So, What Have You Been Up To? - LinkStorm

I'm so sorry I didn't call.

So, recently, I've been busy.  Still unemployed, but sending out CVs to everywhere that seems good.  Still broke, but making it work for me.  I've been making my own clothes, which is awesome.

Sewing/knitting are really great skills to have when you're broke.  If you have more time than money, it is absolutely worth it (on the other hand, if you have more money than time, it is completely the right decision to pay someone else to make your stuff).

The dress came out quite short, because I underestimated the amount of fabric needed.  BUT, it can also be worn as a top and a skirt, and I am exceptionally proud of it.  You can see more pictures (plus, links to the tutorials I used) here.  I also made a tie for Anthony, using this tutorial.

I embroidered a little cross because he works for the NHS!

This week, I've been more into knitting, and I'm currently halfway through an autumn-themed sock for myself.  I'm using this program, which will churn out a sock pattern for you, once you put in a few basic measurements.

It's surprisingly easy to find vegan yarn out there.  Simply have a look at the label.  You'll want to avoid wool (sheep), mohair (goats), cashmere (goats again), alpaca (alpacas), angora (bunnies), and silk (silkworms).    Cotton, linen, acrylic, nylon, and polyester yarns are vegan, as far as I know, though you may wish to do your own research and consider the dyes used.

There's a livejournal community for vegan knitters here, and I also found a Birmingham based Stitch 'n' Bitch group, which I plan to get to as soon as I have a Saturday free.

Speaking of Stitch 'n' Bitch, reading that book has reawakened my interest, since I found it in the library last week.  Both my grandmother and my dadima (paternal grandmother) tried to teach me to knit when I was about seven, but since one learned by feel rather than in words, and the other doesn't speak English (and I don't speak Gujerati), neither really worked for me.  I eventually learned to knit about five years ago, by following the directions in Penny Hill's Learn to Knit, though a quick google search will bring up hundreds of tutorials.  I particularly like this one, which I use to cast on all ribbing, including for my pumpkin sock.

Pumpkin/Autumn sock!  The wool itself is patterned, and knits up into this beautiful design.  I'm buying more tomorrow, so I'll let you know the exact make.  This ball has lost its label.

I have several balls of yarn under my bed, which I've collected during previous periods of interest in knitting (I tend to drift between hobbies).  The pumpkin wool is one of them, but, luckily, since the yarn itself changes colour, matching the dye lot won't matter.  The yarn is still sold (in that wonderful little haberdashery stall in the indoor market), and I fully intend to make lots of pumpkinny things.  These socks, specifically, I have earmarked for keeping my toesies warm while I'm volunteering in the Women's Shelter for Crisis at Christmas.

I'm a little concerned about being vegan, over Christmas, while broke, in a strange city.  I don't want to buy food in London, as, firstly, shopping will be a nightmare, and, secondly, it'll be more expensive than in Birmingham.  Instead, I plan to carry tinned soup, a loaf of bread, PB&J, and a giant bag of apples.  I'll buy or carry a bottle of soya milk, then either pinch some of those little cereal packets from my cousin's kitchen (some of those are vegan, right?), or carry a tub of cornflakes with me.  I don't want to carry too many things to cook, as they'll be bulkier to carry than the finished product.  It'll be a boring diet, but it's only for four days.  Any ideas/tips, please let me know in the comments.

Speaking of free events (like the afore-mentioned knitting group - find one close to you here), the Shout Festival is currently on-going in Birmingham.  Shout is Birmingham's festival of Queer Culture - like Gay Pride meets Arts Fest - and several events are free.  I've also been attending the Journey Film Club, which is run by someone I volunteer with at VEGed Out.

Speaking of VEGed Out; I started out as a kitchen assistant, but after being handed more responsibility regarding meals, I can now call myself a chef.  Go me!  I invented a recipe which I have christened 'Goblin Pie'.  It involves roasted chickpeas (so you can see the Happy Herbivore influence right there), onions, carrots, and celery, all in a parsley crust.  SO yummers.  Goes well with rosemary and thyme mash.  Recipe soon!

