These last few days have been more chaotic than usual. My husband ran a half marathon over the weekend in Fresno and we all went to cheer him on. This is is second half marathon– the first was about 5 weeks ago. Even though we were standing at the finish line waiting to watch him cross at the first marathon, I managed to somehow miss him completely. This is why it was important to me to go this time because I really wanted to be there when he finished. For those unfamiliar with California, our house is the “A” and Fresno is the “B”:

It took us about 3.5 hours to get there and it wasn’t too bad of a drive.  There are a lot of farms (like fruit/vegetable farms) south of us and that’s always fun to drive through.  There are  a lot of fruit stands off the highway that sell fresh, local produce for pretty cheap.  The best deal I saw was a 5 lb. bag of oranges for $1.  If we hadn’t been in such a hurry to get there (he had to be in Fresno by 6 pm to pick up his race packet), I would have stopped for some.  The best part of the drive is that Amanda slept the entire way and Emma took a nap for a good part of it.  Matt and I were able to have a conversation with each other where we could actually hear each other and not be interrupted.  It was nice.

Matt finished in 167th place out of 3316 overall; 142nd place out of the 1220 men; 27th of 196 in his age group; with a time of 1:41:47. He was in the top 5%!  Ok, I’m pretty impressed.  I’m not a runner and lost most of my athletic ability when I graduated high school, but I’m sort of inspired now to maybe start training for an itty bitty run– like maybe a 5K.  And our friend whom Matt ran the race with is the biggest inspiration of all.  Check out Travis’s blog here.  Travis has lost nearly 100 pounds so far and is training for a full marathon coming up here in a couple of weeks.

Anyway, so that’s why I didn’t post anything this weekend.  And prior to our trip, I had gotten a cupcake order that was pretty time consuming.  About a year ago, I started baking on the side in my spare time (back then I actually had some).  I started making cakes and cupcakes for people and really find it to be a lot of fun.  If you want to see some of the stuff I’ve done, you can fan me on Facebook and check it out:

Bliss Bakery

This particular job was 4 dozen mini cupcakes, a mix of chocolate and vanilla, each topped with handmade race cars.  The race cars are all made from fondant and are 100% edible, but were very time consuming to make.  Now that I have so little free time I realize just how time consuming these special details are.  Before Amanda was born, I would make these types of things at night while watching TV.  Now that she’s here, I make it a point to go to bed when she does so I have to find time to do them during the day. My client picked these up the night before the party so I had to send the race cars separate from the cupcakes (otherwise the fondant softens too much from the moisture of the cupcake).  Here’s all 48 race cars boxed up and ready to go:

I had a few leftovers and made a little display to get some photos:

Emma always loves it when there are leftovers!

I hope everyone had a great weekend!  I’ll be back with more tomorrow.

Both my husband and I have family that live in various parts of Oregon.  We were hoping to get a chance for a road trip in July so that we could go visit everyone, but he’s swamped right now with work and so our plans have been ditched.  I was really disappointed because not only will we not get to visit our family, but I had wanted to detour a little to Farm Sanctuary during our drive north.  Well, the other morning I was laying in bed thinking that this week would have actually been perfect for a trip to Farm Sanctuary because (1) Emma starts swim lessons next week and will be swimming pretty much every morning for the rest of the summer (except for two weeks in July when we were planning to take our Oregon trip) and (2) even though June is pretty hot for the area where Farm Sanctuary is located (Orland, CA– about 100 miles north of Sacramento), July and August are way hotter.  So, it was decided then… I packed up that day and drove to my parents’ house in Sacramento and all four of us made the trek to Farm Sanctuary yesterday.

About Farm Sanctuary

Farm Sanctuary, located in Orland, CA rescues and rehabilitates abused and neglected farm animals from factory farms, stockyards, and slaughterhouses.  Most of the animals at the sanctuary were born to be “food animals,” but are now free to live their lives comfortably and safely at Farm Sanctuary’s 300-acre farm.  The California farm is home to lots of cows, a few donkeys, geese and ducks, pigs, turkeys and chickens, rabbits, and goats and sheep.

While public tours are given only on Saturdays from 11 am to 3 pm, from May 8 to October 31, members are invited to visit between 8 am and 4pm every day of the year.  Becoming a member is very easy– all it takes (at a minimum) is a yearly pledge of $20.  Members also receive Farm Sanctuary’s quarterly newsletter and a discounted rate at their cabin.

I was really interested in visiting because it’s important for Emma to understand why we don’t eat animals.  She does have dairy on occasion, but is mostly vegan and my hope is that it will soon be her choice to avoid dairy (which would make her totally vegan) once she is old enough to understand what is involved in producing dairy and that it’s not really all that great for our body.  Likewise, I want her to be educated about where meat comes from in the event that she chooses to eat meat later in life.  I grew up thinking chicken came from the grocery store and asking questions like “are we eating the muscle of the animal?” without really getting a detailed answer.  Knowing her personality, I don’t think she would ever regularly consume meat– and you can’t miss or crave something that you’ve never had– so I don’t think this will ever be an issue, but I would like her to be educated nonetheless.  At this stage, everything is kept very basic and I only tell her what she needs to know in terms that are easy for her to understand.  Besides that, she’s out of school for the summer and fun little educational trips like this are enjoyable for her.

Road Trip

We left Sacramento around 9 am and made it to Orland around 11am.  It was quite windy yesterday, which I was thankful for because that meant it wouldn’t be so hot.  I’ll take wind over heat any day when we’re farm-bound.  Since there is no place to eat at the farm, we decided to first have lunch in town and then make our way to the farm.  I always get nervous about traveling to small towns in the middle of nowhere surrounded by food-animal farms because I’m concerned that finding something vegetarian (let alone vegan) will be quite challenging.  Thanks to Farm Sanctuary’s website, I was armed with a list of veg-friendly restaurants in Orland and I hit the jackpot with the one we stumbled upon.

The first one on the list, Alta Marie’s Bakery, was the place I chose to visit because the Farm Sanctuary description indicated that they carried vegan pastries on a regular basis.  I was hoping to score some… and I liked that they were described as offering vegan items instead of “things can be made vegan upon request.”  I get tired of going places where I can really only order a salad and even then I have to request that it be made without the cheese or meat that normally comes on it.  It gets old.

