Alicia Silverstone!

my visit with jimmy fallon

Posted by Alicia Silverstone on Mar 31, 2010

For those of you who missed it, I wanted to share this clip of my visit to Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. I first met Jimmy years ago when I was in my last Broadway play, and it was so nice to see him again. He is so cute and nice!

I brought a bunch of yummy vegan food on the show for him to try. We had the Master Cleanse Martini from Pure Food and Wine, the Reuben from Sacred Chow, the Seitan Picatta from Candle 79, the Mallomar Bar from One Lucky Duck, and the Chocolate-Peanut Butter Bliss from Candle 79. It was all so good! Jimmy seemed to really like all of it too... Which I had no doubt that he would, it’s all so delicious. We had also ordered from Candle Café earlier in the day for lunch before the show, and that was great too... It was clean, superhero food.

I had a great time on Jimmy’s show... He was so nice, so cute, and so supportive of my book. Mark, the producer on the show, was really great too.



Let me know what you think of the clip!

But... he did this lame ‘hot dog toss’ segment a few segments before mine. I just don’t understand how throwing food is funny. Especially when the food that they are throwing was once a living creature who truly wanted to live, and felt great suffering during it’s short life, and incredible torture in its death. It’s careless... Especially when there are people going hungry all over the world.



I asked Mark, the producer on the show, to consider using tofu dogs next time they need to throw meat around. So fingers crossed they will at least think about it... But who knows. Jimmy’s show isn’t the only one who does that kinda thing. Many late night shows have bits where they play these weird meat games.

The good news is that Mark the producer said that they would feed the hot dogs that they used in the show to a dog. Although, that would not be healthy for the dog either, but I’m assuming that the dog eats nasty foods already, so at least those hot dogs that they threw wouldn’t go to waste.




Maybe we can stop these food games! If you click here, you can send a message to NBC, and ask them to stop airing segments where food, especially meat, is thrown around and wasted for entertainment. And if you’re with me, post a link to this blog on your facebook or twitter to spread the word! The more voices are heard, the more likely it is that this waste of food will be stopped.

But... Jimmy was great.

Sacred Chow-Vegan Bistro NYC

Monday, March 29, 2010

Sacred Chow-Vegan Bistro NYC

A few weeks ago, I went to Sacred Chow, a vegan tapas bistro located in Greenwich Village. The menu has an assortment of protein rich plates, complex carb plates, heroes, salads, fresh juices, smoothies, and desserts. If you go, definitely try the 4 seasons salad (seasonal greens, shredded beets, carrots, apples, and crunchy yuba strips in a dijon vinaigrette). YUM! What else did I order? Scroll down to find out:)

Fresh Carrot Juice w/ ginger, 4 Seasons Salad

Vegan Tapas

Grilled Western Tofu w/ Side Salad

Orange Blackstrap BBQ Seitan

Korean Tofu Cutlets

Be sure to try Sacred Chow if you're in the area.

Sacred Chow

227 Sullivan St. (btwn W 3rd and Bleecker)

212-337-0863

Website: http://www.sacredchow.com/

like being on another planet

March 23, 2010

week 12: sacred chow

my week-long trial period of near-veganism culminated last friday,

with a trip to

sacred chow

in the west village

it was recommended to me by vegan friend justin,

whom i did not know was vegan until he turned down an offer

for a cookie bar made by mum

{and you must know that no one turns down jody's cookie bars}

so in our post-concert rush,

we taxied downtown

with just enough time to place our dinner {and dessert} order

by closing time.

and the style was

tapas

and our appetites were

big

here's a list of what we ordered,

and my thoughts about them

{in twitter form, of course}

sacred caesar salad

taste simulation at it's highest.

are you sure there are no anchovies in this, justin?

yes, pumpkin, i'm sure.

sunflower lentil paté

tasty,

not too weird or grossly offensive,

but, alas, i've never had real paté so i don't know how this compared.

