Red Kite

Today I did a day of volunteering at Red Kite Health Foods in Bromsgrove. Since Lisa, owner of Red Kite, is a friend on Facebook I had the idea to email her recently to ask if I could go in and do some voluntary work. I wanted to gain a bit of experience working in a shop since I’ve never worked in one before. Lisa said yes so we arranged that I’d go in today. I got home a few hours ago after an enjoyable day.

(Lisa behind the counter)  

First thing for me to do upon arrival was to get some change. Lisa trusted me with £20 so off I went to the bank to get it converted into 5ps, 10ps and 20ps. Once I returned my main job for the day was going through new stock that had arrived, checking each item off on the list, attaching price labels to each item and putting them on the shelves. Although Red Kite is quite a small store it’s stocked to the max! The store mostly sells vegan and vegetarian products – with a few fish oil supplements too. In amongst the items I had to price and put on shelves were soup, porridge oats, rye bread, tea, pate, sweets, desserts, cooking sauce, regular sauce, mayonaise, beans, seaweed, cereal, biscuits, rice cakes and more.

In my dinner hour, after eating, I walked down Bromsgrove High Street – since I never really go to Bromsgrove – and checked out a bunch of the shops. Later on in the afternoon, Lisa also showed me how to use the till and the credit card machine. Overall the day flew by and soon it was approaching 5.30pm. I bought a few vegan items to bring home with me (and Lisa gave me a few – thanks Lisa!) before we left for the day.  

If you’re ever in Bromsgrove, make sure you call in to Red Kite Health Foods. It’s well worth a visit. You can find Red Kite on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Red-Kite-Health-Foods/148704191836472

Barcelona Cat Bar

I’ve just got back from a quick trip to Barcelona. I went there for a concert, as you do. Of course I printed out a list of vegan/veggie places from Happycow before I went and also a map of the vicinity of our hotel with a bunch of them marked out. It turns out that there are quite a lot of vegetarian restaurants in Barcelona - and also a handful of vegan places. As my friend likes a drink (whereas I’m straight edge), I figured Cat Bar would be perfect for both of us. It is a bar that sells lots of different types of beer (all vegan) - as well as all vegan food! It was 5-10mins walk from our hotel (at Boria 17) and open late. After checking in at our hotel, we pretty much grabbed our purses and went. We found Cat Bar easily and went in to have a bit of food and something to drink.

As it was a Tuesday there was a live performance taking place when we got there, playing acoustic music at the front of the bar. Cat Bar is quite small - or at least it is width ways as you walk in. The back of the bar wasn’t so full so we found a table there. The Cat Bar has an upstairs too although we didn’t venture up there, although there was a balcony with a few folk looking down, watching the acoustic performance.

Our view from the back:

Due to me checking out the menu online at http://catbar.es I knew exactly what I wanted to eat immediately - so as soon as I got to the bar I ordered veggie sausage, beans and chips. The prices in Cat Bar are great - sausage, beans and chips is only 5 Euros. I had a coke to go with it for 1,50.

I wasn’t actually expecting two sausages so that was nice! And the whole meal was tasty.

My friend chose the burger for 3 Euro…

We stayed there for a couple of hours. Cat Bar has free internet - I specifically took my mini laptop so checked my emails, facebook - and also showed my friend the Vegan Black Metal Chef’s first video as she hadn’t checked that out.

Eventually we figured we’d better go and get some much needed sleep - although not without me being tempted by the vegan chocolate cake at the counter. It’s only 1,50 and also super-nice. Actually, I managed to withheld myself from eating it until breakfast next morning. The staff member at the Cat Bar put it into a nice bag for me to take away. I completely forgot to take a pic of the cake but recommend it with everything else Cat Bar sells.

Saying bye to Roy and co. at the Cat Bar (excuse their blurry arms, I only took my cheap Olympus camera!):

Next time I’m in Barcelona I’ll go back for sure. I definitely love the cheap prices - and it’s cool to find somewhere that’s not just a cafe or restaurant but a bar too. Purr-fect for keeping everyone happy. Plus the best thing of all is that it’s 100% vegan. Miao!

