i don't eat anything with a face

Jyoti Bihanga - http://www.jyotibihanga.com/ - is a mellow, relaxing, spacious, warm and inviting vegetarian and vegan-friendly restaurant in San Diego. Run under the auspices of peace-loving musician, artist and spiritual rock Sri Chinmoy, this place is a relaxing and wonderful eatery located in a neat, very urban, hardly chic part of San Diego.

They have a fab menu during the week, but it's Sunday that brings a plethora of people. And yesterday was no different. It was packed with peeps! On Sundays, they serve a great all-you-can eat buffet, with plenty of vegan options. Peter & i decided to go there yesterday. Hooray!

Above you can see some of what i had - gently cooked and cubed potatoes with an insanely outrageous vegan mushroom gravy & scrambled tofu with veggies. Below that is a plate of vegan blueberry pancakes and a slice of apple cake with maple syrup, some ultra sweet strawberries and a slice of pineapple. It was an incredible meal. And only $9 per person. Such a bargain!!

We brought the girls with us but ate inside, so they had to wait. Awwwwww! We let the windows down some and kept the top up on his car. Here you can see Heidi looking out intently, waiting for us to get out of Jyoti Bihanga. Mat's in the front seat...

This morning when i was getting out of my car to take Mattie to the vet, a woman stopped me in the parking lot of the shopping center my veterinarians are in and walked over to me and asked me, "What do you do for protein?" I had a nice little chat with her. It's times like that i'm glad i have kind of an obnoxious array of bumper stickers... It's a good day when i spy people behind me on the road or at a stoplight pointing at my car's behind & commenting to one another. Makes me smile.

Yesterday after Peter and i were at Jyoti Bihanga, we drove over to where Heidi's foster mom lives to visit her. Surprisingly enough, we ran into Cheri (Heidi's former caretaker) not far from her house. She was out walking her own yellow Labrador. Peter pulled over. We all talked for a while and i told her where we'd just been for brunch. She said, "You know, i stopped eating meat and i've been thinking about becoming a vegetarian... A lot of my friends are. What do you recommend i do?" Needless to say, i'll be getting her e-mail from Peter and i hope to help her become more knowledgeable... Yay. That made me happy.

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A cool Web site from "Down Under" with some wonderful ideas, hopes, dreams & plans...

http://www.animal-lib.org.au/

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How do you feel about Wikipedia's entry for "Vegan" and the Vegan Cookbook entry?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegan

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook:Vegan_cuisine

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Above photos from http://vaveg.org/

Hope everyone has a wonderful week ahead!

Soakin' it up

After a little walk with me, Mat caught some rays on her favorite little couch on the porch in the backyard at my parents' house on Wednesday. It rained today and will again tomorrow, but she had it good for a few hours yesterday.

A little later i caught her taking a swig o'water from their swimming pool...



















A good read (although some of it bugged me, but please don't let that stop you) from Newsweek magazine via MSNBC found at Richard's blog http://sadlywaiting.blogspot.com/ about omnis & veggies co-existing happily:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17201476/site/newsweek/

"no animals were bothered in the making of lunch"

I laughed when i read that line in the following news article because it's just so cute. Better than that old Carl's Jr. "don't bother me, i'm eating" line any day.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/other_business/article/0,2777,DRMN_23916_5364029,00.html

But in all seriousness, it's a darn good read. (Mattie agrees.)

There is a sanctuary in Northern California called Animal Place. It seems wonderful. I hope someday to visit the real Animal Place.

But till then, it's online...

http://www.animalplace.org/

And now they have a blog here on blogspot!

http://animalplacesanctuary.blogspot.com/

She's 12 (84,is that?), she's deaf, but Mattie's spry... forever young at heart... i gotta tell ya though, this cartoon made me laugh. AARP AARP!

And while i'm on the subject of older furry ladies (no one's callin' any dawg a b*h here!), here's Heidi 'n' Peter kickin' back recently. They seem to be expressing the "Let Love Rule" way of life, as Lenny Kravitz might sing.

From me, Mattie, to YOU, yes i mean YOU!

Hi friends!

I had such a good day with Mommy today, a Sunday she finally has off from working at the newspaper. We went for a good hike in the park near where we live and we met some nice four-leggeders, including an adorable and high-energy 11-month-old blonde cocker spaniel puppy, who was much hairier than I. (You might note that my tresses were snipped - that was a couple of weeks ago but it's growing back.)

Mommy says HELLO to everyone out there in blogger-land. I know she has really been missing all of her friends... She will be posting more often than she has in months. She took some time off to concentrate on a lot of "career-related issues."

(At least that's how she put it to me - i think it's just a fancy way of saying she has been working a lot of hours at the newspaper and with her freelance work, and hasn't had enough time to devote to blogging!)

She's going to be visiting everyone this week, if she hasn't done so already. She wishes you a WONDERFUL week! And, of course, so do i.

Love 'n' stuff,

Mattie

P.S. And Mommy also said some of you might want to go to the following Web site to get some vegan freebies! Hooray for freebies!

http://www.purelydecadent.com/