Subject: Veganism

• Weirdest Thing EVER!

  We're flipping through this morning's Los Angeles Times, waiting for Who Killed the Electric Car? director Chris Paine to call. He does, and we have a nice chat, as he's still flying high from a well-received Los Angeles Film Festival screening two nights previous. After hanging up, we go to the Weekly HQ's posh kitchen, heat up leftover chicken and vegan pasta lunch and bring it back to our desk, where we notice that the whole time we'd been talking with Paine, the paper had been open to page C

  June 26, 2006

• Mount Eerie, Jeffrey Lewis & Others At UC Irvine Thursday

  March 6 at UCI's Student Center promises to be an idiosyncratic indie-rock extravaganza of wild proportions. Mount Eerie, Jeffrey Lewis & the Jitters (also playing a free in-store at Fingerprints in Long Beach at 7 p.m.), BARR and Jeremy Jay will be performing, for free (all ages), starting at 8 p.m. Bonus: vegan cupcakes for 50 cents a piece. Concert info here. KUCI music director Sam Farzin is organizing the concert under the new Acrobatics Everyday aegis. He promises many excellent shows fo

  March 5, 2008

• The Crosby Still Not Ready for Prime Time

  We like the Crosby, we really do. We cheered their fight against the idiot SanTana bureaucrats. We like co-owners Chris Alfaro, Phil Nisco and Marc Yamaoka 'cause they always sport a smile and some weird-ass T-shirt (one of their workers was wearing one with Steve Urkel's mugshot--I remember that episode!). Their lair's vibe is happening, the music ever-eclectic, the ambitions lofty. But in the matter in which I'm concerned with professionally for the purposes of this post--great food in OC--th

  October 7, 2008

• Let's Talk No Turkey -- at Native Foods

  Believe it or not, the Native Foods vegan restaurant in Costa Mesa bustles during the Thanksgiving season, offering a birdless (and delicious) alternative to the traditional turkey dinner. Many OC vegans and vegetarians – and the families that enable their madnesses – order gussied up Tofurky dinners. For fancy-pantsier palates, Native Foods sells the all-organic "Native Wellington": a puff-pastry stuffed with Native Seitan, kale, portobello mushrooms, orange glazed yams, stuffing, carameli

  November 21, 2008

• OC's Best Chocolate Maker to Give Truffle-Making Course This Sunday

  Courtney Dudman Donley of C Salt Gourmet fame (OC Weekly's Best Chocolate 2008!) will be doing what the headline says this coming Sunday at 2 p.m. at @space Gallery in SanTana. Wish I could tell ustedes it's for free, but $20 to create yum-yums just in time for Valentine's Day is quite the bargain in these times. Added bonus: during the same event, a great OC vegan baker by the name of Luscious Organic Desserts will lecture on and offer free samples of her, well, luscious organic desserts. I've

  February 4, 2009

• Urban Decay Voted Most Animal-Friendly Cosmetics Company

  Newport Beach-based Urban Decay--which distributes lipsticks, nail polish and other products with names like Roach, Smog, Rust, Oil Slick and Acid Rain "inspired by the beautiful hues of America's urban landscape"--has been voted Best Cruelty-Free Cosmetics Company by PETA's youth arm.  Urban Decay was one of 30 winners at peta2's third annual Libby Awards (for "liberation") honoring animal-friendly people and products. Awards for Best Vegan Shoes, Best Ve

  February 5, 2009

• Only in Portland

  So last night I finally made it to this place called Casa Diablo. It's a strip club with an all-vegan menu and the dancers are not allowed to wear animal products. As a single vegan male alone in a city with nothing to do (and no restaurants open at 10 p.m.), I had to go. I get in and notice a heavily-tattooed girl dancing to two dirty old men. Not unlike home, I told myself. But dancer after dancer hit the stage and the tattoo quotient kept rising and the music improved. Unlike other places at

  February 10, 2009

• A Place for the Bi-Niverous to Check Out Veganism

  If you've wondered why all the holler about veganism, there is a way for the bi-niverous to check out this alternative dining lifestyle: attend a meeting of the Orange County People for Animals (OCPA) Veggie/Vegan Luncheon/Dinner Club, whose next meeting is 1 p.m. Sunday at The Secret Spot, 3801 Warner Ave., Ste. B, Huntington Beach, (562) 592-4494.Don't get your lettuce in a bunch, Mickey D: The Secret Spot is a non-vegetarian restaurant but also "Ovo, Lacto, Vegan-friendly." So you can order 