Alta Marie’s is pretty much right off the freeway and easy to find.  We strolled inside and perused the menu and I was nervous that perhaps they weren’t so vegan friendly after all.  Everything on the menu was meat, meat and more meat.  So I asked the person at the counter what was vegan and she consulted with the owner/baker to figure out what vegan dish could be whipped up based on what they had on hand in their kitchen.  I really liked that they were so accommodating and went the extra mile to make me something as special as the rest of the dishes.  They even knew enough to ask if honey was okay for me since one of their salad dressings did contain honey.  I was very impressed with their knowledge of what vegans eat and don’t eat and really thrilled that they had 3 turnovers in their pastry case that were all vegan (2 pineapple and 1 cherry).

Even though the list was pretty extensive, I settled on their house salad with dried cranberries, fresh strawberries and walnuts added.  I opted for the balsamic vinaigrette (the one that had honey in it because I thought it would be more appealing to my kiddo and I hoped she might want to share my salad), but they do have a raspberry vinaigrette that is all vegan.  I know honey isn’t vegan and I do avoid it whenever possible, but one little cheat won’t get the vegan police after me, I hope.  After lunch, I snagged all three of the turnovers– they were SO GOOD!!!

Alta Marie’s makes vegan cakes and pies if you give them a little notice.  They even make vegan wedding cakes!

We Arrive At Last

The farm is located about 10 minutes outside of Orland and was really easy to find.  Once we got there, I got my membership and we set off to see the animals.  When I was signing up for my membership and the Farm Sanctuary gal was going over the map with me, she said something like “over here are the turkeys and chickens…” while pointing at the map.  Emma then chimes in (rather loudly, as she has no volume control):  “Chickens and turkeys!!  We don’t eat those!!!!!!!!”  It was cute.  The Farm Sanctuary gal responded: “You’re in the right place then because neither do we.  We just love them!”  It was cute.

(Click on each image to see a larger version.)

And here’s some video of the hungry pig who came over to say hi!  Emma had a full conversation with her, but you can’t really hear anything because of the wind:

Woohoo!  We just returned from a weekend trip to Disneyland.  Before leaving, I did a google search for vegan eats there and found a few tips.  I figured that once I got there that I would have a pretty easy time finding something that was vegetarian that could easily be veganized.  And, we would only be eating lunch there and if I had to make a meal of lots of snacks, that wouldn’t be so bad either.  Either way, I figured finding something to eat there would be pretty easy and I didn’t stress too much about it.

When I travel, I’m a little more relaxed than I am at home.  Cooking for myself at home, I have complete control over all the ingredients and I know exactly what is in everything.  You don’t have that luxury when traveling and to save myself a little bit of stress, I tend to let more things slide than when I’m at home.  Example: if eating Mexican, I will verify that the rice and beans are vegetarian, but may not go so far as to ask if the rice has butter in it.  Generally, I can taste when there are even minuscule amounts of dairy in something– one of the things that happens when you don’t eat dairy for a long time is that you lose a taste for it and it is the only thing you can taste if it is in a dish.  If it doesn’t taste buttery, I’ll tend to believe that it probably doesn’t have butter in it.

While there is plenty of meat to be had at Disneyland (like gigantic turkey legs– ewwwww!!!), vegetarian and vegan fare is easily found at every dining spot.  We ate at some burger place for lunch one day and I got the veggie burger.  I was expecting it to be a Gardenburger and was okay if it did have a little cheese in it– again, I’m much more relaxed when traveling– but, to my surprise, the patty seemed to be vegan!  It had lots of veggies in it and I suspect it was either the vegan Gardenburger patty or Dr. Praegers.  I got the feeling that they wanted to offer one dairy free, egg free patty since there are lots and lots of people allergic to those foods.  If you are more strict than I am or if you do have any food allergies, you can always check with the order-taker beforehand.

We also got a fruit salad to go with our meal and the fruit was so delicious!  It came with melon, pineapple, blueberries, strawberries and grapes.  Everything was perfectly ripe– even the blueberries were firm and juicy like they were just picked that morning.  I was really happy to see that all of the dining places offered yummy fruit salads and there was even a stand outside the Jungle Cruise in Adventureland that sold nothing but fresh fruit and healthy snacks.  And by fresh fruit, I mean strawberries, grapes, pineapple, and mango, not the standard apples and bananas most places offer.  They also freeze dried apple Crisps.

For lunch on Sunday, we hit the Mexican place in Frontierland, Rancho del Zocalo.  It’s a cafeteria-style place where you line up either at the salad station, the burrito/taco station or the grill.  Matt and I split the veggie tacos– 2 soft tacos of sauteed veggies, beans and rice.  We got ours without the cheese and sour cream, of course.  It was good.  This place had the “tropical” fruit salad, which was so refreshing!  It came with melon, pineapple, strawberries, blueberries, papaya and mango.  Yum!

Sorry for not having any pictures of our food.  I don’t know what I was thinking! 

Surprisingly, the most difficult place to find vegan food was the airport– not SFO, which had several dining options that offered vegan food (in fact, some of the menus even indicated which items were vegetarian or vegan)– but in LAX!  I was surprised by that.  Surely there must be lots of vegans in LA.  I’ve always thought of LA as being vegan-friendly, anyway.  Maybe it was just the terminal we were in, but I had the hardest time finding something vegan other than Mexican (we had just had it for lunch and I couldn’t eat it again).  I settled for a salad without the cheese, which amounted to mixed greens with a vinaigrette dressing.  Ooh!  Exciting!  But at least I didn’t starve.

Over the weekend, two of my close girlfriends and I road tripped to Santa Barbara!  One of those friends is moving to Houston around Thanksgiving time, so this was our last hurrah together before she leaves.

We started our journey bright and early on Saturday morning.  By 7:45 we were all loaded in the car, coffee in hand, and on the road.  We took Hwy 101 south to Salinas, where we cut over to Hwy 1.  Hwy 1 is definitely the long way to go, but is by far more scenic.  If you ever have the chance of driving the California coast, I highly recommend taking the trip down or up Hwy 1.

Our first scenic stop was at the Rocky Creek Bridge, a historic bridge built in 1932.  It is located just a little south of Carmel-by-the-Sea.

For lunch, we stopped at a place in Morro Bay that’s a health food store up front with a small cafe in the back.

Sunshine Health Foods is located at 415 Morro Bay Blvd, Morro Bay, CA 93442-2143.  It seems that they do not have a website, but if you’re ever in the area plan to have lunch here.  The food was SPECTACULAR!

