hey everyone, a winner has been chosen for the kale chip contest. check it out!

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UPDATE! WE HAVE A WINNER.

hey everyone, last week we held a contest to come up with a new kale chip flavor for rawk-n-roll cuisine, and we need your help choosing the winner!

the 3 finalists are:
“buffalo” by the broke-ass bride
“chipotle lime” by vegyogini
“sour cream & onion” by anandajc

rawk-n-roll is in the test kitchen right now, getting creative and trying to make these flavors work…but they want quarrygirl readers to influence the final decision! which flavor of kale chip do YOU think sounds best?! let us know!

UPDATE 08/09/10: WE HAVE A WINNER!

UPDATE 08/02/10: we have finalists! help choose the winning kale chip!

hey, everyone! time for another giveaway, and today’s comes to you from rawk-n-roll cuisine!

i am happy to announce that we are giving away an ENTIRE CASE of their HIGHLY ADDICTIVE kale chips. i have been a fan of these things for a long time, they make the perfect snack, and are available at most whole foods in los angeles. rawk-n-roll makes nacho cheese flavored, pizza flavored, and bbq flavored kale chips, and all 3 are fantastic. these things are delicious, raw, and totally healthy, so you are gonna want to get on this. not only do you have the chance to win this prize, but also come up with your very own kale chip flavor that rawk-n-roll will add to their menu!

here is what you need to do to win —->

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as you probably know, madeleine bistro is the best vegan restaurant in town. recently, they’ve changed their hours and have decided to offer a different tasting menu every weekend, as well as a new delivery menu every monday. their website doesn’t reflect this change yet…so as a service to you, the readers, we are going to post the menus here each week for your enjoyment.

check out what madeleine has in store this weekend—it looks freaking fantastic. from a vegan “egg in the hole” with portabella bacon, to summer gnocchi, and wild mushroom wontons.

here is the glorious menu.

Back when I was a vegetarian living in London, I used to visit Chicago frequently. On my trips I would only eat two kinds of food: Mexican (as there is no Mexican food to speak of in the UK) and Chicago Pizza (same issue). Now that I’m a vegan living in LA there’s an abundance of incredible Mexican food to satiate my love of things from south of the border, but I really do miss the tastes and textures of a thick, cheese filled Chicago pizza that’s so humongously large that it has to be eaten with a knife and fork.

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have you ever seen a gallon of vegenaise in person?

i spotted a dude with this epic vegenaise jar at a bar in burbank last week, and i couldn’t believe it. i was frightened and in awe all at the same time.

what would YOU do with a gallon of vegenaise?!????!!!

summer is here, and if you live in los angeles, whole foods is going to be your one stop shop for EPIC VEGAN FEASTING. that’s right, this week stores in the area are rolling out a completely vegan bbq case for the month of july in the prepared foods section, and it’s ABSOLUTELY INSANE.

ALL VEGAN BBQ CASE!!!

the case is already set up at whole foods weho, and will be at other stores in the region starting on thursday, july 1st. i hit up the west hollywood store yesterday to check out the goods, and i was beyond impressed.

it featured various gardien and field roast items as well as vegan potato salad, tempeh salad and a number of vegetable offerings. everything you need for a bbq, picnic, beach or pool party!

check out all the crazy stuff i tried…

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when we heard that chef chloe was competing on the the food network’s cupcake wars, we were super excited. but now that she has WON, we CANNOT CONTAIN OURSELVES!

tonight’s episode just ended, and local vegan baker chloe coscarelli took the victory home BIG TIME. not only did the young chef compete against professional cupcake shop owners who have been in the business FOR YEARS, but she won EVERY round with her 100% VEGAN cupcakes!

round #1: the aphrodisiac cupcake

here’s a re-cap!…

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listen up vegans! you’d better set your DVRs to record cupcake wars this tuesday june 22nd at 9pm on the food network, because chef chloe is going to be competing with her delicious vegan treats!

chloe coscarelli first showed up on our radar earlier this year when she created the winning sandwich in coral tree cafe’s panini contest. since then she has distributed her baked goods throughout los angeles, started her own recipe blog and website, and even made cooking videos with vegnews.

tomorrow, chloe will be reppin’ the vegans when she goes head to head with other dessert pros on the food network’s cupcake wars. be sure to tune in and cheer her on, because not only is chloe and awesome local chef, but her vegan desserts ROCK. she made me a cake once and it was seriously one of the tastiest treats i’ve ever had.

tuesday, june 22nd on the food network at 9pm. CUPCAKE WARS! DO IT.

follow chloe on twitter, and check out her website for more info. she always tweets when her baked goods are available for sale.

lastly, i will leave you with this adorable video chloe made with vegnews. i can’t watch it without getting ridiculously hungry. good luck, chloe!

