Reader, if you, like us, happen to be a part of an NYC community supported agriculture group (CSA), you, like us, may well have a shit-load of peaches. Which begs the question, “What the fuck do I do with all these peaches?”

No, we’re not offering to take said peaches off your hands—we’re peached-out, man—but we do have a creative use for them if you’re interested.

Not only is this olive oil peach salad super-versatile—you can eat it on toasted bread like bruschetta or as a normal cold salad in a bowl, like we did recently—it’s also hella easy.

You can figure out your own proportions based on your desired sweet-to-savory ratio…and just how overloaded with peaches you might be, but you essentially slice up a bunch of peaches (8 for two servings in our most recent case),  dice up a sweet, mild onion (say Vidalia, half or so for two servings), throw in some sliced, bruised basil, a dash of salt, and toss in a bowl with a few tablespoons of nice extra virgin olive oil. The result—a superb, fresh summer salad that pretty much anyone can make in a pinch.

And thanks to our friend, Christy, for first introducing us to this salad last summer.

This just in—again, Reader, don’t take that too literally; we took this photo a good two weeks ago, but you know, blogs. Anyway, this “just in”, Pok Pok NY—the new(ish) Thai street food eatery that now graces the Columbia waterfront and that we wrote up just last month—has recently added a new dish to their menu that can be done vegan.

Phak Buung Fai Daeng—AKA, Red Fire Water Spinach—(pictured above, back) is on choy, stir fried with garlic + Thai chilies and tossed with preserved yellow beans. And it’s awesome. It seems to have replaced the superb Brussels sprouts we mentioned last time, but we gotta keep it fresh, right?

Also, we just got a chance…again, like two weeks ago…to try our last vegan-ize-able Pok Pok hold-out dish, the Yam Sumun Phrai (above, front), and it’s totally our favorite. A “Northern Thai herbal salad” consisting of carrot, parsnip, white turmeric, betel leaf, basil, lime leaf, lemongrass, sawtooth, fried shallots, cashews, peanuts, sesame seeds, and probably some pixie dust for good measure and then tossed with Thai chilies and a mild coconut milk dressing; crisp, fresh, and an amazing combination of flavors. It 100% raises the roof, knocks our socks off, makes our eyes do that cartoon ‘I am shocked and/or sexually titilated’ thing where they bug out like crazy and then go back…or whatever the kids are saying these days to convey awesomeness. We’re pretty sure it’s that last thing.

So get thee to Pok Pok, vegans. The wait’s totally not as bad as they say. And, even it is, remember the kaffir leaf gin + tonic. Remember.

Below, Pok Pok’s alley and the Columbia waterfront at sunset. Le sigh.

Today’s Lunch—Sun in Bloom‘s Bloom Burger Salad (live, house-made vegan burger, tomato, basil, caramelized onions, and cabbage with live sunflower dill dressing) and house-made kale chips. Perfect for the return of the summer heat.

Where did summer go‽ I know, I know, it’s not even mid-July—we’ve got plenty of terribly smoldering, soaking, uncannily malodorous days ahead of us here in New York. But, looking at the calendar, with all of its out-of-town trips and weddings and miscellaneous events, it seems like these warm, care-free days are going to be gone before we know it. So let’s get our summer food on while we can!

This is an updated recipe for the Chickpea Picnic Salad that we’ve written up a couple times now and was originally based on the recipe Allison of Allison’s Gourmet whipped up back in 2010. This evolved iteration throws in some sweet pickles for a tangy contrast (yes, we hate that word too, but…) and pulls from our newly found love of dried legumes as opposed to the canned variety. Since first being introduced to the proper way to prepare dried beans and legumes in Terry Hope Romero’s book, Viva Vegan!, they’ve slowly started to replace their canned counterpart in various recipes and home cooking. Not only are prepared dried beans SO much lower in sodium/saltiness, they’re also 1) cheaper; B) tastier; and III) they provide a better, meatier texture, which works great in recipes like this.We previously worked this up using pita pockets, which is in fact a little less messy and totally an option, but one half of us has been craving really substantial, rustic bread of late, thus the big chunk of ciabatta pictured above. The other half of us has been toning down the gluten-laden carbs of late though, so feel free to work this up in a collard green wrap too.

