Happy Veganniversary to Meeeee!

One year peoples!

January 24, 2011 was the day I embarked upon my vegan voyage, having decided a few days prior to give this Kind Diet thing a try and see if it was something I could get on board with.

One year later, I think I can safely say I'm on board and don't have any plans to ever jump ship. This ride is just too good.

Feeling all nostalgic today, I went back and read my first blog post , and was amused by this:

Not going vegan...lots more to that lifestyle to consider...just dabbling for the time being (or as Alicia calls it, flirting) with the intention of making healthier and kinder lifestyle choices :)


I remember originally being very comfortable with this change because I avoided setting any huge expectations for myself. I just figured I'd cut back on the meat and dairy and try out some Kind Diet recipes for a while. I expected to go a week, but the food was really, reeeeeeally good, so a week became two, and two became fifty-two. This is primarily thanks to The Kind Diet. The recipes were delicious and kept me motivated to continue in those first few critical weeks, and Alicia's voice throughout the book was gentle and encouraging. I was reluctant to label myself anything at first, as I set out with the intention of avoiding labels and expectations, and didn't embrace the vegan title for a while. I wouldn't claim to be vegan, just that I was trying to eat like one.  


And eat I did. Lots. 


Dessert too? Yes indeed. 


Deprive myself? Hell no. 


Over the last year I got excited about food. I discovered so many cruelty-free, insanely delicious options that I doubt I'd ever have had the inclination to experiment with. I discovered collard greens, nutritional yeast, vegan cupcakes, and a life-altering Caesar salad recipe. I started craving all things green and leafy. I made copious amounts of chocolate peanut butter cups. If I wanted to eat something, I ate it. 


I didn't exercise any more than I used to (Pilates class and hiking with my ridiculously handsome dog when weather and time permitted), and I didn't make an effort to loose any weight, but by the summer I noticed that my summer clothes were fitting a little more loosely. Now, a lady never reveals her weight, but I will admit that the muffin top that used to peek over the side of my pants had gone down some, and it turned out that after five months or so I had lost about 10 lbs and one dress size. Not a huge achievement in the grand scheme of things, but considering it was virtually effortless, I thought that was a pretty cool side effect of eating Kind. 

Another awesome side effect of being plant-strong? Awesome poo. Yes, I'm going there. When Oprah's staff went vegan for a week, she mentioned that the washrooms at Harpo studios went through way more toilet paper than usual. That's because vegan poo is the shit. Without animal carcasses taking their sweet time to work their way through your intestines, you digest your food much more quickly and efficiently. Without going into too much detail (because you never know, I might run for Prime Minister one day and nobody wants a PM who talks about her BM's), I have definitely noticed a huge improvement in that area. Constipation no more.

I used to get an upset stomach once or twice a week. Nothing too serious, but definitely unpleasant. I never was able to figure out what brought it on, and just resigned myself to the idea that this was normal, because it was my normal. How many stomach aches have I had since going vegan, you may wonder?

Two.

I have had two stomach aches in the last year. One was after I ate a bunch of dried mangoes on an empty stomach and felt like crap for the day and then puked them out in the evening. The second was in Vegas after eating at the Luxor buffet. Nothing against the Luxor buffet! It was delicious, but I accidentally ate beef adobo when I thought it was bean adobo. I'm not sure if it was a mental thing or a true physical response, but my stomach felt off for a few hours after that.

And that's it. Two stomach aches per vegan year vs. two per omnivorous week. Just another pleasant side effect of getting on board with The Plant.

The best thing about this past year, however, truly has been knowing that I've made a huge step in the direction of cruelty-free choices. The main reason I started dabbling in the vegan world was because I could no longer ignore where my food came from. It really horrifies me now to think about what the food industry has become. I had an awareness for years, but didn't want to look into it, because I knew I wouldn't like what I discovered. I was content ignoring the reality of what I was supporting, because the idea of making a huge shift in lifestyle was daunting.

