake Love. Non-food amazingness includes Art by Sheri, Gardopia Gardens, Tracy J Jewelry, and Ionic Soul Spa. I MEAN. COME ON!
There’s a whole packed schedule for the day too, with kitchen demos, nutrition and fertility seminars, and musical entertainment. It promises to be an incredible day!
We’re all aware of how exponentially veganism has increased in recent years, and a large part of that is due to Black activists, who have been promoting veganism even back to the Civil Rights Movement of the ’60s. And African-Americans compose the fastest-growing vegan demographic. This event aims to respect and acknowledge these facts while cementing the connection between veganism and Black activism, especially on the community level.
Proceeds from the event will benefit the Black Birth Fund, created by the San Antonio Nurse Midwife Birth & Wellness center. The team said they learned of this organization through one of the Vegan Family Reunion committee members, who was herself a recipient of assistance from the Fund when she gave birth. This chance to give back to the fund that helped their teammate so greatly makes this event all the more special, they said.
Vegan Family Reunion has also teamed up with Black Restaurant Week San Antonio to raise money for the San Antonio Food Bank via donations and other funds raised. Attending the event is free, but guests are encouraged to buy t-shirts, buy raffle tickets (see below), and donate whatever they want to raise funds for these worthy organizations.
They are going even further this year in making the space accessible and inviting for so many types of attendees: There will be maternity lounges with doulas for expecting and new parents. There will will a special needs sensory retreat, with trained assistants, for people who need a break from the hubbub. There will be a sign language interpreter, and a toddler soft play area. The level of care is off the charts here. And there will also be a Zero Waste initiative, with the team measuring how much waste is saved from going into landfills.
HOW TO SUPPORT THE EVENT IF YOU AREN’T IN TEXAS
I’m sure many of you are, like me, watching and wishing from afar that we could attend. While we cannot eat its amazing food (or jump in the bouncy house) remotely, we can support it by doing the following:
- Spreading the word – on social media, use the hashtag #veganfamilyreunion and tag @veganfamilyreunion
- Buy raffle tickets – even if we cannot collect or use certain prizes, think of it as a donation, with the money going to truly worthwhile beneficiaries
- Or, Buy tickets to the event as a donation
- Buy the official tee shirt HERE
- Support Rooted Vegan Cuisine – their frozen vegan goodies are available to ship in the USA nationwide (someone please work on getting this to the UK!)
Whatever you can do to support this wonderful event is great, and let’s hope that we can be in San Antonio in person next year!
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Vegan Guide to Michelin Restaurants: Asador Extebarri in Axpe, Spain
*This post is part of a series in which I eat fancy Michelin-starred meals and then brag about it.
In a tiny town 30 minutes outside Bilbao, Spain stands a little cottage where wood-fired magic is created. Asador Extebarri, a one-Michelin-starred restaurant in the Axpe region, is famous for grilling pretty much everything on the menu. Given its cookery method, I was nervous going there as a vegan, even though they assured me I could be well accommodated. Would I just be given 20 courses of grilled vegetables? How special can that be? Really, really, ridiculously special, it turns out.
So fancy once you get escorted upstairs !
Tucked away in the middle of nowhere, Extebarri is really a lovely spot. It looks like the Baker’s stone cottage or something from the outside, but when you enter it’s a rollicking bar filled with locals. At first, I was confused, looking at the bar patrons and thinking, hmm is this what people are wearing to eat at this super fance restaurant? What is this, Broadway today? But no, the bar is just, like, the local bar! Once the restaurant is ready for you, they will escort you upstairs, where the atmosphere and the decor are completely different.