I had the black bean taco.  Midge had the tempeh taco, which was a mix of quinoa and finely chopped or shredded quinoa.  Champers had the black bean tostada.  All three dishes were so delicious… maybe even the best thing we ate all weekend, and we ate our share of yummy food.

After more driving and a few stops later, we made it to Los Olivos.  Several scenes from the movie Sideways were filmed here and Neverland Ranch (the former home of Michael Jackson) is about 5 miles north.  Our sole purpose for stopping here was to see Neverland and boy was I excited!  When we first pulled up, we were the only car there and Midge was afraid that security would run out and chase us off.  But they didn’t.  And more cars showed up while we were there.

You really don’t see much from the front gate, except the front gate.  If you were really enthusiastic about seeing where Michael Jackson lived, you should probably charter a helicopter to fly overhead.

Neverland Ranch is located at:

5225 Figueroa Mountain Rd

Los Olivos, CA 93441

A little more driving and we arrived in Santa Barbara!

We headed straight for the place that we were staying.  Instead of a hotel, we opted to stay at a little rental property, which was located in the back of the owner’s house.  It was not what I expected.  Here’s a YouTube video of the property:

It was nice.  The landscaping in the yard was nothing like what is featured in the video.  My main problem with this place was the lack of cleaning that took place before we arrived.  There was dog hair all over the area rug and cobwebs and spiders throughout.  On a positive note, it was close to everything:  the beach, downtown and Lazy Acres (my new absolute favorite grocery store… I wish we had one here).

After settling in, our first stop was the beach, where we were lucky enough to spot some dolphins way out in the water.

After a long and relaxing walk, it was time to get ready for dinner at Spiritland Bistro, on the Corner of Victoria & Garden St.  Midge and I had the Raw lasagna, which was really tasty and Champers had the salmon.  For dessert, I had the Raw lime mousse… delicious!

On Sunday, we hit Lazy Acres for some snacks and other supplies.

Lazy Acres is located at 302 Meigs Rd, Santa Barbara, CA 93109.  They have the most amazing organic juice and smoothie bar.  In fact, juice and smoothie bars abound in Santa Barbara, which I’m pretty jealous about.  Raw and vegan food is very easily found.  I wish that were the case here.

I had the veggie feast, a combination of 10 veggies.  I had mine with apple instead of garlic.  So good.  In fact, before we left town on Monday, I went back for a 32 ouncer to drink on the way home.

On Sunday night, we had snacks back at our place and watched some movies with the fire going.  It was a super relaxing weekend!

My hubby and I went on a last minute, spontaneous trip to Salt Lake City!  We’ve never been and got pretty good deal.  We booked our trip on Thursday night and left Saturday afternoon!!

Before I tell you all about it, I have to say this first:

We all know that Salt Lake City is the land of LDS.  While I did enjoy the tours of the various LDS buildings around the city, I am not now nor have I ever been religious or interested in adopting a religion.  This post is to tell you about our travels and the good food we enjoyed in SLC.  I will try my best not to inject my personal beliefs into this post.  Please don’t try to convert me.  Thanks.

Okay, so let’s get on with it.

We arrived Saturday evening in SLC and stayed at the Marriott downtown, which is right across from the Temple.  Before I go on, I have to say that I really liked our hotel. It was a great location– walking distance to a lot of the things we wanted to check out– and the downtown was a ghost town on the weekends.  The area around our hotel was very clean (even with all the construction that’s going on around it).  If I were to go back to SLC, I would stay there again.

Anyway, we were starving and headed over to the Red Iguana for dinner, which was probably about a 1.5-2 mile walk from our hotel.  The wait at the Red Iguana was about 40 minutes, but it’s supposed to be awesome and it probably would have taken at least that long to find another restaurant.

First order of business:

Margaritas!!!

Despite what you might think, every restaurant we went to served alcohol.  We also didn’t have any trouble finding coffee or coffee shops (i.e. Starbucks).

I must have been so hungry at dinner that I forgot to take a picture of my meal.  While the Red Iguana didn’t have many vegetarian items on their menu, they were very accommodating.  Matt had the veggie fajitas, which were good, but drowned in oil.  I had a veggie burrito enchilada style which was good, but drowned in enchilada sauce.  Their margaritas and salsa was the best I’ve ever had, though.

On Sunday morning, we grabbed breakfast at our hotel.  They had a buffet set up that had fruit, dry cereals, oatmeal, hash browns, scrambled eggs and an omelet station.  I opted for the oatmeal and some fruit.  I also made a stop at the omelet station for a veggie omelet without the eggs… essentially, mushrooms, tomatoes, bell peppers and onions all sauteed together.  Since I visited the omelet station, though I technically did not get an omelet, my breakfast cost $16.  Matt’s breakfast was only $9.  HUGE RIP-OFF!

With full bellies, we walked all over downtown and started our day off with a tour of the Beehive House.  The Beehive House (built in 1854) was the home of Brigham Young, who (among many other things) led the Mormon’s to Salt Lake City.  All LDS tours focused on history, rather than on religion, which I appreciated.

After the Beehive House, we walked over to the capitol building.  We even got to go inside to look around.  It was a nice building.  Across the street was Council Hall, which had a little kiosk in it for looking up tourist information on Utah.  You can tell that Utah has really invested a lot of money into tourism and we were thankful to have come across this free kiosk because we were able to look up vegetarian-friendly restaurants in the downtown area.  We could even print out the information for free.

After spending some time at the capitol, we walked over to the area where the first settlers built their homes (as in the LDS settlers– the Indians were already there, but I don’t suppose they count as settlers).  While there were no historic homes over that way, all of the houses were super cute with really great landscaping.  I was really impressed with how nicely landscaped the downtown area was.  It was also really safe and clean (hardly any graffiti).

By this point, we were parched and stopped in at the gas station convenience store for some water.  Compared to Bay Area prices, everything was super cheap.  We continued on over to the downtown outdoor mall.  My feet were killing me, so I bought a better pair of walking shoes (non-leather).

We headed back to our hotel to freshen up before heading to dinner.  While at Council Hall, I had printed out information on a bunch of veg-friendly restaurants.  My hubby was kind enough to leave it up to me to pick the restaurants.  Anyway, we went to Sage’s Cafe for dinner on Sunday night.  While they call themselves “vegetarian,” they are in fact vegan and organic.  There are even a few Raw dishes on their menu.  It was a pretty good hike from our hotel, but well worth it!

I started my meal off with one of their specials that night– a chilled watermelon soup with chunks of mango, toasted pistachos and mint.  DELICIOUS!

