London vegan news, reviews & events
I am thrilled to be included in the latest issue of Snack magazine.
This Scotland-based publication showcases the best cultural and food events in the country, as well as giving insights into latest music, fashion, and pop culture news affecting the region.
For some reason, they thought my opinions on veganism needed to be heard and I’m so glad they reached out.
The magazine is wonderful.
Please take a moment to explore its pages. You can view a digital version of the issue online here.
I will sound like a broken record with this blog, but this needs to be repeated.
Please make an effort to spend your money with independently-owned vegan businesses.
The health of our communities depends on it.
A Guardian piece from a few years back states that when we spend £1 with a small or medium-sized business, 63p stays within the local community. However, when we spend that pound with a larger business from outside the community only about 40p stays in the area.
23p might not sound a lot but it adds up when we start to look at amounts spent on High Streets and in stores around the UK.
Estimates are usually way above £300 billion when it comes to calculating how much money the UK spends with bricks and mortar stores each year. Imagine if we were able to keep a larger chunk of that money in our local communities?
Indie business owners would have more cash flow to secure their longevity, pay fair wages to local people, spend their profits on other local products and services, and add to the cultural wealth of their neighbourhood.
Spending money when and where you can with local business helps keep your community thriving and drives up social capital.
Remember when I started London Vegan Potluck in Brixton? It was a local independent business that gave us the space to use. It was Ms Cupcake being supported by paying customers that allowed them to let us use their resources for free.
London Vegan Drinks is a long-running and much-loved social event hosted in Karamel, an independent vegan bar and restaurant in Wood Green. If this venue closed due to lack of customers, I would be seriously concerned for the future of this event.
When you shop at our FGV sections of Venn Street Market and Walthamstow Sunday Social each week, you are directly supporting the livelihood of local businesses. Business that have bills to pay. Businesses supporting families. Business dealing with the same outrageous rental costs as the rest of us.
If you have money to spend on groceries, products, and services it is crucial to the ongoing social and financial health of our communities that you spend as much of your budget with locally owned businesses.
I know it can be tough as a lot of us are time poor and an one time only weekly shop saves effort, but here are some simple suggestions for keeping a little bit more money local:
In closing, do what you can and when you can to keep cash in your community.
It really is the least we can do as active community members.
Here’s a super quick post to show you some of my vegan haul at Heathrow Terminal 4.
Airports used to be a sad place for vegans, but WH Smith in Terminal 4 is really stocked to the brim with vegan goodies.
The following products helped me survive the 11 hour flight to Mexico City.
What do you think?
Leeds based vegan eatery Knave’s Kitchen will be launching their new menu on Tuesday 12th March, 2019.
Get along to the party for free samples of the full menu from 6-8PM and a buy one get one free offer for all new cocktails, all night.
With a focus on flavourful, comforting and down to earth food, Knave’s mission is to provide delicious vegan food to diners of all persuasions. Since its opening, Knaves has hosted a run of sold out supper clubs including collaborations with Berlin’s Stone Brewery and Leeds Indie Food as well as appearances at a number of events like Halifax’s Chow Down and Vegan North at North Brew Co.
Located in legendary Leeds dive bar Oporto, Knave’s is rapidly approaching its first birthday and is ready to unveil a brand new and exciting menu for this year. Created thoughtfully and meticulously by head chef Sam Thomas, the new menu will feature dishes like ‘Jerk & Palm’, a serving of jerked jackfruit, creamy Jamaican curry and coconut rice all crowned with a crispy plantain skewer, ‘Sea Shepherd’, a delicious Beer-battered Nori tofu fillet served with mushy pea-mayo and crisp baby gem in a salt & vinegar bun, ‘CFC’, corn flake-battered seitan goujons, Brazilian slaw, and chive ranch, wrapped in a toasted flour tortilla and lots more.
Yay for good eating Leeds!
I don’t just write about vegan overeating.
I sometimes write about broader themes and subjects. Today finds me doing just that.
Please note that this blog post contains references to sexual abuse.
Why do abuse survivors take so long to come forward?
Why do they change their story?
Doesn’t this mean they can’t be trusted?
I was abused. My father beat me. Laughed at me. Ridiculed me. All from the age of… well, my earliest memory of my father is him calling me cruel names. He terrorised my siblings. He withheld food. He dished out corporal punishment with wooden spoons. Cords of electrical appliances. Fishing rods. He beat my stepmother. He punched her in her face, with all his strength, in front of me. He made us lie to relatives. Friends. Family. This continued until I was old enough not to return. Maybe 14 years old.
In my other main dwelling, there was sexual abuse. I was instructed to lie about it. I was told by my mother that I had to make a choice whether we allowed the abuser to stay living with us. I was told if I asked him to leave, we would be forced to return to living in a tent on the beach which my mother and I had done for many years due to poverty. I was maybe 11 or 12 when this choice was asked of me. I was forced to visit my violent biological father every second weekend even though I protested that he beat me, but I was also asked to not tell him about the sexual abuser in my other home in order to not get that man into trouble.
My school insisted my parents take me to see a child mental health specialist to help determine why my grades were failing so drastically and why I would rather go drinking with older people than attend school regularly. I wasn’t even 15. Maybe even just 14 at best. My parents told me to lie to the mental health professionals and not disclose my knowledge of the sexual abuse in our house. They told me if I did, I would be responsible for our family being torn apart, for the abuser going to prison.
