Bread: sea salt and rosemary focaccia
Toppings: tomato sauce, grilled mushrooms and eggplant, fresh sliced tomatoes, vegan mozzarella, grilled tofu with Italian seasonings, and topped with fresh ground pepper, thyme, and a dash of salt.

Baked at 350 for about 20 minutes… give or take depending upon the thickness of the bread. Or bake at a higher temperature if you want it a little less crispy.

Result:

Oh yeah. Yumtown. Vegan yumtown. The bread is thick, but light and airy. And the toppings fresh and magically delicious.

Choosing the vegan lifestyle certainly has its obstacles. Like any life choice, you will find others who do not agree with it and/or will not accept it. Newly married couple, Emelia and Eric, faced a tough obstacle when Emelia’s parents refused to help fund their wedding unless in was a meat and dairy affair. The happy couple stood firm on wanting a vegan-friendly wedding, and decided they would simply pay for it themselves. Though this meant a much smaller, less expensive wedding, it ended up being a unique and amazing experience that reflected them as a couple. Here’s their story:

My fiance, Eric, and I had been together for 4 years by the time we got married. We had already felt like a family, but this ceremony was the final step in making our family real. We had agreed on a large ceremony with dancing, music, and lots of good vegan food. My parents had agreed to pay for our dream wedding, on one condition: we have to serve cheese and meat. For some reason my mother and father were being so traditional, they let their rules and ’society’s expectations’ come before their own daughter’s values. My fiance and I were shocked. We both agreed that we would be extremely offended by any animals being served as food at our special day. There was only one thing to do– we had to have a small wedding. So we decided to have a simple garden ceremony at Chapel of the Bells, have lunch with our guests at a local restaurant, and then head to the beach for some relaxing.

Our ceremony was absolutely beautiful. We couldn’t have known how wonderful it was going to be. The people there did an amazing job helping us along the way and it went perfectly. Our flower girl was the first to walk out as Over the Rainbow by IZ played. Her trail of white and pink rose petals was so pretty against the green walkway. Then Eric stepped forward and I came out the door, all eyes were on us. We walked slowly from two different points to come together on the bridge. We joined hands and entered the gazebo where Robert married us. We had written our own vows, and sealed it with a kiss. The ceremony was by far my favorite point in the day.

We all showed up at Freshies restaurant around 12:30, all of our 13 guests were hungry for some lunch at one of our favorite local places to eat, Freshies! We sat at 3 different tables but I could see everyone. We laughed a lot and felt just so happy to finally be married! Since Freshies has vegan and vegetarian menu items in addition to their regular menu, my husband and I were both able to order a vegan item. Three of our guests also ate veggie out of respect to us. It was a lovely lunch and even our youngest guest was satisfied.

We have been to the lake with our families many times but have never seen it this busy! I guess there were other people who also wanted to enjoy this beautiful day! The weather was so great and the water was just beautiful. We had a table set up with some refreshments and our vegan wedding cake. We had ordered it from the vegan bakery [Azna] in Cameron Park. It was hard to relax with all those people on the beach but pretty soon we were having fun with our family and friends and didn’t even care about how crowded it was. Our vegan marble cake was delicious and we took some stunning photos around the lake and trees. Most of all both Eric and I were so happy to see everyone who came to support us on our big day and we will never forget how loved we both felt on our wedding day.

A wedding is about love and commitment, and that is what our focus was on the whole day. Even though our wedding was far from what we had wanted or dreamed about, it was a day just for us.

Thanks, Emelia, for sharing your story.

Roatripping can be a challenge for vegans. In your own area, you’ve developed your safe zone of restaurants you can eat at and stores that have the best veg items. But on the road, you never know when you’ll end up stopping… or where. You might plan days in advance to ensure you’ll stop at all the veg-friendliest places you can. And once you’ve arrived at your destination (if you’re like me), you’ve probably got a Google map of all the vegan restaurants in the area. But we both know this strategy is not 100% fool proof.

In the latest VegNews I saw a list of the veg-friendliest chain restaurants, according to the Vegetarian Resource Group. Here are the top ones:

• Chipoltle
• Fresh Choice
• Moe’s Southwest Grill
• Noodles & Company
• Pei Wei Asian Diner
• P.F. Chang’s China Bisto.
• Qdoba Mexican Grill
• Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes
• Taco Del Mar

Find out more specifics about how veg-friendly they are here: http://www.vrg.org/journal/vj2008issue4/whos_veggie_friendly.html. I’m not a huge fan of chain restaurants, but I do think that Chipoltle and Qdoba both have amazing veggie burritos.

The Wienery in Minnesota (featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives) is a tiny hole-in-the-wall divey diner that makes a delicious vegan dog. But if you’re looking for a bar/restaurant with a nice, but casual, atmosphere, a long list of tap beers, AND that serves “Not Dogs,” The Bulldog is the place. The “Not Dog” is melt-in-your-mouth good. And in my opinion, veggie dogs always taste better when someone else makes them.

The Bulldog has two Minneapolis locations: one in the North East end, which I’ve been to, and one in Uptown.

The Bulldog, N.E.
401 East Hennepin Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55414

The Bulldog, Uptown
2549 Lyndale Ave S.
Minneapolis, MN 55405

While we’re on the topic, I’d like to applaud Tofurky for making one delicious vegan Beer Brat. Must be that time of year, because I have intense cravings for brats and dogs lately. The Beer Brat is especially good if you grill it. But don’t take it off the heat too early. Wait for the exterior to get crispy. Heaven!

Sorry it’s taken me ages to post anything. We’re finally settling in to our new apartment in downtown Minneapolis and we’re loving it. One of the highlights: we’re 2 blocks from Pizza Lucé now, which is newly renovated, and as I’ve mentioned before, has mouthwatering soy cheese pizza and a fantastic vegan chocolate peanut butter dessert. If we were completely devoid of willpower, we’d eat there all the time. But hopefully we can limit ourselves to a couple times a month. I mean, come on. Now that we’re downtown, we have lots of restaurants within walking distance. It’s time to branch out.

But we’re absolutely loving our new location. I found the most amazing walking/biking path across the Mississippi, which I will be taking to class every day once I start school. It goes right across the only natural waterfall along the Mississip. and there are all these cool ruins that have been uncovered. It’s really magical.

Waterfall on the Mississip.

Emory and I by the river.

Another river view.

And our apartment is so cool! Definitely the best place we’ve ever lived. It’s a loft with polished cement floors, and super high ceilings in the Warehouse District, also known as the North Loop. I apologize for bragging, but when you’ve lived in as many sub-par apartments as we have, it’s such a relief to live somewhere that we love, finally. And we feel so comfortable here already. We’ve entered the realm of hip young adults living in the city. And our neighbors are so friendly.

Our kitty, Sophia, enjoying our new place (and crushing our sofa cushions).

Our supercool kitchen.

Superhigh ceilings.

So that’s what I’ve been up to!