okay, i have no idea what on earth took me so long to try these, but i am sorely regretting all of that lost cocomel-eating time right now. they’re amazing! (i know, i know, a lot of you are saying “well, no duh” right now, and rolling your eyes at me)

my husband and i were at vegan essentials the other day, and while we were technically there on a dog food run, i can never help browsing once i’m there. my husband has only ever been there once before, so he’s even more interested in browsing than i am… so browse we did! while wandering, i saw a bunch of different bags and boxes of cocomels, and something clicked. i remembered hearing about them in various places, and so i pointed them out to e, who is a big caramel fan. he was game to try some, so i stood around forever trying to decide until we finally just grabbed the variety pack. it includes 12 pieces: 3 each of original, vanilla, fleur de sel, and java (which i made e promise to eat because i hate coffee-flavored-anything). and, because i absolutely couldn’t help myself, i also grabbed a box of chocolate-covered chai spice cocomels… it comes in an adorable be-ribboned four-pack, like truffles.

i think we lasted a day before we tore into them, and once we started there was almost no stopping us. we ate half the bag in one go, until i forced us to put it back in the kitchen (we ate the other half the following day). these things are DELICIOUS. they’re chewy yet creamy, buttery, delicately flavored, and everything i ever liked about caramel but didn’t realize i missed so much. seriously, i think i could eat my weight in cocomels. e loved them, too, so i’m pretty sure i’ll be picking up some more when i’m at vegan essentials again. it’s probably a blessing they aren’t available at our co-op, because yikes.

i only tried 3 of the flavors (i had 2 each), and e ate all 3 pieces of java, plus 1 each of the other flavors (we are nothing if not fair). i honestly can’t tell you what my favorite was, because they were all fantastic. if you haven’t tried them yet, please do yourself a favor and figure out a way.

i still have the cute little box of chai cocomels on the kitchen counter — i’m a little afraid to open it because i’ll probably want to eat them all once i start. i’ll check back in once i gather up my courage, and let you know how it went.

i had no idea that newman’s own made licorice, did you? i’m not sure if this is a new development, or if i’ve just been hiding under a rock. today i went to a brand-new store on our campus, which aims to offer natural, minimally processed foods. they just opened two days ago, and the little news blurb they put out included a photograph of a case full of zevia flavors (love.), so i was really curious about what vegan goods they might have to offer.

my husband and i had a brief break between meetings this afternoon, so we wandered over to check it out. it’s small, but they have a pretty good variety of snacks (including frozen dinners and microwaveable soups, etc.) and a bunch of it is vegan (yay!). they have practically an entire aisle of clif and luna bars, and they have a lovely selection of newman’s own cookies. they also have fresh falafel, pita, and tahini sauce in the refrigerated case, which is great! anyhow, i digress.

in my quest to throw them a little business, i was browsing for something i hadn’t tried before, and i found an entire display of newman’s own licorice. they had four flavors: black (i am not a fan), strawberry (the ol’ standard), tangerine (interesting choice), and pomegranate (also unique). on the shelf above that, they also had a bunch of sour flavors. i didn’t make a note of what all they had, because i’m not sure i’m a sour licorice person. anyhow, we decided to give the pomegranate a spin, and i also bought a cream zevia because i had never tried that flavor.

the licorice smelled wonderful as soon as i opened the package, so we were off to a good start. we ate most of the pack on our walk back to our building, and we both liked it a lot. it’s a little more ‘natural-tasting’ than twizzlers, as you might expect. the pomegranate is an interesting twist, too… basically it’s fancy licorice in a cute little snack-size package. i’d definitely eat it again, and i’d like to try the strawberry sometime.

in any event, that means my life has officially Settled Down and i can (with any luck) start blogging regularly-ish again. i even have a tiny baby post lined up to get things rolling, so stay tuned for that.

for my undergrad class, i’m almost ready, because i had a productivity burst right at the end of fall semester and i worked ahead a bunch. the big task that remains is to create the course calendar, which involves scheduling what happens during each lecture and discussion for the whole semester, and then going back to the beginning and slating in what happens in each of the four stand-alone sections as well. it’s kind of a puzzle and i put it off because it’s a little crazy-making, but it always sorts itself out in the end. so i really need to do that. maybe i’ll start working on that while my winterim class takes their final tomorrow.