And then my bff bought me The Kind Diet. And I heard Alicia Silverstone's sweet and non-judgmental yet persuasive voice, and I couldn't ignore the reality of what it meant to purchase animal products any longer. I was lucky that Rob the Husband was eager to get on board, and the changes started happening steadily. It's a work in progress, and I'm far from perfect, but I'm happy and content knowing I'm no longer contributing to an industry that is so contrary to the ideas of respect and compassion for sentient beings.

I don't have to have a steak to be happy and enjoy food. A cow doesn't have to suffer and die to satisfy my palette. I'm good. Really.

Over the past year I have come to see how truly unnecessary it is to eat animals. I feel lighter, physically and mentally, not consuming animal products. Yah, I could eat a steak, but why would I want to? It's not necessary. It's not worth it. It's pointless.

So, so pointless.

Paul McCartney had a revelation years ago while reeling in a fish: "I am killing him - all for the passing pleasure it brings me."

Was the pleasure animals brought me, in the form of food, sport, decor, fashion, or beauty, really worth the suffering inflicted upon them? Was I that desensitized to the fact that these are sentient beings, and they suffer needlessly? Needlessly, because I can enjoy food, sport, decor, fashion, and beauty from other wonderful sources.

There was a time when I could eat a ham sandwich while watching Babe and still feel all warm and fuzzy when James Cromwell looked down and said, "That'll do pig." How does that make sense? Yahhh...it really doesn't. The disconnect and desensitization was there, and it was convenient. But I needed to check back into reality and re-sensitize myself to what was going on. Because the way I was carrying on when it came to animals made no friggen sense.

This is why, one year later, this "vegan thing" is no longer a "thing" I'm doing; rather, it has just become my life. I think I'm pretty comfortable calling myself vegan at this point. Like everything else in life, it's a work in progress. But it makes sense to me, I love how it has enriched my life, I'm giddy about the plant-strong changes I've seen my friends make, and the cupcakes are pretty damn spectacular.

I've discovered wonderful local eateries, kickass cruelty-free shoes, amazingly passionate organizations, and brilliant online pages and communities motivated by compassion and sharing ideals I feel good about supporting.

And now, to celebrate my one year veganniversary, I present a picture with my vegan bible.

In my pantry, because I'm cool like that.

Please disregard the jar of pickled baby seal meat next to the foie gras. I swear I didn't buy that...it was a gift.

Onward to Year Two...no longer flirting with the Kind life, but going steady. Ima keep the blog name though, because Going Steady With Kind just sounds weird.

A Very Vegan Christmas (crazy belated but I don't care)

Um...so...yah...it's been a while.

My last post was about my first vegan Halloween. And there's been a whole lotta stuff that's gone down since then in the realm of family drama, travel, getting knighted, stolen purses and spinal taps. Doesn't leave much time or inclination for blogging. 

But now I'm kinda going through withdrawl. There's still not much time for blogging, but the inclination has returned, hence my Christmas reflection :)

And I was totally lying about the whole getting knighted thing. 

It seems kind of late to blog about Christmas, but my tree is still up, as are my lights and a whole crapload of other decorations, so it's still appropriate. Plus we just had a snow day on Friday (score no school!) and my Zooey Deschanel Christmas cd is still in my car. I can drag this Christmas stuff out for a little while longer.

Which brings us to Christmas Dinner. This year we opted for a low-key Christmas, and just had some close friends over on Christmas Eve. This worked out great for me, as our tradition has always been a meat-free Christmas Eve. At my mother's insistence we still had fish on the table, but at least I didn't have to tolerate the revered turkey carcass that has been the centerpiece of so many Christmas Days. 

The meal began with a Polish staple, borscht (beet soup). 

Vegan by default, this is a soup I grew up on, staining many a white shirt over the years. It's tangy and red and delicious, made even better paired with uszka, little perogy-dumpling like bits of dough stuffed with mushrooms. 

Uszka literally translates into ears (gross), and this was the first year I bothered to question why they were called that, only to realize that they do kind of look like ears. 

This Christmas my mother was kind enough to veganize the dough so I was able to partake in the uszka goodness, which is awesome because beet soup just isn't the same without doughy, mushroomy chunks of awesome floating around in it.

