I’ve been a “meat minimalist” for decades now & often eat vegan. & I totally agree with you. Why are we limiting our options to meat-alternatives? There are SO many possibilities. I’d rather eat an imitation rainbow. Or something that a creative vegan entrepreneur-cook invents.
Also: were you drunk when you came up with that? Haha
A WEEK!!!!! ONly dog treats for a week. Anne, you are WACKO, which is probably why we love you so. here, I'm cooking dinner and I'm teleporting you some anchovies, my favorite food next to Brussels Sprouts and chopped chicken liver from Russ and Daughters.
I forgot about this Therry until Amran reminded me again. Sadly the story is no longer online as I wrote it for a startup publication that very notoriously turned out to be defrauding all its investors and crashed and burned. But looks like it still lives on in a Reddit post:
VERY impressed with the dog food diet. I have a hard time keeping weight off, I may try it, except my kittens are fed with Wellness Core chicken pate, and I'm all about pate! I'll let you know. One small step for a dog MOM, one giant step for a pseudo vegan!
You know my wife is a "salt-inquisitor!" She would throw me in prison because I "salt before you taste!" Well, I lead a saintly existence except for two things: salt and hot sauce on EVERYTHING!! And my wife would begrudge me those two small infractions!
Legend says that Saint Francis of Assisi was a BIG salt user. So much so that when the little animals gathered around him at lunch time they all had to scrape the salt from their fur!!
? Does that Bodega not have KIND bars? Get me an address where I can send you a package of Bokksu Japanese snacks and as God is my witness, you will never eat peanut butter crackers again!
Fake bacon bits have always tasted better than bacon.
Also, I thought about how you could pay bees for their honey. I was thinking maybe you could pay them by giving them FREE PUBLIC HOUSING to live in. Do you think bees might go for that?
I love this one! I've been vegetarian and then vegan since I was four. At first my parents thought I was a super fussy eater, but then they realized I ate a ton of everything that wasn't meat or dairy. At that point, I didn't really understand I was eating a dead animal, I just didn't like the taste or texture. Blug. Growing up veggie in the sixties and seventies was not easy. Or even the eighties. You basically could only order side dishes at restaurants and even those could be tricky! It heartens me to see all these alternatives, although since I never liked meat, I don't care for the convincing alternatives either. Haha. But I'm glad they're out there!
This was such a thoughtful investigation. I have responses to each section but feel I've already taken up enough comment space! And I love the opossum poster. I swear I remember that from back when I lived there?? But that seems too long ago. Great issue!!
I had no idea you are vegan! It's funny it was your natural inclination from such a young age.
I find the alt-meat items to be very funny, but after I went to the trade show I was chatting with a friend who has been vegan for a year now, and he said it was just not possible for him to be vegan until the better-tasting mock-meat products came on the market in recent years. So now it makes more sense to me. It really helps some people!
“I Hope You Know the Cat You Found is a Possum” “None of them said anything like, "That's a possum, not a cat f-ckhead!"
FUNNY, FUNNY, FUNNY, to the MAX!!!! All of us out there who read Café Anne should try to replicate this experiment and detail our results! Remember everyone, Anne is the Spreadsheet Tsarina!! She is always ready to compile results!!
And that line, “MAMA GET THE PANCAKE TURNER AND SCRAPE ME OFF THE FLOOR!!!” is a keeper!!! Oh Anne, you have so much courage to pull off that prank!!!
Hahahahah the cat found poster is a legendary prank. Can I possibly with your and Frank’s permission test the goodness of LA and run the experiment here??
First off as a vegan I’m bummed we missed this. Second, plant based coffee can ONLY happen in Bushwick you know… have to appreciate the idiocy. And thirdly while I agree that it would be pretty amazing if instead of making fake meat we could start seeing new food groups all together — alas, fake meat is a very convenient shorthand for describing what the heck you’re eating. Most of us weren’t raised vegan, so we still refer to many of our foods just as we did when we ate them. It’s way easier to see “chicken and vegetable” and get a sense of whether I feel like eating that over “burger and fries”. Besides we are recreating recipes to be vegan and that necessitates some correlation between ingredients! I’d actually prefer to see a world where “chicken” refers to mock chicken first, and one has to clarify that they prefer “dead chicken” 😂 or something to that effect to get the old school chicken served to them.
