Today is both National Grilled Cheese Day (I guess I capitalize that?) and Equal Pay Day.

One side of the day—safe to call it the party side—recognizes all that is holy in the culinary meetings of crispy, seared bread and creamy, plant-based cheese (obviously, we only consider vegan cheeses to be consumable by us humans; the rest if a cruel, commercialized by-prodcut of milk literally only produced for the babies of cows, goats, et cetera). Our contribution to that side of the day and our tastebuds—a Caprese-style grilled cheese using grilled Kenter Canyon red fife bread, farmers market tomato + basil, and vegan coconut-cashew mozzarella from Miyoko’s Creamery, up the coast.

The other side of the day—the serious documentary side, let’s say—is meant to recognize the massive, pervasive, longstanding gap in wages for men and women. As is pretty common knowledge at this point, un the US, women typically earn $0.79 for every dollar men earn. Still. To this day. See the image below, created by the White House.

The reason Equal Pay Day is today is because April 12 marks the day that said typical woman catches up to the earnings said typical man earned in all of last year. That’s straight-up depressing. More depressing? That gap’s even larger when said woman is not white. Again, graphic courtesy of the White House (click if it’s too tiny for you).

What are we doing about it? Well, for one, there are a ton of acts and laws, like the Lilly Ledbetter Act—the first piece of legislation signed into law as president in 2009—which essentially makes it easier for women to bring legal challenges to unequal pay. But that’s been law for over 7 years, and we’re still at roughly the same place. We can sign acts and pass laws and we should continue to do that, but almost as important is the act of keeping the lines of dialogue open on this; reminding all of this that this problem continues to exist and has broader implications and causes than those missing $0.21 can really speak to.

Thus the importance of having a day like National Grilled Cheese Day. Sorry. Equally Pay Day. So very similar, it’s hard to keep track.

Nearly two years back, on a trip north to Portland, Oregon and the surrounding coastal region, we posted a picture of a bagel to our Instagram feed.

Having lived in New York for some time and to this day retaining many New Yorkers in our circle of friends, this clearly opened us up to criticism. You see, the popular notion, in New York at least, is that true bagels can’t really be made correctly outside of the local area. Be it the water, local skill and knowledge, or just northeastern elitism, the belief exists, whether it’s spoken or not, as evident from our IG feed.

We’re opening ourselves up to such criticism again by way of letting fellow vegans know that roving Los Angeles bagel-purveyors Yeastie Boys have what we’d consider a lovely animal-product-free option for their bagels (no quotes)—a house-made (truck-made?) cashew-tofu sun-dried tomato schmear that’s both great for photos and great in your belly. Call us NYC sell-outs who’ve lost their taste for well-done boiled bread, but we loved it combined with their everything bagels. Though we do prefer everything with salt. Just sayin, Yeasties.

The truck’s schedule differs from time-to-time, but is posted on their site. They’ve been spending time across the street from MooShoes LA, in front of Alfred Coffee in Silver Lake over this past weekend. Check their Twitter feed to be sure.

PS—nice branding, guys.

We’d briefly mentioned last week that we were in the midst of an exciting new packaging project. After this weekend’s “Evening in the City of Gold” event honoring Pulitzer-Prize-winning food writer, Jonathan Gold, which served as a kind of soft launch for us, we can finally talk about the project.

The event and fundraiser was put on by the International Association of Culinary Professionals and The Culinary Trust as part of IACP 2016 and it featured, among other things, food from a few of Jonathan Gold’s favorite Los Angeles chefs. One such chef, Chef Minh Phan of porridge + puffs, approached us a little while ago about collaborating with her on the design, packaging, and rolling out of a line of vegan savory jams + sauces we’ve dubbed PINCH by porridge + puffs. Things are very much in the early development stages, but we wanted to share our first designs for the packaging, which will surely evolve as this project does.

See them (and try them) for yourself at the coming events we have planned with Minh, first at a fundraiser for Los Angeles non-profit Food Forward later this month, then at a demo at one of our favorite places in LA, the Hollywood Farmers Market, and finally at the Brooklyn-born, newly LA-based (like us) Smorgasburg. You can find details on all these events and appearances on p+p’s events page.

More soon on all of this!