I'm also volunteering with Victim Support, and I hope to specialise in domestic abuse and sexual violence.  Finally, I've also been reading about/experimenting with Luminosity, the idea of being aware of how your specific mind works.  So far, I've figured out that I am a words person, as described in this first short story.  It's been very useful to go through this with Anthony (who remains delicious, and has been attempting to knit while I have been attempting to teach him).  Turns out, he's more of a "you spent hours making me something?  You must really love me!" person, which is good to know, and has helped to curb my bad habit of abandoning projects halfway through.

Happy Herbivore's Chickpea Tacos

I won't be posting this recipe here since, obviously, it isn't mine. What I am going to do is figure out the cost, since I seriously want to recommend it to you guys. It's easy to make, requires very few ingredients and is OMG SO DELICIOUS. I am not kidding. This recipe is incredible.

Te quiero taco.

I had almost every ingredient in the cupboard already. I had all the spices, but no taco shells, for the simple reason that I've never had tacos before. This recipe was perfect for my first time (insert joke here).

Ingredients

• 400g Tin of Chickpeas (43p, Tesco) - 43p
• 6 Taco Shells (Old El Paso, £1.54 for a box of 12, Tescos) - 77p
• 1 Tablespoon Soy Sauce (I used this instead of tamari - Gold Plum Superior Light Soy Sauce, £1.19 for 620ml) - 3p
• 2 Teaspoons Lemon Juice (Jif, 79p for 55ml, Tesco) - 3p
• 1 Tablespoon Chilli Powder (Mild Chilli Powder, 81p for 50g, Tesco) - 7p
• 1 1/2 Teaspoons Ground Cumin (85p for 43g, Tesco) - 4p

I'm not calculating the costs of the other spices, as only a quarter of a teaspoon is used. I'll estimate 20p for all of them.

Total - £1.54 for two people, or 77p per person.

Leftovers

• 6 Taco Shells
• Most of every single spice.
• Most of a bottle of soy sauce.
• Most of a bottle of lemon juice.

...in other words, pick up another tin of chickpeas, and have them again later in the week.  The only time-sensitive item is the taco shells.

Roasted, seasoned chickpeas.

We ate ours with vegan mayo (Mayola, £1.59 for 310g, approx 20p per tablespoon), fresh tomatoes (pack of 6 salad tomatoes, 95p, Tesco, approx 16p each), tomato purée (approx 4p per tablespoon) and salad leaves (mixed leaves, £1 per bag, Tesco, so approx 25p each).  Of course, these ingredients do up the cost, which is why I've not tagged this as under £2, but they are so worth it.  I particularly like the vegan mayo - it nicely counteracts the spiciness of the chickpeas.  Anthony prefers the tomato.

This is definitely going to be something I'll make again and again.  It takes, at most, half an hour.  You could even do more chickpeas at once, and just microwave them when you next want them.

Pret-a-Manger

So, in my last post, I mentioned a course I attended which was not able to obtain a vegan option.  Luckily, it was in the city centre, so I had a couple of options.  Both Wetherspoons and VEGed Out were not options, since I only had half an hour.  This left Burger King or Pret-a-Manger, both of which took about twenty minutes to get to and from.  I had a half hour lunchbreak.

On the first day, I went with Pret.  Every other day, I just ran down to BK, instead.  It was slightly closer, and I normally had time to choke down an entire kid's meal, rather than have to wrap it up for later.

On the last day, yesterday, I went to Pret-a-Manger instead - only to find that they've changed the range sometime this month, and taken their Crunchy Houmous Bloomer - the one vegan option - off the menu.  I didn't have time to talk to the staff at the time, since I had to hustle my ass back to Alpha Tower (I stopped by McDs and got some fries and a coke, so at least I had something to eat), but I did send them an email when I got back.  I'm not able to access the original text, since I sent it through their website, but I expressed my disappointment over their discontinuation of this range, and asked if it would be replaced with another vegan option, or if they had any I'd overlooked.  They can't just not sell any vegan sandwich, can they?  Not when EAT has one for sale? 

