Spurred on by Eater’s recent write-up of Scott Zwiezen’s new modest but excellent middle eastern café in Atwater Village, we’re officially adding our numbers to the roster of Dune‘s unofficial fan club.

Zweizen, who runs Elf in Echo Park—one of our favorite vegetarian restaurants in Los Angeles—opened the standing room only, light-filled space a little after the new year. We just got a chance to swing by and test out the much-buzzed-about Organic Green Herb Falafel a little over a month ago and are overdue for a trip back.

The highlight of the stripped down menu, for vegans and non-vegans alike, is Dune’s Organic Green Herb Falafel (above)—a beautifully chaotic culinary maelstrom of crispy-on-the-outside, fresh-flavor-explosion-on-the-inside balls of falafel, hummus, tahini, herbs, crispy shoestring potatoes, and pop-of-color house pickles all wrapped up in house-made flatbread.

Dune’s located at 3134 Glendale Boulevard and open seven days a week, but with one of our favorite farmers markets across the street on Sundays, we love stopping by after loading up on fresh vegetables for the week. You can see Dune’s full menu on their equally pared down Web site.

Next up in the southern California world of falafel: Grand Central Market’s new spot, Madcapra!

I know that I am prone to hyperbole and overuse of affirming superlatives when it comes to things I really like in the heat of the moment, but I’ve had a few days to cool off and put things in perspective since seeing Canadian band, Braids, play at the Lyric Friday night and I can now sincerely back up my over-the-top gushing via Instagram—Braids put on what has to be the best show I’ve experienced in my entire life.

For fear of further embarrassing myself further, I’ll remain succinct and simply say that anyone and everyone should see this band live. They moved me deeply and I’l love them forever for that.

Below, they’re very awesome video for the very awesome song, “Miniskirt”, off their newly released, highly recommended third album, Deep in the Iris.

Tomorrow, in our role as store-runners and creative directors at MooShoes Los Angeles, we’re hosting the grassroots animal liberation group Resistance Ecology at the store, donating 10% of the day’s sales to their work and, as an added bonus, bringing in Southern Fried Vegan, who will have many of their trademark, delectable vegan versions of popular southern and soul food classics and also donating a portion of sales to RE.

If you’re in the southern California area tomorrow, stop by—we’re at 3116 Sunset in Silver Lake, open 11-7, and serving food until it’s gone.

Leading up to the event, though, we thought we’d take a moment to find out more about Resistance Ecology, the work the group does, and the concept behind it and its work in talking with the group’s co-founder, Justin Kay.

raven + crow: So, first off, tell me about Resistance Ecology. How + when did it form?

Justin Kay: Resistance Ecology formed in 2012 as a response to the absence of grassroots networking and critical analysis in the animal liberation movement. After years of campaigning and action, a group formed in Portland to address these gaps with a focus on radical movement building, coalition building, and solidarity.

And the name—does that speak to the core mission of the group? How was that chosen?

“Resistance Ecology” speaks to the overlapping, interdependent, and specific oppressions that structure the world around us—an “ecology” of oppression. Resistance Ecology developed as a praxis of advocacy that acknowledged the systemic nature of oppression by advancing an approach that is rooted in coalition building and solidarity.

Do you see yourself primarily as an animal rights/liberation group then?

Yes, we still do, because it is important for us to position ourselves in the animal lib movement and avoid the erasure of specific oppressions through a process of uniformity that often results from AR discourse surrounding “intersectionality.” We come from different histories and social positions, specifically as animal advocates, and we need to own that in order to move forward and genuinely talk about solidarity. Solidarity means nothing if we believe we all struggle in the same way.

I definitely get the idea of a holistic approach to these issues that are inevitably connected, but do you ever worry that—as a group—you’re tackling too much or not honing in enough on specific, finite problems and solutions?

Specific problems do not really exist in a vacuum. Animal use does not exist in a vacuum. Pragmatically it is important that advocates can come to see individual campaigns as part of the larger narrative of liberation or resistance, and be able to seat those things in a political and social context. Yes it can be difficult to approach every issue with a structural analysis, but it is foolish to approach issues in the absence of it.