Your Food Diary

I’ve added a new page to SaveAScream.com entitled ‘Your Food Diary’. I’d like vegans to send me a weekend diary of the food they eat. Check http://www.saveascream.com/yourfooddiary.htm for my own example (if you want to include Friday too to make it a bit longer, feel free).

I’d love as many people as possible to send in their food diary. If possible, lay it out like mine, listing the food at the top under each day and then talk about what you ate, when you ate it, where you were, what you were doing, why you ate it etc.

It doesn’t matter if you’re an unhealthy eater or a healthy eater. I’d love to read weekend diaries of what others eat. Even if you eat the same thing all weekend (er… like me! lol). And maybe it inspires or helps any veggies or meat eaters that come to the site and read.

If anyone can remember what they ate this past weekend they can send that - or you can wait till next weekend, or any future weekend.

Madrid

It’s been a month since my last entry. Busy busy busy. I seem to be overloaded with work. Well, by work I mean zine work… not real work. I don’t class zine work as real work even though it’s what I put most of my time and effort into.

This past weekend I went to Madrid though, and since while I was there I managed to go to a couple of veggie places, I thought I’d post here about them. Unfortunately I didn’t visit enough to warrant a special ‘Vegan Madrid’ page on the website. My trip saw me arriving into Madrid Friday evening - and then heading to the airport at 3.30am on Sunday morning.

Friday evening I decided I’d check out Yerbabuena, which is at Bordadores, 3, in Madrid. It is quite a small place with room for room for about 40 people. Unfortunately when I got there it was full (well, one table had a ‘reserved’ sign, another was free, but the man said that was reserved too, and a couple were leaving but the waiter said that was reserved too!). The waiter asked me to come back in 20mins. Being that I’m a bit impatient, I decided not go back that evening and instead I went to get fries at Maoz (us busy jetsetters do not have time to waste and hang around! lol). If you want to visit Yerbabuena in the evening it may be better to call to reserve the table to be sure you get one.

Maoz (http://www.maozusa.com/) is a great little fast food chain that sells falafel and other vegetarian food. There are branches in the US, UK, Netherlands, Spain and France. The Madrid location was at Calle Mayor, 4. What I especially liked was that it was so close to a McDonalds and Burger King - showing that fast food doesn’t need to be made from dead animals and there are alternatives that taste great. I went in and grabbed fries and a drink.

Next day my friend and I headed to Yerbabuena (http://www.yerbabuena.ws) for my second attempt. Thankfully this time it wasn’t packed and we got a table. Their menu is extensive with all sorts of items, either vegan or vegetarian. Lots of food to choose from and lots of drinks too. It was hard to choose what to eat as there were many good choices. They had a pizza on the menu, so being as soya cheese pizza is my fave food in the whole world, I asked if they could do me a soya cheese pizza. Yes, they said! It came with a bit of salad and garlic on top (I’d have preferred just the cheese pizza but I won’t complain about that too much!). The pizza was huge and I was full before reaching the end. Although maybe the garlic also put me off slightly. That said, if I’m ever in Madrid again I’d go back and ask for it again (just ‘no garlic’, next time).

Drinks-wise I asked for a soya hot chocolate, which interestingly came in a glass with a straw and half a cherry in the straw! It was nice, though!

My friend has this to eat, which she enjoyed…

We also were given nachos and guacamole as an entree, and some mints/sweets with the bill.

The one thing I didn’t like about Madrid was at the airport in the tourist shop when I saw T-shirts with bulls on. Spain, we hate bullfighting. Do you not realise that? Only idiots with no brains or hearts care about bullfighting. Thankfully the cool veggie restaurants made up for this and it was soon forgotten. It’s great to see that even in a city/country where animals are abused and mistreated, there are vegans and vegetarians and vegan-friendly food places. With Catalonia being the first Spanish city to ban bullfighting, the evil sport is on the way out… while vegetarianism is growing and growing.