Chickpea Picnic Salad (makes sandwiches/wraps)
• 4 Pieces of Bread; Split + Halved; 4 Large Collard Leaves
• 1 Cup Dried Chickpeas
• 1 Tbl Vegenaise
• 2 Carrots, diced finely
• 2 Stalks Celery, diced finely
• 2 Green Onions, whites + greens diced finely
• .5-.75 Cup Bread + Butter Pickle Chips (we LOVE Bubbies), finely diced
• 1-2 cloves Garlic, smashed, peeled, and finely diced
• 1 Sheet Nori, cut into short, thin slices with scissors (optional)
• Salt + Pepper, to taste

First, you need to soak the chickpeas overnight or for 8 hours, ideally. If you don’t have that much time, you can boil them longer, but the taste and texture won’t be quite as nice. Anyway, all you need to do is pour out the dried chickpeas into a wide bowl, look through them to make sure there aren’t any rocks of debris (which sometimes gets through the sorters—should be easy to see with light-colored peas), and submerge them in water. If you’re around for another half hour or so, it’s helpful to check to see how much water’s been absorbed and, if needed, add more to cover them again. Now you’re welcome to head off to work, go to sleep, embark on a marathon World of Warcraft session, or get skrimshawing, depending on the time of day and/or your inclinations.

After the chickpeas are soaked, drain the water they’re sitting in, rinse them off with new water, and boil them in newer water still. If you’re using nori seaweed sheets to make this more of a ‘fishy,’ tuna-like salad, you can add them to the boiling water to break the pieces down into the resulting mixture. Boil the chickpeas for 20-30 minutes. We find that the cooking them for this shorter amount of time results in a drier texture, which works well with this recipe, but just test them as you cook them and make sure they’re not too dried out. Once done, pour into a colander over a sink and leave them there a while as they drain and dry and cool off.

While the chickpeas are cooling, chop up the carrots, celery, onions, pickles, and garlic and add it all to a large mixing bowl. Then pour the cooled, dried chickpeas into a separate mixing bowl and, using a fork or potato masher, mash the chickpeas until you’ve got a fairly consistent mixture that retains some chunkiness but doesn’t contain any big pieces or chickpea halves/wholes. Add your chopped ingredients and the Veganaise and the mix thoroughly. If it seems dry or you just like Veganaise a lot (understandable), add more. You can also sub in some smashed avocado if you prefer. Add salt and pepper, to taste, throw in a pita pocket, between two nice pieces of bread, or tightly wrap in large, pliable collard green leaves, and enjoy, preferably on the beach, in the park, or at some other lovely outdoor destination that, come winter, will prove not-so-lovely.

This just in, Reader…er…kinda just in. More accurately—this just being written about because we have day jobs, Reader, and have to pay the bills, Reader, we can’t all be trust-fund-Readers, Reader, implied passive aggression intended, Reader. …yeah. We’ll stick with ‘this just in.’

This just in, Reader: Maimonide of Brooklyn—the bizarre-yet-awesome new(ish) South Brooklyn vegetarian joint we wrote up back in January—after expanding their menu to include dinner entrées (vegan pumpkin seed pesto pasta, veggie burgers, and nightly specials) now serves an ultra-cute little slider version of their burgers for lunch (pictured above).

Like its big papa, the ‘lil guy is made of a surprisingly meaty crimini mushroom base and comes on a house-baked sweet potato roll with secret sauce (like a vegan thousand island, for reals), Brooklyn Brine’s locally made pickles, charred onions, and a ‘lil tomato.

Pair all that with their delectable house yuca fries, a nice IPA, and a seat in Maimonide’s tranquil backyard, and you get a lovely, raven + crow approved lunch. Get yo eat on, Brooklyn!

Okay, we’ve said this before and we’ll say it again—we love it when non-vegan restaurants throw the vegans a bone. Well…not literally throw the vegans a bone. That would totally make no sense. We would hate that. But you know what we mean, Reader.

Places like Paulie Gee’s in Greenpoint that have a clearly labeled vegan menu with house-made nut cheeses and Daiya dairy-free cheese for their wood-fire-oven pizzas; places like Family Recipe in the lower east side that serve modern Japanese cuisine and feature multiple vegan options; those kinda places make us wanna shake our groove thang…give them a virtual and/or literal high-five…even record yet another version of “Call Me Maybe” and cleverly insert their establishment name and our favored menu items (why is that a thing, by the way?—we don’t quite get it).

Don’t worry—we have created no such version of “Call Me Maybe.” We do, however, have yet another NYC restaurant for you that’s very much vegan-friendly. AND it just happens to be one that’s been much-hyped in the press of late—it’s Pok Pok NY, the brand new eastern outpost of the loved Portland Thai street food eatery.

We heard Pok Pok was had eastward-looking eyes last fall and—when we learned that their original location was pretty vegan-friendly AND that they planned on opening up the New York hub blocks away from our home—contacted them to urge them bring the vegan-friendliness to their Brooklyn home. Their cordial response assured us they would. So what kinda food do they serve? AWESOME kinda food.