I left school on my 15th birthday, moved out of home, and starting working full-time to support myself. I was an easy target for older men in my local area. I desperately wanted validation from adults as all of my parents had failed me, so I would go with older men for sex. I was coerced into unsafe sexual situations, sometimes with groups of men aged in their 40, 50s, and 60s. I was sexually assaulted. I was physically assaulted by gay and straight identifying men for being too much of a ‘faggot’. I was drinking entire bottles of hard spirits or cheap wine multiple times a week as a form of self medication.
Everything you have just read happened to me before I was even 18 years old. I am now 44 years old and only discovering the strength to talk publicly about this. Yes, I covered for abusers. No, I didn’t report being sexually assaulted to police. For decades.
The sense of responsibility, shame, and self loathing I have lived with has been overwhelming. It has shaped my life in ways you cannot imagine. Or sadly, maybe if you are a survivor you can imagine. I learned to hide all personal matters as though they were dirty secrets that would get me in trouble. I thought of myself as undeserving of basic daily care and longterm medical treatment. I trained myself to work hard to protect other people and animals as an antidote for not practising self care at all.
The compounded trauma of what I have lived through is the reason why my story changed over the years. And why I ‘lied’ about not being abused. And why I ‘failed’ to report my own sexual assault to police. But now I am telling the truth.
It has just taken an extremely long time to find the strength and the words. Be kind to people who have found the strength to speak about their own survival. It is often the most difficult thing a person will have to do in their life.
Let’s not waste time with unnecessary words.
Jump straight into these photos showing the dozens of vegan products I saw at Marks & Spencer in Ealing Broadway, London.
Are you excited?
Vegan food is everywhere in London.
I don’t simply mean there is a lot more than there used to be. I mean there is vegan food ALL OVER THE PLACE.
Take my recent walk through of the Hammersmith Broadway centre. The shopping plaza is overflowing with vegan food options.
Your plant-based cuisine options inside the centre include:
This list isn’t even close to everything vegan in the centre, which also houses a Tesco that has a huge selection of the Wicked Kitchen range of ready meals and sandwiches.
A vegan food revolution inside the Hammersmith Broadway centre is underway and is indicative of what’s happening all over London and the UK.
How are the vegan options in your local shopping centre?
In celebration of Pancake Day (Tuesday 5th March 2019), Fentimans has devised a gin and tonic pancake drizzle, using their Valencian Orange Tonic Water, for home-bakers to liberally douse on their choice of pancakes.
With the help of Holly Jade, aka The Little Blog of Vegan, Fentimans has transformed its botanically brewed Valencian Orange Tonic Water into a zesty pancake syrup.
Reminiscent of both the French classic Crepes Suzette and a refreshing citrusy G&T, the drizzle combines Fentimans Valencian Orange Tonic Water with orange juice, fresh orange zest and gin. It can easily be whipped up at home thanks to a simple and easy to follow recipe (below) and then poured over fluffy pancakes or delicate crepes. A unique alternative to the usual chocolate spread, sugar or golden syrup.
See the recipe below:
Ingredients:
Method:
Life in the UK can be a bit trying sometimes.
We had glorious but bizarre sunshine and warmth in the middle of winter that we felt guilty enjoying because it is probably a sign of our impending, climate-driven doom.
Brexit is circling all around us like the unseen demons in Bird Box. If we don’t look at it, we might survive.
And our politicians seem to have two function modes; uncaring or incompetent.
We could all use some good news, right?
In an attempt to cheer you up, I’ve put together a quick list of ten vegan things you should be excited about in London this week (w/e Sunday March 3, 2019).
Let’s see if we can turn your frown upside down.
2. There are now two weekly FGV market sections. Every Saturday in Venn Street Clapham and, from this Sunday, one on Walthamstow High Street as part of Walthamstow Sunday Social.
3. Young Vegans still serving up the best pie and gravy in the capital in Camden.
4. Investigate the huge range of vegan shoes and ethical clothing at The Third Estate in Camden.
5. You can buy vegan condoms from As Nature Intended supermarkets around London. Fuck kindly, people.
6. Visit the newest outlet of comfort food chain Arancini Brothers. It is located on Maltby Street in Bermondsey and not only do they serve the best fries in the city, they also have a burger named after FGV!
7. Nora & Nama bakery and deli in Camden has been closed for renovations this week but reopens in a big way on Saturday March 2, 2019. Cake. Sandwiches. Patisserie. Coffee. And more!
8. The cheeseboard at Essential Vegan in Shoreditch is sensational. Honestly.
9. The London Feel Good Co is making the best vegan sausage rolls you will ever taste. You can buy these delicacies at the FGV sections of both Venn Street Market on Saturday and Walthamstow Sunday Social on Sunday.
10. Wulf & Lamb in Chelsea is now serving mouthwatering vegan pizzas as part of their regular menu.
Get ready for a trip to the Leigh-on-Sea in Essex because after hearing this exciting news, you will all be rushing along for this amazing food experience.
The Acorn Pie & Mash restaurant is a fully licensed eatery serving comfort food and local beers. Basically, it is my kind of restaurant.
Located in the seaside resort of Old Leigh in Essex, they are a stone’s throw from the beach and Leigh-on-Sea train station.
Of course the main attraction are the pies, all served with mash and gravy or liquor, but there are plenty of other reasons to get along.
The shake menu is a thing of beauty and features flavours as diverse as After Eight, Bounty, Cookies & Cream, Snickers, and Fruit Trifle.
There is also a gorgeous vegan wine list and a range of bottled beers.
Follow The Acorn Pie & Mash on Facebook and Instagram. See the exact location of the restaurant thanks to Google Maps.