Peanut butter could never!
Friends of Tenderly, hi, first of all, here’s a video of Mark Ruffalo with his new kitten, Biscotti.
How are you? What’s on your mind? What have you been eating for lunch?
Today, I had about 1/3 of a Just Egg bottle in my fridge, so I fried it in my smöl frying pan with some Miyoko’s butter, Violife cheddar, and snips of leeks that I regrew using the instructions from Arabella’s scallions primer. Plus salt and pepp, natch, a few Turkish oregano buds, and some avocado slices on top. It was very good, and extremely reminiscent of the kind of 24-hour diner omelette I miss since 1. quitting eggs and 2. quarantining away from my beloved local diners.
If you’d like to share the details of a good vegan meal you’ve made recently with your fellow Tenderly readers, drop me an email (you can reply to this one) and send a short description along with a link to your Medium profile, website, or social media handles so we can credit you properly. We’ll choose a few to feature in future newsletters to spread delicious inspiration around the world. ❤
This artist ‘Disneyfies’ pets and shelter animals looking for their forever home, especially those who might have trouble being adopted due to their age or appearance. ❤️❤️❤️
Be sure to put everything in Alicia Kennedy’s farming and food justice reading list in your queue. This is a great way to start learning about how corporate food took over the world. And while you’re thinking about these complex issues, subscribe to Alicia’s incisive food newsletter. Alicia also wrote for Tenderly this week about a gorgeous, rich new Palestinian cuisine cookbook, Falastin, and shared one of its incredible recipes: preserved, stuffed eggplants!
Have you heard of pickled potatoes? Kevin Vaughn shared his innovative recipes for szechuan pickled yams, pickled garlic potatoes, and spicy pickled sweet potatoes. Kevin also shared his recipe for carrot al pasto, a perfect toast topper.
I wrote about how Trump is now allowing wolf puppies and bear cubs to be shot in their dens on federal lands — and about why society cares so much about wildlife and so little about the animals that live and die on factory farms and in slaughterhouses. From that piece:
Ever since first domesticating pigs, we’ve been expanding our reach and our impact on the environment around us has been shaped by animal farming — from hitching crates full of young pigs to the wagons headed for the west all the way to eventually creating the model for factory farming as we know it. That system has become increasingly cruel and exploitive to animals, workers, and farmers over time due to the ever-increasing demand for cheap meat. Sprawling pig factories pollute their nearby communities, making them basically unlivable — which disproportionately impacts Black people in North Carolina and other parts of the country.
Speaking of those workers, Carlin Soos wrote an important piece about the exploitation of workers’ health and safety in meat processing, now worse than ever due to the Coronavirus pandemic:
As the virus continues to spread, employees must “choose” between protecting their health, the health of those around them, and getting a paycheck. Against the backdrop of a pandemic — one in which people of color and those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are significantly more likely to die from related complications — what are their options? Telling someone in a financially precarious situation to reject a job for the sake of their health is essentially asking them to jump from the frying pan into the fire: sure, there’s a chance they will contract the coronavirus at work and die, but one’s survival prospects are similarly bleak if they cannot buy food, afford rent, access adequate medical care, and tend to other essential needs.
Meet the residents of Portland’s community herd, the famous Belmont Goats. Nilina Mason-Campbell chronicles the history of the goats and how it maps to Portland’s recent gentrification, and she snapped some pics of the residents that brim with personality.
Speaking of animals with personality, here’s a look inside Skydog Sanctuary, a place of refuge for wild mustangs and burros.
Our beloved tofu was recently besmirched online, so Arabella fired back with 25 ways to use tofu that are far from bland — from ‘scallops’ to cheesecake! Give me tofu or give me death!
Rachel Weinberg wrote a great, honest personal story about how pursuing animal science showed her that the discipline is inherently oppressive and cruel. She lays out some of the horrifying practices that were normalized when she was studying the ‘science and business of producing domestic livestock,’ and concludes that “if nonhuman animals are liberated from human control, it would be the end of the Animal Science discipline as we know it.”
Do you know about nice cream? If the phrase doesn’t ring immediate bells (and make you hungry), go ahead and click through and change your life.
Marla interviewed Robin and Jon Robertson on how to get your vegan kitchen and home ready for emergencies, including a recipe for vegan pantry paella.
Other new pieces this week: How to grow a green treat for your cat! Food hacks for new vegan cooks! Crows are very, very smart and social! A veterinarian falls in love with one cute chihuahua!