but for my grad class… sooooo sooooo much to do. i have a title, a working list of topics i’d like to cover, and a potential book or two we might use. that’s better than nothing, but i’d say i’m about 14% of the way there. i need to finalize my topic list, seriously hustle when it comes to selecting readings, and let the students know if we’re going to use any books (so they can order them in time). i did this last winter as well, in about a week, and now i’m cutting it really close (my seminar meets next thursday). i think the only reason i’m not in full-on meltdown mode is because i’m clinging to the fact that i pulled this off last year. here’s hoping i have it in me again. blerg.

i hereby resolve to stop being weird and just post already. i have lots of random things to talk about, like a speculoos-three-ways pepsi challenge (yet to be held, but will definitely occur in my kitchen), and a bunch of new LUSH products i just got for christmas (yay!), and the insane amount of soda i’ve been drinking (insane for me, anyway), and maybe even some stuff about nail polish, why not? i just keep stashing these ideas in my head and not actually writing about them, so i will make a better effort to knock that off. starting later today, even. (oooh, accountability!)

meanwhile i will tell you that i just finished an extremely brief winter break (as university breaks go), and i have embarked upon a totally insane schedule of teaching every single day for 2.5 weeks in an effort to bestow 3 credits on my students and a nervous breakdown on myself (not really). while i’m doing that, i’ll be prepping a brand-new graduate course to be taught in spring (read: three weeks from now), so i have my work cut out for me. the good news is, i prepped a new grad course last winter break, and i lived to tell the tale, so i think i can do it. i wasn’t teaching the winter session then, but i WAS selling a house and buying a house and moving, so it probably works out about even. wish me luck!

unfortunately, on their big opening weekend we were otherwise engaged, and couldn’t make it down for the celebration… and then, i don’t know, life happened, and we just haven’t been to chicago since then. so when i did the whole google-maps-thing and realized the wicker park location was super close to vegan mania, a plan was hatched.

after (relatively) carefully avoiding over-eating at chicago vegan mania, we walked the 0.7 miles to our hotly-anticipated lunch.

we were a little worried that it would be overrun with excited vegans (due to the proximity), but it wasn’t all that bad. bustling, certainly, but we were able to find a table and the line wasn’t long at all. success! what was much more difficult was narrowing down our options of what to eat. yikes. i remembered that the chili cheese fries were amazeballs, so i really wanted to order them, but i also remembered (and had confirmed by the cashier) that it’s a pretty giant serving, so i was nervous. my husband assured me he would help me out, so i went for it and ordered them.

they were, indeed, amazeballs. even better than i’d remembered, if i’m being honest. both the chili (mmm, white beans!) and the cheese (made from cashews & sunflower seeds, among other things) are totally different than what you’d expect, but in a really refreshing and tasty way. and the fries! they’re perfect, for serious.

my husband started with a mini-greens salad:

and that thing was hardly mini! it was piled so high i joked that he should dump it out on the plate to eat it. on a return trip i would definitely try this salad–it has all kinds of things i like in it (beets, carrots, sprouts, sunflower seeds) and nothing i don’t. as it was, i had my hands full (so to speak) with the chili cheese fries.

for our entrees, my husband went the predictable route:

if there is a vegan reuben on the menu, 9 times out of 10, that’s what he’s getting. this one has reuben-style seitan, sauerkraut, horseradish cheese, and russian dressing on marbled rye. a reuben sandwich is basically a curated collection of things i wouldn’t like, but he loves those things and this one is no exception!

i was hemming and hawing between the chicken run ranch burger and the baja surf tacos, but when i was talking to leanne earlier in the day, she vehemently recommended (seriously, there was vehemence) the surf tacos, so that’s what i went with:

and jeebus christmas, you guys, she was right. they were FANTASTIC. the lighting was crazy so i apologize for that, but these are basically soft corn tacos with battered tempeh, some kind of amazing tangy sauce, salsa, purple cabbage, and guacamole. i wanted to eat them forever, but unfortunately because i had snacked a fair amount at chicago vegan mania, i was only able to put one of these away. i sadly made doe-eyes at the remaining one, but eventually donated it to my husband (he who abstained at vegan mania).

we didn’t have enough room for dessert, so we’ll save that for another trip. we did, however, partake in the fancy drinks (no pics because e was filling them while i was taking these shots): i got a watermelon fresca, and he got the native iced tea (hibiscus & wild berry). i’m normally a just-drink-water kind of girl, but i couldn’t resist the watermelon deal, and i’m glad i didn’t. it was really great, and so was the iced tea.

