update: we have a winner for the vegan cupcakes! yaya! thanks to vegan bake sale for doing such a wonderful giveaway!

FREE. VEGAN. CUPCAKES. do i have your attention?

that’s right, you have a chance to win a whole box of delicious cruelty-free cupcakes. and these aren’t just any old vegan cupcakes—these are rich, decadent, sinful-tasting cupcakes made by vegan bake sale. alix, the mastermind behind the los angeles-based baking company, has been kind enough to offer quarrygirl.com readers the chance to to win one dozen cupcakes by commenting on this blog post.

this is quite an amazing gift, because i have eaten loads of vegan bake sale cupcakes…and there is nothing vegan-tasting about them. as alix says on her blog, “These aren’t the healthy, crunchy, cardboard vegan desserts you find at health food stores, they’re the decadent, delicious treats that could fool any non-vegan.” And, she’s right. I have fed her desserts to unsuspecting omnivores, who gave them tons of praise without even knowing they were vegan. heh heh heh.

here’s what you need to do for a chance to win some of these lovely cupcakes:
1.) you must comment on this blog post with your favorite cupcake flavor.
2.) 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!)
3.) you must be in los angeles.

that’s it. super easy. the winner will be picked at random and announced on the morning of tuesday, september 22. they will receive one dozen free cupcakes from vegan bake sale, hopefully of their dream flavor. if you need some help thinking of your favorite flavor, check out vegan bake sale’s menu.

i’ve tried several of vegan bake sale’s cupcakes, and while i love them all, the one that haunts my dreams the most is pumpkin spice. the creamy spiced frosting atop moist fluffy cake invokes such warm fuzzy feelings of autumn—this one would be my first choice.

vegan bake sale pumpkin spice cupcake

and to those of you who don’t win, please don’t let that stop you from trying out some of vegan bake sale’s cupcakes anyway! they are some of the best vegan cupcakes around, and you won’t be sorry. plus, they are so damn pretty.

for more info, check out:
theveganbakesale.com
@veganbakesale on twitter

now get commenting! THERE ARE CUPCAKES TO BE WON!

WIN A BOX OF CUPCAKES! COMMENT NOW!

it looks like america’s favorite pastime is becoming a little more vegan-friendly, at least in the city of los angeles. now you can enjoy a good old fashion baseball at dodgers stadium with a vegan frank in hand.

now i’m no sports fan, and i will would have never even known the stadium was offering vegan hot dogs…but luckily for you a friend of mine spotted them, tried them out, and even got some snap shots of them for your benefit.

veggie dog. $6.25

dodgers stadium uses lightlife’s smart jumbo dogs, which are completely vegan, as well as bimbo bakeries buns, which are also vegan! while $6.25 is a lot to pay for a simple veggie dog, i guess it’s pretty standard considering the fact that everything is overpriced at sporting events. now you can feel ripped off just like the meat-eaters…it’s only fair.

baseball is way cooler when vegan hot dogs are around!

these vegan hot dogs are available in Reserved level Section 4 at the Wetzel Pretzel stand, so don’t miss them.

one of the concession stands selling veggie dogs! yay!

for more information about vegetarian and vegan options at stadiums all around the country, check out this site called soy happy. it’s great to see so many sports arenas introducing more vegan options. if you do go see a game, you should stock up on vegan food and show support.

special thanks to my friend for making this vegan hot dog discovery. hopefully you will keep this post in mind next time you are watching a baseball game in LA. and remember, veggie dogs taste great with baseball, beer and pretty fireworks.

fireworks at dodgers stadium. just because.

It’s been a rip-roaring week in the no-holds-barred quarrums! From Paul McCartney debates to vigilante undercover investigations of vegan dating sites it’s all there. Here are some highlights:

Vegan Pizza Photos. The world is going nuts for vegan pizza. If we didn’t execute tissue samples on the posters of every picture here, we’d be concerned that some of these amazing pizzas might not be vegan!

vegan teese pizza posted by quarrygirl. check out the forums for pix from other users.

Vegan Thai Food Boycott? The world is also going nuts for vegan Thai food. Read about how little of this cuisine really is vegan, and the paces to frequent as well as avoid.

What did you cook today? Tons of great pictures from nutso vegans that cooked food at home.

Share your stories about perceptions others have about you being vegan. Funny observations from others here.

The undercover vegan dating site. Member jvedman went out on a limb to investigate eligible vegans in Atlanta. Read all about out here.

Finally – if you’re on Twitter, check out this topic as it’s full of cool vegan cats to follow.

Are the forums missing anything that you think people should be talking about? If so, feel free to go in and add a topic. The more the merrier!

Happy weekend!

Well, the evening didn’t get off to a good start. Hollywood Blvd. being closed for the Oscars made the commute home absolute hell, yet the evening ended close to heaven — in purgatory approximately, Purgatory Pizza to be exact. Yeah, we’ve started going there once a week because there’s nowhere in LA where you can get real top-shelf pizza with vegan cheese served piping hot at your table by undeniably nice people who seem to really care that you have a great experience — vegan or not.

vegan pizza with teese cheese, tomatoes, mushrooms and garlic.

The last couple of times we’ve been to Purgatory Pizza, it’s been mainly a delivery operation. Lots of hustle and bustle, phones ringing and pizzas flying out the door, yet the indoor atmosphere has been relatively quiet. The pizza parlors I know and love are usually rather boisterous in nature with kids running around (pizza slices in hand!), and people coming and going like crazy.

Tonight, Purgatory Pizza was rather quiet as we arrived, yet shortly after we ordered, a family of five came in – two grown-ups and three kids who all seemed determined to enjoy themselves. We thought we heard them order a couple of pizzas with “vegan cheese”, but we were not 100% certain. On the way out, though, we noticed a printout of the (in)famous quarrygirl.com menu on their table, along with shiny, empty pizza plates and three kids who looked pretty replete and full. The BYO bottle of wine kinda indicated to us that we should make contact, so I uncharacteristically asked them if they ordered the vegan cheese, which they confirmed they did!

It transpired that all but one of the family were vegans, and they’d visited Purgatory Pizza purely for its vegan cheese. The fact that the kids had devoured the food while the adults enjoyed themselves with some wine and pizza really showed me how ‘normal’ we vegans can be. It was heartwarming to see a wonderfully nice vegan family having a great time together in a place where they could be comfortable and confident about what they were eating — something only we vegans understand to be a big deal.

You see, the thing about pizza is that it’s one of the most edible foods on the planet – a perfect combination of vital ingredients which (if consumed sensibly!) give a good balance of nutrition, energy and taste. It also travels fairly well, and can support all manner of toppings to vary its appeal. The critical factors are the crust, sauce and toppings — the cheese (vegan or not) is a commodity which is far less important than one might think. A nicely cooked pizza with a “real pizza crust” (as the father of the family described it) cannot be beat.

Go to Purgatory. Let’s make it a vegan hangout like no other. I’m game any time — let us know in the comments when you’ll be there and we’ll be there.

i got some sad news today when i logged onto myspace. it looks like one of our favorite los angeles vegan restaurants, doomie’s home cookin’, is closed until further notice. they alerted us via their myspace blog, and i for one am very upset about this.

let’s hope this closure is due to something really trivial, and doomie’s will be up and running again in no time. until then, i will just keep craving their tap beer and vegan BLT.

b.l.t.: vegan bacon, lettuce and tomato with vegan mayo on toasted white or sourdough. $6.95

seriously doomie, come back soon, really fucking soon. the vegan community needs ya.