We also ordered an appetizer, lettuce wraps.

Matt ordered the vegetarian tacos with tempeh.  I’m not a huge tempeh fan, but these were pretty darn tasty!

I had the Magical Wok– a coconut curry sauce with seared vegetables (green beans and squash mostly), toasted cashews, tofu and soba noodles.  Also DELICIOUS!  But I could only eat about half of it.

We ended our meal with a cup of tea and some tiramisu.  Even though I was pretty stuffed from all that food, I can’t go to a vegan restaurant and not have dessert.  It’s not often that I can order anything off the menu and I took full advantage of that at Sage’s.  The tiramisu was fantastic!  I know we sound like a bunch of pigs after showing all the food that we consumed, but keep in mind that with the exception of a few smalls snacks, we hadn’t eaten since breakfast and had been walking all day long.

Monday started with breakfast at the hotel-  more oatmeal and fruit.  We had decided that Monday would be our day to get our Mormon on, so we headed over to Temple Square.  As luck would have it, a tour was just starting as we walked in.

First up on the tour was the Assembly Hall, which was constructed in 1877.  The inside was nice, like what you might expect a church to look like.  Our tour took us over to the Seagull Monument, which has an interesting story that you can read here.

Following the tour, we were able to see a (free) organ performance in the Tabernacle.  It lasted about 30 minutes and was pretty impressive.  The building itself was pretty spectacular.

This is a photo of the inside of the tabernacle following the performance.  The lights behind the pipes change colors.

I was impressed that all of the buildings were open to the public.  The only one that wasn’t was the Temple, which I can understand.  From what was described to us, there are over 100 rooms, not one big open space like how you might imagine a church to be.  The Salt Lake Temple took 40 years to build!

The figure at the top of the Temple (gold) is the Angel Moroni, who directed Joseph Smith to the golden plates.  After Joseph had translated them from reformed Egyptian, the angel took them back.

After the organ performance, Matt and I found ourselves back in the South Visitors Center where we were able to ask some of the tour guides from questions.  When I say “ask some questions” I should probably clarify that we interrogated those poor girls, but they were very nice and answered all of our questions.  They didn’t seem too annoyed with us.

For dinner, we went to another place that I got to choose.  It ended up being not what I expected…

One World Cafe.  The philosophy behind One World Cafe is that everyone deserves the opportunity to have a plate of food.  When you enter, you pay what you think is fair for a plate of food and the portion sizes are given accordingly.  If you can’t afford to pay, you can eat for free.  Or you can help wash dishes or clean.

Everything they serve is organic and many of the fruits and vegetables come from their own gardens.  The meat that they serve is from a local butcher where the animals are free range and whenever they have fish, it is line caught in the wild.

Since we have never been unfortunate enough to go without having a meal (or at least easy access to a meal), Matt gave a very generous $15 for each of our meals ($30 total).

Here’s what they had for us vegans:  salad greens (from their garden), fruit– apples, mango and grapes, swiss chard and leeks, sauteed veggies, brown rice and beans with kale and squash.  It wasn’t bad, but we ended up needing  a second dinner. 

While I completely support the idea of ending world hunger (and I would much rather overpay for a meal at One World Cafe where someone who can’t pay has access to hot food than hand out money to panhandlers), I would take them more seriously if they only served vegan food and educated people about a vegan diet.  Raising animals for food is the most inefficient use of resources.  If everyone on the planet adopted a vegan diet, world hunger would not exist.

Anyway, following our soup kitchen dining experience, we stopped in at 7 Eleven for some water (and a snack for me).  Lately, I’ve been pretty addicted to rice crackers.  I love how they’re crispy crunchy.  While in SLC, I was really craving something crispy like a rice cracker, but spicy.  I’m not exaggerating when I say that pretty much all of the snacks at convenience shops are pure crap.  Most of the packages I picked up had hydrogenated oils, MSG or something else that I didn’t want to eat.

These chips, though, weren’t that bad and satisfied my crispy spicy craving. These were pretty intense.

For second dinner, we went to the Blue Iguana, a Mexican restaurant not affiliated with the Red Iguana from Saturday night.  It happened to be right down the street from our hotel, which was convenient.

Surprise!  We each had a margarita… and shared the vegetarian taco plate.  It was good, but nothing to write home about.

And today (Tuesday), it was time for us to head home.  I hate to admit it, but the closest we got to the lake was when we flew over it in the airplane.  On my next trip to SLC (I do hope to return sometime), I want to go to the lake and I want to check out the one restaurant we didn’t have time to hit:

Vertical Diner is a vegan diner!!!  Among the dishes they offer are (vegan) biscuits and gravy.  Oh how I’ve been craving biscuits and gravy ever since reading that on their menu.  Someday…

Back home.

Our adventure started on Thursday, October 2.  We headed to San Francisco and, after standing in a very long line to check-in, we made our way aboard the Norwegian Sun.  The boat is enormous.  Our room was not. 

All jokes aside, our room was just the right size for us, but all of you probably already know that staterooms on cruise ships are notoriously tiny (especially the bathrooms).  After getting aboard the ship, we dined at buffet for lunch while our rooms were being prepared.  I probably should point out now that Norwegian has this policy of “freestyle cruising,” which is much more relaxed than traditional cruises.  This means that you don’t go to a main dining room every night for dinner where you are assigned a table, that you don’t have to get dressed up for anything, and that food is served pretty much whenever you are hungry.  The buffet always featured the same items for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day.  There was very little variation.  The restaurants all had set menus, but a couple of them did vary day to day.

I wrote down and took photos of every meal that I ate while on vacation.  I did my best to find vegan options, but I found this to be extremely difficult while on board.  Everything was pre-made, even at the restaurants.  It was impossible to request the vegetarian option without the cheese, for example.  On land, I had a much easier time and, sometimes, you really do have to relax a little, especially with a language barrier making it difficult to effectively communicate exactly what you do and don’t eat.

The thing that complicated my dining experiences even more than the language barrier was the fact that veganism is such an alien concept to most of Mexico (and to NCL).  People asked me if vegetarian meant that I still ate fish.  Well, no.  The vegetarian option at most places we went was something stuffed with cheese.  That doesn’t work either.  The restaurants we went to in Mexico had staff that spoke excellent English and I was able to ask for a vegetarian option without the cheese.  I assumed (stupidly) that this would communicate the fact that I don’t want any dairy in my meal whatsoever, but the end result sometimes tasted of butter.  Good thing I was on vacation– it made me all the more relaxed about everything, including stuff like that.  Now that I’m back home, I’m back to a strict vegan diet.  I feel better now than I did the entire time we were gone.  At home, we only eat organic produce (with very few exceptions) and, on the boat, this just wasn’t possible.  It’s amazing how different I feel eating the way I typically eat compared to how I ate for those 11 days.  And it wasn’t just psychological.