Honestly, reading through your materials, the concepts seem very logical and well-thought-out in an academic way, but I have a hard time visualizing how that’s turned into direct action; not that the higher concept planning and strategy aren’t valuable, just that I envision getting so wrapped up in the talking and planning that little time or energy is left for action. Do you all focus on specific actions or campaign or are you more of a forum for like-minded activists? …or both?

We are both a forum and network of like-minded activists and folks who work on specific campaigns and support specific campaigns. Campaigns and organizations that we support and help to organize, and which reflect our core praxis, include No New Animal Lab (a project of RE), Wildlife Defense League, Food Empowerment Project, and Marineland Animal Defense. We also specifically support and intentionally give space to indigenous land defense campaigns—Unist’ot’en Camp, Madii Lii Camp, Utah Tar Sands Resistance, Apache Stronghold, Klabona Keepers, and Imperial No More—to name a few.

That makes sense. So it’s more about creating this community and common language for the activist community and understanding the interconnectedness of these issues so everyone can take that back to their specific fights. Love that you all work with Food Empowerment Project too—we did that logo for lauren and everyone at FEP a good bit back and have been fans of their work ever since.

We just love lauren and the work that she does and we often give space and support FEP (such as at the conference).

Yeah, it seems like your annual conference is a big part of your work. Can you talk about that and its goals for participants and organizers?

Resistance Ecology really started as a conference. Currently there are almost no grassroots, free, and open to the public animal liberation conferences in the US. The National Animal Rights Conference is not an open or inclusive space. It is structured to keep grassroots activism at bay. It is expensive to attend and to table—several hundred dollars expensive. It only provides space for large nonprofits. It is not representative of the movement we want—not at all. So we started RE as a response to these issues—lack of critical analysis, no meaningful discussion about coalition building or solidarity, unwillingness to critique our failures and obstacles, poor understanding of repression, etc—and we created an alternative.

For three years, the Resistance Ecology Conference has served as a beacon on the path to grassroots animal liberation. We aspire to create a forum to unite animal liberationists, land defenders, and organizers to share skill sets and resources, to report and recruit, to coordinate campaigns, and to promote solidarity, coalition organizing and mass movement building against the structures that underpin animal use and ecological destruction on the continent— Euro-settler colonialism, white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, neoliberalism, and border imperialism.

We challenge the professionalization, corporate assimilation, consumer-orientation, and one-dimensional analysis of the so-called animal “rights” movement in the west that is founded in positions of social power and is made possible through settler colonialism, capitalism, and patriarchy. The goal of the conference is to identify these analytical and structural barriers within the animal liberation movement as barriers that prevent us from creating the radical analysis, solidarity, and mass movement necessary to affect meaningful change for animals.

No, I was just talking with someone about how exclusive and ridiculously overpriced the AR National Conference is. It just serves to push the movements further and further into the privileged and elite mentalities. Your 2015 conference just wrapped up a couple weeks ago though—how was it?

The 3rd Annual RECon was a big success. We heard a lot of great feedback from attendees and presenters. Most importantly, it served as a forum for folks to be able to network. Networking is probably the best part of any conference, and by far the most effective. This year was a bit different in that we brought in folks working on indigenous resistance, land defense, decolonization, and anti-colonial struggle so that we could situate animal exploitation on North America in that context. It was going out on a limb for sure, but it paid off well. Relationships were built and difficult discussions were forged. We hope to see some solid, on-the-ground follow up to it all.

In the end, it seems like the 2015 conference is the best representation so far of the movement that we want to help create. There was a bit of a shift away from some of the intellectual foundations, towards a look at what is happening on the ground—physical resistance, occupations, blockades, campaigns, direct action—so that attendees could better conceptualize what a “resistance ecology” would look like temporally, spatially, and strategically.

Lofty but worthy goals, man. Awesome that the conference is free, by the way. How do you pull that off?