Apparently they can.  Here's the response I got;

Hi Kali

Thanks for taking the time to email us. I’m sorry that we’ve taken your favourite Crunchy Humous Wrap off the menu!

We like to keep things interesting at Pret and so from time to time we do vary our menu. Unfortunately, this means that on occasions we have to take someone’s favourite item off. We do however appreciate your feedback, and this will be passed onto our Food Development team. You never know, it could well make it back onto the shelves!

Maybe you could try our Superfood Salad for a vegan option.

Kind Regards

[Name Removed]
Customer Services

Spot that?  Yes, I was talking about a sandwich, not a wrap.  Secondly, I wasn't asking for platitudes; I was asking for a list of vegan options, or for information on whether this would be replaced with another vegan option.  Neither of these queries were addressed, at all.

Thirdly, I didn't describe the crunchy houmous bloomer as "my favourite".  I described it as "the only thing I can eat".  I would strongly prefer that my feedback is passed on in the form of "vegan customers have no options", rather than "someone is upset that you removed her favourite 'inaccurate description'".

Finally; no, I will not try the salad.  Salad is not enough food for an adult to get through the day (or, at least, not me).  Besides, I can make basic salads in my own kitchen, if I want one.  I don't care how good your salad is, it is not good enough to stand up as lunch by itself, as the only option. 

They also got rid of the sea salt crisps, though they might have brought those back.  I think it was simply that they were replacing the packaging, but don't quote me on that.

My response was as follows;

I was referring to the bloomer, not the wrap.  Nor was it "my favourite" menu item - it was just the only one that I could actually eat.  Is there any way my feedback can be take into account for future menu items?  I know for a fact that I was not the only vegan customer of my local store, nor in the country, and I would like to continue to be a customer.

Is a superfood salad really a comprehensive list of your vegan options?  That seems extremely limited.  Are you sure there are no other options?

I admit, my line about "my feedback" is confusing.  I meant what I stated above, that I wanted it to be said as "no vegan options", not "you removed my favourite!", but that really isn't clear from what I actually wrote in the email.  And yeah, I was snippy.  I should eat before emailing people, huh?

On the bright side, I did avoid ranting about being offered just a salad.

Some of you may wish to contact Pret-a-Manger yourselves, to ask about vegan options, or to express disappointment (that was a great sandwich, even for non-vegans).  I won't be able to patronise the store until they sell something I can consume, that's actually a decent lunch.

Update: Pret-a-Manger just sent me an allergen guide for the food. It's out of date. The fifth entry down is the exact sandwich we've just been talking about.

I went to their website myself, and found a new Morrocan Falafel and Humous sandwich, which appears to be vegan, but is not directly stated to be as such.  I'm waiting on a reply from the manager I've been corresponding with to see if that info is (a) up to date, and (b) vegan.

Update the second; The Falafel and Humous sandwich contains creme fraiche, and the up to date allergen information indicates that there are no vegan sandwiches on the menu at all.  I've asked if there's a way for me to be contacted in the event of a vegan option returning to the menu.

A Review of Katie's Caterers

(A quick note on the formal style used here - I have posted this on a few review sites, and I also intend to write it up in an email to the company).

I recently attended a training course which was catered by Katie's Catering.  I confirmed my dietary needs as a vegan more than a month in advance.

The training course was six days long, over three weekends.  For the first four days, the "vegan" option sent was a ham salad, which, obviously, I was unable to consume.  Katie's Catering was unavailable to contact by the time we had realised the error on Saturday lunchtime, both weekends, and had already left the same food for Sunday.

