The Stars

You see them in magazines and movies all the time, but did you know that they're vegetarian? Yes, some of your favorite celebrities that you would never suspect are in fact vegetarians. So here's a quiz for you to test your vegetarian IQ, which one of the stars listed below are NOT vegetarian? (These images were taken from various sources on the internet)

Alec Baldwin	Richard Gere
Brad Pitt	Leanardo Di Caprio
Pamela Anderson	Christina Applegate
Natalie Portman	Shania Twain
Homer Simpson

The answer is....(drumroll)...the only celebrity above that is NOT vegetarian is.....Homer Simpson! Or is he? Is cartoon ham considered vegetarian? Hmmm...

But yes, the rest of the celebrities listed above are indeed vegetarians. And now you know.

Farmers Market II

After meeting with a general contractor we went to the downtown Portland farmers market again on Saturday. There weren't many new mushroom varieties yet. I asked the "Mushroom Man" when the white truffles will come in, and he said that they don't start coming out until around mid October. We did see Maitake mushrooms this time though.




Here's one of the mushroom guys. Same dude we took a picture of right around the same time last year. On that table is a mound of Chanterelles. No one has found a way to cultivate these mushrooms yet, so they're always harvested in the wild. Oregon harvests 500,000 pounds of these every year. They also happen to be the state mushroom. Chanterelles are prized in European cuisine, and they're known as "girolles" in Italy and "pfiferrling" in Germany.





Pictured above is Maitake. I've seen a lot of herbal supplements made from Maitake, although I'm not sure what they're supposed to promote, healthwise.





Downtown Portland's farmers market is situated right on the park blocks of Portland State University. Pictured in the background above are several vendor tents next to the university's alumni house.



Dishes:

Below are two dishes we made from some of the mushrooms we bought.



Sometime last year, fish fish, had recommended we prepare mushrooms as tempura. So here we have tempura Lobster mushroom with stir fried vegetables and crispy tofu.





Here we have noodles with brussel sprouts and three kinds of mushrooms: Shiitake, Maitake, and Chanterelles. Everything tasted so fresh. Nothing's better than organic vegetables and wild mushrooms straight from the farmers market.



Restaurant Update:

We sent the lease contract addendum to the landlord and hope to be able to sign the lease later this week. Several construction contractor bids came back this week and the numbers look good for the most part. We'll meet with one more general contractor this Wednesday.

Mushroom Season

It's the beginning of mushroom season, with the first harvests for wild mushrooms having just arrived. Phan and I went to the farmers market today to buy some.

Can you guess what kinds of mushrooms are these?



The big orange one on the left is lobster mushroom. This one's nice and firm and it does sort of taste like lobster. They're selling for $8/lbs. The mushrooms on the right are Chanterelles, they're $6/lbs. The ones on the bottom are Matsutake, the most expensive, at $32/lbs.




Aaah, wild Matsutake....I wonder what Phan will make out of this. I'm still waiting for the white truffles harvest to come in. Maybe next week.




Tadaaa! The matsutake made its home on this soba noodle atop a bed of crisp organic lettuce, accompanied with purple and red potatos fresh from the farmer's market. The potatoes were baked with grounded coriander and fennel.

The matsutake was out of this world. It was absolutely sumptuous, with flavors bursting with aromatic reverie. Mmmm, delicious. We have to get some more.


Restaurant Update:

Our lawyer have looked over the lease contract and he will be working on writing addendums to the contract this weekend and have it available to us by Monday. Once we receive the addendums, we'll review it with our realtor next week before we send it to the landlord.

Sunday Dinner

Tonight we had some friends we met from NorthWest Veggie over for dinner. After dinner we watched a wonderful Japanese film, "Tampopo", a comedy about a lady who puts her heart and sweat to make her Ramen eatery successful after she took it over from her husband who passed away.

Here are the lucky diners, ready to start the meal.






Here's a picture of Bob, happy with his bowl of Phan's noodle soup. If you had a bowl of Phan's noodle soup, you'd be happy too!




For appetizer we had gluten meat wrapped in crispy fried bean curd on top of sweet tomato & jack fruit sauce.




The first entree was a miso lemongrass soup. Very flavorful. It had the wonderful aroma of lemongrass, the sweetness of Thai tom yum soup, and the richness of Japanese miso soup. Green veggies and tofu stuffed with eggplant accompanies the soup.



The second entree was fried thick rice noodles. Forgot to take a photo of this one, oops!

For dessert, we had black glutinous rice with tapioca, purple yam, and coconut milk. It was mmmmm delicious. Just the right amount of sweetness, and the texture was divine; firm but not too firm, with a certain chewiness to it. Had some more later that night.




On an update on our restaurant, we're finished with the lease negotiations for the new location and just received the lease contract from the landlord. We've sent the contract to the bank for review and if they approve the new location, we'll have our lawyer look through the contract before we sign it. In the meantime, we're also having our contractors bid on the construction work for that property so that we'll have contractors ready when it's time to start the renovation.

Gonna Pump....You Up!

Today's Quiz

Okay boys and girls, we're going to take a little quiz here. Which one of these buff dudes is vegetarian?

Buff dude #1

Buff dude #2

Buff dude#3

The correct answer is....(drum roll)....all three of them. The first buff dude is vegetarian and the other two are totally vegan.

These pictures are taken from VeganBodyBuilder.com. The first photo is of Zachary Hocker, the winner of the 2004 PETA Sexiest Vegetarian Alive Contest.

How the heck do these guys pack on the muscles on a vegetarian diet? Awhile ago, I wrote a post on sources of vegetarian protein, you can check it out there. Like their meat-eating counterparts, to bulk up, vegetarian bodybuilders spread out their meals to 5 or 6 a day and do their weightlifting workouts 3 to 4 days a week. They also make sure that their meals are protein packed, which is not a problem on a vegetarian diet. And like their meat-eating counterparts, vegetarian bodybuilders consume nutrient-rich food that provides enough carbs, vitamins, minerals, and fats. A certain amount of fat is needed, because some vitamins cannot be absorbed without it (fat-soluble Vitamins A, D, E, and K).

I just want to get the word out that, yes, bodybuilding on a vegetarian diet is a viable option. And a healthy one at that.

Now...back to our regularly scheduled program, some pictures of yummilicious vegetarian food. The first one is spinach curry, second is crispy tofu with broccoli, and the third is fried purple string bean (which turned green after cooking).