London, here is your opportunity to take part in a super fancy and super exclusive masterclass led by one of the leading vegan patisserie chefs on the planet.
I’ll show you how to make exquisite plant-based versions of festive French patisserie classics that will wow your guests during the festive season. – Clarisse Flon (specialist vegan patisserie chef, food consultant and photographer)
Grab a ticket and get along to the Made in Hackney kitchen on Saturday December 12, 2019 between 10am and 5:30pm for this rare learning (and eating!) opportunity.
This Masterclass is part of the Made in Hackney ‘VIP Series’, working with experts who are renowned in their field.
The class will include:
How to make a show-stopping Pear and Chocolate Genoise Yule log
Make an exquisite chocolate cream patissiere and chocolate buttercream
Learn to make gorgeous iced sablé Christmas biscuits
Rolling and setting techniques
Piping skills
How to make stunning chocolate décor and caramel shard decorations
Learn how to enhance flavours, and how to pair textures and tastes
A delicious organic plant based lunch, and take home recipe pack
15% discount in neighbouring wholefoods shop, Food for All
Clarisse Flon is a specialist vegan patisserie chef trained in classic French patisserie. Clarisse has worked in many fine dining establishments around the world while developing plant based versions of her traditional recipes.
She launched The Sunny Spoon in 2013 (a French vegan patisserie bakery featured many times at Hackney Downs Vegan Market) and helped launch Cafe Forty One, a vegan restaurant in La Suite West hotel in Notting Hill. Clarisse now works as a food consultant and photographer, developing vegan options and recipes for businesses.
Fee: £160 (£118 Concession) includes delicious tastings and a recipe pack.
This fee is used to fund the Made in Hackney programme of free courses to vulnerable and low-income community groups. By attending a Made In Hackney masterclass you get a great day of learning AND you’re providing the charity with essential funds for them to continue their work with vulnerable community groups.
You can join Animal Equality at their Festive Fundraiser on Tuesday December 3, 2019 for an evening that promises to be packed full of merriment.
Entertainment at the Central London event (near Farringdon) will feature the always inspiring Christopher Sebastian and the hilarious Carl Donnelly. If you haven’t yet had the opportunity to see them in action, then you definitely don’t want to miss this event.
You’ll also hear about the incredible work that Animal Equality has been able to carry out this year thanks to the generosity of their wonderful supporters, as well as enjoy a delicious plant-based, three-course meal and help the charity raise funds through a raffle.
The ticket price also includes a welcome drink and wine with the meal.
Christopher Sebastian is the director of social media for Peace Advocacy Network, he sits on the Advisory Council for Encompass, he is senior editor at Vine Sanctuary Press, he is co-founder of VGN, and he lectures at Columbia University in the Department of Social Work for the graduate course POP: Power, Oppression, and Privilege. He primarily focuses on animal violence and how it influences anti-black racism, queer antagonism and class discrimination throughout the global west.
Carl has been nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy Award twice and has appeared on various TV shows including Mock the Week and Russell Howard’s Good News. He is a regular on the international comedy circuit, performing at pretty much every comedy festival there is!
Animal Equality look forward to seeing you next week. Click here to book tickets.
Extra note: The event space is accessible and Signing can be arranged on request.
If you have been taking notice of my ramblings lately, you’ll know that I have teamed up with a Seattle-based travel company to launch a brand new vegan cruise company.
Vegan Culinary Cruises is dedicated to luxurious 5-star travel. Everything about the cruises we design is for vegans and vegan-curious people and our adventures are 100% vegan.
The alcohol we serve. The toiletries in the cabins. The shore excursions we organise. And of course the cuisine. It’s all designed to be 100% vegan.
I recently teamed up with our chef Tobias for a week of workshopping our menus and I have to say it was not exactly tough work for me. I got to eat some truly delicious dishes.
I’ve picked my top 7 items Tobias and I developed (and my contribution was mostly tasting) for your viewing pleasure. I’d love to know your favourite:
First up in my cavalcade of deliciousness is this stunning omelette. I haven’t eaten a non-vegan omelette in more than 20 years so I can’t place myself as an expert, but this vegan version was incredible. It was so good, we are considering having an omelette bar at breakfast on our upcoming cruises.