i pretty much want to eat here every day. now that there are three locations in chicago and a new native foods in portland, can milwaukee be far behind? come on, chef tanya! make my year!

on saturday we made the trip down to chicago so we could check out chicago vegan mania for the first time (this was their third year). it was held in a giant old park fieldhouse; a really neat space, even though i daresay the vegans of the greater chicago area seem to be outgrowing it! we arrived somewhere in the neighborhood of 11.30am and it was totally slammed–some rooms it was really tough to even navigate through at all, so i went back for a second lap later on.

there was a food court with eight restaurants, and then there were a few additional vendors scattered in other rooms so you were never too far from a snack. our first stop was the food court (duh) because i wanted to try and plan out my eating. we were going to head over to the new chicago location of native foods after we’d had our mania fill, so i needed to be strategic. a day or two earlier, upton’s had tweeted that they were going to have nachos — which i’d been craving for weeks and hadn’t shut up about — so i kind of made a beeline to their table and ignored all the rest. i’m a jerk, but a jerk who ate some frickin’ delicious nachos:

crispy tortilla chips smothered in food for lovers queso and then topped with a generous helping of upton’s chorizo. OH MY GOD, you guys. they were amazing. and the best part was that my husband foolishly ate a normal breakfast that day (i had skipped it entirely), so he wasn’t hungry yet and i got them all to myself. heaven.

after that, we wandered through the exhibit halls. the first one held the chicago soydairy table, which: sample nirvana. i got to taste two quesadilla slices (i grabbed one, but it was still attached to a second one, so… whoops!), a couple of bites of mac & cheese, a few chips with nacho sauce, and a squishy fresh marshmallow. yum. there was also pizza, but i was starting to feel like a glutton, so i moved along. there was also a native foods table in that hall, where i got to sample a boogie bar, which has stuff in it i wouldn’t normally want, but it was actually quite good.

the larger exhibition hall held a bunch of my pals: the vegan chicago table, the herbivore table, and the vaute couture table. it was really great to see leanne; i hadn’t seen her since she moved away to new york, so it was really great to hang out with her, force-feed her some lunch, and catch up on all the latest. <3

there was also a “culture cafe” on the second floor, and delicious cafe was selling coffee and bakery there, so of course i had to get something. i decided on the mini-pumpkin whoopie pie:

i had never had a whoopie pie before, and i love me some pumpkin, so i went for it. verdict: why i have i never had a whoopie pie before?! they’re insanely delicious!! i hereby resolve to eat whoopie pies whenever they are offered to me.

i think that about did it for what we ate at vegan mania; like i said we were trying to save our tummy-real-estate for native foods. i’ll cover that in a separate post but for now, let’s just say saturday was quite a treat. i get such a huge kick out of being places with tons of other vegans; where you don’t have to ask about the food; where you can just partake of absolutely anything you like. love, love, love it. OH! i also learned today (from their facebook page) that although 2500(!) vegans attended on saturday, they only created FIVE bags of garbage. five. they had a green team who went through everything to make sure things were recycled, composted, etc. and i am seriously so far beyond impressed i don’t even think there’s a word for it. rock on, chicago vegans.

it’s the last day of vegan mofo, and i’m going out in style, eating chocolate over a bucket for you people. i don’t remember exactly how this phrase started in my house, or exactly what i was eating… but at some point my husband brought me some of my chocolate stash to eat on the couch while we were watching teevy, and i became acutely aware that i was sitting there eating chocolate over a plastic tub. (bucket sounds funnier, though, so that’s what i said, and it stuck.) i have no shame, and now i’m going to share two of my favorite chocolates to eat over a bucket.

first up, my newest obsession, the one that rudely shoved the trader joe’s rocky road squares aside and latched onto my heart: trader joe’s sea salt & turbinado sugar dark chocolate almonds. these things are dangerous, you guys.