We work with a student group at Portland State University—Student Animal Liberation Coalition—who co-organizes the conference and can reserve the space for free. The majority of the organizing collective are students, actually. In reality, though it costs a lot of money, that shouldn’t undermine the obligation to create free and open spaces for movement forums. No conference should cost money. It defeats their entire purpose. The idea that some conferences (such as the National Animal Rights Conference) parade themselves as grassroots yet cost hundreds of dollars, between attendance and tabling and hotel rooms, is one of the biggest jokes that the animal “rights” movement is playing on itself. You’d think that a conference with a budget of over $100,000 dollars could at least provide free and relatively inclusive space. This is the cost of having almost all of our movement resources siphoned by the nonprofit industrial complex, branded with names like PETA, MFA, HSUS, FARM, Humane League, or COK. We literally buy into it. We fall for it over and over.

The solution is to decentralize these movement spaces and forums. Take them back from the “Animal Rights Cartel” and build local and regional capacity and skill sets…find community-run spaces; look into colleges and universities; connect with other communities, organizations, and movements; connect with students. It’s pretty simple and that’s all that we are doing—it’s basic organizing 101. The fact that such advocacy models and organizing capabilities are now so illusory, especially to animal advocates, is a testament to how nonprofits have seriously harmed our movement.

So, outside of conferences themselves, do you see that as a hurdle for many people wanting to be involved in activism these days, the price tag sometimes associated with it?

Absolutely. Movement building means we should be building local skills, resources, and capacity. We currently have a top-down, silo-oriented model of animal advocacy. Resources are funneled, into large established nonprofits with multi-million dollar revenues and paid executive staff, and this causes the grassroots to be hemorrhaging at low capacity. This dynamic helps them to further consolidate power, push their corporate brand, and integrate themselves into to the larger movement. New folks get involved and then think the only way to do activism locally is order some signs and leaflets from one of these organizations. That only perpetuates the cycle. What is lost is the ability of communities to develop skills—writing, journalism, graphic and web design, campaign development, strategy, fundraising—all of which are essential to grassroots organizing. We thus become financially and organizationally dependent on the larger groups, who ironically are sucking our resources dry. It’s the cycle of the nonprofit industrial complex, and is perhaps one the worst hurdles to grassroots mobilizing.

You’ve spoken to this a little already, but, in my more activist-centric youth, one thing we always struggled with in the animal rights, environmental, and feminist communities was the one-dimensionality of our membership—more often than not, it was the white, middle-/upper-class opting in, which invariably guides how you function as a group and the way you impact social change. Do you see that getting better in recent years or do you still view that as a big problem?

It’s still a big problem. The dialogue is getting more visible, due to social media, thoughtful blogs, and solid academics, which is important. It’s the very positioning of animal liberation that leads us down this path though. Until we trace the history of animal use as tangential to European imperial and colonial endeavors, market capitalism, and centralized nation-states, we will inevitably appeal primarily to affluent and privileged communities. We aren’t really challenging power with the analysis that we’ve constructed around animal liberation, so we tend to have a hard time appealing to those whose daily realities are the subjects of power and oppression—people of color, queer and trans folks, indigenous nations, migrants and undocumented folks.

It’s hard to take seriously the suggestion that we’ve made any progress when those in the “Animal Rights Cartel” applaud racists like Sheriff Joe for making his jails vegetarian as a cost-saving measure, praise Israel for vegan boots in the IDF, collude with prosecutors and ICE to deport migrants working in factory farms, or use transphobic analogies to criticize KFC. It’s a joke. As long as anyone supports these organizations, it’s a joke to say we’ve made progress.

Man. This is a lot to digest. How long have you all been doing the magazine, though?

We started the magazine in 2013 along with the first conference.

Is the hope for it that you’re providing an access point to those who can’t make it to the conferences?

That’s part of the intention. It’s also a throwback to days when the movement was scattered throughout social media tirades and rants in the comment section of a blog. We used to have our thoughts and critiques, strategies and tactics, networks and relationships bound in the pages of movement publications like No Compromise, Liberator, Do or Die, Underground, Arkangel, or the Earth First! Journal or in campaign/organization newsletters from SHAC, Save the Hillgrove Cats, or the Liberation Leagues. Again this is all about accessibility—the more ways that folks can learn and get plugged in, the better.

We really like the cover art for the summer 2014 issue. Who did that and how do you seek contributions, in general?

Matt Gauck did the illustration. He has a done a ton of stuff for us and countless other groups doing good work.

For contributions we do a combination of direct asks and soliciting requests for contribution through email lists, social media posts, and website posts.

