meansoybean

While waiting for the day I can adopt another kitty, I often find myself browsing the adoption ads on Montreal’s Craiglist. I see listings from Reach For The Stars constantly, so I do know they try their hardest to find forever homes for their little guys. I found this in my inbox tonight and thought I’d share. If you can, donate a little and help these critters out. Any bit counts.

Just a note, if you make a donation through the widget it’ll take some minutes for it to refresh with your contribution after the transaction has gone through. Phew!

URGENT & TIME SENSITIVE
Your help is needed today to save the animals!

In the recent past Reach For The Stars Rescue had to hospitalize over a dozen pups suffering from the same serious symptoms. One by one the pups developed symptoms like vomitting, bloody diarrhea, lack of appetite or thirst and an inability to keep down even a few drops of water. We were very fortunate that all but one pup recovered which, while we mourn the loss of Yedrin, was a very lucky outcome. At this time all but 2 of the surviving 16 puppies have been adopted by active and enthusiastic families. Two, Carina and Cepheus, remain in a caring foster home waiting for their loving forever families to find them.

Meanwhile, we at RFTSR have incurred a rather sizeable debt and need to raise the money to pay back these vet, food, etc… bills. This situation has begun to affect the other animals in our care namely in regards to simple basics like food, vaccinations and spay/neuter surgeries in a timely fashion. These are some of the bare minimum needs of each animal that we need your support to provide.

What we need most urgently is FOOD!
We currently owe $1000 to the place we get our food from (and yes, we have an incredible deal we simply used that much food during this whole fiasco). The woman who we get our food from has been incredibly kind and compassionate and generous with us. Now we need to pay her back and buy more food. We need to raise at least $2000 by April 3rd 2010!

If you have ever considered opening your heart and giving to rescue animals now is the time. http://reachforthestarsrescue.chipin.com/food

Heh. See this? I just ate it for breakfast with a latté. What, don’t judge me.

I was about to make a peanut butter and strawberry jam sammich when I spotted the opened Lindt Madagascar 65% cocoa dark chocolate slab on the counter. With the PB already smeared, why not? I promptly stuffed a good sized piece between the slices.

The Madagascar and Cuba editions of Lindt dark chocolate are amazing. The latter is 55% cocoa, and is probably as close as a vegan will get to a milk chocolate-like texture. The 65% is pretty smooth too, if you have to settle for it.

So much simpler, and less sweet, than that awful Aux Vivres waffle I had to choke down last weekend (shakes fist). Never again.

Geez, it’s been a long time. Forgiveness, please. But I return with some news about additions to the Aux Vivres menu! They have a Mango Lassi on the smoothie list and now offer a Waffle Plate at brunch. I went in today with high expectations for the Plate and, having just returned home, I’m not sure if it’ll be a hit.

For $10.95 you get a round, non-Belgian (yay!) waffle topped with fruit (chopped strawberries, a few blue & rasp berries, etc) and whipped cream. Also on the plate, there was banana with a pineapple slice and orange segment. This all came with maple syrup and cashew cream on the side. Oh, and I chose a Chai over the coffee.

It was indeed pretty, as the waitress said, and I took a bite before I remembered to take a bad picture with my phone. The first bite was amazing, and I was giddy. It reminded me of a strawberry roll cake that my mom used to make with sponge cake, whipped cream and strawberries. But by the end, the sweetness of the everything got to me, making me feel really queasy and weird. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have used the maple syrup. The cashew cream is sweet enough for my current tastes.

In terms of value, I think it’s overpriced and Vivres should consider putting another half-waffle and the plate at the very least. Otherwise, left as is, it’ll be designated as a special occasion brunch item only. Compared to Le Complet and La Polenta, you just don’t feel like you’re getting your money’s worth with the Waffle.

Bleh, even at the end of this post I feel funny. And cranky, probably from all that sugar. Bleh indeed.

Added 2010/04/25:
Ahahah, I was at Aux Vivres today and saw that they revised the Waffle Plate. It’s now 2 waffles for $10.95 and 1 for $8.95. Wonder if someone read this review. Now, if only they’d hire me as a baker with just home experience.

I boast self-taught when it comes to Photoshop and Illustrator. And I do pretty well for someone who relies heavily on these apps at work. What can I say, I like to make things pretty. But I’m not officially a Graphic Designer, I’m just lucky.

This is old, via Gizmodo, but it’s just an amazing use of Illustrator. It’s crazy how much time went into making this illustration, and how fast the average person would skim over it. It’s pretty much a thankless job — believe me, I know. A lot of fellow office peeps think it’s “magic”, much in the same way that I’m “good at computers”, according to them. I’m really just tech-savvy, is all.

This one comes via i09, and it’s an equally neat use of Photoshop. I’ve had to fix up my fair share of photos, but cobbling together separate ones to create a totally new image is hard work!

I only hope that, one day, I can be as good as these creators. I’m fortunate enough to have work cover these programs for me. If you’re looking for a free equivalent, I suggest GIMP as a replacement for Photoshop — it takes some getting used to, and Inkscape for vector-based creations. The latter is pretty, pretty, pretty good, as Larry David would put it. I personally recommend it.

… over at The Kitchn: “Help Settle This Debate: Are Eggs Meat?”
For a vegan this is a non-issue, but the comments on that post are pretty amusing. Check em out.

Also, remember that cold brewed coffee from earlier this week? I found it on a major Kitchn tangent. I looked through almost 70 back pages of posts over the span of 3 days, thanks to the “save tabs” feature in Firefox. At some point I had to stop because it was getting ridiculous. Good site, just not vegan-oriented (you’ve been warned).