We’ve been buried deep in an exciting new venture that can’t quite talk about yet—it’s set to debut at an event this weekend with any luck. But we can say it involves some packaging work, which segues nicely to our longtime admiration of Los Angeles based chocolatier Comports. They don’t make Food Empowerment’s Chocolate List (more about that at FEP’s site), but we’re fans of their unmistakable packaging, claimed by the not-so-shy company itself to be “the most beautiful and distinct packaging on any food worldwide.”

I mean. It is pretty great. We enjoy the old school Hollywood class of their dark chocolate + smoked sea salt bar, but, more commonly, the chocolates feature vibrant, bold, insanely colorful patterns and illustrations that are pretty impossible to walk by without checking out.

You can find Compartés at their Brentwood + Melrose shops—or boutiques, as they call them—and, for us, more locally at neighborhood favorite, Poketo. Not all their chocolates are animal product-free, but they’re good about noting when they are.

For anyone wondering, the palm tree covered California Love dark chocolate and pretzel bar is.

Just a heads up for both vegans and ice cream-lovers…and vegan ice cream-lovers, BK-to-LA ice creamery Van Leeuwen—who, as they did in Brooklyn, have a shop walking distance from our studio—currently offers a pretty jaw-dropping special: The vegan mocha-donut scoop, which is just as good as it sounds, full of mocha flavor and chunks of vegan donuts.

You might remember we interview co-founder, co-owner, and new Los Angeles transplant Pete Van Leeuwin last December about their west coast move and origins of the company. You can catch up if you missed it. But mainly, get to the shop—they offer multiple vegan scoops, vegan cones, vegan cookies for sandwiching (photo in the previously mentioned interview), and even full on vegan sundaes. And they make what we consider the best vegan ice cream around. Give it a go.

We’ve mentioned the fine folks at Louisville Vegan Jerky Co. on these pages before—first on the company in general, then when they started making vegan bacon bits. But now LVJC has started their very own mail-order vegan jerky of the month club and, thanks to Katie, I am a proud member of said club.

Here’s the deal: Basically, you choose your plan—month-to-month, three-month prepay, or six month prepay—and then, every month you’re signed up for, you receive a lovely, excellently branded box of three bags of vegan jerky. The first two bags are from the company’s excellent regular stock (Bourbon Smoked Chipotle, Maple Bacon, Bourbon Smoked Black Pepper, Sriracha Maple, or Sesame Teriyaki), but the third is a test kitchen batch that changes monthly.

The first month I received the jerky, the test batch was Perfect Pepperoni, made using tamarin, beet juice, liquid smoke, fennel and crushed peppers—an excellent, dry meatless cousin of the pepperoni and one we eventually used to top a homemade pizza. Last month, the test flavor was a really nice, peanut-less Peanut Thai, a slightly sweet jerky made with soy nut butter, sriracha, and fresh ginger.

If you love vegan jerky, or love someone who loves vegan jerky, we highly recommend the Louisville Vegan Jerky of the Month Club. Excited to see what March brings!

Below, pictures of the jerkies, packaging, and said pizza.

This afternoon, we hosted a lunch meeting with our friend Chef Minh Phan of the Jonathan Gold-approved Porridge + Puffs. She also helped open the Beachwood Cafe a few years back and has been an integral member of our local non-profit, the Hollywood Orchard form early on.

Porridge + Puffs’ Hollywood Farmers’ Market longterm pop-up has come to a close, but Minh’s been going strong with private events in the greater Los Angeles area and some other big ideas. She brought by some Vietnamese food from Echo Park’s Xoia to showcase some of her awesome vegan sauces and savory jams.

If you’d like to enjoy some of the same, Minh + co. will be serving at Food Forward’s 6th Annual Spring Melt Fundraiser mid-April in Glassell Park. If you don’t know Food Forward, they’re a local non-profit that rescues fresh produce that would otherwise go to waste and gets it to people in need. Great group and greta opportunity to support them. Find out more on their event page.

And we highly recommend befriending kind chefs in your area. It’s a richly rewarding prospect.

Some awesome branding and brand new logo pins from our favorite coffee shop in Los Angeles, Woodcat.