Thursday, October 2; Embarkation Day

Lunch, Buffet:

Steamed rice; dal; Indian curry eggplant dish; fruit; french fries; bread; salad with balsamic vinaigrette

Dinner, Four Seasons (one of the main dining restaurants):

Marinated Roasted Pineapple

• aged rum, coconut cream, mint, mojito vinaigrette with sugar cane

While the menu description sounded great, this was a total letdown.  It tasted EXACTLY like canned pineapple.

Madras Vegetable Curry

• basmati rice, mango chutney, pappadam

This dish was good, but the portion was too small to be satisfying.  The rice also tasted very buttery.  When compared to the meat dishes, the vegetarian dishes were about half the amount in terms of portion size.

Dinner #2 (the portions were too small), Pacific Heights (restaurant):

I was still hungry after my child-size portion of dinner, so we headed up to Pacific Heights, which is the healthiest of all the dining facilities.  Nutrition information for all the dishes is listed in the menu and the food was the best of all the places to eat.  The downside to Pac Heights is that they only had one menu and they were only open for dinner and you had to have a reservation.

Lentil Soup– just veggies and lentils.  This was delicious and I had it a couple of times during our trip.

Veggie Pizza, no cheese or pesto.  It was pretty much tomato sauce, shallots and bell peppers.  Excellent crust, but the rest of the pizza was pretty lackluster.  I only ate a few bites.  At this point, I found it easier to tell my waiter or waitress that I had a dairy allergy and that I didn’t eat meat.  When it comes to allergies, they are very diligent and will prepare something special to accommodate.

Friday, October 3; Sea Day

Breakfast, Buffet:

Country potatoes; baguette with strawberry jam; fruit; oatmeal; tea; apple juice.  Nothing super exciting.

Lunch, Buffet:

Fries; bread; olives; salad with Italian dressing.

Dinner, Buffet:

Bread; rice; Indian curry; corn & black bean relish; salad with beans and asparagus, Italian dressing; olives; fruit.

Today, Kendal and I had appointments at the spa for manicures and pedicures.  It was so relaxing and so fun, but extremely expensive.  Oh well.  If you can’t have outrageously priced mani’s and pedi’s on vacation, when can you have them?!

Saturday, October 4; Sea Day

Breakfast, Buffet:

Whole wheat toast with PB&J; fruit; country potatoes; pineapple and orange juice

Lunch, Buffet:

French fries; spinach salad with corn and kidney beans, Italian dressing; Indian curry; rice; pineapple; Asian stir fry veggies.

Dinner, Le Bistro (French restaurant, $10 cover charge per person):

As part of our “Honeymoon Package,” we were able to eat at Le Bistro without a cover charge.  We probably wouldn’t have eaten there otherwise.  The restaurant was gorgeous and we enjoyed our romantic table for two.

Frisée Salad

• Frisée with figs, candied walnuts, roquefort and panchetta with a lemon-mustard vinaigrette (I ordered mine sans roquefort and panchetta, of course)

Vegetable Napoleon

• Baby portobella with roasted red peppers and a beurre blanc sauce (should have been on puff pastry, but we ordered ours without the goat cheese that it came with and they made this one special for us.  Had I known that they were going to make it special, I would have requested no sauce as well.  I ended up eating around the sauce.)

Lime Sorbet– the menu said SORBET, but I was served sherbet.  Yuck!  All I could taste in it was the dairy.  It’s funny how going without dairy products makes it stand out in dishes tainted with dairy.

After dinner snack at the buffet (the portions were small… I was still hungry):

Tofu and veggies wrapped in filo dough (not super tasty, but I was surprised to see such a dish at the buffet); toffee cookie.

Let me explain the cookie.  I had originally wanted to take some of these vegan cookies with me.  At the last minute, I reasoned with myself that it would actually do me some good to not have any sweet treats while on vacation.  Big mistake!  When there wasn’t any dessert that I could have (and after getting my hopes up over the sorbet only for it turn out to be tainted), I wanted them all.  I settled on the cookie after convincing myself that it was possible that it could have been made with margarine or shortening instead of butter.  In fact, it wasn’t buttery tasting at all.  One of a few slip-ups.

Sunday, October 5; Mazatlan

Breakfast, Buffet:

Fruit; oatmeal; baguette with strawberry jam; country potatoes; grilled tomato (gross); pineapple juice.

Lunch, Margaritas Restaurant, Mazatlan:

Margarita, with salt, on the rocks (they spoke excellent English and told us that they used filtered water for the ice).

I explained my dietary situation and they were gracious enough to make a veggie fajita, which consisted of mushrooms, carrots, green beans and tomatoes.  It was delicious (especially after only eating cruise food up until this point), albeit a tad buttery.  I was so excited for some yummy Mexican food that I didn’t mind the butter.

After our lunch, we went to the beach and Kendal and I played in the waves.  The water was SO incredibly warm and the beach we were on was very clean.  We found a beachfront resort that didn’t mind us using their cabanas so long as we kept the drinks coming.  I really had such a fun time here and I even found some special seashells to bring home to my Emma.

Dinner, Las Ramblas (restaurant on the boat):

Las Ramblas was the tapas restaurant on the ship.  I would call our stop here more of a pre-dinner snack.  Crostini with olive tepenade (delicious!), chips and salsa (nothing special), and green and black marinated olives.  For dinner dinner, I hit the buffet for some pasta with marinara and a side salad.  I found it easier to eat at the buffet most of the time because I would pick what I wanted to eat and I didn’t have to explain myself all the time.  The pasta was actually really good.

Monday, October 6; Sea Day

Breakfast, Buffet:

Oatmeal with brown sugar, raisins and walnuts; watermelon and honeydew; baguette (just a slice) with strawberry jam; tea; pineapple juice.

I fell in love with this oatmeal and had it pretty much every day.  Yum!  With all the different toppings, it really was quite filling.  Some days they had pecans and dried bananas.  I loaded up whatever I could find.

To pass the time today, we did a Boys vs. Girls shuffleboard tournament.  Kendal and I against Travis and Matt.  The boys won.