According to Pok Pok NY’s Web site:

“We serve food found at pubs, restaurants, homes and the streets of Southeast Asia with the majority of the food coming from Thailand, and specifically from the North and Northeast of Thailand. We do not make “fusion” food here; everything has been researched, eaten, and/or prepared in the country of it’s origin prior to being put on the Pok Pok menu (exception: the Pok Pok Affogato which is an unabashed riff on the Vietnamese breakfast of coffee and fried donuts). If you’d like to see some of the dishes in their native land, please check us out on Facebook; there are a lot of photos there. Our menu changes seasonally, monthly or at whim. We do not serve staples like Phat Thai or Penang Curry, but the food we do serve is very accessible to most people. We use local product when possible and practical. We do not use MSG. While we are not specifically vegetarian friendly, all our vegetarian dishes are either vegan or can be made vegan, and there are usually about a half dozen of those on the menu.”

See that last bit? It’s right on their site. THAT’S the kinda thing we love—not having to worry about explaining to a server what is or isn’t considered vegan and having them work vegan options right into their menu rather than potentially taking out of a dish the very things the chef planned his or her tastes around.

We’ve talked about this before, but we love it when restauranteurs who have a passion for food and serving their customers creatively have the open-mindness to include vegans among their potential patrons. Yes, in our ideal world, every restaurant would serve only vegan food and every person would happily eat animal-friendly fare and the creatures of this planet would throw a big parade for us all because we finally ‘got it.’ We’re working on that. And in the meantime, the more mainstream, non-vegan joints that work plant-based foods into their menu, the better, in our humble opinions. Especially when it’s this good.

You can take a look at the full menu yourself, but our favorite offerings are the vegan Khao Soi (pictured above)—a Northern Thai mild curry noodle soup made with a secret curry paste recipe, house-pressed fresh coconut milk, tofu, meaty lotus root chunks (I think), and served with house-pickled mustard greens, fresh shallots, crispy noodles, and an awesome roasted chili paste—and Phat Khanaeng—insanely tasty stir-fried brussels sprouts with thai chilies, garlic, and a sweet soy sauce that induces insatiable cravings for days on end after. Be sure you get some sticky rice to sop up the sauce on the sprouts—best. We also recently tried their spicy forest mushroom salad, with rings of fresh lemongrass, cilantro, toasted rice powder, and chili-lime dressing (pictured below). It too was superb, with its surprising meaty, woodsy mushrooms and exciting combination of fresh citrus and peppery spice. Be warned though, it’s not for the light of heart—when they say spicy, they mean spicy. Add to all that an admirable, fish-sauce-free (when ordered vegan) green papaya salad and an enticing-sounding (haven’t tried it yet) herbal root vegetable salad, and you’ve got quite a few options. Additionally, though they have no immediate plans, Pok Pok NY reps have mentioned that they do plan to switch them menu up a bit over time, so stay tuned!

And this needs its own paragraph, Reader—their kaffir lime leaf infused gin + tonic is mind-blowing. Katie doesn’t even like gin and, not only is it her favorite drink so far on their extensive menu of creative libations, but we made our version of it our signature cocktail (pictured to the right) at her recent birthday shebang, and it went over like gangbusters. And yes, I have now started writing like I’m in a Dick Tracy comic for some reason.

Pok Pok NY is located along the Columbia Street Waterfront—despite what is being written, that is not Red Hook, my friends; if it is, then Green Wood Cemetery’s well within Park Slope—features indoor, outdoor, and kinda in-between seating, and does not take reservations, which is cool, but requires a little planning. Our advice—plan on a wait of an hour or two, depending on the night and time. It’s worth the wait, and they make it easy on you with a bizarre text-paging system so you can wander the waterfront or head over to nearby bar, B61. Better yet, if it’s not too packed, you can wait in a dedicated seating area in the back of the restaurant where you can order drinks and snacks and have them billed to your table. One last top-secret tip—get there a little before they open to stand in line for a table right away, though plan on people queueing up pretty early. Again, totally worth it.

Pok Pok NY is located at 127 Columbia Street, near-ish to the Bergen Street F/G. 

Reader, as you may know from the various…copious complaints penned on these pages, our part of South Brooklyn can be a bit skint when it comes to catering to the vegan crowd. Yes, we now have the bizarre/glorious Maimonide, the Usher-approved Sun in Bloom is near our office and awesome for lunch or weekend brunch, and—though its menu is belabored with meaty dishes—the hot new Columbia Water Front by-way-of Portland thai joint, Pok Pok, is actually great about giving up some exciting vegan options. And a DAMN good kefir lime infused gin + tonic (…more on Pok Pok later).