A couple of years ago, after watching too many episodes of Hell's Kitchen (where Gordon Ramsay would always feature either lamb or beef Wellington at dinner service) I made it my life's ambition to try beef Wellington. I had the opportunity to do so on a cruise ship, and quickly discovered I loved meaty things wrapped in pastry (which should have come as no surprise considering the amount of cocktail wienies I've consumed in my life). This is why I was super excited to bust out my Field Roast Cranberry Fig Loaf for the main course this Christmas Eve. 

This dish has that special occasion vibe to it...it's not something you have just any day. It's awesome. The flakyness of the pastry on the outside combined with a tasty, slightly sweet inside thanks to the cranberries and figs makes for a nice, classy main dish. I topped it off with Cranberry Apple Sauce (which I think I found in a Taste magazine from BC Liquor stores a couple of Christmases ago) and Savory Gravy from Skinny Bitch (p. 146).

This is hands down my favourite cranberry sauce...and I'm not even totally sure where I found the recipe. Regardless, it's super easy, delicious, and such an integral part of Christmas dinner that I'm going to go ahead and post the recipe:

Cranberry Apple Sauce

- 1/3 cup apple cider or juice

- 1/4 cup sugar

- 12 oz bag fresh cranberries

- 2 apples, peeled, cored, & chopped

In a medium, non-reactive saucepan, dissolve sugar into juice over a medium heat. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until cranberries pop and sauce thickens. Makes about 4 cups.

That's it. Super easy. Super festive. Super yum.

The Skinny Bitch gravy is made with miso and nutritional yeast, giving it a strong, distinct flavour, and is super creamy. The recipe also makes a ton of the stuff, so we had a lot left over. It worked brilliantly on the Field Roast, and would be just as brilliant on mashed potatoes or Gardein or oatmeal (maybe if you're pregnant). 

My Rating:

Field Roast Cranberry Fig Loaf - 4 Happy Tongues

Cranberry Apple Sauce: 4 Happy Tongues

Savory Gravy - 4 Happy Tongues

I also busted out a couple of tried, tested and true Alicia dishes...Scarlett Roasted Vegetables (Kind Diet p. 267) and my favourite Cornbread (Kind Diet p. 163). 

With the help of my mother, we also veganized a couple more Polish staples...cabbage rolls and perogies, but they deserve a dedicated post of their own (coming soon! Unless I get another friggen spinal tap and end up with another week-long spinal headache and need another epidural blood patch so I can sit upright without my head exploding or I really do get knighted...that might result in another blogging hiatus). 

My vegan dishes did have to share the table with some non-vegan options, because my mom hasn't quite embraced the plant-strong world fully yet, but overall the potential for a totally vegan Christmas was evident. And considering the copious amounts of leftovers we had (because overestimating the amount of food you will need is somehow engrained in the Polish community), I am hopeful that next Christmas we can eliminate even more animal products from the dinner table.

Of course, we cannot forget dessert. 

Firstly, this Tarte Aux Pommes from Vegan Yum Yum has a delicious, easy to make crust, and with it's warm, fruity, cinnamony essence, it falls under the comfort food umbrella and brings me to my happy place. 

I didn't roll out my dough enough, so it was a bit short to fold up over the top all around, but luckily this is a very forgiving dessert to assemble because you don't have to close off the top with dough. 

Also, if you're in the mood for something ridiculously sweet and decadent, you must try this Sinless Sticky Toffee Pecan Pudding from Oh She Glows. My friend tweeted this recommendation to me, and I knew I had to try it. Holy crap, does this taste naughty without being all that naughty thanks to brown rice syrup. This dish is best right out of the oven while it's still nice and warm. and I'd assume it would be even better with ice cream. Brown rice syrup has a unique flavour, and it might take newbies a couple of bites to acclimatize to it if they're expecting a traditional caramel/toffee flavour, but the satisfying sweetness easily won me over.

Blurry pic quality...my bad.

My Rating:

Tarte Aux Pommes - 4 Happy Tongues

Sinless Sticky Toffee Pudding - 4 Happy Tongues

So there you have it...an easily veganizable, delicious Christmas dinner that is colourful, nutritious, delicious, and kept me full all the way through Midnight Mass that night. And of course I snuck another piece of pie after Midnight Mass, because it was Christmas, and anything you eat in the middle of the night at Christmas doesn't count. Santa will totally back me up on that one.

