I don't know if the claim that raw food cured this man's colitis is true, but the restaurant that resulted from his foray into natural foods is certainly nothing to scoff at. Organic Lives feels a little industrial at times -- cement floors, a full view into the shining, metal kitchen, the wait-staff in cooking jackets and hairnets -- but the food makes the awkward ambiance worthwhile.

"Ethicurian": It's a word now! I thought my socially concious/coincidentally beautiful friend Lisa had made it up to impress me, but it turns out that there's a real live movement (or at least a webpage) centered around eating sustainably and the humane treatment of animals. Lisa is my food hero, even though one time I went to her house and her dad was quartering a deer in their garage.

This is one of my favourite wastes of time ever! The idea behind Cookbooker is to let users add recipe reviews to all the cookbooks on their shelf. This will appeal to those of you who have a passion for cookbooks, cooking, and most of all making lists of things (you know who you are).

The thing I love most about this website is how much it has turned me into a crazy cooking machine. Once you have all your cookbooks lined up nicely on your virtual shelf, you can see all those books with 0 recipe reviews sitting there and mocking you. Not to mention the competitive need to be on the top 30 recipe reviewer page. That is a prestigious award that is not given out to just anybody!

At the moment this is a pretty new website with lots of room for growth and improvement. That's where you come in. While this isn't a vegan website, it already has a decent vegan or semi-vegan membership. But it could be better! If any of this sounds like fun to you, then go make yourself an account and friend me. I'm always excited to see what other people are cooking.

I have to shout it from the rooftops! Though it's not technically my birthday yet, Maia has bestowed upon me something AMAZING: A vegan ice cream cookbook!

I'm hitting the coffee pretty hard these days. Sometimes I spend my lunch break hiding in a cafe because it's far, far away from the small-talk hell that is my staff kitchen; other times I'm there because I legitimately need some caffeine if I am going to summon the energy to write passive aggressive emails to the office about the dirty dishes in said kitchen. It's pretty hard to avoid coffee shops in this neighbourhood, even if you wanted to. It's a mecca on South Granville, really: a Korean-owned Parisian-style cafe; Dose, a shop that combines raspberry puree with espresso for reasons beyond my comprehension; Cafe Crepe gives out tiny, brimming cups for free to the shoppers strolling by. But among this thriving cafe culture, Starbucks, that corporate-yuppie-behemoth, beacon of branding, enemy of "the little guy", has somehow become my go-to, despite the well-thumbed copy of No Logo on my bookshelf. In my defense: I did it all for the soy.

You wouldn’t expect the most delicious animal free meals to come from a restaurant named Grub. You might expect greasy burgers, fries, and something vaguely resembling a reuban that I once ate in Hope when I was 12. As someone with some pretty extensive dietary restrictions, It’s both discouraging and kind of sad to eat out at a restaurant (I’ll have the grilled chicken salad without the chicken...or the goat cheese...and a vinaigrette, please (true story)). It’s also extremely rare that someone makes you something that is delicious, satisfying, gourmet AND sans animal body parts, so when a place like Grub comes around and says “hey, I’ve got something for you and also something with meat so your boyfriend doesn’t roll his eyes at your restaurant suggestion”, I say “jackpot”.

I thought I'd start my first post with a picture of my breakfast from this morning — it was delicious and I just wish I could have shared it with all of you! Unfortunately, I cannot take credit for the recipe, although I did take a few liberties with the list of ingredients. But that's the best thing about the cookbook Vegan With a Vengeance, the author (mentioned earlier in Stacey's Favourite Cookbooks) encourages her readers to follow their hearts when it comes to vegan cooking, and not feel confined by the recipe's guidelines.

I am in desperate need of a disguise. There's a vegan bakery called Edible Flours that's one bus stop away from my office. I have been four times in two weeks, and it's always the same dude working there. I can only assume he's starting to recognize me. It's embarrassing.

Hello, friends (and snooping nemeses?). Welcome to our blog! It's on the internet! It's going to be about our adventures in vegan eating (as much as reading cookbooks and going to restaurants and musing about animal rights can be considered an adventure, anyways).

Who are we? Some young Canadian ladies, dabbling in the world of animal-free dining. I'm sure you'll like us. We're as charming as we are beautiful, though not quite as modest.

More to come very soon!