The servers were uniformly friendly and they tried to be helpful (the language barrier kept me from comprehending what exactly they were describing each dish as). Like most Michelin restaurants, it was a set menu of an insane number of courses, and they already had the vegan menu printed up and placed inside my menu booklet. These menus, by the way, are probably bigger than you are:
The servers were uniformly friendly and they tried to be helpful (the language barrier kept me from comprehending what exactly they were describing each dish as). Like most Michelin restaurants, it was a set menu of an insane number of courses, and they already had the vegan menu printed up and placed inside my menu booklet. These menus, by the way, are probably bigger than you are:
The enormous menu blocking most of Husband (which is why I’m allowed to post this) |
The veg menu |
As you can see, the vegan menu looks mainly like an assortment of plain vegetables. I’m sure the other vegans out there have groaned as much as I have when restaurants say they can feed you and end up giving you the ubiquitous ‘Grilled Vegetable Plate’. It’s the worst, right? So boring and you’re like ugh I could do this at home but I wouldn’t because I’m a good cook and can make more interesting food. Well. That’s because the vegetables weren’t grilled at Asador Extebarri. There’s no way in hell you could make vegetables as incredible as these Michelin-starred ones were. We toured the ‘kitchen’, which was more like a complex wood shed, with piles upon piles of different kinds of wood, each one perfect for grilling a different food. It’s all very detailed and complicated and woodsy. The ‘stoves’ consist of lever and pulley systems for ensuring that each dish and each dish’s components remain the proper distance from the fire. Who knew that wood-firing was such an intricate art? It all lends itself to some of the most perfect and delicious vegetable dishes imaginable. Some were a little boring, yes, and some were normal levels of good, but then some of these dishes were superb.
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In contrast to most fancy restaurants with crazy endless tasting menus, we were given bread at the start. And then — it never stopped! Erma P! So good. I love bread. And these lovely Spaniards gave us like huge baguette halves constantly instead of little hunks every now and then. So funny. Although, in hindsight, considering how painfully full we were not even halfway through the meal, eating all this bread was probably a bad idea.
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Enormous bread |
So hey let’s start reviewing the 100 or so plates I was served! The order of the menu was not strictly adhered to so that my dishes lined up better with Husband’s, which I appreciated, but they still got to all the dishes listed, which I appreciated more. (The first time they skipped a few I was like NO BRING ME FOOD but they brought those later. (Audra McDonald skipped a song once in her concert program and DIDN’T go back and get to it so that’s still like something keeping me up at night.))
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First up was a little treat from the kitchen, small grilled bread (more bread!) with tomato and salt and the greatest olive oil I’ve tasted in years. Oh mannn. So freaking good!
The first real courses for me were Salad Leaves and Lettuce Hearts. Husband can tell you that most of my Salads that I make at home only consist of Lettuce Hearts, so I was curious to see what the difference was here. Apparently, Lettuce Hearts are self-explanatory and Salad Leaves are curlier lettuces. Also, Lettuce Hearts all over Spain come with wayyy too much onion. I can’t eat an entire onion’s worth of raw onion. I’ll do my best but come on. It’s raw onion. And not even cippolini oh-nee-on. Husband was like, you have to eat all that onion, it’s like a $20 onion. No, thank you though. Anyway, both were nice and fresh and very lightly dressed (thank you, I hate too much dressing), but pretty basic. It was nice to have something simple and fresh to start but it did make me nervous for what was to come. I should not have been! My first warm vegetable dish was the Golden Chanterelles. Mushrooms have always been one of my favorite foods, dating back from when I thought they only came on top of pizza and I felt it too basic to say that pizza was my favorite food because that’s everyone’s favorite food. But now mushrooms are legit my faves, so this dish was very exciting. I particularly love that they came in a little personal pan. I wanted to ask if I could keep it but we were traveling EasyJet sooo no room. Anyway, the mushrooms were really good, smoky and just firm enough. Weirdly, though, I preferred the saltier, oiler, more garlicky mushrooms from Busterri. Maybe the Golden Chanterelles just needed a pinch of salt, or maybe my mushroom tastes are akin to my chocolate taste (I prefer cheaper sugary milkier chocolate to ‘high quality’ dark because yummy).