What are some campaigns coming up that you’re really excited about starting in on this year?

The No New Animal Lab campaign—which is by far the most exciting grassroots animal liberation campaign in the US. It’s a pressure campaign, the vein of SHAC, Hillgrove, and SPEAC, aimed at stopping the construction of a massive centralized animal research facility in Seattle. Check out NoNewAnimalLab.com to learn more.

Well, we’re excited to host you all Saturday. Thanks for taking the time to talk and tell us more about the group.

You can visit RE’s Web site to learn more about the group, their work, and to get involved; if yore in the Los Angeles area, you can also come to MooShoes tomorrow to speak with members of RE—check out the Facebook event page to find out more about the event.

Below, a photo from Resistance Ecology’s most recent conference, just after a panel on land defense and indigenous resistance; a couple shots from the No New Animal Lab campaign 500-person march on the University of Washington; a recent 12-hour lockdown the group caused on the UW lab construction site; and, tot he right, a 32-foot banner an activist hung in a tree on the campus, all photos courtesy of RE.

One source I’ve looked to for new, lesser-known music since at least 2003 is New York City’s Other Music—a tiny record store just north of Houston off Broadway that staffs some of the most passionate, knowledgable music fans I’ve ever met.

In addition to having the brick-and-mortor and what is now a pretty deep Web store, Other also sends out regular emails rich with their highly curated best picks for new independent and world music.

I’ve discovered countless bands through those emails, the most recent of which was Melbourne, Australia’s Dick Diver, a four-piece that evokes the jangley, raw Brit Pop of the 60’s while filtering the sound through their own unique, contemporary lens.

We got a chance to speak with guitarist, Rupert Edwards, about the band’s stellar new album, Melbourne, Florida, their coming tour of the US, and the band’s unique sound. Stream the new album in full below and read on.

raven + crow: Alright, this is almost always our first question to bands…but it’s especially your first question—where does that band name come from?

Rupert Edwards: Dick Diver is the name of the main character from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s less famous novel Tender Is The Night, which is a title he took from a Keats poem and which was also used for the title of a crappy song on the Blur album 13. Lots of people have pointed out the parallels between the Fitzgerald’s Dick Diver and the character Don Draper in Mad Men. Umm, there are zero parallels between the character Dick Diver and us.

So, no cheeky double-entendre with the name then? I know. My mind’s ever in the gutter.

When I read the Fitzgerald book, I didn’t really register the absurdity of the name. But I sure did when the band took it.

And you’re from Melbourne, Australia, correct?

Yep.

But then your new album—out this past March on Trouble in Mind—is confusingly called Melbourne, Florida. Are you all just trying to mess with our minds? What’s the story behind that album title?

It just seemed right! There’s no rational explanation, really, but messing with your/our minds probably has something to do with it.

Fair enough. You all have been a band for a while—2008, I think—but I first heard of you last month, when one of favorite records stores, NYC’s Other Music, reviewed the new record. Do you feel like you all have hit some sort of stride as a band or broken out to some new audiences? Or maybe I’m just late to the game here…..

Having a record out on Trouble In Mind has made a big difference and I think we were confident in making this record.

Did you go into writing the new album with anything in mind? Any…goals?

I think we wanted to try things we hadn’t attempted before, like getting horns in. I hoped that this record would be a bit more ‘complex’ in that it might take a while for someone to get it but who knows if that worked out.

Well, speaking as new fan, it’s great regardless of what came before. For our non-Aussie readers, though, can you tell us what “dolewave” is…and why it must be destroyed?

‘Dolewave’ was a word invented in 2012 or 2013 by someone on a message board as a joke. It was meant to describe or poke fun at a bunch of Australian bands who sung about ‘every day life’ rather than, I dunno, ‘feeling spiritual in a forest’. The joke was taken up by a few music journalists. It had to be destroyed because Real Bands want people to know that they feel misunderstood.

Consider it forgot by this writer. But how did your particular sound as a band develop? Or is that an inane question? I feel like you all are the closest contemporary band to reflect the jangly, chaotic pop bliss of Brit 60s band, The Action, but you’re not at all derivative or sounding like you’re trying to reinvent older sounds.