The final weekend, they did send an actual vegan meal - the same salad with the ham removed.  This is not a fair amount of food for an adult to get through a seven-hour day on, particularly when everyone else was offered tuna sandwiches, ham sandwiches, cheese sandwiches, egg salad sandwiches, pork pies, salad, and crisps.

There were also several complaints from vegetarian diners, as the food was not clearly labelled, and was mixed together.

There were several, extremely simple, things that Katie's Caterers could have done to make this experience better.  Simply separating and labelling the food would have been an excellent start. 

As for the vegan option itself, a very simple improvement would be to offer one sandwich made up solely of cucumber and salad, items which were all used within the food offered.  Also, a packet of ready salted crisps could have been kept back, rather than mixed with the others, since, when they are all mixed, it is impossible to tell which crisps contain whey powder or other non-vegan ingredients.  This was also a problem for vegetarian diners, as it was impossible to tell which crisps contained rennet or flavouring made from animal ingredients.

An even better choice would have involved one tray being made up of houmous and salad sandwiches, which could have been offered to all diners, and clearly marked as vegan, rather than making a totally separate option.

Full English Breakfast

...I would define this as a fry-up, even though there's very little frying involved. Which, incidentally, makes it lower in fat than the average fry-up. Score!

Yes.  Yes those are chocolate jammie dodgers in the background.  They are vegan.  I am not sorry.

For this fry-up, I'll be making vegan sausages, toast, homemade baked beans, has browns, and baked mushrooms and tomatoes. Some days, I make the sausages from scratch too, but I'm hungover today.  Again, this recipe is for two people, but you'll also have two spare portions of baked beans, which you can microwave and serve with toast for a quick breakfast another day.

I really recommend reading the directions below beforehand, because you do need to be fairly organised to get everything ready at the same time.

Ingredients

• 6 Tomatoes (Tesco, loose on the vine, approx 14p each) - 84p
• 2 Field Mushrooms (Tesco, loose, large, open, approx 42p) - 84p
• 4 Linda McCartney Veggie Sausages (Tesco, £1.60 for 6) - 80p
• 1 Onion, diced (approx 24p each, Tesco) - 24p
• 2 Cloves of Garlic, crushed (30p per bulb, Tesco) - 8p
• 1 Tin of Butter Beans, Drained (Tesco own brand, 400g) - 44p
• 1 Tablespoon Sunflower Oil (£1.58 per litre, Tesco) - 3p
• A few sprays of Fry-Light, or a similar oil spray (Tesco, £1.55 for 250ml) - 4p
• 1 Oxo Vegetable Stock Cube (Oxo, 99p for two boxes of twelve, 99p store) - 5p
• 1 Tablespoon of Tomato Puree (49p for 200g, Tesco) - 4p
• Approx 100g-150g of Potatoes (Tesco, loose, approx 12.5p per 100g) - 20p
• 1 Tablespoon Vitalite, or any vegan margarine (Tesco, Vitalite, £1.20 for 500g) - 2p
• 4 Slices of Bread (Asda, discounted ciabatta rolls, 55p for 3) - 37p
• Salt and Pepper

I really like hash browns.  The amounts given make slightly less.

Total

• Hash Browns - 22p, for two.
• Baked Beans - £1.37 for four, 69p for two.
• Sausages, Tomatoes, Mushrooms, and Toast - £2.08
• All Together - £2.99 for two, £1.50 for one.

Method

No, those aren't field mushrooms, unfortunately.
I couldn't find any.

