Food Review: Gardein Pocket Meals

Gardein Pocket Meals in Italian Meatless Sausage

 with Roasted Red Peppers and Spinach

The Gardein Pocket Meals debuted recently, and I picked some up at Whole Foods in early February. They are shaped like little buns (or dinner rolls, as described on the package) and stuffed full of delicious vegan ingredients. The varieties I picked up were the Italian Meatless Sausage with Roasted Red Peppers and Spinach and the BBQ Pulled Porkless Shreds. These are convenience meals, so don't expect them to be too healthy, however they pack between 6 to 10 grams of protein, and do not contain genetically modified soy, wheat, or canola.

Food Review: Beast Burger by Beyond Meat

The Beast Burger and some oven-baked potatoes for a monster of

a dinner!

UPDATE: The New Beyond Burger from Beyond Meat has arrived! It's a real game-changer, and you can read my review and drool over pictures of it HERE!

Beyond Meat has unleashed its new creation, the Beast Burger, in stores nationwide! I've been excited about this burger since they announced it at the end of 2014, and I finally found the patties in the freezer section of my Whole Foods recently, so huzzah!

What's the big deal about the Beast Burger? Well, it aims to replicate the taste and texture of beef burgers to prove that there is a better, more sustainable, plant-based way to satisfy a burger craving! Beyond Meat shows us that there is no need to ruin the environment, our health, and kill animals for a juicy burger - all we need is a better vegan burger, and they think they have achieved this and even surpassed expectations by creating a more nutritious, more delicious plant-based burger!

Pizza is My Valentine

Pizza is My Valentine by Bare Wolfe

[image source]

Valentine's Day has always left me feeling meh, and I usually don't do much to celebrate (well, except maybe for splurging on the Fatally Yours chocolate box and watching Valentine's Day horror movies). However, since Friday the 13th coincided with Valentine's this year, I was inspired to do a little something special. Last night, I whipped up some killer Valentine's Day pizzas! Check out "The Heartbreaker" and "The Lover" below, plus some perfect pizza-themed Valentine's Day cards!

Happy Friday the 13th!

Friday the 13th VDay card by JARHUMOR - image source

Happy Friday the 13th! 

And how serendipitous that this Friday the 13th falls right before the most dreaded of all holidays...Valentine's Day! I was never a big fan of VDay, and love to inject some horror into the saccharine holiday anyway (see previous VDay posts on horror-themed and zombie-themed Valentine's Day cards), so I'm celebrating Friday the 13th/Valentine's Day tonight with some vegan pizza (I've got a killer pizza recipe I want to try out) and horror movies (Question: ummmm, how is that different from most nights? Answer: It's not!).

Food Review: Dissection of the Fatally Yours Chocolate Box

Fiends, I finally did it! After years of pining for Vegan Treats' "gore"-geous Fatally Yours Chocolate Box, I finally succumbed to its siren call and ordered a box for myself! Rarely do I do something so extravagant, but I just can't stand another Valentine's Day without it. Plus, this box couldn't be any more perfect for me! It's delightfully spooky, vegan, and I actually used to run a horror site called Fatally Yours (you can check out the archive here) and "Fatally Yours" was my writing moniker for many years! So I could actually say this chocolate box literally has my name written on it, nyuck, nyuck!

I wrote about the box last month, but I wanted to provide a review aka detailed dissection of it for you, dear readers. That way you can see its bones and what you get with this luxurious Valentine's Day chocolate box.

Hang with Other Future Corpses at Death Salon LA

Death Salon is returning to Los Angeles on April 26th, 2015 to the beautiful Getty Villa! The event will host many exciting guest speakers who will be discussing a variety of topics centered around death. You can join other future corpses like me and attend this event by buying tickets (they go on sale this morning, February 5th, 2015 at 9 AM Pacific time!).

Let's Talk About Death, Baby!

Goodbye Darling headstone at St. Helena Cemetery, St. Helena, CA

Ok, this is going to be completely different than what I usually write about, and a topic that might become more of a mainstay here on the blog. "Let's talk about Death, baby! Let's talk about you and me!" Yes, I want to talk to you about great big ol' Death and how I've been awakened to finally accept death and openly discuss the subject in a positive light. I have been wanting to write on the subject for a while, and was finally spurned to action after finishing Caitlin Doughty’s mortician memoir Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory.  In this fantastic book, Doughty recounts her start in the death industry working in a crematorium and how this job led to her eye-opening journey to death acceptance. I have followed Caitlin’s delightful straight-talk about death from her YouTube series Ask a Mortician to her site The Order of the Good Death and now to her memoir. It is always a delight to read about her accounts in the death industry, and how she encourages death acceptance and death positivity instead of the closed-off view of death modern society currently suffers from.

Vegan Scones and Donuts at Cafecito Organico in Costa Mesa, CA

Vegan donuts, scones, and more available at Cafecito Organico!

It seems like vegan options are popping up everywhere these days (much to my delight!), so when a little birdie told me that the Cafecito Organico coffee shop at The Lab in Costa Mesa had vegan baked goods - including scones, donuts, and cookies - I checked it out as soon as possible! The baked goods are from a Long Beach bakery called Caffeinated Kitchen, and I am so happy that there is yet another awesome vegan bakery in SoCal!

Vegan Street Fair Coming to SoCal this March!

The first ever Vegan Street Fair is coming to Southern California this March! The event will be held in North Hollywood on Sunday, March 1st and will feature tons of vegan vendors dishing up affordable "bites" of food! Want to know more? Check out the description of this awesome event from the VSF website:

New Raised Vegan Donuts at The Donuttery in Huntington Beach, CA

My box of vegan goodies!

Attention all Orange County vegan donut fans - The Donuttery in Huntington Beach JUST started offering classic, traditional raised donuts that are VEGAN! Their vegan cake donuts (review here) are freakin' phenomenal, but these new raised donuts take their vegan game to a whole new level!