So you won’t be surprised when I tell you that the chalkboard sign appearing to the right stopped us in our tracks on our usual studio-to-home trek down Dean Street yesterday.

The sandwich board stood in-front of none other than Cobble Hill’s own One Girl Cookies—the much-loved neighborhood bake shop that just released their first cookbook and recently opened a second location in DUMBO. Though the shop hasn’t previously been very vegan-centric, we’ve always admired them as a small, locally run business with a nice eye for design. From their site:

“The personality of our cookies is reflected in the design of our shop. Aqua blue, vintage serving pieces. A handpainted family tree. Life size family photos. Lovely blue walls and patterned wallpaper. We like to think of it as old world charm, with a modern interpretation. Come on by for a visit..we’d love to have you.”

And now—vegan cookies! Or, to be more accurate and explain the mysterious departure from our usual Friday taciturnity, a VEGAN COOKIE VOTE! One Girl just announced their Vegan Cookies Sampler—a cute little bag of tasty, animal-friendly treats created to give their customers the say in which vegan cookies they’ll add to their regular offerings. But polls close at the end of the day Sunday, so we got to get our dessert on, people!

Above, I give you your candidates, pictured clockwise from the top: the reclusive, yet sage Spiced Cranberry Hermit; the globe-trotting Sesame Anise Biscotti; Dark Chocolate Espresso Sandie, the night owl; Maple Pecan Cookies, contender from parts north; and, last but far-from-least, the feisty ‘lil Gingersnap Chew.

Obviously we’d prefer to have them ALL made, and we have our own favorites, but we’ll let you be the judge. Drop by the shop—located on Dean Street, between Smith + Boerum Place/Court Street—pick up a bag of cookies ($2.50 each), and cast your vote, in person or on One Girl’s Facebook page. And, while you’re at it, let ’em know how psyched you are that they’re adding vegan items to their menu. We could use a little more of that around here.

Reader, maybe you’ve taken note before of our propensity to support and be excited by mainstream, non-vegan establishments that make a point to provide vegan-friendly offerings beyond, say, pasta primavera with a side of tap water. For instance, Family Recipe, the cute little modern Japanese spot in the lower east side that sports burdock root rice bowls and gluten-free vegan waffles.

Along the same lines, we also really enjoy absorbing as much as we can from the culinary world at large, vegan or not. We may hold the view that animals are simply not food and that, as a society, we need to move towards a world where they aren’t viewed as such, but we also realize that there’s a rich history of cooking that spans thousands of years and just as many cultures. So we love learning about new, non-vegan dishes that offer an opportunity for a more…moralistic, healthy twist, if you will.

Enter GQ magazine, oddly enough (off-subject, but remember one of our first ever posts, when we wrote a response to Glen O’Brien on the use of leather in 2008? THAT was a long time ago.) Their writers have a rich tradition of appreciating the finer things in life, wearables, libations, and cuisine included. So when contributor, Stan Parish wrote up a piece on a one-pot family meal adapted from a traditional mexican dish that made its way into the kitchens of Osteria Stellina in Point Reyes Station, California, we sat up and took notice. As Parish explains it:

“‘Family meal’ takes place every night in restaurants everywhere—from temples of molecular gastronomy to the shitty grill joint where I cooked in college. It’s a pre-service ritual in which the staff eats a hearty lo-fi supper before the first seating shows up and all hell breaks loose. The dishes are usually simple to make, but they need to satisfy everyone from the pastry chef to the busboy. Put another way, family meal is exactly what you want when you have a crowd to feed. If football season means your house will occasionally be overrun with dudes, you’re looking for a dish that’ll keep people fed without chaining you to the stove for the first half. And by week three, everyone is sick of pizza and wings.”
The original recipe calls for a ton of pork—four pounds to be exact—which you may well be able to replace with some sautéed jackfruit, like we did with our barbecue pulled jackfruit sandwiches, but that’s a LOT of jackfruit, so we opted to go with a crispy sautéed eggplant instead. And we have to say, it works out very, very nicely. We’ve been making the stew for a little over a year now and think it’s a great hearty dish that makes for a nice, easy, vegetable-heavy one-pot meal.

