I can’t in good conscience judge sofritas for my own mistakes
Friends of Tenderly!
Happy almost-August and happy three week birthday to Tenderly. :)
We’ve published a bunch of inspiring, funny, cute and delicious stories since I last checked in and I’m really excited to share them with you.
Before we get into that: Tenderly is launching an advice column later this week and I could use some more questions — if you’ve been wondering about vegan etiquette, need advice or a recommendation, or just have a question you’ve been dying to ask your resident vegan Editor-in-Chief, email summer@tenderlymag.com to ask me anything!
Onto the good stuff!
Cauliflower Steaks Are an Abomination by Jack Shepherd
I have been a vegan for more than 15 years and even I know that cauliflower steaks are a fucking scam. The act of putting two words together that don’t belong together does not make a cauliflower steak a meal any more than it makes a dumpster vacation a nice holiday. We need to speak up about this creeping outrage NOW before they start serving us broccoli cutlets and fucking carrot wings and asking us to like it. If they ALREADY think that they can just slice a literal cauliflower in a way that is contrary to God’s law and then tell us hey good news this is your main course, just think about what horrible thing they will do next. We have to stop them.
The Giant Steer Who Was Too Sweet To Be Slaughtered by Jessica Scott-Reid
“It’s like looking at three hundred sheep in a field: they all look the same, people assume they are all the same, but a crowd of three hundred people is still three hundred individuals. It’s exactly the same with these guys. They are all individuals, they just need the chance to show people that.”
How Not to Starve When You’re a Vegan on a Road Trip by Jamie Lee Curtis Taete
But just as that one horrific night in college is not technically Fireball Whisky’s fault, I can’t in good conscience judge sofritas for my own mistakes, and I’m honor-bound to include Chipotle high up on this list. Just try not to use it as your exclusive form of sustenance.
May Kaidee, The Chef Who Changed Thai Vegan Cuisine by Amanda Silberling
I never considered going vegan until I moved to Southeast Asia. Throughout my year in Laos, I regularly sent photos to friends back home of my enviable grocery hauls: stalks of fresh lemongrass, spools of mint and basil leaves, juicy bell peppers, ground ginger, miniature Thai eggplants, magenta dragon fruit, spiky rambutans, finger-sized bananas, and of course, enough tofu to meal-prep for the week. Eventually, I realized that, without even trying, all the meals I routinely cooked for myself were vegan (dairy is uncommon and pricey in Southeast Asia, and I’m far too squeamish to buy raw meat at street markets). While living in Laos, I became an accidental vegan, and I liked it.
Bartenderly: Three Classic Cocktails, Revisited by Laura Vincent
The Yellow Bird is a classic rum drink, comprising white rum, Galliano, Triple Sec and lime juice, and while its origins are unclear it seems to be adjacent to the Tiki cocktails of the fifties and sixties. Possibly it was named for the Harry Belafonte song — a banger, by the way — or one could assume its name refers to the colour that the Galliano lends it. There’s nothing to stop you making the original, but I confess, Galliano is not to my personal taste.
In addition to these bangers, we’ve published the continuing adventures of good mushroom Delicious Bradley, a new edition of Shelter Pet Reviews, a guide to buying a decent vegan suit, and a Tenderly travel guide to Walt Disney World.
Here are a few other stories we found especially interesting this week from around this world wide web we call home:
- The Washington Post ran an interesting survey that shows an apparent correlation between support for human rights and support for animal rights.
- The New York Times on the new attempts to stop plant-based companies from using words like butter and meat, and how they’re fighting them.
- Civil Eats on Fresno’s Freedom School and their year-round vegetable farm focusing on expanding opportunities for black youth.
- Industrial farms are spreading across Europe, and they’re hell for the neighbors, The Guardian reports.
- The San Francisco Chronicle on how Impossible Foods burned San Francisco chefs.
- Tenderly contributior Alicia Kennedy reports from Puerto Rico on Ricky Renuncia, for The Baffler.
- Rest in Peace, Chaser.
And with that, have a great week y’all!