Dense and sweet. That’s how I like my brownies and this one didn’t disappoint. The gooey topping was perfect.
If fried spring rolls are on a menu, I order them. I’m so happy Tobias put this starter together for me and the slightly charred bok choy was the perfect accompaniment.
When Tobias told me that he wanted to cook something for me that featured multiple types of beans, I was a bit suspicious. Beans aren’t that exciting, right? I was wrong! This casolette served with crunchy garlic bread and fresh radishes was one of the highlights of the week.
Moussaka is a little bit rare to come across when you eat vegan, so I was thrilled to be served this plate during our menu workshop week.
Here is my favourite dish from the week. Seitan strudel is now the love of my life thanks to this gorgeous creation. The flaky pastry was perfectly matched by the savoury seitan filling. Not shown were some crunchy roasted potatoes in a side bowl. I mean, come on!
I couldn’t possibly end this list without the inclusion of this delicious and decadent Crêpes Suzette. I am a sucker for fancy desserts and this knocked it out of the park. The ice cream you can spot in the photo was caramel flavoured and I fell in love with it.
There you have it. What do you think about these dishes we workshopped for Vegan Culinary Cruises?
You can see both of our 2020 cruises on the VCC website. First up is the LGBT-focused (although all are welcome) cruise on the Mekong through Vietnam and Cambodia in July, followed by a Rhone cruise through the South of France during the first week of November.
We currently have a huge special for early bookers of a US$1,000 discount per person for bookings before January 31, 2020.
The Ms Cupcake bakery is one of the true pioneer vegan businesses in the UK and was largely responsible for launching the booming interest in veganism we see today.
I recently interviewed Ms Cupcake founder Mellissa Morgan for Tenderly online magazine. We talked about the trials and tribulations of running an independent vegan business and how the biggest hurdles are often completely unexpected.
In the interview (which you can read online here), Mellissa talked of how the business recently recovered from a flood. This break in was never going to have good timing, but right now feels particularly difficult for the team.
Please consider what you might do to help support the Ms Cupcake team as they move past this trouble.
My suggestions are:
Visit the store as soon as you can and spend up big (they sell a huge range of pantry items, packaged sweets, ice cream, and of course legendary cakes and slices)
If you are at VegFestUK London this week at Olympia, stop by the Ms Cupcake stall (stand number CAT0 – next to One Planet Pizza) and buy lots of cake
In addition, you can catch Mellissa presenting a talk at VegFestUK London on Saturday October 26, 2019 between 1:15pm and 1:45pm.
Mellissa will be talking about all things sweet on the Foodies Stage.
Learn how you can use alternatives to refined sugars in your baking but still get immensely indulgent and decadent results. Over the years Ms. Cupcake has changed and developed her recipes to reflect changing customer tastes and now you can learn her secrets. Find out how this Brixton bakery has removed a third of the sugar from their cupcakes and cakes and introduced both a menu of refined sugar free items and a menu suitable for diabetics.
Get all the info about VegFestUK London (including tickets) online here.
The Fry Family Food Co is a legendary vegan brand that is known and loved all over the planet.
The family-owned brand is especially famous amongst vegans and the vegan-curious in the UK. Their meat alternatives have been keeping people happy for what must now be a few decades.
In what is great news for lovers of this meat-free brand, The Fry Family Food Co now has products available in Tesco supermarkets around the UK.
You can now find their chilled Pepper Pie, Mushroom Pie, Curry Pie, Med Veg & Squash Slice, and Twin Chicken-Style Sausage Roll (new and seen first in Tesco) in around 800 stores.
Both the slice Slice and Sausage Roll are ready-to-eat straight from the pack, or you can heat them in the oven for a warm and tasty treat.
You can view the entire range of Fry’s products (including the range of pastries available in Tesco) online here.
Fry’s will also be launching three frozen products later this month, so keep your eyes open!
I know a lot of people enjoy celebrating their vegan anniversary because the milestone can be an exciting time to pat yourself on the back and take stock of how far you’ve come.
