Happy Birthday to Me!

It's my birthday today! This means I am not promising a very substantial MoFo post. Not only am I sick AND working today, but it's raining like crazy outside. I actually don't mind the rain, though. When I was growing up in Connecticut, most of my birthdays were rainy. The only thing missing are the autumn leaves, but I'm quite fond of palm trees, too.

On Friday I cashed in my free birthday meal at Moe's Southwest Grill. I got the usual: the tofu rice bowl. Not the prettiest dish you've ever seen, I'm sure, but free food is automatically beautiful, amirite?

The green tomatilla salsa is the BEST. Chock full o' cilantro-y goodness.

Yesterday, Lisa and I met up for tea at Kaleisia. We split a carafe of their PHENOMENAL iced soy pumpkin chai latte. You can taste and feel and SEE the pumpkin in it!

I have some sad news about my beloved tea lounge, though. What I always loved about Kaleisia is that they're super veg-friendly. Their small food menu was all vegan, and they offered cow's milk (as well as soy) for their drinks and the majority of their baked goods had dairy and eggs, but they were always a meat-free cafe. Until recently. Now, all of a sudden, they're serving FRIED CHICKEN. I was so disappointed when I read this on their Facebook page, and I'm still disappointed. They lost a billion cool points with that decision. I realize that they are still veg-friendly, but now they're not as friendly.

Moving on.

Next was the monthly vegan buffet at Trang Viet Cuisine. I totally forgot to take pictures, but the offerings were pretty much the usual. For me, the soup and rolls are the best. My dinner at Trang was also free, as they do complimentary meals for your birthday, and they're closed today. Score! My buddy Amber (who blogs at Zombie Cats Eating Plants) and I share a birthday, so we both scored free birthday meals last night.

From there, a group of us went to the Improv theater in Ybor City, as a friend had free tickets. Little-known stand-up comics can be a little iffy -- they're often a bit too sexist or prejudice for me to find funny, but other than a couple offensive (to me) jokes, the opener and headliner were pretty funny. There were a few moments when I could barely breathe because I was laughing so hard, so that's always a good sign. Plus, the headliner - Godfrey - has been on 30 Rock, so this brings me a little closer to Tina Fey.

After the show and parting ways with the group, I dashed over to the Orpheum and was able to catch the last half of the Mates of State show, which was lovely and made me feel warm and fuzzy, which was nice after scurrying through the rain.

I'm so glad I didn't miss this song, as it holds a special place in my heart.


And then this morning, I woke up barely breathing, this time from congestion, so I just laid in bed for awhile, listening to the rain. I pushed myself out of bed and made a birthday cake for myself because I'm pretty sure it's bad luck to NOT have cake on your birthday. I used this basic Gluten Free Pantry brand of cake mix that I had on hand and added chocolate chips.

Batter up!

While it cooled, I whipped up just enough peanut butter frosting: peanut butter, melted Earth Balance, trickle of vanilla extract, and some confectioner's sugar. I didn't use any precise measurements; I just added until the consistency was right.

And here's my quick and easy birthday cake / breakfast!

And since it's my birthday, I'm going to shamelessly plug my blog's Facebook page. Go ahead and give it a like! It's another way to stay up to date on my blog posts (another option is following with Google Connect), plus I share other fun links, videos, pictures, and other goodies from time to time over there.

What did you do over the weekend? Who else has a birthday during Vegan MoFo?

Peanut Gallery

Last weekend was a whirlwind of activity and fun times. As you already know, it concluded with a speaking event with Dr. Neal Barnard, but other good times and good eats were had before Dr. Vegan Eye Candy.

On Friday, I hung out in Lakeland with a friend. She's not veg*n, and since neither of us were familiar with the area, we decided Moe's would be a good option for the both of us. Bring on the tofu rice bowl!

In my opinion, the tomatillo salsas are the best.


I love that two of my three Moe's visits have included some kind of entertaining shenanigan-watching. The first time, it was some youngsters line-dancing outside of the restaurant. This time, it was a college kid creating balloon animals. There happened to be a table of several children next to us, so we had a great view of watching this guy create motorcycles, just about every Disney princess, a flower, and Mario. My friend had to get a Mario of her own.

I gladly paraded him about town with us for the remainder of the evening.

Saturday afternoon I met with a new friend for lunch, with the plan to meet at a Roebeks in Brandon. (I can't help but think of Sears whenever I hear or read that name. I imagined eating a salad perched atop of a riding lawn mower.) Anyway, turns out this particular location is closed. The sign is on the building, but the space is for lease. Minor detail! So we moved on to nearby Ploy Thai.

