I'm Crunchy.

My confession...
I went to Whole Foods and visited a vegan restaurant all in one day.
Not a typical Rosa evening, I assure you. Usually I read alot. And eat red meat.
More of a right leaning liberal, what with my hate of all races and colors and creeds and all (Rosa- An equal opportunity hater).

But today, my pretties, I was feeling...crunchy. Do not ask me to explain. Perhaps it was some kind of protein deficiency or early onset osteoperosis. I am, truth be told, normally rather healthy. When everyone else at works gets 5 donuts and a grande full fat cappucino i am eating hummus and drinking water. Because i LIKE it that way, mind you, not because I love God's smelly dumb animals or hate fur. I like fur. On me.
Kill it, i'm cold.

I digress.

Have you ever been to Whole Foods? Allow me to explain, backwater Myspace friends. Whole Foods is crunchy. It sells such things as 7 dollar granola in a hand made hemp sack, organically grown-cruelty free toothpaste and, or course, tofu. Especially tofu. There is alot of tofu.

Not to be labeled too crunchy, they also carry high end stuff such as good quality (eye poppingly expensive) olive oil and fresh sushi and organic veggies (which do, admittedly, put Stop and Shop produce to absolute crushing shame.)

As KMart in Manhattan is a tiny cousin to a massive MegaKMart in Cowtown, Kansas, Whole Foods in Chelsea or thereabouts ain't got nuthin on the one in Redbank, NJ. First of all, it's so massive as to induce vertigo. The Olive Oil ALONE take up ONE WHOLE AISLE! OF OLIVE OIL! Come on now that's muy awesome.

Upon entering the gleaming bastion of pleasant supermarket employees (believed to be extinct in the outside world) sporting dreadlocks in blonde hair (should absolutely be banned everywhere but Jamaica) you are greeted with 6 dollar jars of organic natural cruelty free peanut butter. From whence is the cruelty removed? Who cares? It's 6 dollars! It must be LUXURY peanut butter!

It's not. There's a thin layer of oil on top and the whole thing makes you wonder if you had dropped the full jar into some wet sand.

Well, maybe the macoroni and cheese that is "organic" will taste lighter and less like death then Kraft.

It doesn't. Mac and cheese is fake, i don't care how many pictures of grass you put on the box. If my cheese is powdered, you have done something to make it so, and you used a machine and some kind of lab now SHUT UP and go protest something.

5 dollars for 6 "natural" marshmallows?

Ok those were TOTALLY worth it, but that's candy. Candy is fructose laden and good for the soul, no matter how many dolphins do or do not die to bring it to you.

But a whole aisle of olive oil? Do you people understand that given an earlier birth year i could BE Rachel Ray? I have a love affair with good quality ingredients, and olive oil that is 15 bucks per ounce is made for ME! I will roast red peppers, sizzle up some pork chops, begin a nice risotto....oh olive oil, would that you were cheaper so that I could cover myself in you...

Um.

I digress.

So, Whole Foods? Fun because I love to food shop, not so fun because all the stuff tasted the same or worse than less expensive yet no less healthy ingredients from Grand Union.

On to the restaurant. "Down To Earth" it is called. A zagat rated vegan/vegetarian place located in the heart of achingly cute Redbank. The sidewalks are paved with red brick! (I am easily swayed by charm. Ask any boy who's spoken to me)

Our menu was as follows:

Potato Skins to share
Portobello Mushroom Sandwich for him
Vegetarian Lasagna for me


The potatoes were, in fact, potatoes. I do not know if they were ever treated cruelly, but they seemed to have been baked in a humane way. Not humane, however, was the bacon. No, Virginia, it was not bacon. It was "tempeh bacon".

Fuck your mother.

But i was in a vegan place. I brought it on myself. We did enjoy the skins but most peculiar was the fact that we were filling up very quickly. Odd, shouldn't these things free the conservative side of your soul to decend into hell thus making your whole body feel lighter?

My escort for the night only recently developed a taste for mushrooms, so the portobello was rather lost on him, but I found the lasagna to be surprisingly good. Save for the abomination of this land called "gluten free pasta". It tastes very very similar to run of the mill Barilla, but once cooked to anything past perfect "al dente" it falls apart. God invented gluten for THIS PURPOSE! Gluten makes your cookies chewy, your pizza crusts bubbly, your pastas STAY TOGETHER.

Don't start that some people are allergic to that kind of thing. They should've been left by the side of a mountain as babies in the first place so as to rid the earth of "gluten free pasta"!

I digress...

There was no cheese in the lasagna, it was replaced with good quality soft tofu which had been treated with some kind of herbed mixture so as to make it rather tasty. I enjoyed it.

We did, however, leave without dessert.

Most peculiar was the clientelle of these two fine establishments: Frighteningly skinny people with stern looks on their faces. One waitress was boasting that she posted her "Rasing your child Vegan" Instructional short on YouTube. (P.S, stupid, YouTube is so ubiquitous I think there is video of Lincoln's assasination on there).

Oily peanut butter, 10 dollar toothpaste, crumbly pasta, mediocre cheese, boring soft drinks, 7 (SEVEN!) different textures of tofu...it does not make for a happy life, does it?

So, vegans, I tried. but your lifestyle so totally sucks. You see those sharp things in your mouth? Those teeth you saw the last time you pretended to smile? Those are made for tearing into flesh. I like tofu. I like smoothies. I adore olive oil. I hate the president. Can't we simply get along based on those common factors? MUST you hate me for my fur and my hamburger.

Tell you what. I will starve you, vegan dredheaded skinny person, for 2 days. Not so much that you'll die, you see. Just enough to make you realize what hunger is. Then, i will put two things in front of you.

Plate 1- a lightly roasted firm tofu with soba noodles in a sesame sauce
Plate 2 - one bite (ONE bite i say!) of medium rare filet mignon.

Your brain will know what to do.

Im'a go have some ice cream with gluten in it. And dolphins.
Peace!