Speaking of Santa, we also left out vegan snickerdoodles from Enjoy Life for him that night, along with a glass of almond milk. I'm sure he was most appreciative, because they were all gone by Christmas morning.

And Rob the Husband, in addition to hooking me up with a She & Him Christmas cd, an iPhone 4S (SCORE!!) and having my wedding dress heirloomed (after 8 years of it sitting scrunched in a bag in my closet), also got me a beautiful box of di erbe vegan bath stuff from Winnipeg...body lotion, lip balm, soap, and facial stuff.

That bath stuff should make up for my birthday milk bath faux pas in Whistler a few months ago. 

The vegan gift awesomeness continued as my mom and sister gave me two vegan dessert books to add to my Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.

Score. 

Sigh...so Christmas 2011 was the last time I'll experience my first vegan Christmas. As I approach the one year mark of my plant-strong lifestyle, I'm quickly running out of vegan firsts, having gone through all the major holidays and all four seasons. But I figure there will still be lots of other plant-strong firsts to experience along the way. 

Like my first time listening to She & Him's Christmas Waltz while eating kale chips sprinkled with nutritional yeast. Quick...go grab a bag of kale chips sprinkled with nutritional yeast and we can experience this first together! Unless you've already listened to She & Him's Christmas Waltz while eating a bag of kale chips sprinkled with nutritional yeast. Then it won't be a first for you. It's ok...Zooey loves you anyway. 

That just put a smile on my face for the rest of January :)

But I'll try not to smile too big because kale chips like getting stuck in my teeth. Not attractive.

Merry Very Belated Christmas :)

A Very Vegan Halloween

Ahhh, traditions. What kind of civilization would we be if we didn't maintain the traditions that define who we are, how we celebrate, and what we cherish?

For the past few years, our Halloween tradition has been Sushi & Saw Night.

'

What better way to celebrate the eve of All Saints Day than watching people get brutally, graphically massacred in imaginative ways with a delightful ironic twist to keep things interesting, while at the same time gorging ourselves on sushi and Halloween goodies? I am having flashbacks of packages of individually wrapped mini chocolates and gummies that I would buy to hand out to kiddies even though I'd only ever get like 8 trick-or-treaters in my area every year, leaving all that leftover titty-milk and gelatin infused candy for me to consume. Which I would do gladly :)

This year things were a bit different, as over the past few months everyone in my Sushi & Saw Circle has gone through a lifestyle evolution of their own (an evolution that has involved moving away from fueling their bodies with animal products), and it was clear that the Halloween-y snacks that play such an integral part in our Sushi & Saw Celebration would have to evolve as well.

As my friend J so eloquently put it,

Vegan Saw night. Not eating cut up flesh while watching flesh get cut up...


Giddy up.

This year's gathering was hosted by the ridiculously good looking Aquafolk.

Because our group consisted of both vegans and pescetarians, there were a couple of seafood sushi options (I think I accidentally consumed a scallop roll...oops), but everything else was vegan.

Replacing the individually wrapped mini titty milk chocolates and animal bone gummies might be a dilemma for the mere mortal, but for someone with an arsenal of kickass vegan recipes at her disposal (and a couple of donut pans), the solution was simple.

Donuts.

More specifically, Babycakes Vegan, Gluten-Free Plain Cake Donuts from Babycakes Covers the Classics.

I LOVE, nay, ADORE, nay, WORSHIP....nay, let's scale it back to ADORE these donuts. So does everyone else who's ever tried them. They are super moist, incredibly tasty, and crazy versatile. They are especially perfect for the lover of all things vanilla, because a recipe for a dozen calls for 1/4 cup vanilla. Ohhh yeah, that's a lot of vanilla.

These are also stupid easy to make and bake up beautifully. The Babycakes cookbook provides you with recipe suggestions for toppings, and I made two different ones...cinnamon sugar  and sugar sweetened chocolate dipping sauce.

Yes indeed, these went over brilliantly.