Lunch, Room Service:

I’m not a room service kind of gal, but I had to try it out just once to cover all the bases of cruise ship dining.  The menu was pretty small consisting mostly of unhealthy things like hot dogs, pizza, etc.  Pretty much no vegetables.  As an aside, I read once that most Americans don’t eat enough fiber.  After being on this boat and seeing how most Americans eat, I believe it!  I saw a guy one morning at breakfast load up his place with ham, sausage and bacon– pretty much an entire pigs worth– then top it off with about 4 fried eggs.  I’m not kidding.  Most people on the ship ate like this.  Crazy!

So for room service, I ordered the Greek Salad without the feta and the Vegetable Pizza without the cheese.  Both were surprisingly very good and they didn’t take that long to get to me.

Dinner, Buffet:

I made a note in my book at the entry for this meal that I was so tired to cruise food.

Dinner was a salad with kidney and garbanzo beans, beets, tomatoes and corn with balsamic dressing; tempura veggies (carrots, broccoli, cauliflower), fried rice (no egg) with corn, peas and carrots; spaghetti with marinara; pineapple and grapes; white chocolate cookie.

Yes, that sounds like an enormous amount of food, but I didn’t consume a lot of each one item.  I had small little tastes.

Tuesday, October 7; Acapulco

Breakfast, Buffet:

Oatmeal with brown sugar, raisins and walnuts; country potatoes; pineapple and orange juice; tea.

After breakfast, we got off the boat and explored Acapulco.  We had a lot of time to spend here- we debarked at around 9 am and had to be back by midnight.  Our first stop was to see the cliff divers perform, which was SOOOO awesome to watch.

The few things that really made me sad about Acapulco was the amount of litter on the beaches and the pollution in the ocean, and the amount of stray animals.  Dogs and cats were everywhere (and dog poopies were all over the sidewalks).  It was gross and horribly depressing.

After seeing the cliff divers, we took a cab way across town to the Fairmont Princess Hotel, which is situated on a pristine, immaculate beach.  No litter, no sludge floating on top of the ocean.  Here, we found a cabana on the beach and had a few margaritas.

Kendal, Travis and I rented boogie boards from a guy on the beach and tried catching waves for about half an hour.  I think we ended up catching one or two each.  It’s a lot harder than I remember it being.

After a day at the beach, we were all hungry and went back to a restaurant that our cab driver recommended.  He said that he doesn’t eat meat, so I had high hopes for this place.  Well, it’s a seafood restaruant that served nothing but seafood, so when our cab driver said he didn’t eat meat, he obviously meant land animals.  I had some rice and chips and guac, which were all good.

As we walked back to our boat, we stopped at this restaurant, which seems to be a chain throughout Mexico.  It’s called 100% Natural Restaurant.  They offer a wide variety of dishes, some are vegetarian and some are meat, and they make fresh juices.  OMG!  My kind of place for sure!  I ordered the vegetarian tacos, which was a whole wheat tortilla piled up with some faux meat of some sort and piled high with fresh spinach drizzled with their house sauce.  It was very good, but after eating the rice and chips at the first place, I had a hard time eating just one of these gigantic tacos.

The best part of my meal was this juice.  I ordered the “Bali” which was a concoction of pineapple, spinach, lime and orange juices.  It was insane!  I have to make this at home sometime.

We ate lunch so late in the day that we ended up skipping dinner.

Wednesday, October 8; Zihjuatanejo

Breakfast, Buffet:

Oatmeal with raisins, walnuts and brown sugar; fruit; country potatoes.

Lunch, 3 Amigos Restaurant, Zihjuatanejo:

This place was in the downtown area, right were the boat docked.  Our boat docked way out and we took little boats to the pier.  Of all the cities we visited in Mexico, this was by far my favorite.  Everything was very clean, the people were nice and the town was charming.  I will make it back here one day.

Frozen margarita, with salt.  So refreshing!

Our waiter spoke fluent English.  I explained my dietary dilemma to him and he arranged for me to have veggie fajitas (just peppers and onions), served with some beans and rice.  The beans were amazing.  They had big chunks of garlic in them and they were so good.  Yum, yum yum.  They also had the best tomatillo salsa.

It was a very short day here– only a few hours– so we didn’t do much exploration.  There was a flea market near the pier and I was able to pick up some locally grown organic coffee as well as some organic vanilla to bring back for people.

Dinner, Pacific Heights:

Lentil soup (again!); salad with pears and walnuts (no cheese, no turkey); spaghetti with marinara (no meatballs).

This meal was delicious.  The pasta here was way better than the pasta at the buffet.

Thursday, October 9; Puerto Vallarta

Breakfast, Buffet:

Oatmeal with brown sugar, dried bananas and pecans; country potatoes; muffin (probaby not vegan, but I was going crazy for a new breakfast food).

After debarking, we headed across the street to Walmart.  Yes, our boat dock was directly across the street from Walmart and Sam’s Club.  We needed a few things, so it was actually really convenient.

From there, we walked around the pier area, which also happens to be the hotel district, and randomly found a bar owned by a Canadian.  We were wandering aimlessly and it was so hot and humid, so we stopped in for a beer.  He was super nice and we ended up chatting with him for over an hour.  The best part was that our beers (I had one, Matt had two) only cost us $7.50 (US).  After hydrating, we wandered aimlessly down the street some more.  We made it about 50 feet before running into another interesting fellow to talk to.  We spent probably another hour talking to this guy, Hugo.  He’s a travel agent and he convinced us to organize a group tour the next time we visit Mexico.  It sounds like the best way to really experience Mexico since my biggest complaint about the cruise was that we spent about 90% of our time on the boat.

Matt and I took a taxi to the PTL, which is the shopping area for native Puerto Vallartans.  This was definitely “experiencing Mexico,” and we enjoyed walking around the shops.  After a while, we took another taxi to the downtown touristy area.  We were starving and found a fantastic Cuban restaurant to eat lunch at.

Lunch, La Bodeguita del Medio, Puerto Vallarta:

While finding their website so that I could provide you all with a link, I have learned that this is a chain restaurant and there is one in Palo Alto, which is about 10 miles from my house.  What a small world!

To start, we each had a mojito.

Our waitress didn’t speak a lot of English, but with my broken Spanish we were able to put together a yummy meal.  We had Cuban yellow rice (which probably wasn’t vegan now that I think about it), black beans, fried plantains and a mixed salad.  Everything was delicious!