Next up was one of my favorites, Cream of Beans. It’s a normal bean soup but I love that name and I was so stoked to finally have beans! It was easy (too easy!) to find veggies all weekend in Bilbao, but impossible to get any vegan protein in restaurants. Hurray for beans! It was a lovely soup.
The following vegetable grilled to perfection was the artichokes, or according to the totally descriptive and helpful menu, Artichoke. These were splendid little oiled and salted buggers that I could eat 1000 of. They had a light balsamicky drizzle that was just the right, subtle amount (too much is the worst). Hot damn they were so good!
The one-two punch of the Artichoke with the next dish, the Leek, was the most impressive section of the meal. Looking at the picture to the right, you’re probably thinking, omg, that is the least impressive dish I have ever seen in any restaurant ever. Well, that might be true, but it was also one of the best tasting. These were freaking plain grilled leeks with olive oil and salt, but whichever wood they were grilled on at whichever lever/pulley height they used made them actually magical. Seriously I cannot imagine any leek in any other preparation ever being as phuhnom as these were. My recommendation to try Extebarri if you have the chance is 70% based on these leeks.
I was confused about whether the next dish was the Baby Beans or the Green Peas, but we decided they were the Baby Beans because Husband’s menu also came with Green Peas so we got them at the same time. They look exactly the same though. These were yummy and hey more beans! I’m getting so strong!
Beetroot was next, and if ever there were beets to convince you that not all beets taste like dirt (#NotAllBeets), it was these. They were a bit tart with their natural juices mixing with vinegar? maybe? (we couldn’t understand most things the waiters said, and sometimes they simply said “I don’t know how to say this in English. Enjoy!”), but whatever was going on, it worked. I would have preferred only two beet pieces instead of four, because this is where I started to get hella full.
Another mushroom dish came next yay! These March Mushrooms were fluffier than the sauteed-seeming Chanterelles, and they were in a subtle and delicious vegetable broth. I don’t know if March Mushrooms is a kind of mushroom or if they were just what was growing in March (when we were there…which makes more sense…) but either way I’m sold. They had a cool texture almost of raw mushrooms but with the much better taste of cooked.
Next were those tricky little Green Peas! They came in an adorable little cup and they were so delicious. Fresh peas are incredible and life-changing; if you haven’t had them before and have only had frozen peas in your life then you need to go to a farmers market and buy fresh peas and make something with them because they are amazing but what you make won’t be as amazing as this little cup of perfect peas was.
Some of you may know that I’m not the world’s biggest red pepper fan. Traipsing around Europe, I see tons of little kids eating raw red pepper strips out of little baggies and I’m like KIDS, simmer down with that nonsense, don’t you know there’s candy in the world? I can’t do raw pepper unless they’re overcrowded with other tastes. Cooked red pepper is only a little bit better for me. Well. Despite my semi-aversion, and despite my being stuffed beyond belief by the time this giant plate of red peppers arrived, I ate the entire thing. These red peppers were omg. Ridiculous. I lightly dragged a tine of my fork (my fork!) across them and it cut right through without any effort. They just fell apart and were heaven. Who knew?
The next dish was hilarious. The cute little bowl of ‘Cereals’, as the menu says, tasted EXACTLY. LIKE. SUGAR SMACKS. You know the cereal with the frog? This was them in the fancy form. The cereals were puffed spelt and other grains mixed with sliced nuts and a sugar syrup. I was very impressed when someone came out from the kitchen to ask me if I would eat honey, and when I said no said they would be bringing my dish after they remedied the error of their assumption. It was worth the short wait, though I do wish it came with the desserts and not in the middle of more savory items. I mean, after all, it was sugar smacks. Sooo good!
You may recall that I got full many, many dishes ago, so you can assume that by this point I was in actual pain. We all were. So we could only laugh when actual normal-restaurant-entree-sized ‘mains’ came out next. Mine was an excellent black truffle risotto. Considering we were in the land where they actually sell the Thermomix, we cracked up saying ‘Hot wet rice! It’s hot wet rice!’ over and over. Side note, laughing hysterically while painfully full is not a smart thing to do. But this was delicious hot wet rice.