It feels good to feel good!
It can also be an opportunity to look back on how much has changed for vegan consumers in the time since you decided to be totally plant-based.
I don’t actually recall the date I went vegan, even though it did happen overnight and on a specific date in 1999 (I think!). All I know is that is was about twenty years ago.
Left: Just vegan Right: Old vegan
My home at the time was in Chiswick, London. Josh and I lived in a one-bedroom apartment with my sister and her partner. Yes, Josh and I had the lounge room as our bedroom.
I could very well have travelled through life indefinitely thinking I was the height of compassion if it wasn’t for one pesky little invention known as the World Wide Web. Josh and I invested in some painfully slow dial up Internet connection and it was a revelation. The Internet was the late nineties version of that chicken truck pulling up beside me in western Sydney, but this time I was being awakened to my culpability in the suffering of egg laying birds and milk producing cows. Via rudimentary chat groups and early versions of forums, I started to be exposed to people who opted out of relying on any and all animal- derived products. I was so reliant on milk and cheese at the time I went into shut down. Wasn’t it enough to not eat the animals? Surely I was to be applauded for my commitment to animal welfare? Then I discovered that many wines are treated with animal products like egg whites, milk protein or fish products to get rid of some of the leftover solids. This sent me into a complete tailspin. There I was thinking nobody loved animals more than I, while cows were being forcibly impregnated in order for me to guzzle their milk. Cows need to be pregnant or new mothers for their bodies to produce milk and as we know, mammals don’t get pregnant on their own. The discovery that dairy cows went through pregnancy repeatedly for my milk was confronting. Chickens, even those advertised as cage free, were wildly mistreated in shocking conditions for my occasional egg habit including my desire for albumen, or egg-white clarified red wine. There must have been a few weeks of this information dripping through to me during which I still consumed dairy and sipped wine from the corner store. I needed to be slapped into a different state of understanding. I needed to truly understand the role I was playing in animal exploitation. Enter my sister, Monique. Monique and her partner Drew were living with us in London. They were both carnivorous without waiver and it wasn’t just on one occasion I walked into the shared kitchen to discover my sister wrist deep inside a chicken carcass. The relationship I had back then with my sister was tumultuous and she would try to catch me out on any perceived flaw, real or imagined. She got a good one to ride me on with my hypocrisy surrounding animals. The day Monique sneered at me and called me a hypocrite, for saying I loved animals while refusing to give up wine from the corner shop, plays back like it was yesterday. In a rare instance of calmness and clarity, I told my sister she was absolutely right. I could no longer drink non-vegan wine, eat dairy-containing food or buy clothing made with animal products. I went vegan that very second and have never stopped being vegan. When people ask me for advice on how to go and stay vegan, I often retell the story of my sister pushing me into a corner. That was my defining moment and I tell people theirs will arrive. It takes knowing the facts, knowing your part and feeling it is the right thing to do in your heart. Once the pieces fall into place and you have a clear understanding of your role in reducing animal suffering, choosing vegan becomes an epiphany. It’s the right thing to do and you do it. The clarity or the logic or the unavoidability of what you have come to understand puts you on a path of lifelong compassion and it’s a fabulous feeling.
So, that is the story of how I went vegan. But what was the vegan landscape in London like twenty years ago?
I really can’t recall any vegan restaurants, although there must have been a few. We certainly didn’t have the vegan networks and online social media groups to spread news of the best places to eat. It was all very much real life experience and word of mouth.
Going out for lunch meant a packet of pita bread and a tub of hummus from the Co-op. Seriously. Co-operative Supermarkets were about the only place that clearly labeled vegan products back in 1999.
When I decided I would not drink beer or wine anymore unless I was sure it was vegan, I often just went without. If vegan alcohol searching database Barnivore existed back then, I certainly didn’t know about it. Smart phones didn’t exist and I didn’t even own a cellphone!
There was not one mainstream restaurant that had vegan options. If you wanted to eat something in a High Street eatery, you would have to ask your server to speak to the kitchen and explain what vegan meant. It just wasn’t a process that many of us wanted to go through again and again (although many did as an act of activism).
