Bay Area Vegetarians

Read it online or subscribe to have it delivered directly to your inbox.

* DIY Vegan Conference
* Vegan Food Parties
* Hearts in Action
* Back to School
* Spotlight: Snappy Comebacks
* Ultimate Guide Updates
* Heart Smart Cooking: Vegan Weddings
* Event Calendar

Loving Hut, which recently opened its vegan kitchen in Milpitas, is working to open a location in Palo Alto. Thanks to Elizabeth for the update!

Ultimate Guide – read it, rate it, review it

Do you get tongue-tied when you’re put on the spot by inquisitive family or friends?  Or just curious how others handle it?  If so, check out the PETA podcast featuring Dr. Alka Chandna, formerly a Bay Area activist and currently PETA’s laboratory oversight specialist, and PETA Vice President Bruce Friedrich.  They take you through snappy and compelling comebacks to the toughest animal rights questions.

Read the rest of this entry »

Souley Vegan in downtown Oakland is CLOSED until Sept. 28, 2008, for interior remodeling.

Thanks to Rachel for the update.

If you’re vegan, you might worry that attending a traditional wedding in the Midwest would create an eating challenge for you.  You would pack your trail mix and energy bars, and practice your answers to the never-ending questions:  “Have you tried the roast beef?” “Why aren’t you eating?”  “Oh, can’t you just relax this one day?  There’s a chicken dish—that’s vegetarian!”

Well, you might actually be able to relax.  I was lucky enough to attend one of those traditional Midwestern weddings yesterday, and I didn’t bring so much as a single peanut. Read the rest of this entry »

BAVeg offers mailing lists as well as a forum for the local vegan, vegetarian, and animal rights community.  In particular, the forum is a wonderful way to have extended and ongoing discussions about serious or fun topics simultaneously, since all discussions stay grouped or threaded by topic.  You also have the option to edit or delete your forum posts at any time.

Your userid is unique to bayareaveg.org and can be anything you want.  It can be the same as your userid on other systems (like yahoo, gmail, etc) or maybe it’s just your name! Hint: “Tammy” and “Chris” are taken though.  You can also personalize your userid profile with an avatar, and fun facts you want to share with others.

Check out the forum at http://bayareaveg.org/forum

Read the rest of this entry »

A third San Francisco location of Cafe Gratitude will arrive near the corner of Mission and 18th Street (next door to the 99-cent store).

[via Eater]

DIY Vegan:  A vegan conference FOR the community, BY the community

DIY is short-hand for “do it yourself”, and that speaks to the essential spirit we’d like to capture for this conference.  What would you like to say or hear at a grassroots vegan conference?

With the DIY Vegan conference model, anyone will be able to submit a topic proposal — the only requirement will be that it involves some aspect of veganism, which could include animal rights, philosophy, environmental, social justice, religion, edible, ethics, advocacy strategies, “how to” type topics (raise vegan children, bake vegan, leaflet, etc).  The proposals received will then drive the content of the conference.

At this point in time, this is just an “idea”.   Do we have enough support and/or interest in the community for an event like this?  Support would be needed from both speakers and volunteers in  administrative areas,  i.e. marketing, organizing, logistics, administrative help, etc.

Event: DIY Vegan Conference
Date:  Early Feb 2009 (weekend)
Location:  Oakland, CA (Lake Merritt area)

And, there is always the possibility that if this event is success, it could happen again in different parts of the Bay Area.

Your early feedback will be our gauge whether there’s enough interest and support within the community to proceed with this event.

Please reply via email or leave us a blog comment and indicate whether you would submit a proposal, volunteer at the event, attend the event, or, have no interest at all in the event.  Please ask your interested friends to do the same.

Thanks to Eric for letting us know that Deedee’s Indian Fast Food merely moved to Santa Clara, not closed.

Ultimate Guide – read it, rate it, review it!

Wild Greens, closed its doors on August 1st, less than 6 months after it opened.

Thanks to sevachef and Eric for the update.

Ultimate Guide – Wild Greens