Between my savories and my dessert courses and while Husband was given like his 14th piece of steak, I was presented with a goblet of pineapple water ice. It was very mild, mostly ice and not pineapple, but at this point in the meal it was a perfect palate cleanser. It also helped my full belly feel better. ALSO, it was called ‘Water Pineapple’, which I think was just supposed to be Pineapple Water Ice except ‘water ice’ is only a Philly thing so really I just don’t know.
On to dessert! I am used to getting boring plates of fresh fruit at most places, even when it’s fancy, even when they say they can accommodate me, but it’s still a little disappointing to not get something more interesting. Well, this was the most interesting plate of fresh fruit. The strawberries were grilled so they had a rich smoky flavor that worked so well, I really couldn’t get over it. It was accompanied by fresh edible flower petals and a fantastically weird and unique blood orange gel. I don’t know how they made that gel or how they magicked the smoky strawberries but it was all good.
My final (almost there!) course was Baked Apple with Pure Cocoa. I usually don’t like fruit with chocolate but I figured it would be nice here and got excited. I should have realized ‘Pure Cocoa’ meant ‘unsweetened chocolate’ — it was really freaking pure and super bitter with not a trace of sweetness! Yeesh! Mixed with the delicious baked apple it was better, but the apple would have been better without the chocolate or with some kind of plain sorbet (ice cream is too much to ask for).
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Little leaves little leaves little innocent leaves 
The Golden Chanterelles (Will you still love meee tomorrowwwww DO YOU GET IT LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENTS IF YOU KNOW WHY THAT GOT IN MY HEAD) 
Cream of the bean yeah yeah yeah oh how I love the cream of the bean 
Amazing Artichokes 
Beyond Leeks 
Baby Beans 
Beets beets they are good 
March Mushrooms 
Little green peas, buddy!!! 
Red Pepper Starfish 
‘Cereals’ 
HOT WET RICE! 
Water pineapple? What is that? Is that a thing? 
Grilled strawberries with blood orange gel 
Baked apple and sad cocoa |
It was still a nice end to a wonderful meal. If you are ever in Bilbao or wanting a reason to go there (well, the outskirts), I can highly recommend this restaurant. It’s very expensive, yes, but it’s an experience. Oh, and our 8:30pm reservation (seated promptly) got us out the door by about 1:30am…so…plan accordingly.
GETTING THERE
As I mentioned in my Bilbao guide, it was nearly impossible to figure out how to use the trains, not only because of the language barrier, but because apparently no one worked in the stations! All-day siestas? Anyway, we ended up having to take a taxi to Axpe for Asador Extebarri. The same driver that picked us up at our hotel drove us home at the end of the night (in the morning, really) and was extremely good (no looking at phones or anything!). His name is Eduardo at CLASS Servicio de Taxi and his local number is 637-505-212.
As I mentioned in my Bilbao guide, it was nearly impossible to figure out how to use the trains, not only because of the language barrier, but because apparently no one worked in the stations! All-day siestas? Anyway, we ended up having to take a taxi to Axpe for Asador Extebarri. The same driver that picked us up at our hotel drove us home at the end of the night (in the morning, really) and was extremely good (no looking at phones or anything!). His name is Eduardo at CLASS Servicio de Taxi and his local number is 637-505-212.
ASADOR EXTEBARRI, AXPE SPAIN
Water speed: Pretty good, but like all restaurants of this caliber, it’s bottled. You don’t really notice that charge amid the rest of it, but still. I know it’s common outside the U.S. but I am spoiled!
Service: Very friendly and kind. In the beginning of the meal, I felt a little bit rushed, which probably is responsible for getting full so quickly. They got their pacing down better as we went on. Also, they couldn’t explain some dishes in English, which obviously is my problem and not theirs, but it’s worth knowing if you go.