I’ve decided that our next vacation spot will have to be a French speaking country since that is the only foreign language that I am pretty fluent at.

Dinner, Buffet:

Rice; mixed veggie curry; steamed carrots and broccoli; fruit; salad with honey mustard dressing (I got SO tired of salad and SO tired of their vinaigrettes that I had to switch it up; the honey mustard dressing was my other slip-up).

Friday, October 10; Sea Day

Thanks to Norbert today turned into another Sea Day when it was supposed to be a stop in Cabo.  Just judging from the waves and wind that hit us when we were hundreds of miles from the storm, I’m glad we didn’t stop.  Still, I was really looking forward to seeing Cabo since I’ve never been.

Breakfast, Buffet:

Oatmeal; baguette with jam; fruit; country potatoes.  I have to add that the country potatoes are not that good, but I couldn’t stop myself from eating them nearly every morning.  There was something strangely addicting about them.

Lunch, Buffet:

Salad; slice of grainy bread with raisins; cucumber salad (marinated cucumbers, fennel and onions– really delicious); and tabbouleh salad.

Dinner, Il Adagio (restaruant with cover charge):

The appeal of this restaruant is that it is on the 5th floor of the boat, which puts the tables at about sea level and there is an entire wall of windows.  Amazing views!

It was at this point that I felt the nervous breakdown coming.  I felt like I was in the Shining, except that my boat wasn’t haunted and there were more people around.  I was going crazy.  I wanted to be able to order something on the menu without having to customize it.  This is what was about to send me over the edge.  All of the vegetarian options were premade and I couldn’t order any without cheese, which all of them contained.  There was very little flexibility there, and very little accommodation from the waitstaff and chefs.  The only way to get around it was to fake a dairy allergy so that they would actually be concerned for my safety instead of just willing to make me something vegan because I am a guest and that’s what I want.  It started to wear on me.  Add on top of that the fact that all of the waitstaff is from a country other than the U.S. where English may not be their primary language (and where veganism is a totally weird concept) and you can understand why I started to get cranky towards the end.

At the end of the day, it was incredibly eye-opening to see what it is like everywhere else, since I live a very sheltered life here in the liberal Bay Area.  Veganism is totally accepted here, even if people don’t really understand it.  We have several varieties of non-dairy milks available at regular grocery stores (I checked for soy and rice milk and Walmart and found only one brand of soy milk).  I really am very spoiled.

Lucky for me, just when I was about to lose it, some dolphins started jumping in our waves.  So many of them.  The first group of dolphins would leave and more would suddenly appear.  It really put me at ease.

For dinner, I ordered the Insalata Tricolore, which was a mix of radicchio, frisée, cherry tomatoes and mushrooms topped with a balsamic vinaigrette.  The dressing was delicious!

Next, I had a pizza.  I told our waiter to have the chef leave off the cheese, but pile on whatever veggies they had.  It turned out really tasty.

Dessert was canteloupe sorbet– and it really was sorbet this time.  Very refreshing!

Saturday, October 11; Sea Day

Breakfast, Buffet:

Oatmeal with brown sugar, raisins, pecans and walnuts; blackberries (frozen); tea; pineapple juice.

Lunch, Buffet:

Salad; cucumber, tomato and pickle sandwich; lentil salad (very good!).

Dinner, Pacific Heights:

Lentil soup; spaghetti with marinara (no meatballs).

Sunday, October 12; Sea Day

This was our last sea day before arriving back in San Francisco.  I was so excited to get home and to see my Emma.  To pass the time in the morning, Matt and I played cards.  I think he won most games.  I had a freshly squeezed carrot orange juice and it was delicious.

Breakfast, Buffet:

Oatmeal with brown sugar, almonds, pecans, walnuts and raisins; fruit; tea.

Lunch, Buffet:

Indian veggie curry (was very, very, very oily); coconut rice; roasted sweet potato and squash (yum); salad.

Dinner, Four Seasons (main dining restaurant):

Veggie soup (was very good).

Tomato basil salad– the menu specified “vine ripened tomato,” but this clearly was not.  The basil part of it was pesto, but I let that slide.

Veggie tempura with wasabi rice and scallion-ginger dipping sauce.  The tempura was very good (although not filling at all), but the rice was nasty.  The only flavor to it was butter; I didn’t taste any wasabi.

The one thing I did differently here was ask for margarine… well, actually, Travis asked for it.  To my surprise, they brought a little dish of it to the table so that I didn’t have to eat dry bread again.  That was a nice luxury item to find.  Kendal also checked with the Java Bar to see if they had any soy milk and they did!  The only problem is that they use it in coffee drinks and wouldn’t know how to charge me for just a cup of soy milk.  That was a bummer, but it really was fine with me since I don’t really care for most soy milks anyway.

One would think, though, that if they stocked their Java Bar with soy milk, presumably for those who do not consume dairy for one reason or another, that they would also offer non-dairy options elsewhere.  I had a hard time believing that I was the only non-dairy person on the boat.

Other than my issue with the food, we really had a great time on our trip.  If we ever take another cruise, I don’t think we’ll go for as long as we did this time, since most of our time was spent on the boat.  I would much rather have spent more time at the ports.

We’ve made it to Mexico and are using a few minutes in port to call home and check email.  We’re having a great time, but I’m sick of cruise food and happy to get to eat some yummy Mexican food for the next few days that we will be making stops.  Veganism on the road, specifically on the ship, is much, much harder than I thought it would be.  In fact, I find myself wishing for some snacky things that I had thought to pack, but talked myself out of packing at the last minute.  I’ll never do that again.  While I have tried my best to stick to it, I can say without a doubt that I have not been completely vegan during our journey.  I haven’t eaten anything like cheese or milk, but I can tell that some dishes have been cooked in butter.  I’m doing my best and a full report is coming soon.  We’ll be home in a week and I’ll be able to tell you all about it and post some photos (I have taken pics of practically every meal).  More to come soon!

I found this article and thought it was pretty humorous.  While traveling, it can often be difficult to find healthy food in airports and such.  It can be even harder to find vegan food, as the traveler in the article points out.  The funniest part of the article was him trying to convince the security agent that his peanut butter wasn’t a security risk:

On a recent flight I brought a jar of vegan creamy peanut butter with me. The security agent insisted that my carry-on food product was a cream, and therefore a forbidden substance.