Ploy Thai is a tiny, but nicely decorated restaurant within a strip mall. (I love extravagantly decorated Thai restaurants, with Bahn Thai in Leavenworth, Kansas, still my favorite thus far.) Ploy Thai had a specifically vegetarian section in their menu with several items, but I'm a sucker for a good Panang curry, so I figured I'd order that off the "Curries" section. At the top of it, it offers tofu with it, so I figured it wouldn't be too difficult to get it veganized, right? Well, when a fancy-dressed lady came to our table, I inquired about getting the Panang curry made vegan, "with no fish sauce." She said most of the sauces, including the Panang, come "pre-made," with fish sauce. She named off the few sauces that are made fresh and CAN be made without fish sauce, so I flipped back to the "Vegetarian" section and chose something off of there, when she told me that that sauce was also pre-made, WITH fish sauce, even though it's on the "Vegetarian" section. Whew! So I went with the tofu and veggies in a chili sauce.

The sauce ended up being sweeter than I would have liked (I don't like sweet entrées), but the tofu was really good. This dish could have used more veggies, specifically broccoli. The "veggies" mostly consisted of cabbage. Meh. At least my rice was heart-shaped (funsies!).


My friend ordered the veggies with peanut sauce, which looked delicious (and fish-free!).


All of that fish business made ordering a little more difficult and disappointing, but luckily we were able to navigate around that fishy obstacle. And while the food wasn't terrible, I can't help but think that there are better Thai restaurants in the area.

Since I've been spending some time out in the country lately, I pass a lot of produce stands on the side of the highway, all of them heavily advertising strawberries (I'm in strawberry country!). I was more interested in other fruits and veggies, but couldn't find anything beyond strawberries and citrus at the first two stands I stopped at along highway 60. The third stop was the winner. Not only did she have zucchini, yellow squash, citrus, strawberries, cucumbers, peppers, collards, and potatoes, but she had freshly boiled peanuts. I have spotted this southern delicacy advertised several times, but never tried them out until this past weekend. After one sample, I was hooked.


The woman working the stand told me that the peanuts are boiled in salted water for 6 hours.

Holy cow, where do I even begin on how awesome these peanuts are?! They were scooped straight out of the cauldron, warm and fragrant, and poured into a bag.

The shells are soft and moist, obviously, and quite easy to tear open, revealing the warm, salty, oh-so-creamy peanuts within. Seriously, I simply had no idea a peanut could be THIS creamy without being "peanut butter."


Despite the sloppiness involved in eating these heavenly nuts, I felt like a true Southern Belle all the while.

Meeting Moe's & My First Dose of the Derby Darlins

I had a pretty rockin' Saturday! I spent my morning volunteering, then met with a new friend to hike around Lettuce Lake Park. By the time we got there, it was raining, so instead of "hiking," we just did laps around the boardwalk, which takes us around the "lake"/swamp. (This is Florida, after all.) Because of the rain, I don't have any pictures from the park, but I plan on returning. It's a pretty neat place! We spotted baby alligators, egrets, ibises, and pugs!

Boardwalkin' worked up an appetite and we went to Moe's Southwest Grill, which is a Chipotle-esque chain that I have spotted around the city, but never tried their food until that afternoon. I knew they were vegan-friendly, though.

I have to say: Moe's trumps Chipotle! They have better, fresher ingredients, and going by my bowl, they aren't as onion-heavy as Chipotle, which I appreciate.

I'm now realizing that these pictures aren't very wow-inducing, and I apologize for that. The ingredient highlights for me: spiced rice, black beans, fresh cilantro, grilled mushrooms (HECK YES!), and, of course, the grilled tofu.

Good stuff. Me gusta Moe's.

A little later that day, I got my first taste of Tampa roller derby -- The Tampa Bay Derby Darlins! They were playing against the Sarasota Roller Girls, so I felt a little torn, because as some of you may know, Sarasota has a place in my heart, too. I decided to go in neutral.

My best roller derby watching experience was in Kansas City. I was (and still am) very impressed with the Kansas City Roller Warriors. They put on an amazing show (especially compared to my very first roller derby bout, which was in Iowa).

Anyway, we're not in Kansas (City) anymore, so let's focus back on Florida.

The Derby Darlins aren't as big as the Roller Warriors, but they're still tough and put on a great bout. To be fair, the Sarasota Roller Girls are tough, too. I was impressed with the strength and power behind all of these badass women. (That's what I love about roller derby. That fierce woman power!)

Two gals left on stretchers that night, if that gives you an idea of how tough these derby-ers are. (And it was that that made my friend point out a wise observation: one should not join the roller derby unless they have good health insurance.) So yeah, I won't be trying out anytime soon!


But honestly, even if I had the Cadillac of health insurance, I probably wouldn't try out for roller derby. I can only dream of being the kind of gal who is tough (and coordinated) enough to do something like that. Plus, my biggest fear with roller derby would be knocking my teeth out. Teeth don't grow back, folks!

I also wish I was the tough kind of person to be a truck driver, but that's a different story.