LOL I can imagine a future menu where there are sections for "beef" and "dead beef," etc. Though I'd prefer "Old school" if possible.
Based on visiting the show and some of the comments here, I think do food in a few decades is going in many ways to look so different than it does now. I am amazed, even, by how many vegans I know now compared to, say, before the pandemic—and I don't think it's just a function of the places I frequent.
I like the idea which you, Maria, inspire - that product labelling should say in CAPITAL letters ‘THIS PRODUCT INCLUDES DEAD ANIMAL(S)’, followed by the names of the dead animals by type. Robert 🐰
The cat found poster literally made me laugh out loud and cackle. I loved it so much, Anne. You and John Wilson need to collaborate for a “How To” episode. If you haven’t seen his HBO show before, it’s right up your alley! Weird and hilarious NYC.
Thanks Nick! I have a lot of fun with my vegan friends who are so excited about some new vegan cake or cheese they've discovered that they think tastes AMAZING. And I try it and it tastes just okay. But at least it does not taste like an old shirt!
Hah! I love the treatment you gave this sort of other-worldly vegan event. I've been around this industry a lot due to a husband who works in a tangential biotechnology field, and while I would ardently love to see a world where animal cruelty is reduced to zero, this stuff mainly ignites my extremely strong skepticism of any corporate claims (even if the company is super conscious and good, they still need to make money!) Like my first thought is...is that honeybee thing *true*? There have been a lot of very genuine efforts by good people to get *more* honeybees around. And what is all this "processing" to remove the mushroom taste from the fake oysters and...is that, like...good for people to be eating? Sigh, if only I could just be a believer. Too much time spent in silicon valley, I guess.
So glad you enjoyed Rae! It's just really interesting, right? I think about all the science and ethics claims that went into inventing new "health" products like, say, breakfast cereal 150 years ago The motives are always mixed and tangled and the results are always fascinating. I think it's all great and I also think nothing ever changes, haha.
LOVE your newsletter, and I don't even live in NY! The stories you tell are fascinating. The Vegan article is awesome. I am amazed at the number of people who will only buy organic this or that, and yet they buy vegan "meat". I don't understand this at all. This stuff is created in a lab, and from what I have seen over the years a lot of it doesn't sound all that wholesome when you see how it is being made, yet God forbid you eat a cucumber that isn't organic?!? I wish that this seeming dichotomy could be explained. I was vegetarian for a few years in college, but finally realized that I just love a good REAL burger or steak or chicken breast or pork chop too much. I have tried vegan foods, and they are pretty good at times, but I don't think that I would consider them necessarily better or more wholesome when seeing how they are creations concocted after years of experimenting and tinkering by scientists in a lab. This is NOT meant to be a criticism of vegans and their choices, by the way, it just seems so un-organic in the big picture. Thanks for a great article!!!
It's true—people's food choices are often contradictory and make no sense. I guess we are no more consistent and logical with eating than with anything else in life.
Personally, I would actually be very happy eating lab-grown meat if it looked and tasted good and was inexpensive. And I do think that day will come. But then, I don't bother eating organic either.
as for the pets lost thread im not sure i ever shared the story of an ex- girlfriend SO enamored of her persian cats and willing to believe the best when one turned up missing one hot august in burlington vt. and weeks went by with no end of possible sitings and horrific inspections of
tire crushed cat remains when finally one sweltering morning an almost aboriginal young child of maybe 8 with a cloth belt around shorts and no shirts cradled a glowing persian and the euphoria lasted for a few days when exasperated we dug the poor cat out of the closet where it had sought ptsd amongst my discarded work boots and examined it further with less euphoria....none of this ended well but her real cat lived for like Decades after!!!
