Northern Hospitality

I went to Alaska a couple of weeks ago to spend time with my amazing sister, and went off to Wisconsin again the day after for business. I have been meaning to post this trip recap for a few days, but of course, life got in the way again. Anyway...

Anchorage is a very vegan-friendly city. Like everything else in Alaska, dining out can be very expensive. There are a couple of places I have to stop at each time I am visiting. Like Middle Way Cafe (I don't think they have a website). Middle Way is a fairly standard hippie-infested coffee shop/cafe. My dad took me there for lunch one day, and I was slightly bummed to miss their breakfast menu by about 20 minutes. I asked what a popular vegan lunch item was, and the cashier recommended the vegan version of the avocado melt.

This was literally the best sandwich I have ever had. I might have said that about some other sandwich before, but this one overruled all. I mean, it was stuffed with veggies and warm, gooey avocado slices, smothered in melted Daiya and Vegenaise. Sinful, but delicious. Speaking of sinful, I also had a vegan chocolate cupcake with cardamom coffee buttercream frosting.

Holy crap this was good. I don't think I have had such an indulgent vegan dessert since I lived by Vegan Treats a few years ago. I am not usually a cake/cupcake person, but I had to try one since it was vegan and looked so good. The frosting was very saturated with cardamom. Not in a bad way, it's just a spice you don't come across a lot.

A couple of days later, my sister and I drove to Girdwood and took the tram up the mointain at Aleyeska resort. Awesome pictures were taken.

We were going to go into Girdwood for lunch but the place we had in mind was closed until dinner. Lame! She took me to another amazing hippie restaurant instead, the Organic Oasis. We decided that we wanted to try a wheat grass shot, so we got a couple of them freshly prepared with ginger.

These were okay to sip very lightly. Gingery, grassy, not too strong. Then we took the rest as a shot. GROSS. The shots were super sludgy in the bottom, and I mean that in the most unpleasant way possible. If you want to simulate our experience, mow your lawn, scrape a bunch of crap off of your mower blades, and eat a big blob of it while stuffing fresh ginger root up your nose.

With my entree, I was offered a selection of soups. They were all vegan too! I was leaning towards the coconut potato soup, but our waitress informed me that it was slightly sweet. Not really my thing. I followed her recommendation and ordered the jewel yam stew.

This soup was a little underwhelming. It was pretty plain. Just some yams, zucchini, herbs, and not much else. What did it for me was the homemade bread slathered in tahini that it was served with. Why did I not think of this?? Probably because I don't usually eat bread. For my entree I had the "Vegan High Protein" wrap.

Like the avocado melt I had a few days prior, this blew my mind. I love love love tempeh, and this wrap included a big slab saturated in hummus and vegenaise, with some fresh veggies tossed in and some spirulina to give it that creepy blue-green hue. My sister opted for the tofu salad which was also accompanied with amazing tahini bread.

We actually learned a lot about tahini on this trip. Mostly that it is amazing on everything. We experimented with some salad dressings at her condo and made our own tasty blend of tahini, lemon juice, tamari, garlic, and ginger. Yum! We even brought a batch of this to my dad's house for a family dinner. My family and even my closest friends still crack me up when it comes to my diet. I am lucky that both of my parents and my sister all love vegetables almost as much as I do, but they still freak out when it comes to feeding me. My dad went all-out to make certain that I was included in the rare family meal. The dish that amazed me the most was his braised tofu.

This dish was quickly gobbled up by the entire gang. I can't tell you how it was made, because it seemed complicated and I didn't pay attention. It was full of tasty tofu slabs and green veggies. I did witness my dad slicing up some seasoned seaweed to toss in at the end. I took note to add seaweed to my stir-fries because it kicked ass.

After returning from my sub-arctic vacation and yet another business trip, I realized that I forgot my camera charger in Anchorage. Oh well! I guess it's more craptacular iPhone pictures for a while, but better that than nothing. Someday I swear I will get a nicer camera and learn how to take decent pictures. There are a lot of vegan blogs out there that make me jealous!