Animal Place
Website is animalplace.org.
What interns do: Intern Kristen holds an important conversation with Copper, a hen rescued from an egg farm where she was being starved and neglected.
What interns do: Try to feed sheep strawberries, unsuccessfully. Photo features intern Lexi and saved-from-slaughter sheep Alice.
Vegan Eats (aka Food) is my weekly (sometimes more) forays into what us vegans eat. And we do eat. All sorts of stuff, really. This includes dessert, of which we are particularly fond. -Marji Beach, Education Manager
First, a photo of what you folks should be making now.
It’s strudel, which means whirlpool due to the fact that phyllo dough surrounds with its swirling madness some really tasty stuff. Like cherries.
I made this with my mother, so you should probably prepare this food in pairs or groups. I do not do cooking of this magnitude solo.
You should also know phyllo has a delicate nature that you must respect. By that, I mean don’t be manhandling this stuff. When you are brushing the phyllo with vegan margarine, don’t go at it like an angry painter person. Make sure that you take aslightlydamp towel and cover the remaining phyllo with it. Don’t make the towel too damp, otherwise the phyllo will become one with the towel. Not cool.
Here’s the recipe, yo:
The recipe:
1/2 cup ground almonds
1/2cup sugar
3 cups pitted fresh sour cherries or 2 15-oz. cans water-packed tart cherries, drained
1/4 tsp. almond extract, optional
6 sheets frozen phyllo dough, thawed
6 Tbs. vegan margarine, melted
2 Stir together breadcrumbs, almonds, and sugar in bowl. Combine 3/4 cup breadcrumb mixture and cherries in separate bowl. Add almond extract (if using}.
3 Unroll phyllo, and keep under damp towel to retain moisture. Place 1 phyllo sheet on work surface, brush with margarine, and sprinkle with 2 Tbs. dry breadcrumb mixture. Top with second phyllo sheet. Repeat layering with remaining margarine, dry breadcrumb mixture, and phyllo sheets, leaving last phyllo sheet bare.
4 Brush 1-inch border of margarine around edges of phyllo stack. Spread cherry mixture in center of phyllo stack inside margarine borders, using hands to pack filling into smooth cylinder. Fold short edges of phyllo stack over filling, Carefully roll phyllo around Filling burrito-style into large log. Place seam-side down on prepared baking sheet. Brush strudel all over with melted margarine, and sprinkle top with remaining dry breadcrumb mixture. Bake 20 to 30 minutes, or until strudel is golden-brown, Cool at least 10 minutes before serving.
Recipe is from Vegetarian Times.
What interns do: Hannah gives Charles his medicine in a little peanut butter treat!
Nervous and sad, I watched Sebastian. He lay, unable to get up and walk, on shavings at UC Davis. His kidneys had failed him and were irreparably damaged. Unbeknownst to us, cancer weaved malignantly inside him.
True to his personality, despite the discomfort, Sebastian chewed his cud. Nothing could stop him from enjoying food.
A decision was made. The kind of heartbreaking choice we make for others in the hopes, unfair and desperate as they are, that we will be alleviating ceaseless suffering.
Three of us had made the 1.5 hour drive from Grass Valley to be with Sebastian in his final moments. We surrounded him with our bodies and love.
Sebastian exhaled softly, never to inhale again. He passed swiftly and peacefully. Just as quickly, everything that made him him was gone, including the heat of his body, the blood stilling and cooling in minutes.
Vegan Eats is my weekly installment of showing you vegans actually eat food. Haha. In a gross generalization, vegans love food more than a gastronomy expert (they exist). -Marji Beach, Education Manager
Okay, so I learned tostada just means toasted, so I’m probably committing some sort of cultural faux-pas by associating “tostada” with “taco shell shaped like a bowl”. Please do not hate me too much for this.
I buy bowl-shaped toasted things at my grocery store, but you can get flat ones too. Or make your own (and mail them to me).
My tostada is filled with the following goodness: pinto beans, romaine lettuce hearts chopped, chopped tomatoes, diced white onion, cubed avocado, Follow Your Heart moz cheeze cubed, drizzled with vegan ranch-style dressing I bought at the store as well. Also, jalapenos. Sometimes, guac.
You may make a variation on the theme and bam! perfectness.
Editors note: This is a blog entry written by our newest team member, Molly Jordan. She has a rich background in coordinating and running internship and volunteer programs at other organizations. She is our Intern and Outreach Coordinator.
A long time ago I started volunteering for a companion animal shelter in Houston, where I quickly became a full-time adoption and volunteer coordinator. One of the many duties I had in my new life was finding new volunteers to help with our small, grass-roots organization. Since I love being around people, recruiting volunteers came naturally…especially finding those who enjoy working with and for the animals. Fast forward to my current adventure running Animal Place’s internship program. I have the great pleasure of working with rescued farm animals, and recruiting interns who share my passion for taking care of these amazing creatures! When you see the word lucky in the dictionary, you may find a little photograph of me with bovines and interns… two of my favorite beings in this world.
For me, volunteering is about giving back to a community you care about. It’s about offering your hard work, commitment to a cause, skill, voice, and most of all, love. I believe in the power of volunteering to change the world, but also to heal your soul. I started volunteering because I felt a void in my life after being laid off from a position that I really enjoyed. Donating my time provided me the opportunity to become involved with something I was passionate about and gave my life meaning. If you had told me ten years ago when I first began volunteering that I would be here in my office at Animal Place, writing to you today about the loveliness of interns and volunteers, I would have laughed at you!! Seriously! This city girl had zero plans to live anywhere but the concrete jungle! But today, as I sit and reflect, I realize that one small gesture of giving back changed my life profoundly. And as I laugh through my tears at the simplicity of it, I assure you, all great things have come to my life because of volunteering.
Intern Kristen shares the spotlight with Willy, the goat.
For more information on our residential internship program, go here.
A&L Poultry is a name I will never forget. I imagine it’s a name etched in the minds of those who helped rescue 4,460 hens from the 50,000 “egg-laying” hen operation in February of this year.
A&L Poultry abandoned their egg farm, leaving the hens to slowly starve. Already the life of a hen on an egg farm is so miserable. She lives in a cage. Her beak has been mutilated so she cannot peck her cagemates. She cannot escape. No one is held culpable for denying hens the basic right tospread her wings.
Which is why today is a good day. Today, we - along with two other sanctuaries - filed suit against A&L Poultry in Stanislaus County, California. We are demanding justice for the hens we took in and the ones who were not so lucky.
Animal Place took in 4,100 of the 4,460 hens. For the past 2.5 months, we have been caring for these bedraggled hens as they recover. Many have found permanent homes, leaving more than a 1,000 left. This rescue has been costly, as the hens arrived severely ill and malnourished.
Today’s lawsuit seeks to place responsibility on the guilty parties who caused the suffering of 50,000 helpless hens.
We seek justice for her:
And her:
And her:
Vegan Eats (aka Food) = once a week efforts on my part to not embarrass myself with crappy stuff I cook. -Marji Beach, Education Manager
Guys, I love appetizers. They are often easy to make and I find them difficult to screw-up.
Take, guacamole. This stuff is so easy to make fresh, and I’ll put it on just about anything, because that is how much I love guac.
The ingredients I like to use are as follows: Yellow onion + avocado + tomato + lemon juice + cilantro + garlic + jalapenos + salt. That’s it, really. All this stuff gets chopped up and mushed about until it is the lumpy consistency that makes guac perfect. I adjust ingredients based on taste.
EAT. Maybe with stuff, up to you.