Don’t think it’s an inane question. I think it’s this unspoken thing where you play together more and you become aware of the things you might be able to pull off…so we’d try those things and and sometimes they’d work.

What’s the musical scene like in Melbourne (the Australian one)? I think my most recent exposure to Australian indie was the Aussie BBQ here in LA last year, where Glass Towers and Gossling and Jungle Giants and a bunch of other bands from Australia played before SXSW 2014. Beyond that, I feel pretty out-of-touch with any prevailing “sound”.

Don’t know much about those bands, but it’s very diverse in Melbourne. The idea of a prevailing sound I guess is dependent on how much any sound is given attention; that is, I’m not sure if there’s such a thing.

Yeah, I have no idea how big the scene is—seemingly much bigger than I’d previously thought. Do you all know of Love of Diagrams though? Another Melbourne band I fell in love with that I fell like I haven’t heard much from of late.

Yep, we’ve seen them play a bunch of times and I think played with them once or twice. They just put out a new record this year!

Look at that! I had no idea—thanks, man!

Is it tough as a small band to play state-side? I feel like so many non-US artists we talk to have many financial hurdles to overcome to play over here that you don’t have to deal with in other countries. Seems like a terrible shame.

Touring isn’t cheap. It’s the usual time and money thing and balancing that with work and stuff back home.

Totally. Are you all excited for your American shows tough?

For sure! We’d be stupid babies if we weren’t.

Took the words right from my mouth. We’re psyched to see you in LA, and Baby’s All Right in Brooklyn’s a great venue, but anywhere in particular you’re excited about playing or visiting over here?

Really looking forward to playing in Chicago where Trouble In Mind is based, and also going to North Carolina, Texas, and Georgia.

Did not see those last three coming—nice. Any plans for any particularly American recreation? Disneyworld? Hollywood sign? NASCAR?

Al Montfort from DD is a connoisseur of fucked up gas station snack foods so it’ll be fun to see that happening.

Look for Chick-O-Sticks nationwide and Twang Pickle in the south. Also, keep an eye out if you hit Pennsylvania for some especially fucked up chip flavors. Hey, non sequitur, but I love the new album’s artwork. What’s the design/art behind you all?

That’s a big mural/painting that Steph Hughes (who’s in DD) made. She’s done all the art and design for the band from the start.

Yeah, looking at her work, she does some great stuff. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with us. Can’t wait to see you all in LA

Rock on.

I will do that.

Brooklyn, you can catch DD at Baby’s All Right on July 7;  Los Angeles, we’ve got them at Jewels on West Pico ten days later on the 17th; everybody else, check their Facebook Tour page to see when they’re in your neck of the woods.

You can get Melbourne, Florida—the band’s excellent new album—on CD and vinyl through Trouble in Mind; it’s available digitally through iTunes.

We just added the lookbooks we did for New York-based vegan shoe comapny Novacas to our work portfolio.

Novacas is the house brand of MooShoes, so it’s one that’s especially close to our hearts and one that Sara + Erica back in New York thankfully have a lot of control over in terms of production—not only are the shoes 100% vegan and animal-free, they’re also produced in worker-friendly, fair-wage factories in Portugal out of PVC-free materials. So, good for the animals, good for the people, good for the earth.

From a purely design-minded perspective, it’s also a brand we’ve defined and driven for may years now, so it’s always exciting to take that brand to new levels year after year.

You can see more images from these most recent lookbooks and download full PDFs through our portfolio.

The two most recent books feature a custom cover pattern inspired by a visit to an ancient Chinese art exhibit. Astute readers may also recognize the color palette from the spring 2015 cookbook (below).

Scoff as we may at Café Gratitude‘s notoriously over-the-top, self-affirming, hippie dippy naming of its menu items, we—like most Angelenos who’ve given the place a fair shot—love their food.

Health-minded, plant-based menu items with an ever-rotating roster of seasonal specials that more often than not leave you energetically satisfied, the café’s nomenclature, legitimately creepy cult-y origins, and general gestählt are a stand-up’s dream come true, but, at the end of the day, the reason for the small chain’s success is good food done well.

With crazy names. And employees being pressured to join the Landmark Forum. And wait staff asking you what you’re thankful for.

