Breaking news!

April 24, 2012 | Kelly Peloza

Last week I received a phone call saying my apartment managers tipped off maintenance that I could use a brand new oven. This is a totally correct statement. Have you seen my stove? It’s covered in rust, cooked on grease, and other disgusting surface flaws that most assuredly will not clean off. Oh yeah, and that one time a pilot light went out and filled my apartment with gas.

So you can imagine how much I hyperventilated inside when I heard I was going to get a brand new oven. This is what happens when you’re on your landlady’s good side. You bake her cookies and be not an asshole tenant, and she gives you new ovens, ceramic bunnies, tote bags with cats on them, and Christmas cards signed from her cats.

This morning she knocked on my door and informed me that my oven is here, right now! I was still in pajamas and my kitchen was partially taken over by lasagna remnants from yesterday, but it was almost noon and I was getting a new oven, so I can’t complain. Just own up to my lazy Tuesdays. Anyway, maintenance wheeled in the new oven. It was brand new, shiny, and the knobs even had numbers on them!

Wide angle oven. It has a handle that I can hang stuff on. The old one did NOT have that. Towel, meet your new home.

Taking it for a test drive. You guys, it boils water!

I think I’ve reached my excitement quota for the day. If it goes any higher, every other day after this will be a disappointment. But it has been a successful day thus far. Now there are only three annoying things about my kitchen: the sink, darkness, and lack of space.

I’m sorry if you were expecting something a little more exciting, like a cookbook release date or a video of a puppy eating a cake, so here are some banana (“bunana”, HAHA SO CLEVER) butterscotch cupcakes with bunnies on top:

Post-VVC mini post.

September 8, 2011 | Kelly Peloza

I just got back from Vida Vegan Con a little over a week ago (and went directly to school to start off the semester!) and spent the weekend mostly unconscious battling the Post Vida Vegan Con Sickness of Death, which is strep and a cold! Fun! I actually didn’t mind having a legitimate excuse to spend the weekend on the couch in pajamas watching movies and horrible horrible television. But anyway, EXCUSES, EXCUSES. I just wanted to quickly check in (I’m blogging in class…awkward!) with a few things before writing my fully-fleshed Vida Vegan Con blog posts.

1. My friend Katie just redesigned her blog with illustrations from Amanda Chronister! And she’s currently doing a really awesome fundraiser and raffle that ends in one week! Send your Ride to Light donation receipt. Read all the details and find out about the prizes here!

2. The Macnocheetoh Burrito and Coconut Deep Fried Oreos from Homegrown Smoker, AKA crack! I’ve been dreaming about this meal in all it’s deep fried glory for over a week. Let’s look at it more:

3. Panda Cookies! My friend Lisa of Panda with Cookie made these cookies in PDX and they are the cutest cookies ever!

4. Vida Vegan Con podcasts! Erika and Jordan of The Cosmopolitan Hour were busy recording during the conference and you can listen to their drastically awesome VVC special in two parts! Jasmin of Our Hen House was recording at the conference too, and you can listen to episode 86 here! The VVC podcasting workshop notes were also posted on Our Hen House, so check them out.

One Lovely Blog Nomination

March 31, 2011 | Kelly Peloza

Kristin from Rose Pedals Vegan Weddings recently nominated me and several other bloggers for a One Lovely Blog award. The recently debuted vegan wedding website is a chock full of great information, cruelty-free businesses, and ideas for vegan-friendly weddings! Thanks, Kristin!

My Seven Facts:
1. My bunny, Gnocchi, and I share a 375 sq ft studio apartment. The kitchen/dining room is about half the entire apartment, which I’m pretty happy with! The only problem is my oven is less than 2 feet wide and most of the time, lots of adjustments have to be made when baking.
And yes, I do have alphabet refrigerator magnets. I’m 5 at heart.

2. I go to school for fine arts photography and communication design. So much of my week is spent shooting, in the studio, the darkroom, behind a computer, or printing. My artwork is really really different from what I post on here, but I don’t really get around to uploading much online these days! Right now I have a really awesome schedule: 12+ hour days twice a week, and a Friday morning class, which means two days “off”! I have to wake up at 5:30am M/W/F and my bedtime never fails to be 1am.

3. I’m not so good at driving, nor have I ever owned a car. I do have a license, but I rarely ever drive. It’s scary! I am, however, good with directions and navigating my way around a city by foot or public transportation.

4. A few favorites:
Musicians-Tegan and Sara, Rilo Kiley, The Smiths, Cat Power, She & Him
Movies-Amélie, Edward Scissorhands, Girl, Interrupted
Books (besides cookbooks and vegan-related)-Persepolis, Choke, On the Road, zines!
Artists-Bill Brandt, Francesca Woodman, Harry Callahan, Anna Gaskell. I also love Dutch still life and Renaissance paintings.
Fruit-Peach and watermelon
Cuisines-Ethiopian and Indian

5. I love to travel. I love finding my way around cities, hopping trains and buses, the exhilaration, and just stepping out of my normal life for awhile and finding something new to take back. I spent a lot of time in Chicago throughout high school, but I’d probably only been on an airplane a grand total of twice (Vancouver and Florida) until a couple years ago when I started traveling on my own to visit friends, see new places, and of course, eat all the vegan food.
One of my favorite pictures. Ice cream sundae from Lula’s Sweet Apothecary in NYC!

6. I don’t like having to settle down for anything! I’m always changing up my hairstyle, apartment decor, future plans, and where I live. But things that are important to me don’t change: commitment to veganism, activism, human rights, feminism, and ethical values.

7. I started blogging in 2006, on my late food blog, My Vegan Creations. I left that blog to start writing about cookies here, then made my current food blog, Seitan Beats Your Meat. It’s fun to look back on what I was making when I first became vegan, the mishaps, and the learning process of cooking and baking. The wonky pictures, design, and language are endearing! Here are some quotes from my sassy 15/16 year old self regarding vegan cooking:

* “Now I usually reject crosses between vegetables because that just seems weird. I guess I was really intrigued by them [fiddlehead ferns] because I didn’t realize they were $5/12 oz. Well, the verdict is that they tasted pretty bad.”
* “Okay, now it’s time to complain. The hijiki and mushrooms smelled so bad. The kitchen smelled like steamy lake water with lots of dead fish. Gross Gross Gross.”
* “I received my copy today in the mail! If for some reason you have no clue what I am talking about, that would be a travesty, but I’ll tell you anyway. VCTOtW is a cupcake book with lots of cupcake recipes and yumminess by Isa Chandra Moskowitz (author of Vegan with a Vengeance) and Terry Hope Romero. I was very very excited when it came as I wrote here and right away decided to make Chocolate Cherry Creme Cupcakes, which are the best cupcakes I’ve ever eaten in my entire life as of now.”
* “These aren’t from Halloween, but they are cupcakes, so why are you complaining?”
* “First off, we have BBQ tofu, made with homemade BBQ sauce. The polenta is from a tube.”
* “My pies were brown because they had to sit in the fridge for a few hours since my mom decided to start cooking the animal right when I was about to put them in the oven.”

My Nominees:
1. Louzilla Lovegood Letters
2. The Laziest Vegans
3. The Urban Housewife
4. Bittersweet Blog
5. Vegan Chai
6. Tree Wool
7. Vegan Whore
8. Vegan Sweethearts
9. Vegan Appetite
10. Almost Vegan Blog
11. Feisty Forks
12. MtbVegan
13. Vegan Milwaukee
14. Vegan Craftastic
15. Cornfields and Cookies

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