I cooked at home for every single meal.
I can honestly say I used to be a better and more enthusiastic cook back in the day. We had tofu preparation down to a fine art and I didn’t even know what seitan was or how to make it for the first few years of my vegan adventure. Jackfruit? Nope. Didn’t know about it. My meat alternative most used? Chickpeas.
For special occasions we might break out a nut roast.
My memory is a bit hazy but I recall there only being one not-very-nice soya milk in Sainsbury’s that was sweetened with apple juice.
A few years into my veganism saw things getting slightly better.
Holland & Barrett near my house was the ONLY place to get Redwood (now known as VBites) vegan turkey and beef roasts. If you wanted one for the weekend, you had to familiarise yourself with their delivery times because these products were scarce and flew off the shelves.
I would sometimes run to the store in order to get in before the other local vegans.
There was no vegan cheese to speak of or at least none worth speaking of, that’s for sure.
An early memory involves me going along to the vegan festival in Red Lion Square. It was like another planet and it felt as though every single vegan in London was there. It was at one of these early events where I first tasted seitan. I was so confused!
Vegetarian Shoes was the only place to get kinder footwear and the styles were quite limited. It wouldn’t be unusual to show up to a vegan event and half the attendees were wearing the same boot style!
When it came to personal care products, Co-operative Supermarkets were the first ports of call due to their anti-testing stance and clear labelling.
I do remember it being tough to be vegan twenty years ago, but it was also a time of simple and clear choices. We were inventive, resourceful, and made do with what we had because we believed in reducing the demand for animal-derived food and products. Just the basics.
Even though I have dedicated my life ever since then to championing the vegan message, I would never have thought today’s vegan-friendly landscape was possible in my lifetime.
The excruciatingly-slow progress we made over those two decades has been completely swamped in just two years or so. Vegan stuff is absolutely everywhere in comparison to when I first made the switch. Heck, I even work on vegan cruises!
I hoped to see this sort of availability, but never believed I’d live to see it.
Honestly.
I’d love to hear your memories of what it was like when you took the vegan leap.
The following is a personal message I wrote to my Patreon supporters today to explain my recent absence from the site.
Patreon is a way for people to financially support the FGV platform and the work it does to champion independent vegan business, support human rights, and help improve outcomes for non-human animals.
If you would like to pledge a monthly amount to keep my blog and social media platforms alive, you can at my Patreon page.
Now for the letter…
Hello everyone.
This post is both an apology and an explanation.
I have been missing in action on Patreon for about half a year and I owe you an explanation.
The past six to eight months of my life have been some of the most difficult and I’ve only just come out the other side.
One of the biggest changes and challenges I faced was the end of my relationship with Josh. Actually, we are still best friends and we love and support each other unequivocally but the period of transformation where we changed our relationship to a friendship took a huge toll on me and my mental health.
I lived with extreme depression and found myself accessing weekly therapy here in Mexico City. My therapist was so very kind and helpful. I honestly don’t know what I would have done without the support.
Having been in such a co-dependent relationship for 20 years, I was just incapable of even the most mundane life tasks on my own. I lost track of how many times I would just lock myself in my room and cry. Minutes were hours and hours were days and days were weeks.
The whole emotional and mental struggle was one of the most gruelling fights of my life. I’m still living with depression daily but have a hold on it at the moment.
It was during this period when I also discovered that I was NOT living with a medical condition that it was thought I was living with for decades. This is an extremely convoluted story, very private, and almost unbelievable so expect to see me write more about it in the future. For now, all I can say is that the experience broke me down to nothing and I’ve been building myself back up from scratch.
It pushed me into a type of depression and mental breakdown that I had never believed would happen to me and it felt like I would never recover.
It was also tough to say goodbye to Hackney Downs Vegan Market and Vegan Beer Fest UK events during this time. Neither of these ventures were financially viable any longer but making the decision to end them all hit me hard.
They never made a lot of money but losing even that tiny amount of income triggered my anxiety and depression.