All that aside, we are personally thankful that they’ve teamed up Patina Restaurant Group—the group behind a bevy of well-regarded restaurants on both coasts and the Hollywood Bowl‘s myriad dining services—to make the Bowl’s take-out + dine-in options roughly 1000% more animal-friendly. In addition to take-out meals and desserts from Gratitude, Patina also offers a picnic basket you can order from the café’s latin-themed sister restaurant, Gracias Madre (one of our favorite spots in LA).

As Patina stated in a press release last month:
“Adding to the dining experience for 2015, Patina Restaurant Group has partnered with Café Gratitude and sister restaurant Gracias Madre, celebrated leaders in the plant-based culinary community. Café Gratitude and Gracias Madre will provide an expansive all-organic menu available at both Market Cafés, Rooftop Grill, The Wine Bar, and Staccato. New plant-based offerings presented through the collaboration include raw pesto kelp noodles, raw tiramisu, and more.”

Café Gratitude, pre-packaged offerings include a coconut bacon vegan BLT wrap (pictured below); raw pesto kelp noodles; a macrobiotic bowl with sea palm, shredded kale, and kimchi; “Yo Soy Bueno”, a Mexican grain bowl with cashew nacho cheese (also pictured below); and a number of other entrée and dessert items, including a raw vegan tiramisu (below).

For our money, everything we tried was great, but the BLT won for tastiness and ease-of-eating. The tiramisu was really good, but we’d recommend eating it right after buying it, while it’s still chilled.

And the vegan picnic basket from Gracias, which we saw from afar but have yet to experience first-hand, includes two tempeh “chorizo” torta with black beans, avocado, pico de gallo, pickled cabbage, and cashew crema; house-made tortilla chips; guacamole; roasted tomato salsa; pumpkin seed Caesar salad with cashew Caesar dressing; and a gluten-free fudge brownie with cinnamon chocolate sauce (serves two, $75). Pre-order the basket via the Hollywood Bowl to pick up at your leisure or have it delivered to your seat, all fancy like.

So, next time you’re headed to the bowl, not wanting weigh yourself down with home-made or store-bought animal-friendly options, and cool dropping some Los Angeles foodie-level cash on some food, we’d recommend the new offerings. You can rationalize/offset the cost by bringing some cheap libations from Trader Joe’s or something.

Sadly, in addition to jumping on the “plant-based” trend, Patina’s also jumped at the opportunity to be an asshole created by California’s overturning of the statewide foie gras ban earlier this year. So don’t be surprised by the various Bowl menus’ sudden saturation with that cruel product, including a—*sigh*—foie gras-stuffed burger.

Two steps forward, one step back?

On the plus side for the aforementioned stand-up comics who might be tired of Gracias Madre jokes, Patina also now offers a menu of “international and domestic spring waters carefully selected by America’s only water sommelier, Martin Riese”.

So have fun with that, guys.

Below, photos of BLT, Mexican grain bowl, and tiramisu, all paired with exceedingly positive namings. And Katie, who’s just all around positive as is.

Father’s Day has almost always been a tough one for me.

Even before he died some 12 years back, now, I’d chosen for various reasons to put up walls between us. By the time I got the call that he was gone, my father and I were largely estranged, me having made it clear that I didn’t want him in my life anymore.

It was out of defensiveness, it was out of anger, it was out of a fear that he was a dark reflection of myself in a distant mirror I’d spend years turning away from, but mostly, it was out of a clear vision of what I wanted my life to be and there was no place in it for the broken person he’d become.

Writing this out now and looking back on it all, it’s hard not to wish more sympathy upon my younger self in some distant hope of spending more time with my dad or maybe even helping him, but I know now as I did then that neither of those things were even remotely possible. He’d strayed so far from the person in this photograph and, for the most part, he’d chosen to be at that place in his life.

But even knowing all of that, especially on days like this, I still have so many fond memories of my dad. He missed a lot of me and my brother growing up, and, when he came back and re-married my mom when I was in high school, things were far from perfect, but there were some bright, shining seconds before things started getting really bad with him. I was starting to become more of who I am now, as an adult, and we shared a lot of bonding moments that I hold all the more dear with him now so long gone.