A rather strange discussion ensued in which I tried to explain that peanut butter was a solid with a “creamy” consistency. Creamy was, in this case, an adjective. And the peanut butter should not be thrown in the trash.

The agent looked at me as if I were as nutty as my peanut butter.

With our cruise fast approaching (only 2 weeks away!!!), I’ve been wondering myself if I will have problems finding vegan food.  While I have only been wondering, my very sweet and thoughtful omni-best-friend is so worried for me that she offered to contact the cruise line to find out if there will be vegan food on the boat.  What do vegans eat anyway?

I don’t think it’s necessary to go to such great lengths.  Every restaurant I’ve ever been to, even the most meat-centered, has made a vegan/vegetarian dish when I have requested it and not seen one on the menu.  Most menus are customizable.  In fact, to a certain extent, I think the traveler in this article isn’t as resourceful as a vegan needs to be in a non-vegan society.  For example, I can think of LOTS of things that can be made vegan with a little creativity:

1. Burritos.  Most airports have burrito joints.  Order a basic burrito– beans, rice, veggies (if available), lettuce and such.  Add some guac, but ask for no cheese and no sour cream.  If the beans are refried, confirm that they are vegetarian; likewise with the rice as it has the potential to have been made with animal stock.  Even items from places as gross as Taco Bell can be made vegan.  Bean burrito, no cheese.  Tostada, no cheese. Etc.  Etc.
2. Burgers.  Burgers are abundant as a quick and cheap meal.  Order a burger, sans patty and mayo.  Add extra veggies, if possible.  Order a side of fries and pile the fries inside the bun in place of a patty.  This would do in a pinch, but you do run the risk of the bun being not vegan-friendly.  Bread can be tricky.Now, I know if I don’t address it, people are going to suggest “what about the BK Veggie offered by Burger King?”  Yes, many places are not offering veggie patties which they will use on a burger in place of the battered dairy cow flesh.  I would only order this as a last resort and would specifically request that it be microwaved instead of grilled to avoid being contaminated with said battered dairy cow flesh on the grill.  I would also order is sans bun and mayo.  Keep in mind that the BK Veggie is offered as a “meat free” burger, not as one that is veg*n friendly.
3. Sandwiches.  Chain sandwich shops like Subway are usually present in the airport.From Subway’s website:The menu items that do not contain any animal-derived ingredients are the Veggie Delite® on Italian bread and the Veggie Delite® salad. Also these individual items do not contain animal-derived ingredients: all vegetables, oil, vinegar, mustard, sweet onion sauce and Fruizle. The wheat bread and deli roll contain honey but no other animal-derived ingredients.

   (Note: the Italian Bread at Subway is the only vegan bread.  The others contain honey and/or cheese.)

   If there isn’t a Subway around, any kind of sandwich loaded with veggies, without mayo is probably a safe option.  If you’re unsure about the bread, ask, or go for a salad.

4. Salad.  While some may not consider this the most filling of meal options, I can’t think of anything easier.  There would likely not be any customization necessary, just be sure to order it with a vinaigrette.

5. Pizza.  I’ve been to many an airport with a Pizza Hut and isn’t this list from their website handy?  Order a veggie pizza, no cheese, with Thin ‘N Crispy dough.  The benefit of a custom order is that you’ll be assured of having a freshly baked pizza and not one that has been sitting under a heat lamp.
   
6. McDonald’s.  Doesn’t get much grosser than this, but desperate times call for desperate measures.  Even Mickey D’s, the most vegan unfriendly of fast food establishments, can do if you find yourself without any other alternatives.  I haven’t been here in years and don’t even know what they serve anymore, but thanks to their very high tech website, I was able to download a menu and ingredients list.  Everything on the list has weird ingredients in it– like corn syrup as the first ingredient followed by high fructose corn syrup as the second ingredient.  One may argue that McDonald’s does, in fact, NOT serve food, since food is meant to nourish the body.   I would agree.  Eat here at your own risk.  The only reason I’m listing it here is because they are everywhere.If you were in a position and had to resort to McDonald’s, your options would be pretty limited, but at least you wouldn’t starve.  Options: Any salad minus chicken and cheese.  Be sure the dressing is a vinaigrette of some sort.  I would stay away from the Caesar Salad, only because Caesar dressing typically contains anchovies and cheese.  Be forewarned that the croutons have whey in them.

   Another option may be one of the wrap sandwiches, minus the chicken of course.  The ingredients list for the tortilla it gets wrapped up in is hard to read (lots of weird sounding things) and I’m not sure that it is vegan.  If you order this, add any veggie that you can to it (tomato, pickle, etc.) and maybe just use the lettuce as the wrap instead of the tortilla.  If you truly were desperate enough to eat at McDonald’s, the vegan police won’t hunt you down for eating a possibly non-vegan tortilla.

7. Starbucks.  Again, another chain that is everywhere.  Some are even offering hot sandwiches and snack packs to go.  All of them have little packs of nuts for sale and sometimes dried fruit.  I guess some stores are now offering oatmeal, which appears to be vegan.My biggest gripe with Starbucks is that they charge you 40 cents extra to have your drink made with soy milk.  I mean, is there really that much difference between the cost of cow’s milk and soy milk?  No.  The cost of a Starbucks drink should be all inclusive– tea/espresso, syrup, milk.  I’m sending them a letter.  Alright, I just sent them an email requesting that they start offering more vegan snacks and stop charging an extra 40 cents for soy milk.  If you agree with my gripe, send them an email too.

8. Breakfast.  Finding a satisfying breakfast while on the go can be challenging.  Again, a bit of customization is necessary in order to get something that will fill you up.  Stay away from pancakes, waffles and the like since these items are typically made with both dairy and egg products.  Instead, opt for a vegetarian omelet without the eggs.  If they have tofu in the kitchen (which would be a small miracle), ask that they make it with that instead.  Ask how they cook the omelets and request that yours be cooked with a little bit of oil instead of butter, if necessary.  Have some toast on the side, dry unless margarine is an option.  Top it with some fruit preserves.Oatmeal is also a great option.  It’s filling and healthy.  Order it without milk.  Ask for soy milk, if they have it, or some apple juice.  Apple juice on oatmeal is actually quite good.  Add a little cinnamon and you instantly have apple-cinnamon oatmeal!

I hope this dispells the myth that vegans have a hard time finding something to eat while traveling (or even eating out).  Yes, it may be difficult to find food of the caliber that you are accustomed to, but you’ll need to relax your palate a bit if you don’t want to starve to death.