Veganizing "Friends": Monica's Kiwi Lime Pieby Randi / September 26, 2013
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No, not that kind of stake! Remember from, well, “The One With Five Steaks & An Eggplant”, when Monica’s restaurant switches meat suppliers and she gets free stuff and brings it home to the guys to make amends? Let’s backtrack! So much is happening: Monica gets promoted at work, Ross’s birthday is coming up, Chandler is impersonating a hot guy for a hot lady. Half the Friends – Rachel, Phoebe, and Joey – don’t make as much money as the other three. The moneyed 3 don’t realize this, and they keep coming up with expensive ways to celebrate things like birthdays and promotions, to the 3 poorpups’ chagrin. Poor Rachel, Phoebe, and Joey – in multiple senses of the word – finally have to confront the others about the situation.
Joey: (clearing his throat a lot) Ok, um, uh, we three feel like, that uh, sometimes you guys don’t get that uh… (Pause) We don’t have as much money as you.
Monica: Ok.
Ross: I hear ya.
Chandler: We can talk about that.
Phoebe: Well, then…Let’s.
Ross: Well umm I, I just never think of money as an issue.
Rachel: That’s ’cause you have it.
Ross: That’s a good point.
This conversation occurs after a pretty uncomfortable (and unsatisfying) celebratory dinner for Monica, in which the 3 povers order basically nothing, but do it hilariously. “And…take care!” (This is the only video from this episode I could find, and since I have to share videos as much as possible, here you go.)
After the confrontation comes expected friction and resentment. Finally, Monica, Ross, and Chandler try to fix things by sharing the titular 5 steaks and an eggplant with the others.
Chandler: Gee, Monica, what’s in the bag?
Monica: I don’t know, Chandler. Let’s take a look.
Phoebe: Oh, it’s like a skit.
Monica: Why, it’s dinner for six. 5 steaks, and an eggplant for Phoebe.
Unfortunately, Monica ends up getting fired because she wasn’t supposed to take the food from the new meat supplier. See? Meat ALWAYS CAUSES TROUBLE. Best to just avoid it completely.
Anyway, we won’t get in trouble for having this food, so let’s make some eggplant. And then we’ll figure out what kind of steak/stake we want to work with. (Side note: I just thought of the most difficult Pictionary challenge ever: the kind of stakes that you mean when you say ‘the stakes are high’. How do you picturize that!!!!)
 Chop this b |
 Boil and cover. Duck and cover |
 Salty dog |
I’m going to give you instructions for extremely simple, fast, and yummy miso-glazed eggplant. This dinner is all about convenience, because I figured out what kind of ‘steak’ I want to use.
MISO-GLAZED EGGPLANT
- One eggplant, chopped into 1-inch pieces
- 2T miso
- 1T tamari
DIRECTIONS:
- Boil the eggplant in about 1 inch of water, covered, for about 10 minutes, until soft.
- Drain the water as best you can, and add the tamari and miso. Stir and cook over medium-high heat for about 10-15 minutes, until everything is browning and infused with the goodness of Asian salt products.
 See there are 5! |
Now for the five steaks…I think instead of whittling my own wooden stakes, I’m going to heat up some already made mandarin chicken pieces from Trader Joe’s. They are like steak. Enough. And they are really good. They come in a close second to the Trader Joe’s Chickenless Nuggets or whatever they are called, in the beige bag. Those are my favorite. Anyway. It’s all good fake chicken.
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It’s eggplant in an eggplant dish!!! Cute
So, this was a fun and slapdash “Friends”-themed dinner! See, even when you are pressed for time (and energy), you can always count on “Friends” to lead the way. Like they said, they’ll be there for you.
- In another storyline, Chandler was pretending to be a man with a much deeper and dorkier voice when a ‘hot-sounding woman’ called. What was this man’s name?
- Ross’s birthday hoopla in this episode includes dinner, cake, and a concert to see what band?
- Who gives Monica a hickey?