Here’s what you need:

Vegan Chili Verde
• 1 Cup Olive Oil
• 4 Pounds Eggplant, un-peeled and sliced in strips roughly 1″x4″
• 2 Heads Garlic (yes, that’s two whole bulbs), smashed, peeled, and chopped into small chunks
• 1/2 Large Sweet Onion, peeled and diced
• 1 Bunch of Cilantro, washed, stemmed, and lightly chopped
• 3 Limes, sliced
• Salt and Pepper to taste

For the Salsa
• 3 Pounds Tamatillo, husked and quartered
• 2 Fresh Jalapeños, sliced
• 2 Cloves Garlic, smashed, peeled, and chopped into small chunks
• 1/2 Large Sweet Onion, peeled and diced
• 2 Cups Water or Vegetable Broth
In a large stockpot, add the oil, eggplant, and two heads of garlic. It’s a good bit of oil, but you’ll be draining most of that off in a bit, so no worries. You essentially want to crisp up the eggplant and let the oil cook it throughout. You could also do this in the oven in batches laid out on baking sheets for even more crisp and less oil…but that’d likely be more of a winter move given the residual heat. With the original pork this is replacing, you’d be cooking for over an hour, but in this case, you just want the eggplant to start to break down and have the edges and skin crisp a bit—likely cooking for about 30 minutes in total. Once it looks good to you, let it cool a bit and then carefully drain off some of the oil. How much is up to you—you don’t want the meal to taste too oily in the end, but leaving in a little bit of oil around the eggplant will give the end product a nice flavor too, especially with that garlic in there. We tend to get rid of half to three-quarters. After you do that, add your your half-onion and cook for 15 minutes.

While that’s cooking, combine the ingredients for the salsa in a deep bowl and mix thoroughly with a hand mixer until chunky…like salsa. If you’ve never used them before, tomatillos (pictured below, right before being mixed up) are pretty fun. Most of us think of them as tiny, sticky, green little tomatoes, and, while they, like the eggplant, are also members of the nightshade family, they’re actually more closely related to the cape gooseberry and will tend to give you a tangy, tart taste in cooked food and salsas.

After your salsa’s mixed, add it to the eggplant, garlic, onion mixture in the stockpot. Salt and pepper to taste and cook everything for about 90 minutes. Garnish with cilantro and serve with warmed corn tortillas. Or, as above, throw in some pickled red cabbage, sliced radishes, and a heel of bread.

As Ellen DeGeneres will tell you, evidently, being vegan isn’t always easy. Even once you get past the cravings—I’m the first to admit that, even after all these years, I still wake up in a cold sweat after dreaming of cheese—there are still certain nuances to the lifestyle that can prove elusive, even to us old-school vegans.

Take kimchee, for instance, the spicy fermented vegetable dish often found in traditional Korean cuisine. I am fairly certain we consumed roughly a bathtub full of this stuff before realizing—hey, kimchee almost always has some sort fish sauce or salted shrimp at its base. Ah boy.

Which is why we were, let’s say, super-psyched—to coin a little-used scientific term—when we recently stumbled across Arirang Kimchee at the Dekalb Market. For anyone who hasn’t been to the Dekalb Market, it’s essentially the Brooklyn Flea. With a lot more food. And beer. On Dekalb. I know, genius, right?

Arirang doesn’t exclusively produce vegan/vegetarian kimchee—they’ve got a traditional kimchee made with napa cabbage and one made with radishes—but they do have one that is explicitly vegan, which is a rare find. Rarer still, it’s locally made…well, in New Jersey…and hand-cut, hand-jarred, and all natural. Take that, Korean robots! As they say on the site:
“Arirang Kimchi was created after a newly wed couple decided to move to America in the hopes of an American Dream for their children. The wife comes from a background of great cooks and has extremely keen taste buds. After experimenting with a few of her own kimchi recipes and receiving compliment after compliment from friends and family, Mr. and Mrs. Oh decided to open up shop. Today, after 30 years, Arirang Kimchi still sticks to their motto “always fresh, always delicious”. Our kimchi is still hand cut and hand produced which retains the fresh quality. Mrs. Oh still samples each batch for its perfect taste ’til this day.”

I don’t know if I want Mrs. Oh rootin’ around in my kimchee before handing it over, but I’ll take the rest of it. And the stuff’s really great. We recently hosted a make-you-own-soba night and the contents of the jar went in a flash amongst a pretty kimchee-savy (non-vegan) crowd.

You can pick up a jar of the kimchee at the Dekalb Market this weekend, grab it at a number of other New York area locations (right sidebar), or order it online (the postal carrier’s gonna be all like ‘Why your mail smell like that, girl?’).

No, I’m not sure why your postal carrier talks like that.

More into making it yourself and not smelling up your mail? Check out Lukas Volger’s blog. The author of Veggie Burgers Every Which Way recently live Tweeted (yes, that’s a thing) how to make your own vegetarian kimchee. We haven’t tried it yet, but, knowing the keen culinary senses of Mr. Volger and, judging by his picture below, we’d say it’s likely top-notch.