AN ODE TO TAHINA
A Tenderly newsletter exclusive by Giorgina Samira Paiella
The condiment that gets the most mileage in my kitchen is tahina, a paste made of ground toasted and hulled sesame seeds that you may know by its anglicized name, “tahini.” Not just any tahina, though — I specifically love the kind available in big plastic tubs from Middle Eastern grocers or online sellers. My personal favorites are Lebanon Valley “Tahineh Extra” and Al Kanater “Tahina Extra,” the latter of which can conveniently be purchased in a whopping 8-pound jar that looks a bit like a tub of protein powder (with big “graphic design is my passion” energy). Tahina in tiny glass jars can be expensive or taste bitter and chalky, but these are the real deal on the cheap — fresh, creamy, thin enough to drizzle but still substantial, and not cut with added oil. It’s how I keep up with my tahina addiction without blowing my entire food budget, and great for stocking up for home cooking during quarantine with fewer trips to the store. My family always had one of these giant tubs stocked in the pantry, so it makes me feel nostalgic and closer to home to have one in my own kitchen across the country, and, as a bonus, the tahina stays fresher longer because it isn’t exposed to light like it is in glass jars.
Most people use tahina in savory dishes, but it’s just as versatile and undersung in sweet recipes. My favorite way to prepare it is by mixing up a batch of salatet tahina (garlicky, vinegary tahina sauce), which I grew up eating alongside Egyptian dishes like ta’ameya (Egyptian falafel), mahshy kromb (stuffed cabbage leaves), and ful medames (stewed fava beans). I also love to use it in my favorite hummus recipe (the hummus we all know and love is called hummus bi tahina, which literally translates to “chickpeas with tahina”) and as a base for creamy dairy-free dressing. Most of my “minimalist” (read: lazy) meals are the result of throwing all of my favorite ingredients into a bowl with some kind of dressing and calling it a day, so tahina is the MVP in my kitchen because it pulls together simple ingredients quickly with barely any effort — plain veggies on their own can be a bit sad, but paired with a grain and a drizzle of tahina, they come together as an easy, complete meal.
And because vegans are always getting those annoying questions about macros and micros, tahina is high in healthy fats, protein, and minerals like iron, calcium, copper, zinc, and selenium, while still being really delicious. My mother grew up eating asal eswed bel tahina (tahina mixed with blackstrap molasses) on pita bread as a child, a nutritional powerhouse pairing that helps you better absorb the nutrients from both the tahina and the blackstrap molasses. The combo is now one of my favorite healthy snacks to eat plain by the spoonful, as a beautiful topping for toast and rice cakes, and as a dip for fresh pita bread. But tahina’s biggest flex is halawa, a glorious dessert made of tahina mixed with loads of sugar and add-ins like pistachios and cocoa powder, all compressed into a dense, crumbly confection. It’s amazing straight off the block or — hot tip — sliced and stuffed into warm pita bread to make a “halawa sandwich,” because tahina and bread are a power couple in all forms. Peanut butter could never!
HISTORICAL COMPASSION
Glimpses at animal rights history from late 19th / early 20th century animal advocacy publications
Thanks to digitized libraries at Google Books, I’ve developed an obsession with diving into the writings of animal advocates who lived and fought for the well-being of animals over 100 years ago. Vegetarians and vegans were rare, but these merciful humans advocated for better treatment of farm animals, dogs, animals used in zoos and for entertertainment, and published radical (for the times) ideas about animal intelligence and emotion. In some ways, the main animal advocacy publication of the late 1800s / early 1900s — Our Dumb Animals — feels like Tenderly’s ancestor — a mix of philosophy, news, cat pictures, pet obits, and personal reflections on the relationships between humans and other animals. I’ll occasionally feature glimpses of the work of those early animal advocates here in the Tenderly newsletter.
WHAT SHOULD YOU EAT?
A vegan recipe recommendation from the Tenderly archives
Nisha Vora’s Instant Pot Lasagna: As part of my quest to avoid turning on my oven when it’s 100 degrees outside, I’ve been getting more use out of my Instant Pot lately. This vegan lasagna recipe excerpted in lawyer-turned-chef Nisha’s interview with Casey Walker is incredible —stuffed with mushrooms, bell peppers, and a delicious homemade tofu-based basil ricotta. Drool.