mama's soy meatballs

with sicilian sauce

delicious!

reminded me of the vegetarian meatballs that an ex's mom made,

and since i wouldn't dare ask her for the recipe,

these compensated quite well.

sliced ginger soba noodles

with spicy peanut sauce

by far my fave.

it's hard to mess up peanut noodles, i know,

but i was afraid of the word "soba"

til i tried these.

indonesian roasted tempeh

contrary to what i predicted,

i didn't run the other way screaming.

the texture was new,

kind of like paper maché,

but i think i'd like to try it again to give it a fair shot.

seitan.

seitan.

roasted black olive seitan.

there's a reason it's so close in spelling to satan.

kidding.

sort of.

i actually muscled through a whole piece of it thinking it was the meatballs.

and then the meatballs came out and i was like

oh no what did i just eat? that's such a terrible feeling.

it tasted like that egg carton foam you put over your mattress.

but edible, definitely edible.

sort of.

top to bottom: paté, tempeh, seitan

and for dessert:

brownie sundae

i didn't feel so guilty gobbling all of it up because

if it's vegan,

it must be healthy,

right?

please let that be right.

because i pretty much ate it all.

and i couldn't believe it was vegan.

i was, after all, that bitch of a little sister when lactose-intolerant stoop had to eat soy dream.

...

anywho,

i really enjoyed my first vegan restaurant experience.

it was sort of like being on another planet...

most things were recognizable with their non-vegan counterpart,

but there were things, mostly textures, that distinguished them.

i mean, how close can one really get to simulating a chewy, still bleeding steak without a cow?

but this new food world

is like discovering a new ethnic cuisine,

it is so interesting,

that i just might extend my near-veganism

for kicks.

and because my jeans were looser this week.

i think i'll go back to sacred chow,

or try to incorporate more vegan things in the 40 restaurants that i have left...

xoxo

yeh

sacred chow is on sullivan street between west 3rd and bleecker in the village.

sun-thu 11-10, fri&sat 11-11.

12 comments:

Melissa said...

This place sounds awesome! I've been wanting to go vegan but still deciding. I'll have to check it out!

3/23/10 11:17 PM

tiffany said...

mmmm everything sounds so good especially brownie sundae! ^_____^

xo tiffany

3/24/10 12:05 AM

chelsea rebecca said...

i'm dying over the ridiculous amount of food in this post!!
I WANT IT ALL!
and i especially love the fact that it was finished off with a brownie sundae. YUM!

3/24/10 12:37 AM

Emma Jade said...

sounds amazing! I always wanted to go vegan but struggled with being vegetarian due to severe anaemia, maybe ill try again soon though!
xxx

3/24/10 7:58 AM

Meghan said...

Ha! I love this! I felt the SAME way when I had a vegan dessert here in Chicago - it must be healthy, right??? :)

3/24/10 9:01 AM

Maki said...

I've tried vegan chinese food before and they were awesome! But I don't think I can be a vegan... I do eat healthy and love fruits and vegetables and eat more of seafood and chicken, but once in a while I crave steak and I know I can't pass that up!!!

I love all of your photos :)

p.s. and yes, it's totally okay to dye easter eggs even when you're jewish! i love it too!!

3/24/10 9:50 AM

daisychain said...

I love vegan food, you must take me here some day!

3/24/10 12:00 PM

Kimbirdy said...

I always seem to read your blog when I'm hungry... bad idea! ;)

3/24/10 1:02 PM

C'est La Vie said...

you just made me SO hungry

3/24/10 1:05 PM

Jasara said...

the first pic is priceless! lol

3/24/10 1:28 PM

Mara said...

yum! that place sounds amazing. I'm sad I didn't know about it when I was in NYC. But on my next trip I'll have to go there and you can give me some other recommendations :)

3/24/10 1:51 PM

Katy Mary said...

