The Tale of the Vegan Frappuccino

So a while ago, I had heard rumors that a vegan frappucino was being tested in Austin. But it was all pretty sketchy … meaning I heard it from some random chick on a message board. I tried to confirm it all over the place, and no one seemed to know about it. I chalked it up to another lame vegan urban legend.

Bill and I visit one Starbucks in particular because it’s close to our house and easy to get to. There’s another Starbucks just a tad further away, but we hadn’t visited it until last week. We finally stopped by, and I spotted a sign about making your “Perfect Frappucino.” It also said “Try it with soy.” So I asked, “If you make the custom frappucino with soy, is it dairy free?” Turns out yes, it is. This was the fabled vegan frappucino!

I’ve never had a frappucino before, because I never really went to Starbucks until I was vegan (1999). So how did it taste? Awesome. A little sweet, but you can ask for it to be less sweet. Now Starbucks needs to roll it out nationwide (I hear it’s coming soon) and get some dairy free whipped cream.

If you live in Central Texas, you can try out the frappucino at two Starbucks that I know of: 24th & Nueces and 44 & Lamar, both in Austin.

Loving Austin, Living With the Heat

Our New Austin Backyard

Originally uploaded by ilovemypit

So the main thing I have to say about Austin is, it’s HOT! It’s actually not as bad as I remembered it, but I know there’s a lot of summer to come.

We’ve been enjoying the summer as much as we can, though we have definitely adjusted our behavior to deal with the near 100F (and sometimes 100F) days. We are definitely walking less than we expected, but I’m sure our walking will pick back up again once it’s cooler. (So like in October, right?)

Some of the great Austin things I’ve been enjoying during the hot days are:

1) Yummy vegan ice cream. Dhaba Joy is sooooo good. La Dolce Vita has really tasty sorbet. And Wheatsville Co-op has Hemp I Scream, which tastes like pot… but only in the best way imaginable.

2) Late night walks. We try to get a walk in during the day if possible, but sometimes it’s too hot. But walking in the late evening is pretty nice. Once I even felt a hint of a cool breeze. Plus, we can walk down to Quack’s, a nice bakery with vegan goodies, until midnight. And one time, we spotted people doing a little skinny dipping in the park pool.

3) Siestas! I haven’t taken nearly enough of these, but there’s something great about getting overheated, taking a nap, and then getting going again for the evening.

4) Walks to the local coffee shop for hibiscus iced tea. We live really close to a nice coffee shop (.3 miles, I think), and we can even walk there when it’s hot. (We just walked there in 99 degree heat.) I get a huge iced tea, and it cools me off enough for the walk home.

5) Chilling in our backyard. I’m not going to pretend that our deck doesn’t get hot. It gets very hot. But we do have a big tree that cools everything down around sunset. Take a look at the video above!

How to Make Vegan Pasta Salad

Vegan TexItalian Pasta Salad

Originally uploaded by ilovemypit

I love to cook, and I figured I’d show a little bit of my cooking style. I like fresh, high quality ingredients… local and organic whenever possible. I don’t rely on meat analogs or a lot of soy (though I do use them from time to time). The best vegan food is food that’s naturally vegan!

What Yoga Does For Me

While I’m no yoga guru, I have been practicing yoga for about eight years now. And I love it more every day… and I apprecaite it more every day. Here’s what I get out of it:

1. It helps me chill out.

In my early 20s, I was really stressed out. As a result, I got really bad hives constantly for about three years. And by really bad, I mean my throat and tongue swelling up as well. I never figured out what was causing it (not for lack of trying), though I’m pretty sure it was due to stress.

Now I know that meditation is great for releiving stress, but I find it really challenging to meditate for more than five or ten minutes. Yoga is different. I can do yoga as much as I need to, and the effects are similar to meditation.

2. It increases my flexiblity, a lot.

This is very important to me. I am not flexible at all. In fact, I’m stunningly inflexible for someone who’s been doing yoga for so long. I’m just one of those people who tends to have a really compact muscular build. Which leads me to…

3. It gives me the muscles I want.

I did a fair amount of weightlifting in 20s, and I’m one of those rare women who packs on A LOT of muscle. And it’s pretty much a matter of genes in my case.