My rating:
Babycakes Plain Cake Donuts - 4.5 Happy Tongues










And no movie night would be complete without popcorn, so my very vegan buddy Mags busted out the kernels, which we found pretty fascinating for whatever reason.

While we are on the topic of popcorn, I need to take a moment to provide some history about my relationship with popcorn.

Back in the days before I was tampering with impressionable minds in my classroom, I worked at a movie theatre (yeahhhhhh Colossus Langley), and in addition to seeing a crapload of free movies, I was able to enjoy (on my breaks only, of course) craploads of free popcorn (one refillable mini bag at a time...the theatre management powers-that-be didn't want us taking advantage of their generosity with the popcorn...garbage bags of which would be thrown away every night...just sayin'). I had always enjoyed popcorn, but it was during my employment at the theatre that I was introduced to popcorn seasoning. Just thinking about those little containers of powdery flavours makes me feel all fuzzy and smiley...ketchup, dill pickle, all dressed, sour cream & onion, salt & vinegar, and my personal favourite, white cheddar.

When these little containers of powdery popcorn seasoning sent from the gods became available for retail purchase, I was in heaven, and always made sure I had a healthy stock of white cheddar powder around for my home popcorn binges. When they stopped providing the seasoning at the theatres (cheap bastards), I would bring my own seasoning from home, just so I wouldn't have to endure popcorn without it.

I knew it wasn't the best stuff for me. I mean, it was pretty much artificial crap, but for years and years I didn't really care....until I went vegan and saw the milk ingredients on the package.

Boo.

Not gonna lie...the white cheddar popcorn seasoning was something that I actually considered not giving up...I toyed with the idea of keeping it around as an exception to my vegan life. I thought the two could coexist together...the white cheddar would just be the mistress that I'd have to hide from my vegan lifestyle. But then I remembered that I'm not a cheating douchebag, and there was no room in my pantry of wholesome Plant-Strong awesomeness for white cheddar seasoning. As appealing as I thought she was at the time, I quickly realized that she's just an artificial, shallow, classless tramp. I mean, you'd have to be a pretty selfish, desperate, pathetic food item to willingly compromise a person's relationship with their Plant-Strong lifestyle. No...I respected this vegan commitment and realized I had to purge the white cheddar seasoning. I didn't even keep her as a facebook friend, because honestly, what person with a shred of decency would?

Yahhh...that falls into the category of "Things Classy People Don't Do."

Which brings me to my current relationship with popcorn. After purging the white cheddar seasoning out of my life, I discovered nutritional yeast. This stuff is AMAYYYYZING. It has a cheesy, nutty flavour and is absolute perfection sprinkled on popcorn with some Earth Balance butter and sea salt. Normally, I wouldn't expect any of my friends to have this stuff in their pantry, but because Mags of The Aquafolk is vegan and awesome, we were all able to indulge in what is probably my absolute favourite snack ever.

My rating:
Popcorn with Earth Balance Butter, nutritional yeast and sea salt: 5 Happy Tongues, easy


So full of sushi and well armed with donuts and popcorn, we proceeded to watch Saw 7...at least, some of us did. Some of us stayed safe behind the pillows.

Indeed, it was a swell night of good eatin', great company, and decent entertainment. And no animals were harmed in the making of this lovely All Hallows Eve celebration (with the exception of a few scallops). 

It was sad to see our Sushi & Saw tradition come to an end with the final Saw movie, but that just means that we have to start a new tradition next year with a new series of creepy movies...but nothing involving possession or choppy walking ghosts. Hell no. 

Perhaps Hannibal & Hummus?

For those of you who aren't down with baking stuff up for a Halloween party and would rather go the pre-packaged candy route, there is some pretty awesome dairy-free chocolate and gelatin-free candy out there. It's definitely more pricey than your traditional Mars bar, but the more people buy and the more popular it becomes, the more they will produce and the cheaper it will be as it moves away from the status of "specialty item." 

I found these chocolate bars at Nice Shoes in Vancouver:

Those would be the vegan equivalents of Mars, Reese, Snickers, and Three Muskateers. They are made with rice milk chocolate and are DELICIOUS! The Cleos peanut butter cups are especially divine. The peanut butter is so much creamier than Reese, and when I don't have time to bust out Alicia's pb cup recipe, this is a very worthy pre-packaged alternative.

