How do you say soy in Czech?

Anthony Bourdain declared Prague the land of pork when he visited the Czech Republic capital for his godsend of a TV show, No Reservations. While he may have a point, I found Prague to be fairly vegan friendly upon closer examination. At first glance, the streets of Prague are filled with all things pig; the grocery aisles all things dairy; the locals all things...chinchilla. Although the Edinburgh Tesco offers about 6 variations of non-dairy milk, I could not for the life of me find soy milk in the Prague Tesco. This might have been a language barrier though and for the record I now know that soy in Czech is sója but soy milk is sójové mléko. I'm still not convinced this information would have helped me though. As I was put up by Logan, the meat eater, I tried not to push the boundaries of my warm welcome and indulged in such vegetarian (but not vegan) delights as the local dumpling bread and smazeny, pronounced "shmaz". For as little as 25 crowns, smazeny is probably one of the best street vendor foods to soak up the alcohol in your stomach at 3 am. From what I could discern it consists of breaded, melted cheese with onions and condiments in between a hamburger bun. The bites I stole from Logan were totally worth the breach from veganism and I felt pretty cultured compared to the large group of wasted Americans next to me repeatedly yelling out for a cheeseburger.

As I explored the city, I began to see signs of a vegetarian-conscious underground often expressed through graffiti.

A chance encounter with an ad for a vegetarian restaurant prompted me to google the vegan food scene, despite the meat fuelled cries of Tony Bourdain, Logan, and local street vendors. Logan generously agreed to check out the vegetarian restaurant Maitrea on Valentine's Day. Maitrea is a sister restaurant to Clear Head (as seen in the advertisement) and offers an eclectic menu of veg and vegan delights sure to satisfy even the most pork addicted palate. I chose a pasta with soy-based imitation cream sauce, smoked tofu, and spinach. Although I usually avoid soy I recognize that I should be grateful for any type of a gourmet vegan meal in a formerly communist country where you ate what you got end of story. While the cream sauce was a bit too rich for my liking the smoked tofu was nothing short of inspired. Logan and I had to take home our rice pudding desert because we were too full but I highly recommend it to anyone who goes to Prague, vegan or not. The back of the menu also included a very helpful index of vegetarian terms like "tofu", "seitan" etc to clarify any questions for first timers. The staff was also very helpful and the general ambiance of the restaurant, filled with sanskrit writings and tea lights, made for a very relaxing experience. At around 450 crowns the meal was expensive for Czech standards but do the math and you'll realize 2 people stuffed themselves on Valentine's evening to the tune of about 25 dollars. Not bad.(Děkuji, Logan!)



PS If anyone can explain why a lot of the writing is in blue and how to make it not in blue I will be forever in your debt.

Pizza Night

I am currently in Edinburgh, Scotland and have much to report on the vegan scene here. Before this happens though, I want to say a little something about vegan pizza, something everyone can enjoy! That said, part of my mission is to educate people on the vegan lifestyle without shaming anyone out of the meat isle of the grocery store. Therefor I warn you this post contains graphic material of the meat eating variety. Some images may not be suitable for angry vegans.
What does this mean? It means I believe in adding vegan options to meals, not taking meat options away from my friends. I've converted many a mouth to my vegan baked goods and I thought I would try the same with pizza.
We made our own dough from scratch but this took a long time so I would recommend buying pizza dough from the store (just make sure there's no animal product in it). As well, whole wheat pizza crusts are really hard to make from scratch (they don't rise as well) so that's another reason to buy pre-made whole wheat dough. From there I mixed tomato sauce with pesto sauce. For the pesto I blended about 3 cups of basil, 3 cloves of garlic, 5 handfuls of walnuts, a little salt, and 6 tablespoons of olive oil. It looks kinda icky but it tastes DELICIOUS!
Meat-eater Logan and I making the dough (sometimes a little wine on the side is needed-or should I say kneaded?)

From there I added kalamata olives, artichokes and sun dried tomatoes. Next I placed strips of vegan cheese over the toppings. Again, I suggest using non-soy cheese, such as rice cheese or almond cheese. Don't forget that soya production can be just as devastating to the environment and our bodies as meat. However, pizza can be delicious without cheese too! Next time I will definitely try one without cheese but my dinner guests wanted to try one with vegan cheese- who was I to say no? I then sprinkled cilantro on top of the cheese. (Feel free to leave this out if you are one of those unfortunate souls who thinks cilantro tastes like soap)
Logan's pizza looks delicious! But it was also very very not vegan. He deserves some major props though for this masterpiece
Finally, our pizzas were done and everyone enjoyed them!
Update on Europe coming soon!