the last days of Pure Luck

tofu pesto sandwich & soup
What do you do when your favorite restaurant and eternal hang out decides to up and close on you? You eat there as many times as humanly possible before they shut the doors for good.

Pure Luck has been a staple in Shawn and my life together since we started dating. Not only do we eat there at least once a week, it’s always the spot we pick when meeting friends. We had birthday celebrations there. We shot part of our movie there. Every time we go we run into people we know. Totally integral place in our life. And it’s closing. Ugh.

To commemorate, here are some of our last meals in all the glory. (more…)

instagram

I thought I’d post some of the instagram photos I’d taken over the past few weeks in honor of the fact that I now have my own camera to use, and won’t have to rely on my phone (which is about to bite the dust anyway) or borrowing Shawn’s camera for quick snapshots. Not to mention, they’re fun and show what I’ve been up to recently. (more…)

the wedding: part 2

This is the end of the wedding posts, with more photos than ever. While I’ve kept quiet for what I’ve shared before, I have a bit to say this time around. Mostly though, there are tons and tons of photos.

When we first started planning our wedding, looking for locations, choosing vendors, we found ourselves coming up against all these restrictions. In particular with venues, there were a lot of rules: from which caterer you could use, to how loud you could play music. One would think at a public institution such as The Natural History Museum, which really only does weddings on the side, there would be a great deal of restrictions, especially considering the historical artifacts they have throughout. Instead, they were the most open of any place we contacted. We were allowed to roam the museum, nearly all night. This completely shaped our wedding, as we were surrounded by history and our guests were transported out of Los Angeles into another world.




We encouraged our guests to wear vintage attire and many not only obliged, but were enthusiastic. We didn’t specify a particular time period which gave us a range of styles. It was so great to see what everyone came up with. It was as if all the ages of guests to the museum from times passed we converging again.


The one aspect of the wedding that we did not plan at all were the decorations and flowers. The whole time we imagined that the museum would be such a stunning backdrop that the details like centerpieces could be simple and still work. So we didn’t put too much thought into it. Or should I say, any thought.

About a month before the wedding, when we realized that we would actually have to come up with something, we turned to our friend Suki. We knew her from the events she had put together for The Cinefamily and as she had recently started her own event company, we thought she would be a perfect match to not only make our wedding run smoothly, but also to design a good deal of the decor.



Suki and her co-conspirator, Patsy, were able to take the minimal direction we gave them (moss & glass jars) and come up with stunning designs and arrangement. They were even able to incorporate the various pieces we had come up with along the way.

Instead of a typical guestbook, I wanted to make a quilt out of the fabric signed by our guests. I found a selection of bird themed fabrics and the ladies from the happening were able to reflect this by incorporating little nests into the decor.


Being that we live in Los Angeles, one of the most vegan friendly cities in the country, one would think finding a vegan caterer would be easy. For a number of reasons, it became the most complicated part of our planning. Luckily we found Jennie Cook, who was amazingly helpful all around and made amazing food for us. These beanie pops were delightful.



We were really happy to be able to include so many children at our wedding as we imagined they would be able to explore the museum with their families…and just look adorable.




Do you remember those stuffed animals I made? They were much loved by our guests, which made me endlessly happy.

The reception was held in the recently restored rotunda, a beautiful room from the original museum, made almost entirely of marble. (You should definitely click on that photo to see it in all of it’s glory.)

Oh and it is a tragedy that I don’t have more photos of food. We had the most amazing tomato soup. So good that it may have been a figment of my imagination. There were vegan sliders, fantastic cashew cream potatoes and a special fig and rice celebration roast from Field Roast. I ate all of these things. We took leftovers home. It was wonderful.

Kyle gave an epic speech from the mezzanine of the rotunda.


There were touching speeches and long speeches made by our dear friends.


…epically long speeches.


All those cakes I slaved over were devoured.

There was dancing.





It was glorious.


And things got a little crazy, but that’s for another day.

All photos by Photo Pink
except the final photo by Shawn Bannon

So, in case you missed it, here is the wedding roundup:

get invited with our handmade book invitations
come to the rehearsal party
experience the nervous preparations of getting ready
and the main event…part one: the ceremony

easter brunch

Well, we managed to pull everything together and put together a lovely Easter brunch. We even managed to snag an amazing dining set, including a beautiful hutch and a buffet, from Craigslist and pick it up on Saturday. There was a lot of cooking and moving of furniture and cleaning (as we still haven’t quite moved in 100%) but I’m proud to say it went off without a hitch.

bunny decor
porcelain bunny
We reused the wonderful moss centerpieces from our rehearsal party along with a few pieces we have in our china collection. I am totally in love with this bunny.