And at almost $4 per bar you're much more careful with your calorie consumption :)

But at the end of the day, I'd rather consume a $4 rice-milk chocolate bar than a $1 cow-titty milk chocolate bar. And I'm sure the cows would rather you did too :)

A Very Vegan Girly Birthday Weekend

A few weekends ago (Weekend 33.0) I turned 31. Stupid thirties.

To try to forget about this whole getting old thing, I picked up some hot women and headed to Whistler to distract myself with eating, drinking, spa-ing, and zip-trekking.

It worked.

The swell thing was we had a 1:1 ratio of vegans:veg-heads...or as I like to call them, vegans-in-training.

Our Girly Whistler Weekend got off to a swell start, thanks to our gorgeous mountain suite at the Chateau Whistler. Had to use up some President's Club perks to get the room at a rate that was in our tax bracket, but it was totally worth it.

For dinner that Friday we met up with a stunning omnivore realtor and headed to one of my all time faves even pre-vegan conversion... Mongolie Grill. I was pretty choked to discover that neither of their soups were vegan...the Miso was made on fish broth and the Hot & Sour had egg in it (boo), but the plethora of delicious veggies and noodles and sauces I had to choose from to create my dinner masterpiece quickly put the soup out of my mind.

Oh hello delicious soba noodles and veggies in curry & coconut sauce.

It's also a nice bonus that most martinis are vegan by default.

After a thumbs up dinner I tried to forget I was well into my thirties and ventured out to partake in the mountain nightlife. We scouted out a few establishments and sat through some generic music and observed the demographic partaking in the evening's merriment (a demographic whose report cards I very well could have been preparing a few months ago), and quickly realized we would be much happier capping off the first night of our Girly Whistler Weekend back at our awesome mountain suite.

But not before trying out the pole, of course.

We woke up Saturday to a gorgeous sunny morning and a day of zip-trekking and spa-ing ahead of us.

Because our suite was on the 8th floor of the Chateau Whistler, we wandered over to the Gold Floor Lounge down the hall and enjoyed a lovely complimentary breakfast there.

There were many tempting corpse and titty-milk breakfast items to pass over, but my dependable buddy oatmeal saved the day like he always does, and I was able to fuel up for the busy day ahead.

Little did we know as we were enjoying our Gold Floor breakfast that our suite did not actually count as part of the Gold Floor and we weren't actually supposed to be in the Gold Lounge, because the Gold Floor at the Chateau Whistler is actually more like a Gold Wing. We discovered this when we tried to get back in for pre-dinner appies later that day...and were turned away after they asked us for our room number...which they didn't do that morning at breakfast...yahhhh...that was kinda awkward.

But seriously...the 8th floor is called The Gold FLOOR. If Gold Floor perks don't apply to every room on the 8th floor, call it the friggen Gold WING and avoid the awkwardness and confusion. Seriously, Fairmont...I love you, but it's simple english.

Oh well, whatever. We scored a free breakfast anyway. Suckas.

After unwittingly scamming the Fairmont out of four free Gold WING breakfasts, we proceeded to our first legitimate adventure of the day...zip-trekking. It might be worth noting that not only did we have a 1:1 vegan:veg-head ratio in our group, but also a 1:1 not-terrified-of-heights:terrified-of-heights ratio. Which made for an interesting zip-trekking experience.

You see, for whatever reason, my lovely friends, the bff and WestCoastSunshine signed on for zip-trekking in spite of their petrifying fear of heights.

Awww...she's afraid she's going to plummet to her early demise.

But you know what? They did it...and loved it...and can't wait to do it again.

Mags is unafraid...FIERCE

Gotta throw in a plug for Whistler zip-trekking here...if you've never done it, do it. It is just exhilarating...breathtaking...mindblowing...kind of like biting into one of Alicia's chocolate peanut butter cups, except up in a rainforest soaring through the trees like a bird who has learned to exist on vegan peanut butter cups instead of worms and bugs.

If that's not an expression of exhilaration I don't know what is.

