A bittersweet post

holiday window at Sauced

Recently I had to replace the hard drive in my MacBook Air. After I’d already decided I was doing Vegan Mofo. I caught the early signs of a failing hard drive, so nothing catastrophic happened, everything was backed up, and thanks to the cloud it was pretty easy to get up and running again.

My iPhoto library is kind of a bloated mess, so I’m probably going to end up manually choosing photos to import. That’s going to be time consuming, so I’m not going to deal with that right now. Instead, I just imported all the photos from my phone. Any past photos I want to use for blogging are on there anyway. If not, I know where to find them.

As I’m going through the photos I’d just imported from my phone, right early on in the first few is a set from Dough‘s holiday party the first year we were open, 2012. Ria Pell kindly hosted it at her second restaurant Sauced, just down the street from us. It was a more upscale place than her signature Ria’s Bluebird, but totally cozy even in its coolness. We’d actually looked at that spot for Dough, but decided it was going to take more work than we could handle. But she made it beautiful and brought out its best features.

Sadly, just a few months after our party, Ria passed away. Ria’s Bluebird lives on, but there will never be a replacement for Ria.

Sharing this special holiday meal she created for us seems like a perfect way to kick off Vegan Mofo. Oh, and keep in mind, she was not vegan, her restaurants were not, but she always took care of us well.

holiday menu at Sauced

The arugula kiwi salad:

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Beans & Greens

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Spaghetti squash in mushroom sauce

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Eggplant Napoleon

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Tempeh bacon, spinach & mashed potatoes

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My blurry plate, one of them. I must have missed getting a picture of the brussels sprouts, but here they are!

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Spiced soy ice milk with candied hazelnuts

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Cardamom apple tart tatin

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Yes, everything was amazing as it looks. And now I’m hungry.

 

Big, big changes

dough bakery sign

So, I haven’t been really public about this, but since it’s about to open, maybe I should out myself. Kevin and I have been working on opening Dough Bakery for a few years now and it’s finally about to happen. Like quit my corporate job kind of happen.

While we’ve been really good and dumping money into it, bringing on Simon of Gutenfleischer’s fame on as a partner is what is making this possible. Simon has been dealing with all the agencies like a pro. Not to mention getting things organized inside and out. And Star is always there to lend a hand. Like that weekend we all spent painting the outside of the building. Or, remember when it was 105F and we striped our parking lot? Good times.

Anyway, places to watch for grand opening info: doughbakery.com | Twitter: @doughbakery | Facebook

 

Vegan Pizza Day 2012

Vegan Pizza Day arrived June 30th and we had no plan. Sure, we actually have a few places in Atlanta where you can get vegan pizza, with vegan cheese and all. But none of them does it 100% right. We’re spoiled by all the pizza parties we’ve had. Simon & Star had the makings for peanut sauce, so we picked up a couple of dough balls from Savage Pizza (psst, you can buy dough balls from Savage Pizza), grabbed more ingredients from Sevananda, and headed over to their place to build up some pizzas.

thai tofu pizza

thai tofu pizza slices

Delicious! What’s for dessert? Pizza! Cinnamon apple pizza with tofutti cheese slices on top.

apple pizza

apple pizza slice

Not a shabby Vegan Pizza Day representation.

 

BBQ Tofu Taco

It’s easy to find the full-on vegetarian or vegan restaurants, but it’s not always as easy to find out the ones with awesome veg-friendly options. Just because I’ve been stuffing my face with Elmyr‘s veggie options for a dozen plus years doesn’t mean it’s necessarily common knowledge. So, here it is.

My default order is the tofu taco with no cheese. You can get the tofu regular or BBQ. I’ll do either depending on my mood but most people go for BBQ. Now, it’s a big taco. Two tortillas, burrito length, just not burrito full. Perfect if you destroy some guacamole before hand. And you’ll want to. Because theirs is awesome. Not full of a bunch of crap to dilute the avocado goodness.

You want the full on food log? Get a burrito. They have some interesting add ins like potatoes. There’s also a vegan quesadilla called a hazeadilla. It’s packed full of veggies. In the last year or so they’ve also introduced daily specials. Usually there’s a vegan option. If you’re lucky enough to be there when they do the arepas, get them.

Downside? No vegan cheese or sour cream. The sour cream isn’t the biggest deal. But it would definitely be next level if they carried a vegan cheese. Oh, and smoking happens there. But so does alcohol so you can drink away the annoyance.