today is officially the first day of summer, and what better way to celebrate than to do a dandies giveaway with our friends at chicago soydairy!

if you haven’t tried dandies yet, they are the tastiest, most realistic vegan marshmallows ever. they go great in rice krispies treats, hot chocolate, and smores…the perfect treat now that camping season is upon us. chicago soydairy is giving away AN ENTIRE MONTH’S SUPPLY of these beauties (4 bags!) to one lucky reader, so get ready and enter the contest.

here’s what you need to do for a chance to win a month’s supply of dandies:
1.) you must “like” chicago soydairy on facebook. (do that by clicking HERE.)
2.) you must leave a comment on this blog post about dandies.
3.) you must leave your real, valid email address when you submit your comment. (the public won’t see this, just me…so i can contact you if you win!)

…that’s it!

a winner will be chosen at random after 5pm CST on friday june 25th…so be sure to get your entries in before then! if you don’t win, you should still stock up on dandies for the summer. these things are pretty much a miracle product, and you won’t believe how much they taste like traditional marshmallows. you can order them online here, or find them around LA at places like the meet market and locali.

ENTER NOW!

UPDATE: costco no longer carries gardein. 🙁 it was a trial run, apparently. don’t let that get you down, though! be sure to request gardein each time you shop there. let’s get it back in stores.

every new vegan product goes through an arc of acceptance. first of all, it very clearly appeals to its core audience; the manufacturer will fall all over itself for any blog post, a bit of twitter love, and a handful of facebook “likes”. they will eke out an early existence sending samples to anybody who asks, while in the background, their PR machine will be laser-focused on reeling in major distribution channels to sell their products everywhere from restaurants to health food stores, all the time hoping (perhaps praying), that they will reach the nirvana of acceptance: going mainstream.

one of the most notable products to achieve “mainstream” success over the past 3 years, has been gardein. after all, how much more mainstream could a product be than to chill away in a freezer at your local costco? the answer is: none. none more mainstream.

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i shop at whole foods like it’s my job, and i officially have a new favorite location. first i thought it couldn’t get any better than venice, then el segundo took the crown, and now tarzana has got them both beat. it’s massive and it’s epic like no wfs i’ve ever been to before. it needs to be seen to be believed.

i first got wind of the new whole foods when a helpful tipster wrote in to the blog. (if you know of cool vegan places, please do the same!) she wrote, “FYI… I’m sure you’ve heard by now but the new whole foods opened in tarzana and there’s a crap load of vegan stuff. Soups, hot food, frozen food, and a wine and tapas bar that has daiya sandwiches…” yes! later that day, i saw a post on LAist, with a slew of photos of the new location, and i knew i had to check it out. it took me a few weeks, but i finally hauled my ass out to the valley, and boy was it worth it! (the new store is located immediately across the street from LA’s best vegan restaurant, madeleine bistro…in case you need more inspiration!)

naturally, i started my tour of the joint in my favorite section: prepared foods! it was amazing. the space was vast and there was way too much stuff to take pictures of. sensory overload to the max. i did catch the entirely vegan salad bar…

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hey everyone! this is a HUGE day, because the famed goldberg sisters of spork foods have officially relocated to their new space. the popular cooking class and catering duo have called silverlake their home up until recently…now, however they are operating out of a very roomy commercial space in weho, and of course we were there to check out their brand new new digs.

the official “opening party” was tonight, and it went a little something like this:

food and drinks galore!

nonstop snacks and alcohol! you name it, they probably had it. appetizers, drinks, music, it was the right vibe from the get-go.

a good crowd, very important.

the sporks party also had a good crowd. i showed up shortly after the starting time, and left a couple hours later…the whole while i kept running into lovely people who were excited about this new vegan addition to LA. by the time i left, a bouncer was getting serious about not letting newbies in! the place was PACKED…

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when i tried the new tofurky frozen pizza at natural products expo west a few months ago, it was seriously love at first bite. covered in stretchy daiya cheese and plump pepperoni bits, it was the best frozen pizza i’d ever tasted.

imagine my excitement then, when i got a letter from tofurky advertising their new pizza line, along with a coupon to get one for free. the only problem is, i couldn’t find a store in LA selling the pizzas yet. i had no choice but to hop on a plane and head up to the cutting edge food fight grocery in portland, oregon.

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Imagine, if you would, a relaxed bar with six craft beers on tap and 16 great wines by the glass.

Add in over 100 bottled beers…

and around 300 bottled wines…

I have your attention?

Good. Imagine if this bar had a “create your own pizza” counter with Daiya cheese and 10 vegan toppings as well as a deli with many vegan sandwiches.

But wait, there’s more…

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