1. The night before, peel the potatoes and boil till tender, drain, and chill in the fridge.  Leave them in fairly large chunks, so they'll be easier to grate in the morning (this will also help to prevent them from getting too soft).
2. In the morning, preheat the oven to 200 degrees c (approx 400F, or gas mark 6), grate the potatoes, dice the onion, and crush the garlic.  Fry the potatoes in the vitalite, in a frying pan, on medium heat.  Fry the onions and garlic in the saucepan, in the oil.  
3. Spray two more tomatoes and the mushrooms with fry-light, and place in the oven to bake with the sausages for 15 minutes (if you use a different brand of vegan sausages,cook them however the packet says, and stick the fry-lighted up tomatoes and mushrooms in there too).
4. While the onions and garlic are frying, deseed and chop the tomatoes.  Dilute the stock cube in 200ml of boiled water.  When the onions are translucent, add the stock and the tomatoes to the saucepan, and stir in the tomato puree.  When the hashbrowns start to brown around the edges, flip them.  
5. Let the baked bean mixture simmer for five minutes, then add the butter beans.  Allow to simmer for another five minutes (this does not need to be precise).
6. While the beans are simmering, start plating up; make the toast, and put two slices on each plate.  Take the tomatoes and mushrooms from the oven and divide; they're done when they're soft.  The hash browns are done when they're browned on both sides.  Salt and pepper to taste.

Slightly browner than this.

Leftovers

• 2 Portions of Baked Beans
• 2 Veggie Sausages
• Most of a bulb of Garlic
• Most of a bottle of Sunflower Oil
• Most of a bottle of Fry-Light
• 11 Oxo Stock Cubes
• Most of a tub of Vitalite
• Most of a loaf of Bread

In other words, apart from basic things like stock cubes, margarine, bread, and oil, you've also got a lighter breakfast for another two days.


Nutrition

In making this, I was partially inspired by Gizzi's Erskine's griddled fry-up, which comes in at 639 calories, and 33g of fat, though it does include orange juice and blueberries.  In that episode, Gizzi was trying to cut the fat of a more traditional full English, which came in at 1270 calories per portion.

According to My Fitness Pal's recipe calculator, each plate of this vegan fry-up has 654 calories, 80g of carbs, 38g of protein, 20g of fat, 13g of sugar, and 10g of fibre.  All of the fat comes from the sausages (10g in two), the sunflower oil, and the vitalite.  You can lower the latter two by using fry-light for everything.  As for the former, I would normally make my own vegan sausages, which only contain 6g of fat, for two, but which will bump the price and prep time up a bit. They are slightly higher in calories, but most of the calories come from protein, instead of fat, which means they are crazy filling.  Seriously, one is plenty.

The majority of the calories come from the ciabatta rolls, and the sausages.  Using something like two slices of Warburton's wholemeal bread will knock off almost a hundred calories compared to the ciabatta.

My Opinion on Gender; A Clarification

I would like to clarify what I meant when I stated that I think that gender roles are invented by society.

What I meant was;  little girls don't have to like pink.  They don't have to like dolls.  They don't have to like playing house, or make up, or clothes, and they don't have to grow up to be mothers who watch soap operas and gossip.  Those things do not make you a woman, and, likewise, things like liking blue and toy cars do not make you a man.

Baby Krav Vegan rejects your gender norms and replaces them with the Wombles.

This doesn't mean that gender doesn't exist or doesn't matter.  Just that you don't get to judge someone as not being a 'real' man or woman based on such ridiculous criteria.

I am cisgendered, and I think this is why my gender is not a big issue for me.  Air isn't a big deal for me either, and that's because I can breathe right now.  However, for those individuals who are not cisgendered, who, for whatever reason, feel that their outsides don't match their insides...I have no problem with them fixing it.  I don't see why it would ever be my (or anyone elses') business to have a problem with them fixing it.  I do not mind sharing a public bathroom with those individuals, or seeing them at a feminist meeting, or even having one as a rape counsellor.


I felt the need to clarify this, as the statement 'gender doesn't exist' has been used by Julie Bindel to mean something very, very different to what I meant when I said it.  To my mind, her opinions are cruel, narrow-minded, self-centred, and reprehensible, and I do not wish my opinions to be confused for anything like hers.

Transgendered people are not unhappy with the constraints of "their gender", by which Bindel means their biological gender.  It's more that their biological gender is not accurate, as far as I understand.  It's like calling me male, or a natural blonde; there's nothing wrong with those things, but they simply do not describe me.  It has nothing to do with gender constraints, it has to do with accuracy (as far as I understand, for most people I know, bearing in mind that I am both young and cisgendered).