easter setting
We also used the cloth napkins that we got for our wedding (which you’ll be seeing in action, in the next few days). Clearly I have a thing for bunnies. While we do have a lovely set of spring themed dishes, we were one setting short. This mismatched mushroom plate fit in nicely though.

brunch
I even tried my hand at flower arranging for the occasion. I obviously chose a vase that was much too large, for my flower selection, but I was really happy with the extra color.

french toast
I had to get a little fancy and make these french toasts with asparagus and orange beurre blanc that I found on Martha Stewart. Of course, with a few simple substitutions, I was able to veganize the entire recipe. They were a lovely addition to the brunch, slightly decadent, but not too sweet or overwhelming of the other dishes.

fancy sauce
I’ve never had a beurre blanc sauce before so I’m not sure if I made it quite right but it was extremely tasty.

asparagus
Cooking in our new kitchen is a dream. For the first time, I have sunlight in the kitchen. It’s an amazing thing.

quiches!
Shawn’s one request was a deep dish quiche filled vegan bacon and daiya cheese. I used the broccoli quiche recipe as the base from Vegan Brunch and just mixed in the extras. I made a broccoli cauliflower quiche for myself (yes all for myself). Oh and we had potatoes with artichokes, courtesy of my mom, and strawberries in vanilla balsamic.

brussels sprouts
carrot ginger soup
Alicia brought some delicious roasted Brussels sprouts and a carrot ginger soup with cashew pesto. So good. I also made some roasted spring vegetables but forgot to photograph them. Oops!

orange quinoa salad
My mom made an orange quinoa salad. Definitely an orange theme this year.

patience
Nine of us fit at our new table! I still can’t believe we found it.

brunch
With so many different dishes, we had to fill our plates many times with small servings. Here’s round one with the french toast, quiche, soup and veggies.

mochi
Mochi really wanted to be part of the party.

molasses candy
molasses candy
I made some molasses candies as a treat. Having never made them before, I’m pretty pleased with how they came out. I think I could take another crack at it though. I used blackstrap molasses so they were particularly strong. Ideally I’d prefer them to be a bit more subtle and less chewy. Of course, they should also be coated in chocolate. Making candy is like making magic.

xan chocolates
Luckily my mom brought an assortment of chocolates from Xan confectioners.

It was a wonderful day filled with family and friends. It definitely showed me how much it takes to host a good party. Thank goodness I had help with the dishes. Now I’m just glad I have the rest of my Sunday to relax.

Shout outs

In light of the ridiculous news that VegNews is using stock photos of meat and trying to pass them off as vegan, I think today would be a lovely day to point you all in the direction of some other vegan blogs, sites and photographers.

I have a lot to say about what went down with VegNews but I think it’s pretty much been covered, so I’ll be brief. Using stock photos for completed recipes is just wrong in itself, let alone using images of non-vegan food. For that matter, I don’t know why anyone would want to read a magazine that uses stock photography on the cover under any circumstances. It just shows that the magazine doesn’t care about what they are publishing. I don’t know why they would then expect us to care enough to visit their site or buy a subscription. A magazine is not just about text, it’s a complete product.

But let’s move on…there are so many other vegan resources for you to check out besides this magazine, so here are a few of my favorites (in no particular order).

Quarry Girl – Have to give a major shout out to the blog that broke the news about this whole scandal. Go here for restaurant reviews and sass.

Post Punk Kitchen – The godmother of vegan recipe blogs brought to you by Isa Chandra Moskowitz.  Innovative takes on the classics and inspiring new recipes all rolled into one.

Vegansauraus – Vegan news and fun around the internet. Great writing and totally amusing.

Your Vegan Mom – Reliably good recipes that are uncomplicated and mouthwatering from Trina, accompanied by witty storytelling.

C’est la Vegan – Wonderful recipes especially for desserts and appetizers, with great ideas for entertaining guests.

Little Vegan Planet – I like this blog so much I married the guy. Seriously though, fun stuff and amazing photos.

These are just my top few of today. It’s always changing. Here’s a whole list of awesomeness.

Since the controversy really comes down to photos, I thought I’d share some talented vegan photographers as well.  VEGNEWS, MAYBE YOU SHOULD CONTACT THESE GUYS:

Nicole from Bonus Round

Sara from Simply Stardust

Ryan of Suckatash Productions

Nora from Pride and Vegudice

Shawn of course (yes I’m listing him again, I’m totally allowed to do that).

Not to mention, when I asked for a vegan photographer on twitter, I had tons of responses, ranging from newbies willing to take photos for free to established working photographers.

I’m working on compiling a list for the future so if you’re a photographer that would like to be included, or have someone to add, please let me know.