Some people like muscular chicks, and I don’t mind being somewhat muscular. What I do mind is “Boy Arms” and “Calves of Thor” and “Man Abs.” Doing yoga (and the occasional set of push ups) keeps me plenty strong… but plenty feminine. It helps that I came into it with a lot of strength already, so I was able to do the more challenging, muscle maintaining stuff.

4. I can do it anywhere.

A lot of people like yoga class, but I haven’t really found one I like (though I’m hoping to change that). I just prefer to roll out my mat and do whatever I feel like. So whether it’s -10F or 100F, midnight or noon, Austin or Amsteram, I can do my yoga thing.

5. It helps me be less accident prone.

I usually have a bruise somewhere on my body from crashing into something. I’m a total klutz, but yoga has improved that a lot. When I first started practicing yoga, I couldn’t hold any balance poses for more than a few seconds. Now I am the balance queen. And I think it’s cut down on my accidents a lot.

(Bill may disagree, but he didn’t know me pre-yoga!)

6. It helps me sleep better.

My mind is almost always racing, and I have a lot of trouble falling asleep. If I do some yoga before bed, it almost always mellows me out and helps me fall asleep.

7. It makes me feel younger.

There’s nothing youthful about having a sore back, feeling overwhelmed, or losing flexibility. Whenever I don’t do yoga for a few days, I start to feel all of these. For every day I don’t do yoga, it takes two or three days to get me back on course… which is a good reason to never stop!

If We Can Have Fun in Oklahoma…

Having Way Too Much Fun in Oklahoma

Originally uploaded by ilovemypit

We can have fun anywhere. But please, do not go to Oklahoma!

Random Observations from Life on the Road and Austin

1. Even if you hate a city, you’ll miss your house if you loved the person you lived in it with. (Even if that person is coming with you.)
2. Driving for two days isn’t so bad if you’ve got XM radio and Primal Strips. A funny husband also helps.
3. Robot is the sweetest dog ever. He puts up with a lot, and he tries his best to go along.
4. Kansas is scary, and the people there really aren’t friendly. But they do make some good coffee at Subway. Plus the new windmills on 1-70 are beautiful to watch while driving.
5. People in Kansas and Oklahoma like to smear their poop on public restroom stalls. Observed at multiple highway stops. I think it has something to do with all the Jesus billboards infecting their brains.
6. An Austin look I’m actually getting used to: short shorts with cowboy boots. (Not that I’ll be trying ever!)
7. Heat isn’t so bad. I like wearing skirts and flip flops. But I’m not turning on my oven again until November.
8. The Vegan Breakfast Platter at Kerbey Lane Cafe is much better on the Drag than at the original Kerbey Lane location. Better vibe too. I rather hang around college students than old hippies drinking Chardonnay 11am in the morning.
9. Having a gas range rocks! My old range was holding me back, I think. There’s no way I was getting enough heat to cook anything properly.
10. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I really, really missed IKEA. They have amazing vegan quilts and pillows. Also, I’m super psyched that they carry so much saft (concentrated Scandinavian fruit juice).

Our Last Trip to Starbucks

Our Last Trip to Starbucks

Originally uploaded by ilovemypit

A pretty realistic glimpse at our life

You Should Vote for a Guy Who Dresses Up Like Alexander Hamilton

Wow, that’s something I never thought I’d see myself write.

But here’s the thing: Colorado’s 5th Congressional District has always elected a Republican. Period. And for a while, that wasn’t so bad. Joel Hefley wasn’t that offensive… he was sort of libertarian.

Republicans in Colorado are a bad breed these days. Anyone who was vaguely libertarian (and there were a lot of them - the “House Crazies”), is now castrated by the religious right and relegated to bitching about illegal immigration. (’Sup, Tancredo?) And the rest of them? Just horrible. More theocratic that you could possibly even imagine. Remember, even Ted Haggard had political ambitions before he was caught snorting meth of a gay hooker’s ass.

Democrats, on the other hand, are the barely more libertarian of the bunch. (Except for Bill Ritter - who ever heard of a pro-life Democrat in the Mountain West?) And Denver would probably be like Kansas City or St. Louis if it weren’t for Hickenlooper. So in Colorado, I’m tepidly pro-Democrat. And it’s really important that a Democrat win in Colorado Springs this year.