I was curious about this so I did a Google search.
Merriam-Websters says:
"The three plurals for octopus come from the different ways the English language adopts plurals. Octopi is the oldest plural of octopus, coming from the belief that words of Latin origin should have Latin endings. Octopuses was the next plural, giving the word an English ending to match its adoption as an English word. Lastly, octopodes stemmed from the belief that because octopus is originally Greek, it should have a Greek ending."
I’ve been a “meat minimalist” for decades now & often eat vegan. & I totally agree with you. Why are we limiting our options to meat-alternatives? There are SO many possibilities. I’d rather eat an imitation rainbow. Or something that a creative vegan entrepreneur-cook invents.
Also: were you drunk when you came up with that? Haha
Imitation rainbow! Yes that's exactly what I'm talking about Jillian!
Imitation rainbow! Yes that's exactly what I'm talking about Jillian!
I thought so:)
Anne eating pet treats is peak Cafe Anne. I still think about that piece where you ate only dog food for a week.
Haha yes peak something for sure!
A WEEK!!!!! ONly dog treats for a week. Anne, you are WACKO, which is probably why we love you so. here, I'm cooking dinner and I'm teleporting you some anchovies, my favorite food next to Brussels Sprouts and chopped chicken liver from Russ and Daughters.
I forgot about this Therry until Amran reminded me again. Sadly the story is no longer online as I wrote it for a startup publication that very notoriously turned out to be defrauding all its investors and crashed and burned. But looks like it still lives on in a Reddit post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/copypasta/comments/jy3zeq/i_did_it_6_days_of_eating_dog_food/
Thanks for the telefeast. It sounds better than the peanut butter and cracker dinner I am currently eating on the train.
OK, peanut butter and crackers are a favorite food who am I kidding.
VERY impressed with the dog food diet. I have a hard time keeping weight off, I may try it, except my kittens are fed with Wellness Core chicken pate, and I'm all about pate! I'll let you know. One small step for a dog MOM, one giant step for a pseudo vegan!
I highly recommend salting any pet food before eating. It NEVER has enough salt.
You know my wife is a "salt-inquisitor!" She would throw me in prison because I "salt before you taste!" Well, I lead a saintly existence except for two things: salt and hot sauce on EVERYTHING!! And my wife would begrudge me those two small infractions!
Legend says that Saint Francis of Assisi was a BIG salt user. So much so that when the little animals gathered around him at lunch time they all had to scrape the salt from their fur!!
Ah—that's you, me and Saint Francis!
How can I LIKE you eating peanut butter crackers
? Does that Bodega not have KIND bars? Get me an address where I can send you a package of Bokksu Japanese snacks and as God is my witness, you will never eat peanut butter crackers again!
Fake bacon bits have always tasted better than bacon.
Also, I thought about how you could pay bees for their honey. I was thinking maybe you could pay them by giving them FREE PUBLIC HOUSING to live in. Do you think bees might go for that?
God.
LOL good point about the housing.
And I forgot about BACOS. I used to try to eat the whole bottle at my grandmother's house. Do you suppose they still make them?
Oh, they do...
https://www.amazon.com/Betty-Crocker-Bacos-Flavor-4-1-Ounce/dp/B0013ZEYOE/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=bacos&qid=1685379848&sr=8-3
I may have eaten an entire jar at times
I love this one! I've been vegetarian and then vegan since I was four. At first my parents thought I was a super fussy eater, but then they realized I ate a ton of everything that wasn't meat or dairy. At that point, I didn't really understand I was eating a dead animal, I just didn't like the taste or texture. Blug. Growing up veggie in the sixties and seventies was not easy. Or even the eighties. You basically could only order side dishes at restaurants and even those could be tricky! It heartens me to see all these alternatives, although since I never liked meat, I don't care for the convincing alternatives either. Haha. But I'm glad they're out there!
This was such a thoughtful investigation. I have responses to each section but feel I've already taken up enough comment space! And I love the opossum poster. I swear I remember that from back when I lived there?? But that seems too long ago. Great issue!!