Many such moments involved music. Less us sharing musical tastes then, necessarily—he was a solid, true blue classic rock fan and I was an avid alt + industrial kid at the time. But he saw a passion for music in me and, him having that too, it gave us a broad common interest and language. I’ve still got countless memories of him trying to win me over to this band or that; many of which I funnily enough now actually do like.

One band that he loved that I simply could not stomach at that age was British band, Dire Straits. I still remember him trying to explain the lyrics to “Money for Nothing” to me and me openly mocking them.

Fast forward to today, when I can rarely get through last year’s Lost in the Dream by the War on Drug‘s without getting a little weepy, they remind me so much of Dire Straits and those conversations in the car with my dad.

So this one’s for you, dad. It’s a live version of my favorite track off the album. I think you’d like it. I know we had a strained, complicated relationship over the years, but I loved you and I know you loved me. I’m so sorry your life didn’t turn out better than it did. I miss you.

Came across this old outtake from a shoot we did for some custom wedding invites years back.

Bon weekend, all.

In addition to getting back to New York from some work and play, we also headed over to eastern Pennsylvania for an old friend’s wedding that just happened to be one town over from the world-famous Vegan Treats, one of the oldest and best vegan bakeries in the US.

Started in ’98 by the talented baker + confectioner, Danielle Konya, the bakery has long served New York, consistently delivering cakes and sweets to vegan and vegetarian restaurants for years. Danielle’s Peanut Butter Bomb was a mainstay for our east coast birthday parties and responsible for winning over quite a few non-vegan friends to the wonders of vegan sweets.

So it was a pleasure to finally, after so many years, visit the source of our longtime sweet tooth joys this past weekend. Suffice it to say, the joint did not disappoint. I only wish my appetite could match the seemingly limitless, sugary bounty that Vegan Treats provides—curse you stomach!

If you’re in the Lehigh Valley area…or even if you’re not and you’re a fan, we’d definitely recommend a visit. Their brick + mortar’s open 7 days a week, 10AM-9PM Monday – Thursday; 10AM-10PM Friday – Sunday. You can also check Vegan Treats’ locator to see if anyone near you carries Danielle’s cakes, doughnuts, and other offerings.

Below, some of the many, many, many vegan treats of Vegan Treats, including but not limited to their highly recommended powdered raspberry jelly-filled doughnut; the Boston cream doughnut; chocolate-covered and traditional cannolis; gobs or whoopee pies, depending on from where you hail; a ton of nearly too beautiful to eat tiny cakes; and complimentary pins + straight-edge shirting (non-edible).

Another new vegan-friendly favorite restaurant we were introduced to in New York was Cafe Tibet in Ditmas/Flatbush (also known as Top Cafe Tibet), a small, unassuming space just above the Q train and next to the Cortelyou stop.

Though it’s far from totally vegetarian or vegan, the restaurant features what all vegans seek in ‘exotic’, non-American cuisine—a menu with a bevy of items labeled ‘vegan’ and staff that know what that term means.

The service is…let’s say not overtly or intentionally mediocre, they more come off with a friendly indifference, which might rub some the wrong way. We were pleased enough though with that end of things, especially given that the food was so good at such a great price.

We sat on the patio with friends, enjoying the return to über-urban dining as the train and coin-operated kiddy horse out front took turns punctuating our conversation for us and ordered what was likely way too much food.

Favorite among the offerings were the not-so-traditionally named Rock + Roll Fried Noodles with Tofu (pictured above), crispy pan fried noodles with teriyaki + fresh vegetables; the Veg Momos (not pictured), traditional Tibetan vegan dumplings filled with potato, cabbage, carrot, and green peas with a touch of sesame oil and black pepper; Tsel-Baklap (below), empanada-like vegetable patties with roughly the same filling as the dumplings; Thenthuk (also below), a traditional nomadic Tibetan soup with hand-pulled wheat noodles, vegetables, and tofu; and Tingmo, delectably filling steamed Tibetan twisted bread that’s only just not dough anymore.

Definitely worth stopping by for lunch or dinner and even planning a trip out to if, like us, you’d never had vegan-friendly Tibetan food.

Cafe Tibet is located at 1510 Cortelyou Road in Brooklyn, cash only, and open every day from noon to 1030PM.