Having exited a 20 year relationship in which Josh and I cared for each other in all aspects including financial, I felt beyond vulnerable. I had no job security, no savings, and no future financial plans. I was scared and lonely. The thought of growing old with no money is not pleasant. I went from being 50% responsible for my rent, bills, and food expenses to 100% responsible and the change has been a big adjustment.
All I could manage was to keep my blog alive in order to help independent vegan businesses and manage the FGV section of the weekly Venn Street Market for a small amount of income and to support those traders. I also had my monthly Vegan Life Magazine column to write each month.
I physically and mentally couldn’t keep up with anything else, and sadly that meant Patreon postings.
I loved giving weekly news updates and sharing content on here, but when there were weeks I couldn’t get out of bed that meant that some things got lost.
I’m am forever grateful for the support you have all given me on here. It makes me emotional to know you have stayed by my side when you had no idea why I wasn’t sharing content.
The money from your pledges has kept my head above water during the darkest times of my life and you have been a huge part in keeping the FGV platform alive.
I still get a thrill out of helping promote independent vegan businesses and the blog and social media platforms do make a huge impact. It is your support that has allowed me to keep all of this alive during my breakdown.
And I’m still here.
I’m still blogging all the time. I’m still promoting my events and events run by others. I’m still answering reader questions every day.
I’m still FGV and I’m still fighting for human and non-human animals.
Going forward, I need to make some changes to how this Patreon platform rewards you for your support. I’d love to know what you would like to see in return for your pledge. Feel free to respond here or send me a private message.
My idea is to keep the blog and the market running (your support helps with this) but also start sharing more personal writing on here. This would include vegan and non-vegan specific topics.
I never went away but I’m back here in a big way… and I couldn’t have done it without you.
I have exciting plans for the future and it would mean a lot to me for you to be by my side. A second and third book are being planned, while next year sees me taking on a huge adventure by curating a vegan cruise for LGBT people and their friends/family.
I am helping launch vegan events in Mexico City and have just curated an FGV food section for the Mighty Hoopla and Cross The Tracks festivals in London. It is still full steam ahead!
I have a new boyfriend in my life who has been the most wonderful support I could have hoped for. Gil is kind and loving and handsome. He has come into my life at the perfect time and means the world to me. My friends have also stayed in touch to make sure I was still surviving and I’ll never forget their love and support.
I know it is all a lot to take in so I’ll leave it there and hope to hear from you all soon.
This article was originally written by me for Vegan Life Magazine. My column appears each month and you can find out about subscribing online here.
When faced with penning this column, I was slightly unsure of what I could say on the subject of vegan fashion. I’m not celebrated for my sense of style and I’ve been known to wear the same second-hand jeans for a decade.
But after a bit of reflection it became clear.
Fashion shouldn’t simply be about what it does for us personally. In addition to helping us get through the day and making us feel stylish, we need to consider what fashion does to animals and the planet.
There are many reasons why people decide against buying and wearing footwear, clothing, and accessories made from animals.
Of course the number one driver when it comes to dressing vegan is a desire to not contribute to animal suffering. For as long as there have been people not wanting to exploit animals, there have been attempts at dressing more kindly.
There are obvious materials to avoid when you start dressing with compassion such as leather and fur, but it sometimes takes a bit more convincing when it comes to wool. Even though they are not killed directly for their wool, sheep experience ongoing hardship such as exposure to extreme heat and cold while the practice of muelsing sees chunks of flesh being cut from them while alive and awake.
Pleather shoes, plastic skirts, acrylic cardigans, and PVC jackets started to find a following with compassionate fashionistas after initially launching as inexpensive alternatives. Just like we have accidentally vegan food, we have a lot of vegan-friendly fabrics that just happen to be that way.
There was a huge surge in the popularity of leather and fur alternatives in the 1980s and 90s as many celebrities took the cause to heart. Perhaps you remember anti-fur advertisements such as the series featuring rock band The Go-Gos brandishing the slogan ‘We’d rather Go-Go naked than wear fur’?
Purposively-vegan fashion brands started to emerge around this time including Vegetarian Shoes which commenced operations almost 30 years ago and Ethical Wares which came to be around 1993.