Thank you Jane!
I had no idea you are vegan! It's funny it was your natural inclination from such a young age.
I find the alt-meat items to be very funny, but after I went to the trade show I was chatting with a friend who has been vegan for a year now, and he said it was just not possible for him to be vegan until the better-tasting mock-meat products came on the market in recent years. So now it makes more sense to me. It really helps some people!
“I Hope You Know the Cat You Found is a Possum” “None of them said anything like, "That's a possum, not a cat f-ckhead!"
FUNNY, FUNNY, FUNNY, to the MAX!!!! All of us out there who read Café Anne should try to replicate this experiment and detail our results! Remember everyone, Anne is the Spreadsheet Tsarina!! She is always ready to compile results!!
And that line, “MAMA GET THE PANCAKE TURNER AND SCRAPE ME OFF THE FLOOR!!!” is a keeper!!! Oh Anne, you have so much courage to pull off that prank!!!
I agree JRB it'd be great if everyone could replicate!
Here's the link to Frank's original CAT FOUND!!! poster, if anyone wants to download and alter:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13bNxMJ8Zjkx-9CS3ig8tCHwREGaqFulB/view?usp=sharing
Hahahahah the cat found poster is a legendary prank. Can I possibly with your and Frank’s permission test the goodness of LA and run the experiment here??
Please Alex that would be so great! Here is the link again to Frank's poster so you can download and alter:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13bNxMJ8Zjkx-9CS3ig8tCHwREGaqFulB/view?usp=sharing
First off as a vegan I’m bummed we missed this. Second, plant based coffee can ONLY happen in Bushwick you know… have to appreciate the idiocy. And thirdly while I agree that it would be pretty amazing if instead of making fake meat we could start seeing new food groups all together — alas, fake meat is a very convenient shorthand for describing what the heck you’re eating. Most of us weren’t raised vegan, so we still refer to many of our foods just as we did when we ate them. It’s way easier to see “chicken and vegetable” and get a sense of whether I feel like eating that over “burger and fries”. Besides we are recreating recipes to be vegan and that necessitates some correlation between ingredients! I’d actually prefer to see a world where “chicken” refers to mock chicken first, and one has to clarify that they prefer “dead chicken” 😂 or something to that effect to get the old school chicken served to them.
LOL I can imagine a future menu where there are sections for "beef" and "dead beef," etc. Though I'd prefer "Old school" if possible.
Based on visiting the show and some of the comments here, I think do food in a few decades is going in many ways to look so different than it does now. I am amazed, even, by how many vegans I know now compared to, say, before the pandemic—and I don't think it's just a function of the places I frequent.
PS You’ll be delighted to see one of the Veganuary ambassadors https://veganuary.com/
MAYOR ADAMS!!! So great!!!!
Ain't never gonna get ME to eat VEgan anchovies, I can promies you THAT.
I like the idea which you, Maria, inspire - that product labelling should say in CAPITAL letters ‘THIS PRODUCT INCLUDES DEAD ANIMAL(S)’, followed by the names of the dead animals by type. Robert 🐰
NICE TRY, BUT I TAKE NO BLAME FOR THE SKWON THING.
TOO LATE
I KNEW YOU WERE TROUBLE.
The cat found poster literally made me laugh out loud and cackle. I loved it so much, Anne. You and John Wilson need to collaborate for a “How To” episode. If you haven’t seen his HBO show before, it’s right up your alley! Weird and hilarious NYC.
Thank you Justin! I hear the John Wilson comparison a lot. I've only seen his show a few times but I love it!
Very glad you enjoyed FOUND CAT. It made me laugh too!
"If I were on a desert island, it'd be okay. It tastes a little like an OLD SHIRT."
I honestly laughed out loud at this one. If someone describes a food as tasting like "an OLD SHIRT", I will take a HARD PASS! 😂🤣😂
Great post ANNE!!