Woodcat—an old slang term used for ‘rabbit’ when speakers didn’t wish to bring about the bad luck associated with saying the animal’s proper name (weird)—is located in Echo Park and run by an old friend of ours from my touring days, Saadat Awan and his wife, Janine, a talented artist and graphic designer and the one responsible for the shop’s branding. And this awesome new pin they now sell.

Woodcat serves Wrecking Ball Coffee outta SF and they hands-down make the best soy latte in town. Give em a go.

Last summer, we received a strangely mysterious email from our friend, chef, and Mud Hen Tavern co-owner, Kajsa Alger about a new venture they were all embarking on—Blue Window, “a take-out window like you’ve never seen before.”

The concept was relatively simple, but innovative at the same time—they use a kitchen-adjacent take-out window to supplement the dinner-only tavern during the weekdays with a totally different, themed menu that’d last only 6 months before turning over to a new theme. Our main take away was that they further Mud Hen’s already vegan-friendly leanings, offering that “all items can be made vegan—just ask!”

The first iteration was an Asian themed menu, featuring some amazing items like a BBQ jackfruit-filled bao, vegan gochujang hot sauce wings, a vegan bahn mi, and many more craveable selections. We wrote the whole thing up last year when Kajsa + co. invited us to Blue Window’s preview tasting event.

This past Saturday, Blue Window successfully retired their first menu and again invited friends of the restaurant to a tasting of their new menu—Blue Window: Junk, celebrating…well, junk food—decadent deliciousness; the street-est of street food; the opposite of kale. And again, all can be made vegan—just ask! And some menu items are even vegan as are.

You can view the full menu on Blue Window’s site, but our favorites were the vegan braised beef cheddar melt (which stacks carmelized onion, really great housemade pickles, braised, saucy vegan beef-style soy meat from VeriSoy, and superbly melted Daiya onto a vegan mayo-slathered, amazing soft sandwich bun) and falafel battered onion rings with black olive honey (actually agave, so, vegan) and richly spicy tahini hot sauce.

Blue Window: Junk officially opens for business today at noon. So fair warning to all those who missed out on or didn’t quite get their fill of Blue Window: Asia—you’ve got sixth months, friends.

Below, the vegan braised beef cheddar melt; the by-default vegan fried artichoke po’ boy with cornmeal-crusted artichokes and oyster mushrooms, housemade remoulade, and pickled lettuce + tomato; the falafel onion rings; a nacho baked potato topped with housemade vegan nacho cheese, broccoli, guacamole, vegan sour cream, and pickled jalapeños; the vegan chili cheese Frito tamale with Fritos, 3-bean chili, vegan sour cream, and pickled jalapeños; and a special we hope they make a regular—chocolate whoopee pies (or gobs if you’re from PA) filled with peanut butter-banana meringue made from (wait for it) chickpea brine. So very good. To the right, Super Team Blue Window, shot by Kajsa via BW’s Instagram.

My friends are far too kind.

I recently celebrated my 40th birthday, and, though they shouldn’t have, some of my friends brought me some really wonderful gifts. One such gift from our lovely friend, Maureen—a bottle of Akashi Japanese whisky from the Eigashima Distillery in Akashi City, Japan, near Kobe…where they massage cow because they like them so much, right?

Eigashima claims the dual titles of Japan’s oldest and smallest distillery, having been founded in 1888, thought the distillery has spent the large portion of those years producing the traditional Japanese spirits of sake and shochu sake and shochu. Eigashima only started making whisky in 1984, building a new facility for it as it became more popular in Japan and imports from the west more in demand. The distillery’s whisky season is only 2 months long, lasting from May 31st to July 31st, with the rest of the year being dedicated to sake and shochu. They import specialty barley from Scotland and make use of the same water from their underground spring that they use to produce their traditional spirits. From Caskers: “This, combined with the fact that less than five employees handle all of Eigashima’s whisky production, makes the distillery’s signature Akashi White Oak Japanese Whisky some of the rarest in Japan, not to mention elsewhere around the world.”

The end product is beautifully rich and insanely smooth lending a “malty, citrusy aroma with scents of black cherry, toffee and oak. Notes of vanilla and pine nuts dominate the palate, and lead to a long, malty finish” (again, Caskers).

Highly recommended as a lovely sipping whisky and makes for a nice citrusy Manhattan with orange or yuzu bitters.