I really love the presentation with the plates on that little tower. It's very cool. I was a vegetarian for many years and sometimes I really miss it. There are so many delicious vegan and vegetarian dishes out there. I definitely need to get back into some of them. You have given me a huge list of places to try next time I'm in NYC!

3/24/10 4:52 PM

new yelp review.

3/14/2010

Awesome food at a good price. Chow has a nice mix of "vegetable vegan" dishes (i.e. Candle Café farmers' market menu) and "faux meat vegan" dishes (i.e. Red Bamboo comfort food).

The place is pretty tiny and filled up even for lunch on a Tuesday when I went. They have a decent selection of booze for a small place, the food is organic and local whenever possible, and dishes are labeled as gluten-free, sugar-free, etc. As others have yelped, it appeared there was only one server who might have been a bit overworked, but she was fine for our lunch. Check out all the cool lamps they have hanging.

I took Ariela R.'s advice and got the Baby Root Veg Latkes w Date Paste, which were phenomenal. Kudos to Ariela R. My superfreak lunch buddy got the Reuben - an unadventurous order, I thought, but it turned out to be one of the best vegan sandwiches I've tasted. Kudos to superfreak. The sunflower pate was excellent as well. All the food far surpassed my expectations given the prices. (Three tapas plates costs $15 and is more than enough food. Sandwiches are $10 and BIG.) I will definitely go back.

carnivore through and through!

Sacred Chow: Meat Eaters, Have No Fear

I’ll be the first to admit, I’m a carnivore through and through. And while I try to be sensitive to the vegetarians in my life, you won’t often see me setting foot in a restaurant that doesn’t offer a legitimate option for meat eaters. I made a rare exception last Friday to accompany a newly converted vegetarian friend to West Village eatery Sacred Chow for a surprisingly satisfying small-plates dinner.

The first lesson I was taught about vegan restaurants is also the mistake most meat eaters will make their first visit: Don’t try to approximate your favorite meat dishes. While I’m sure the soy meatballs and barbecue tofu serve a certain purpose, you’ll be much better off going for the house specialties. (One big exception: seitan. I’m a huge fan of this meat substitute.) We started off with a couple specials that evening: hummus with red and green bell peppers and Jamaican ginger sweet potato mash (with candied ginger on top). After that it was on to solid food with the Korean barbecue tofu, curried steamed broccoli, and root vegetable pancakes. Excluding the tofu (which, unsurprisingly, had the taste and consistency of, well, tofu) the other dishes were delightful. All were unabashed in their earthy flavors, with fantastic spicing and unexpected combinations. I have to say, the sweet potato hash was a definite highlight of the meal, with its inspired candied ginger topping.

Though I can’t imagine I will make it a habit to frequent vegan restaurants, if you’re looking for a little palate cleanser, a visit to Sacred Chow is the perfect change of pace.

Posted by: Nicole Price Fasig
Order: hummus with red and green bell peppers, Jamaican ginger sweet potato mash, Korean barbecue tofu, curried steamed broccoli, root vegetable pancakes

stop eating your fellow beings!

feeling pre-perceived?

open the door, move about, away from ur inner-shelter; swim like a skool of fish: w the we of the hordes.

yes consciousness, be mindful!

close ur eyes, visualize.

first visualization: ur warm red blood.

2nd visualization: "co-horde-nating."

in perpetuity!

as a sperm: u were the strongest co-horde-nator; a fierce swimmer.

hear ye strong hordes of we! step 4ward: let's make less violence happen.

we chant: "stop eating your fellow beings!" eat beans!

i back off, the blog-horde: in 2 the sheltering chow.

Eeek!

(Hi to all in Facebook land. This is from Dino, and not Preefer. We both blog on the Sacred Chow blog. If you’ve been following along for a bit, it’s fairly easy to tell the two of us apart. Otherwise, follow the entry to its original and it’ll say who posted it.)