Thanks Nick! I have a lot of fun with my vegan friends who are so excited about some new vegan cake or cheese they've discovered that they think tastes AMAZING. And I try it and it tastes just okay. But at least it does not taste like an old shirt!
Did you try the vegan moofins!?
LOL
I applaud your journalistic commitment for reporting on the dog treat!
And ha. I had no idea about the honey-bee supremacy issue!
Trust nobody!
Hah! I love the treatment you gave this sort of other-worldly vegan event. I've been around this industry a lot due to a husband who works in a tangential biotechnology field, and while I would ardently love to see a world where animal cruelty is reduced to zero, this stuff mainly ignites my extremely strong skepticism of any corporate claims (even if the company is super conscious and good, they still need to make money!) Like my first thought is...is that honeybee thing *true*? There have been a lot of very genuine efforts by good people to get *more* honeybees around. And what is all this "processing" to remove the mushroom taste from the fake oysters and...is that, like...good for people to be eating? Sigh, if only I could just be a believer. Too much time spent in silicon valley, I guess.
So glad you enjoyed Rae! It's just really interesting, right? I think about all the science and ethics claims that went into inventing new "health" products like, say, breakfast cereal 150 years ago The motives are always mixed and tangled and the results are always fascinating. I think it's all great and I also think nothing ever changes, haha.
LOVE your newsletter, and I don't even live in NY! The stories you tell are fascinating. The Vegan article is awesome. I am amazed at the number of people who will only buy organic this or that, and yet they buy vegan "meat". I don't understand this at all. This stuff is created in a lab, and from what I have seen over the years a lot of it doesn't sound all that wholesome when you see how it is being made, yet God forbid you eat a cucumber that isn't organic?!? I wish that this seeming dichotomy could be explained. I was vegetarian for a few years in college, but finally realized that I just love a good REAL burger or steak or chicken breast or pork chop too much. I have tried vegan foods, and they are pretty good at times, but I don't think that I would consider them necessarily better or more wholesome when seeing how they are creations concocted after years of experimenting and tinkering by scientists in a lab. This is NOT meant to be a criticism of vegans and their choices, by the way, it just seems so un-organic in the big picture. Thanks for a great article!!!
Thank you Jimmy! I'm happy you enjoyed the read.
It's true—people's food choices are often contradictory and make no sense. I guess we are no more consistent and logical with eating than with anything else in life.
Personally, I would actually be very happy eating lab-grown meat if it looked and tasted good and was inexpensive. And I do think that day will come. But then, I don't bother eating organic either.
delightful and totally diplomatic...but
i WILL draw the line in grass at faux bacon
as for the pets lost thread im not sure i ever shared the story of an ex- girlfriend SO enamored of her persian cats and willing to believe the best when one turned up missing one hot august in burlington vt. and weeks went by with no end of possible sitings and horrific inspections of
tire crushed cat remains when finally one sweltering morning an almost aboriginal young child of maybe 8 with a cloth belt around shorts and no shirts cradled a glowing persian and the euphoria lasted for a few days when exasperated we dug the poor cat out of the closet where it had sought ptsd amongst my discarded work boots and examined it further with less euphoria....none of this ended well but her real cat lived for like Decades after!!!
(i hear lol)
!!!
The best part of this is you inspecting the road kills to see if any of them was her kitty. You never know what life will have you doing next!
nope
but im always ready for it
Apologies if a) someone already said this and b) for being a raving pedant but... the plural of octopus is octopuses or octopodes.
Thank you Mr. Cruttenden!
I was curious about this so I did a Google search.
Merriam-Websters says:
"The three plurals for octopus come from the different ways the English language adopts plurals. Octopi is the oldest plural of octopus, coming from the belief that words of Latin origin should have Latin endings. Octopuses was the next plural, giving the word an English ending to match its adoption as an English word. Lastly, octopodes stemmed from the belief that because octopus is originally Greek, it should have a Greek ending."
So we are ALL correct! Party time!
We are indeed. Maybe one day we'll be able to ask an octopus which one it prefers.
Ha I had the same idea!!!