Bathrooms: Nice and clean although I was scared that the extraordinarily heavy lock didn’t work.
Food: Really great! Some dishes were average, but more were wonderful.
Bonus: A very fancy restaurant where you can join in the experience even as a vegan!
Three Count ’em THREE Fantastic Dessert Recipes & A Big Hello There!
Look I used a fancy pants flower muffin pan
Man alive, I haven’t posted in a while! And I haven’t posted about food in a longer while! My deepest apologies to all of you who have been sitting at the computer hitting refresh…refresh…refresh for the past month. I hope you took bathroom breaks.
I’ve been so busy because I have been planning a wedding! We have compressed the expected 10-12 month process into about 2 months, so I have been hella distracted. But there’s always time to bake because I read that the appropriate wedding diet is baked goods. So here are three (3!) recipes to make amends for the computer silence lately. From here on out, we should be posting regularly because I hired someone to yell at me every day until I write. (That part is true except for the hiring and paying.)
All three of these recipes were made out of NECESSITY. First, I found a sick sale on Dandies vegan marshmallows at Mom’s Organic Market, so you know I bought the entire shelf. That led to recipe #1. Then, I needed to use up browning bananas. Hence recipe #2. Finally, I found an old can of pumpkin pie mix in the back of my cupboard, and while it wasn’t necessarily going to go bad anytime soon, I sensed how wrong it was to have Thanksgiving food around in the summer. I felt the ghost of Squanto standing in the corner of my kitchen with his hands on his hips, arching his left eyebrow, and mouthing ‘For. Shame’. So that’s recipe #3.
Oh also all three of these recipes have chocolate chips. You can obviously omit or exchange them if you want but then wtf would be wrong with you?
CHOCOLATE CHIP MARSHMALLOW COOKIES
Dudes, before you say anything, I do realize that if I added pecans or almonds or some such, these would be properly called rocky road cookies, but as you well know, sometimes you feel like a nut
BUT SOMETIMES YOU DON’T.
Dudes, before you say anything, I do realize that if I added pecans or almonds or some such, these would be properly called rocky road cookies, but as you well know, sometimes you feel like a nut
BUT SOMETIMES YOU DON’T.
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Ingredients:
**Note: When I used Earth Balance, it produced more of a biscuit-y cookie. The oil made a chewier cookie that I greatly preferred, but some test subjects liked the biscuitness. Your call! Directions:
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The biscuity buttery batch
This is how it looks when it is mixed. Ta daaa
This is what the inside of an oven looks like.
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SOFT BANANA CAKE WITH SPECULOOS AND PEANUT BUTTER RIBBONS
That shit sounds goooood. This was definitely more like cake than regular banana bread. I think because I didn’t use wheat flour or flaxseed, which is usually in my banana bread. Or, it could be because I ate it straight from the oven…
That shit sounds goooood. This was definitely more like cake than regular banana bread. I think because I didn’t use wheat flour or flaxseed, which is usually in my banana bread. Or, it could be because I ate it straight from the oven…
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Ingredients:
For the ribbons:
Directions:
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VEGAN PSA THIS IS WHAT BANANAS LOOK LIKE
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PUMPKIN PIE MUFFINS
What’s better than pumpkin and chocolate chip muffins! So yummy and it shouldn’t just be relegated to November.
What’s better than pumpkin and chocolate chip muffins! So yummy and it shouldn’t just be relegated to November.
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Ingredients:
Directions:
Before. Raw food.
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VEGAN PSA THIS IS WHAT PUMPKIN FROM A CAN LOOKS LIKE
This is what milk on top of canned pumpkin looks like.
Seriously this flower muffin pan makes everything special.
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Ta daaaa! Enjoy! I hope you make all of these right now! They all use the same oven temperature and chocolate chips so it’s not that big of a deal. I’ll be back with lots more stuff soon! Yebop!
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