I was in the plating area, checking for inventory of something or another. I’d asked Boss Man about something and turned around to attend to the espresso machine. I turned back around, and almost ran into Boss Man. In shock, I let out a shriek much like a five year old girl would when she’s confronted with something startling or scary. (And therein, friends, lies the very obvious clue that it isn’t boss man. He doesn’t shriek.)

I know that I dislike using gendered language, but I can’t quite think of another mental image that will match up with that particular exclamation. It’s the sort of thing for which I’d have gotten odd looks or laughter at the least, and teasing or mocking at worst. When it boils down to it, sometimes just being yourself can be risky.

But there’s a couple of things that I took away from that moment. For one thing, I’m comfortable enough with my work environment that such a display didn’t send me (as it would have in the past) red-faced and running to some place where I could be alone for a while. For another thing, nobody even paused, flinched, laughed, or had any reaction at all. That’s an incredibly comforting feeling.

Sometimes, you get lucky, and the people around you know you for who you are, and accept you. Not tolerate you. That would be what I got from people in the past. You’ve seen toleration. It’s rolled eyes. It’s barely concealed contempt. It’s ugly.

I’ve got acceptance.

My teachers were right.

And I hate having to admit it, but there it is. When I was in school, my least favourite assignments were the ones where I had to work in a group. Not group assignments in class, mind you. Group assignments that took you out of class. Why? Because some idiot would always mess it up for everyone else.

Unfortunately, you’d still have to scramble and get it all done anyway, regardless of the idiot who didn’t know the difference between research and outright copying from the damn book. You know who you are. Or, the ones who were asleep at the wheel, so to speak. They’d look at something, and instead of thinking “Huh, maybe there’s a mistake here,” would promptly assume it to be correct, regardless of how obscenely wrong it looks, and go about whining when the end results were stupid.

At the end of the day? Teacher didn’t really care overmuch. What he wanted to see was a completed project, come hell or hurricane (I did do most of my schooling in South Florida, after all)! And that’s kind of how the real world works. The restaurant customer isn’t bothered that someone else forgot to make the sauce the night before. They want their food now. The policeman isn’t going to care that your wife forgot to fix your broken turn signal, he’s going to give you the ticket. Too bad, so sad. Tell your sob story to someone who cares.

Unfortunately, I’m in a position where I have to wait for someone else to finish their part before I can continue mine. This isn’t in the kitchen, or in the office. It’s more so that I’m waiting for numbers to come back from an outside source who is responsible to finish them correctly (because they were asleep at the wheel) before doing the stuff that I did do correctly (but was messed up because when the previous year’s numbers are messed up, the current year’s will be off as well). Unfortunately, like the teacher, customer, or police officer, the IRS isn’t bothered.

What have I learned from all of this?

Life isn’t always fair. Sometimes, because of the negligence or incompetence of someone else, your neck is on the line. That cannot be helped. What can be helped is your reaction to it. I could sit here, and complain that the actions of others are causing me grief. I could loudly bemoan the lack of good help nowadays. I could even give myself ulcers, because I’m so worried about this or that going wrong along the pipe, and screwing me later on.

Or, I can do everything else that can get done except for that one thing that I need the numbers for. Which I did do. I’ve got the forms fully filled, and ready to roll. I’ve got the boxes that I do need to fill in highlighted on the computer, so that I can make the corrections, and move forward.

This takes me back to filling out the FAFSA form when I first started college, and I needed federal aid to help me get through school. There were various spots that I had to wait on others for. My dad’s IRS forms. My W-2 forms from work. All sorts of other annoying pieces of information that I was missing.

What did I end up doing? I made sure that every other box in that form was filled out. My name, the address, the social security number. Essentially, the only boxes empty were the two or three that I literally could not fill out on my own. It made it so that when the time came to use said numbers that I was waiting for, I got through it rather quickly, and was able to send it off to the proper places.

The point is that life isn’t always in your full control, but you'll still have small bits that you can control. Take care of those, so that when you do regain full control, you’ll have an easier time of it.