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Vegan Goodies at Smorgasburg, Brooklyn (Dumbo)
Under the bridge like a troll
Today, I had the pleasure of roaming around Dumbo, Brooklyn in the beautiful (and unseasonably strong) sunshine for Smorgasburg, the Brooklyn Flea Food Market. It’s a crazy varied array of food stalls in Williamsburg on Saturdays, hence the name, with a smaller version on Sundays in Dumbo. The Dumbo version has fewer vendors, I think, but also lesser crowds, which is great. Today, I found several vegan options while I got sunburnt and couldn’t find a toilet without a thirty minute line. Fun times! Let’s see what we found!
  I also spotted this Hummus stand! I imagine that the company isn’t really called Hummus, because that would be pretty dumb (“Oh what’s your name? Hummus? Ok, I’ll google that to find out more about you!” says a soon-to-be-very-frustrated individual). The hummus on offer looked pretty splendid, but I told myself it was bad form to buy something at this fair that I make pretty much every day.
Instead, my second food installment came from Bombay Sandwich Company. I’ve heard good things about their all-vegan Indian-inspired sandwiches, so I decided to try one. I ordered the Kale & Cumin, though The Bomb (a garam masala and potato one) is the most popular. And food with ‘bomb’ in the name tends to be pretty amazing. (See, e.g., Vegan Treats.) I waited for about 20 minutes, which seemed absurd in this environment. Finally, they called my name. This was…ok. It was mostly purple cabbage, and I didn’t notice any kale, which made me mad. My friend said she spotted some green shreds in her piece, but that’s not exactly enough to warrant putting kale in the title. It had a thin great northern bean puree, which was good, as were the chutneys topping the bread. However, the sandwiches are billed as being ‘sealed’, so when I saw that they were all just regular pieces of toast, sliding and letting the fillings out, it was a bit disappointing. I think I’ll spend my $8 elsewhere next time. |
 First up was Asia Dog, which can make most of its specialty creations with a vegan dog. My friend ordered the purple cabbage-topped Mel & Steve, left, and I ordered the Vinh (above), which comes with banh mi toppings. I said I was vegan and the woman said there was a veg pate substitute, and that it wouldn’t come with the aioli. However, I didn’t notice a pate of any kind, nor the mustard that was listed. Just the carrots and cilantro. Oh well, it was still pretty good, and for $4 each, not a bad deal.
  Please excuse these photos. It was sunny as ALL GET OUT today, and I could barely see let alone take proper pics |
 This may be the best picture I’ve ever taken. No, actually I had to pee so badly I wasn’t even trying. |
Given the heat, the best part of the day was seeing the Kelvin Slush stand. Started from the Kelvin Natural Slush Truck, this company sells the most amazing, natural slushies, like 7-11 Slurpees but so much better in every way (except not as cheap). You pick your slushy base, like Green & Black Tea, Citrus, or Spicy Ginger (the best best one), and then you choose your add-in flavor, like raspberry or white peach. Today, with no Ginger base on offer, I got the Arnold Palmer (citrus and tea mixed, so good) with a guava (!) add-in. It was great! So refreshing, and they really perfected the level of iciness. Although I’ll probably order the Ginger when I can, I loved the Arnold Palmer base, and the guava made the day seem even more summery. Such a perfect treat!
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Unfortunately, I didn’t see Electric Blue Baking Co., The Regal Vegan with their rumored vegan banh mi, the homemade tempeh guy, or the vegan tacos. Next time, Williamsburg! It was still a pretty fun time though! Have you been? What did you get?
Zagreb Vegan Scene: Vegehop Restaurant
After traveling for a good 24 hours, I arrived in Croatia jet-lagged, light-headed, and in need of vegetables. I had always planned on eating my first meal at Vegehop, one of the few all vegetarian restaurants in the country, and I’m pretty happy I did.
New in a city where I couldn’t use my phone’s Google maps to get around, I was extremely anxious (as is my wont) to find this restaurant on my own. Luckily, Vegehop is pretty centrally located, and even more luckily, it is well signed from the main street (the restaurant is in a sort of alley). With a sigh of relief, I entered the quiet, nicely decorated little room and took my seat among maybe 8 other diners.