While on the topic of Julie Bindel's opinions, I was very surprised to find that sexuality came with a uniform, as she describes in the last few paragraphs of that article.  For reals?

As a feminist, I do not object to anyone expressing their gender however they choose.  What I object to is other people telling them that this is wrong.

Feminista Summer School 2011

This weekend was the Feminista Summer School, 2011, which was held in Birmingham. This Guardian article, which I'll come back to later, describes it as a training camp for Suffragettes, which is a very inaccurate description. They also describe feminism as "a set of decades-old beliefs being repackaged for the 21st century", which is not how I'd describe it.

The Summer School, despite the name, didn't have "classes" as the article describes, and those attending weren't new recruits who were being trained in our way of feminism. Rather, the two days consisted of a variety of workshops, and were more of a way of getting together like-minded people to discuss issues they cared about, or to offer information on issues that some people may not have been able to find out much about, or may not have thought of before.

Saturday consisted of a few rousing speeches, with an introduction to the way a few different women are living and working as feminists. One of the speakers was Hannana Siddiqui, who brought an interesting point to my attention. She represented Southall Black Sisters, a group of non-white feminists. It seems that the group uses the word 'black' to describe all non-white people, and I asked about the thought process behind this.

I am writing this from memory, so it's possible I misunderstood, or misrecalled some points, but, as far as I can gather, the reasoning is that, as minority groups, non-white feminists in the seventies found it easier to band together under one collective name, for solidarity.

This isn't something I feel comfortable with. For a bit of context, my father is Indian, while my mother is a mixture of English, Irish, and Welsh. I am a Balti - part Indian, part British, all Brummie. I am not black, in the same way that I am not a man, or I am not Chinese, or I am not in my thirties, and I feel that labelling all non-white people in that way is rather like putting the Smurfette label on all women. Of course, I am coming from a very different perspective - I was born at the end of the eighties, I have no idea how the world looked in the seventies.

Later, there was a choice of workshops to attend, as you can see in this scan of the day's timetable (this is my marked-up copy, so apologies for the scribbles).

On Sunday, I spoke as part of the Everyday Activism panel, as a member of the Birmingham Fems, and as 'the one who wore pyjamas at the SlutWalk'.  I think it went well.  My desire to have EVERYONE LISTEN TO ME far outweighed any nerves, and I hope I got my points across.  I had quite a lot to say, and I'm not sure it always came out in fully formed sentences.  Most of all, I hope people enjoyed the weekend, because I certainly did.

Going back to the Guardian article; many of the commenters, apart from those who mutter darkly about lesbians trying to take over the world,  seem to feel that a feminist is a hypocrite if he or she is not concerned with male rights.  In fact, many seem to feel that the fact that the feminists commenting do not mention male rights until asked means that what they say doesn't matter.

That is bullshit.

I've seen the exact same argument in veg*n forums, against vegetarians.  The fact is, everyone does what they can.  There is too much to tackle in the world, and it's not hypocritical to not be too worried about leaving someone out to do anything.

Personally, as I mentioned (I'm Bartelmy), I would be very happy to work with Father's 4 Justice, or similar groups.  This idea, that men are the "lesser" parent, while women are, naturally, the "primary care givers" is damaging to both genders.  It means women think of themselves as failures if they are not natural earth mothers.  It means men find it harder to gain custody of their children.  However, as a twenty-three (as of last Friday) -year-old, childless, single (in the sense of unmarried) woman, this is not an area that often comes to my attention.  It does not naturally pop up on my agenda.   That doesn't mean I don't care, or I don't agree, or that I wouldn't help if asked.  Just that I, like everyone else, don't have the time or energy to do everything., so, yes, I do focus primarily on the issues that I am most concerned with.  Just because you can't clear up the whole world doesn't mean you can't take care of your little bit of it.