  March 31, 2009

• Good Enough to Eat Off Your Pants

  November 30, 2006

• TOMORROW: Earth Crisis at Chain Reaction

  Syracuse-based vegan straight edge band Earth Crisis is playing tomorrow night at Chain Reaction. The group was one of the biggest and most controversial hardcore acts of the 90s thanks to the EPs All Out War and Firestorm. The band followed those with the records Destroy the Machines and the follow-up, Gomorrah's Season Ends.Although I was straight edge until my 21st birthday (I sold out as quick as I could), I never really got into the whole metalcore thing. I dug Minor Threat, Gorilla Biscuit

  May 14, 2009

• [Hole in the Wall] Greens Cafe for an Emerald City

  May 14, 2009

• Can "PETA Girls Gone Wild" DVDs Be Far Behind?

  Courtesy of Vegan Mel's MySpace pagePETA's Melissa Sehgal (right), who also goes by "Vegan Mel," demonstrates against McDonalds.Melissa Sehgal, who vows to strip down to a nude body painted like a tiger and confine herself to a cage with a banner above reading, "Wild Animals Don't Belong Behind Bars" in Anaheim this morning, is actually on something of a tour, having already pulled the stunt in Fresno on Tuesday.A member of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)--she goes by Vegan Me

  June 25, 2009

• Vegan Mel Carries Out Her Nude Protest

  Photo by Keith MayHear Vegan Mel roar!You were told this morning about the vow made by Melissa Sehgal, who also goes by Vegan Mel, to sit in a cage in Anaheim while her nude body was painted like a tiger. If you point your eyes in that direction, you can still make out the smoke trail produced when photographer Keith May high-tailed it over there for the voluntary assignment. The fruits of his hard labor are revealed in this quite-possibly-not-totally-safe-for-work slideshow.Sehgal is a member o

  June 25, 2009

• On the Line: Mark Cleveland of Avanti Cafe

  Cleveland: Ex-cellent!​I'm still mad at Avanti Cafe for stopping their International Tuesdays, so that just means I now try to visit once a week instead of every other day. I usually visit in the evening, when Mark Cleveland relieves his co-owner Tanya Fuqua in a transition as seamless as a Jamaican 4x100 relay baton passing. They've made Avanti the place for innovative vegan cooking in Orange County since 2005, and the two concoct the best drinks this side of Memphis at the Santora. We nabbed

  October 27, 2009

• Drink of the Week: Vegan Friendly Gel-Glow Shots

  Grace Le​ In the ultimate clash between classy and trashy, we present to you the Vegan Friendly Gel-Glow Shot. No longer must you pass up a drink because its ingredients infringe upon animal rights. This animal-free recipe allows herbivores to join in and get eff-ed up along with everyone else! But the fun doesn't end there... Not only are these shots vegan friendly--they glow in the dark!

  November 13, 2009

• This Week in Food

  ​ Gustavo scores some seriously spicy salsa, pits IKEA's 99-Cent breakfast against McDonald's Deluxe Breakfast, and recaps a PR fiasco for Ferrell's Ice Cream Parlour.Edwin has some reservations about the recent purchase of the Travel Channel by the Food Network, says sayonara to Beard Papa's residency in OC, and explores the business magic behind Subway's $5 subs.Dave dishes out five delicious appetizers to bring to that holiday meet 'n greet, profiles Xanh Bistro's Haley Nguyen, and predicts

  November 13, 2009

• Native Foods Cafe Opens At The District in Tustin

  Edwin Goei​As most Weekly readers know, Native Foods occupies a yurt at The Camp in Costa Mesa, one of the first stores to debut at the alternative mall. But Native Foods was actually started 15 years ago in Palm Springs by its founder, Tanya Petrovna, who's authored two cookbooks on the subject of vegan cookery (on sale at all locations). Now they've expanded and this new Tustin store, which replaces Go Roma and makes three Orange County locations where you can eat vegan food with suc

  November 19, 2009