once i have a tub in my house, it’s just downhill from there. i can tell myself “just one little handful” but 20 minutes later, i’m back in the kitchen grabbing some more. and if i take the whole tub with me? oh boy. these little guys are everything you might possibly want: sweet, salty, crunchy, creamy, GAH they are so good!! i wanted to take a picture so you could see what they look like, but then i learned that it’s really hard to photograph them on macro in a dark kitchen without making them look a little like baby falafels, or worse, a pile of some kind of animal pewps. oh well, power through, here they are:

for the uninitiated: they are roasted almonds, dunked in a hearty serving of dark chocolate, and then somehow rolled in salt and sugar. they’re off the chain. they’re super addictive. they are the best thing ever, and they’re only like $3 a tub at trader joe’s. i mean, come on. get in mah belly!

our runner up this evening is a relatively new discovery! my husband scouted these out for me at whole foods, from a giant display i honestly wouldn’t have checked myself because i tend to assume that giant displays of chocolate candy are generally not vegan. my husband, though, is not so jaded (or is it lazy?), and he plucked these out for me:

and how do they taste? pretty much these are the non-gelatin version of the york peppermint pattie that you’ve been missing. they’re both smaller and thicker, but the flavor is really close, as far as i remember it, to the mini-yorks i used to eat constantly as a vegetarian (before i realized they had gelatin in them, doy). here’s a look at the innards:

the chocolate is dark but still sweet, and the filling is really quite minty. if i have a lot of restraint, i can actually make one of these last with a few separate bites. i haven’t had chocolate mint patties at my beck and call in years and years, but these guys are doing a great job of making up for it. super yum! if you have a whole foods near you, keep an eye out for this confectious brand and make sure you grab the dark chocolate version.

let the eating over a bucket commence! and thanks for a super fun month!

the TLT deluxe went over pretty well, so let’s see what else i have in my sandwich stash, how’s that?

first off, let’s take a peek at this ‘faux boy’ sandwich from palomino bar. it’s made with blackened seitan, remoulade, lettuce, and tomato. i’ve been told that the seitan at palomino can be rather hit or miss (i guess it depends on who’s making it), but i’ve ordered this sandwich twice and it’s been delicious both times, so yay for me:

really this post is supposed to be about sandwiches, but i would be remiss if i didn’t spotlight the tots. palomino is known for their tots — they have a dedicated vegan deep fryer, for pete’s sake — and these things are like manna from heaven. with any sandwich you get to order two sides, and i always, ALWAYS get the tots. more recently they’ve added sweet potato tots(!) to their roster, so now for my two sides i get regular tots + sweet potato tots. you also get one dipping sauce, and i always order the vegan ranch. i never even cared about ranch dressing in the pregan days, but i heard such amazing things about palomino’s vegan ranch that i decided to give it a spin, and it did not disappoint. i have to say, whenever i go to palomino, for me it’s really about tots and ranch. the sandwich is secondary.

okay, what’s next? well, the husband and i decided to order out the other night, and as i mentioned recently elsewhere, our go-to for take-out is always the riverwest coop cafe. my husband ordered the reuben, which is marinated tempeh, sauerkraut, mozz teese, and thousand island dressing on rye (with chips!):

and i ordered the chix fried tofu sandwich, which consists of a yummy local herbed tofu that is seasoned & deep-fried, then slathered with vegenaise and piled high high with baby spinach, tomatoes, and onions (also with chips!):

and, because we have absolutely no willpower once we walk into that joint, we also loaded up on extras (large container of mac & trees for me, small container of mexi-slaw for my husband, a big ol’ chocolate chip cookie for each of us, and a raisin bran muffin for my husband):

the food was phenomenal, as always. i saved my mac & trees for lunch a couple of days later (today!), but the rest of that stuff was devoured pretty much on the spot.

for a person who has historically avoided tomatoes like the plague (i love tomato sauce, ketchup, salsa, and all kinds of tomato-y things, just not Actual Tomatoes), and who has never actually eaten “real” bacon in her life, i have become weirdly obsessed with vegan BLTs over the past several months. i really, really like them, and so i keep trying them at restaurants when i see them on the menu. today, my husband decided to whip some up for lunch, and they were delicious!

these weren’t standard TLTs so much as they were TbsTs with extra fixings, but, you know, same diff. on the left, we have vegenaise, baby spinach, and pretty yellow tomatoes straight from our garden… and on the right, avocado and tempeh bacon. the bread is toasted, which he must have done in some fancy-pants griddle-based fashion, because we got rid of our toaster when we moved to this house and we keep forgetting to buy a new one. anyhow, this little sandwich was super tasty. i would definitely eat another one, given the option.