Colorado Springs is bluest I’ve ever seen it. I saw my first John McCain bumper sticker yesterday, and I do a lot of driving. Old Colorado City and Maintou Springs are serious gayborhoods. Colorado Springs has a thriving gay and lesbian film festival - as well as a women’s film festival. There’s almost as many Priuses on the road as in Colorado Springs are in Austin.

This brings me to Hal Bidlack. If a Democrat is ever going to be elected to Congress in Colorado Springs, this is the year. This is the guy.

Generally, moderates and liberals in Colorado Springs feel pretty disenfranchised. Why even go out and vote when the best you can do is elect Bill Ritter or a Salazer brother? Dinos of the worst breed - socially conservative and fiscally liberal. No chance of ever making a difference on the state or local level, for the most part.

But this year is different. Obama will almost certainly take Colorado, unless he’s caught with a dead boy or a mutilated girl. (Or unless McCain runs with Romney. People fucking love Mitt Romney out here. Mormons have a lot of credibility in Colorado. Even I like Mormons… they’re so nice!) And that means the majority of Colorado Springs residents, who aren’t conservative or particularly religious, will come out and vote.

So I can only imagine that someone like Hal Bidlack will be swept up in some Obama momentum. And considering he’s seems to be a pretty cool guy, I think most liberals and libertarians can vote for him without holding their noses. Except that he is really into Alexander Hamilton, which is 80% cool and 20% scary in my book. (I hate Hamilton, but I approve of all hobbies that ward off the impending Idiocracy.)

I mean, seriously… a pro-choice Democrat who’s into James Randi and a self proclaimed un-Christian? This is the best Colorado Springs could possibly hope for. Plus, he’s ex-Air Force, which I know a lot of old school townies will love. Oh, and don’t worry. He’s anti-war but not a pussy. Just like we Colorado liberal liberarians like ‘em.

So if you’re in Colorado Springs, you should really vote for Hal Bidlack. Give him some money. Put a sign in your yard. Spray paint “Suck My” over “Jeff” on all the Jeff Crank signs. (Just kidding. Maybe.)

I think that Colorado Springs is at a crossroads right now. The creepy Christians are weakened, so it’s time to attack! If you can’t fight them now, you have probably lost your chance.

Vegan Road Trip Food

Vegan Road Trip Food

How to be a vegan traveling through Kansas and Oklahoma.

(By the way, all Flickr videos stream beautifully and are under 90 seconds long. So watch with confidence!)

Since We’re Moving The Universe Decides to Fuck with Us

These Vegan Brownies Prove I’m Cursed

Okay, so here’s the deal. Whenever Bill and I move away from somewhere, it gets instantly better. Not better enough to move us back (we’re too flighty for that)… but better enough to make us regret that said place was not as cool when we lived there.

For example, shortly after we moved away from Quincy / Boston:

1. An amazing Asian food court opened in Quincy Center
2. An amazing sushi restaurant opened in Quincy Center
3. An amazing healthy restaurant with vegan burgers opened in Quincy Center
4. They started giving FREE VEGAN COOKING CLASSES at our local library in Quincy
5. They opened up an amazing Chinatown in Quincy, with tons of funky vegan food options and Asian goods
6. Boston real estate prices went down a lot, so much that we could afford to buy in any of the areas we wanted to buy in for much less than we expected to pay
7. The Red Sox won the World Series pretty much right after we got out of town (only to be made more painful when we ended up seeing the Red Sox crush the Rockies in the World Series the only year we had Rockies season tickets… and the only time we weren’t rooting for the Red Sox)

And so it goes… I’m already starting to see that our curse from Colorado Springs is lifting. I don’t have a lot of proof, but a few cool things have popped up now that we’re moving.

1. FIBER internet right to our old house (after we had closed on our new house, of course)
2. An Apple store scheduled to open by the end of the year
3. An indie Mac store right by our house that seems pretty cool
4. A second Whole Foods
5. A bigger Vitamin Cottage (a very cool indie health food store)
6. A movie theater with all digital screens (even though it’s really hillbilly and scary)
7. A new yearly film festival in Colorado Springs
8. The demise of the New Life Church
9. Best vegan brownies ever at Whole Foods
10. 1000-1 ratio of Obama to McCain stickers

So, sorry Austin. I probably am cursing you by moving to your great city. I expect years of stagnation while I live there, and years of amazing growth once I’m gone.