The extensive menu offers cooked and raw dishes, vegetarian and vegan, as well as a daily prix fixe menu. I was tempted by the set menu, but I decided to refresh my travel-logged body with raw food. While I love cooking at home, and I love trying most anything when dining out, I’m always so tempted by raw food in restaurants. Probably because I can’t prepare it like they can!
New in a city where I couldn’t use my phone’s Google maps to get around, I was extremely anxious (as is my wont) to find this restaurant on my own. Luckily, Vegehop is pretty centrally located, and even more luckily, it is well signed from the main street (the restaurant is in a sort of alley). With a sigh of relief, I entered the quiet, nicely decorated little room and took my seat among maybe 8 other diners.
The extensive menu offers cooked and raw dishes, vegetarian and vegan, as well as a daily prix fixe menu. I was tempted by the set menu, but I decided to refresh my travel-logged body with raw food. While I love cooking at home, and I love trying most anything when dining out, I’m always so tempted by raw food in restaurants. Probably because I can’t prepare it like they can!
Vegehop’s Multivitamin Salad
I decided to start with the Multivitamin Salad, a vibrant mixture of shaved beets, cabbage, carrots, and sunflower seeds. Not only was this salad incredibly beautiful, but it tasted great. And it was enormous! I’m sure most normal people order just this for their entire meal, which I can sort of understand but I would still laugh at them. Anyway, with just a few bites I immediately felt rejuvenated. A very light lemony dressing barely covered the perfectly bite-sized vegetables, which I was happy about. So often salads are doused with so much dressing that you can’t even tell what vegetables are underneath, or if there are any. This salad, on the other hand, was pretty perfect. Or maybe I was insanely jet-lagged, I don’t know. All I can say is that I wish I had some right now!
Vegehop’s Raw Zucchini Cannelloni
For my entrée, I chose the raw zucchini cannelloni. The waiter immediately informed me that this dish would take about 15-20 minutes longer to prepare than other dishes, but I had time to wait. How amazing is it to have a waiter tell you this straight away, rather than leave you wondering when your food doesn’t come? I really appreciated this; it so rarely happens.
It was worth the wait. Thin slices of zucchini wrapped around a gooey, salty cashew cheese and were covered with olive oil and a sort of pesto. I’ve made lots of cashew cheese in my life but this one tasted like nothing I’ve concocted. It wasn’t grainy at all, but was almost gummy (in a good way). I don’t know how it was made, but I loved it.
The only disappointing thing was that, since I was there near closing, all the good vegan desserts were gone. A huge reason I chose this restaurant was because a friend told me about the ‘Danube Waves’ cake. Of course, a woman seated a few tables away got the last piece right before I asked the waiter about it! Of course! Next time, I know to immediately ask if they have any and secure my piece before any hussies can take it away from me.
Vegehop, Vlaska Ulica 79, Zagreb
It was worth the wait. Thin slices of zucchini wrapped around a gooey, salty cashew cheese and were covered with olive oil and a sort of pesto. I’ve made lots of cashew cheese in my life but this one tasted like nothing I’ve concocted. It wasn’t grainy at all, but was almost gummy (in a good way). I don’t know how it was made, but I loved it.
The only disappointing thing was that, since I was there near closing, all the good vegan desserts were gone. A huge reason I chose this restaurant was because a friend told me about the ‘Danube Waves’ cake. Of course, a woman seated a few tables away got the last piece right before I asked the waiter about it! Of course! Next time, I know to immediately ask if they have any and secure my piece before any hussies can take it away from me.
Vegehop, Vlaska Ulica 79, Zagreb
- Water speed: Not great. I learned here that my dining in the Balkans would lead to a lot of drinking from my water bottle. It’s just a different culture here. Not as thirsty.
- Bathrooms: One or two shared stalls, not bad.
- Service: Good. Appreciated the warning about the wait.
- Food: Overall, very good and recommended.
- Extras: The sign for the restaurant out on the main road is extremely helpful. I just wish they froze some of the Danube Waves just in case they run out and someone came from America JUST for that. (K that’s not true but still.)