Having digested our unwittingly scammed Fairmont Gold WING breakfast over the course of our zipping adventure, we took the suggestion of our zip-trek guide and headed to Ingrid's cafe in the village for lunch.

Hello delicious vegan burgers with a crapload of avocado. Oh yes, these were goooood.

Why people insist on eating a carcass burger when you've got incredible options like these is beyond me. Just sayin'.

I shouldn't be saying snarky things like that, though, because I effed up pretty big that weekend in the vegan department. Here goes...confession time.

We went to the spa on Saturday afternoon, where we all booked ourselves in for a massage and milk bath.

Yes, milk bath.

How did I book a milk bath without thinking that it was actually milk? I mean, it's called a friggen MILK bath.

I guess I shouldn't judge the Fairmont too harshly on their liberal application of the term Gold FLOOR when I can't even clue in that if I'm booking a MILK bath I will likely be bathing in MILK. As in cow titty milk. Which is not vegan.

Yah...I'm an idiot.

It's something that should have been so obvious too...like when I ordered a California roll and ate it and didn't even think about the fact that I ate fish until the next day when I was thinking about ordering another one. 

I repeat. Idiot.

Oh well...the nail polish for my pedicure after the milk bath was vegan.

Relaxed and freshly marinated in milk, we headed back to our hotel for dinner, because Fairmont = Lifestyles menu. Hells yes.

Gazpacho!

Hellooo raw beet ravioli

Hellooo beets

My soba noodles & veggies in amazing broth...light and refreshing and perfect

There was a lot of food picture taking going on.

WestCoastSunshine loved her quinoa risotto. It was rather spectacular, I must agree.

Something of interest...the bff ordered the non-vegan version of the quinoa risotto. All of us tried it and were overwhelmed by the taste of butter. It overpowered the dish...interesting indeeeeeeeeed.

And of course there was dessert...

This would be a poached apple stuffed with raisins...oh yes.

This was a cashew ice cream. We weren't too thrilled with it until we decided to look at it as cashew butter or cashew paste, after which we liked it just fine. It did not work as vegan frozen dessert alternative...way too thick with a consistency that was definitely not that of ice cream. It was like eating mouthfulls of peanut butter. Still tasty, though...would have worked well as a spread, and after we acknowledged it as such, we gave it the thumbs up.  

Yay Fairmont :)  Yay Lifestyles menu :)  Yay seven grain cereal with hazlenuts for breakfast the next morning :)

...times four...

After breakfast (our waiter actually called us the healthiest table he served all morning) we lounged by the pool, followed by wandering the local market in the Upper Village. There were sooo many crazy neat things to buy, as an abundance of lovely people were peddling their vegan wares...vegan loaves, vegan spreads, vegan marinades...love love love. I totally scored some kickass tzatziki, a cheesy spread made with nutritional yeast, a couple of banana & zucchini loaves, some chimchurri sauce, and strawberry infused balsamic vinegar.

Grabbed lunch at Merlins before heading home...

That would be a black bean hummus...thumbs up!

Alas, the Girly Whistler Birthday Weekend had to come to an end, as did my 30th year on this lovely planet. It'll be interesting to see what crazy things 31 brings. There's totally internal rhyming there. I'm all inspired to write a poem now...

Went up to Whistler with the girls

No boys allowed cuz boys are smelly.

My boy cd has hair in curls

And I like plants all in my belly.

Hello Fairmont kickass mountain view

So nice it gave me cause to sing

But Gold Lounge access kinda blew

Cuz Gold FLOOR really meant Gold WING.

Zipping through the trees among echoing cheers

My acrophobic buddies were down with that

And despite the bff's and WestCoastSunshine's fears

They did not fall and make a splat.

Massage and milk bath were quite a sensation

Left me feeling all relaxed and pretty

Tried to block out the unsettling realization

That I soaked in something that came from a cow titty.

Oh year thirty-one, how full of insanity

Have the first few weeks of you already been 

With the way shit is going, excuse the profanity

I may just end up the next Mrs. Charlie Sheen.

Belated thanks to some awesome ladies for some lovely memories from a brilliant birthday weekend :) Gonna be holding on tight to those happy times for a while :)

And another smiley face for good measure :)