More recent high profile footwear and fashion brands include Will’s Vegan Shoes from London and VAUTE fashion label of New York City.
An important part of shopping for vegan fashion is understanding that not all animal-free materials are good for the planet or the people handling them.
Of course the fallout from leather is atrocious as it needs to be drenched in chemicals to stop it decomposing (a reminder that leather is dead animals!) and these chemicals are washed off into waterways therefore creating immeasurable environmental damage, however some alternatives can do their share of long-lasting harm as well. PVC has been used as a leather alternative for decades but we don’t currently have records to show how long this material takes to break down.
But where there is a problem, there is a more vegan-friendly solution.
Lefrik is an all-vegan bag and accessories fashion label using recycled plastic bottles to create fabric. The use of recycled PET fabric from plastic bottles saves 90% of water consumption and has a 75% lower carbon footprint than regular polyester. This fashion initiative is helping to keep plastic waste from landfills and oceans, as well as lessen CO2 emissions.
Other animal-friendly materials finding a home in the world of fashion include hemp, bamboo, pineapple fibre and cork. Many inventive designers are also repurposing and up-cycling vintage fabrics to help lessen the demand for animal skins and furs.
Steve Madden and Skechers now allow customers to search their online footwear catalogues using the ‘vegan’ category, while Reebok is going a step further to create a shoe made from organic cotton uppers and rubbery soles concocted from milled corn.
This mainstreaming of ethical and vegan products has been powered by compassionate fashion pioneers such as Angela Corcoran and James Beal of London ethical boutique and shoe store, The Third Estate.
Angela and James sell ethical vegan fashion to compassionate shoppers all over the planet via their online store and are a treasured local business with their shop front in North London.
I approached the duo to find out what advice they have for people looking to make better fashion choices for animals, workers, and the environment and they were both adamant when saying that there is no such thing as an inexpensive ethical product. If consumers are not paying very much for something, someone else is paying in other ways. A pair of shoes might be animal free, but if they are low-priced that undoubtedly means workers are being paid poorly.
The Third Estate is on the frontline of tackling all of the ethical dilemmas thrown up by fashion. The business promotes labels that put animals, workers, and the planet at the centre of all they do by using animal alternatives, paying fair wages, and working to strict environmental guidelines.
Angela reminded me of that old adage that less is more when it comes to fashion, but maybe in a different sense than the quote was first intended.
She said, “We should buy less fashion and we should think carefully about what we do buy. We can look fabulous and make kinder choices for animals, factory workers, and the planet at the same time.”
Sounds perfect to me. Kinder choices will never go out of style.
The market town of Harleston in Norfolk has a new vegan café and it looks sensational!
Hungry Cat Vegan Cafe is a brand new vegan café/deli in Harleston and they are bringing vibrant, colourful, and delicious food to the local population.
The irresistible menu contains wraps, burgers, toasties, panini, smoothies, teas, coffees, cakes as well as take home treats such as cheeses, meats, chocolates, sour cream, cooking cream and whipping cream.
Visitors can fill up on alcoholic drinks including wines and beers in addition to unique super food lattes.
The café is making a name for itself thanks to its savoury plates including scrambled tofu on toast, mushrooms on toast, and the stunning mezze platters. The specials board showcases a rotating menu with standouts including beetroot salad with hummus, pasta, vegetable bake, lasagne, and sweet potato with lentil bake… and don’t forget the sausage rolls and pies.
Of course everything is 100% vegan.
Razz from Hungry Cat sent me some details to make it easier for you to visit:
OPENING TIMES – Tuesday until Friday 9am – 4:30pm. Saturday 9am – 4pm. Sunday 9am – 3pm. Closed on Mondays.
PARKING AND LOCATION – Harleston has a lot of free parking, the closest to the café is at the East of England Co-op supermarket behind them. Take the first road on the left after the café and drive directly into the East of England Co-op. You will only have a two minute walk to the cafe. Hungry Cat is at 25 The Thoroughfare, Harleston IP20 9AS. Click here to see the exact location thanks to Google Maps.
