From Cupcakes to Karaoke

Who: VN Editorial Assistant Kailey Harless, the rest of the VN gang, VegWeb Web Mistress Laura Beck, plus friends
What: An evening of good eats and great tunes.
Where: Ike's Place and The Mint, San Francisco, Calif.
When: Thursday, August 6, 2009
Why: To eat well and let loose.

Though I’ve only been working at VegNews for a bit over two months, there are many things I’ve learned so far. Yes, we love our Parma!, communal lunches, brainstorming issues months in advance, and working hard to make the magazine we all love so dearly. But more than anything, VegNews loves balance. Just when you think you’re going to drop from exhaustion, a day of pure delight and fun rescues you.

Thursday we were all busily working on our countless projects when a lunch guest arrived bearing gifts. Might I mention she arrived with the best kind of gift, especially around this office: an edible one. Tessa Strauss, of the divine blog, Cookies and Candids, and her friend Julie joined the crew for lunch and supplied the most exquisite dessert I’ve had in months. Perhaps years. After staring at the cupcakes throughout lunch, we finally dove in to these beauties:

Almost too pretty to eat. Almost.

What you see here are decadently delicious cupcakes. In the forefront are White-Chocolate Champagne Cupcakes filled with white-chocolate ganache and topped with gold sprinkles, in the middle are Rich Chocolate Almond Cupcakes with a marzipan layer, and behind is the genius baker. I kept shaking my head in disbelief as I bit into these perfectly moist, fluffy, just-sweet-enough delights. How could these be so phenomenal?

As if our afternoon sugary feast hadn’t been enough, the VN crew decided to end the day with a well loved tradition. Somehow, one of the VegNewsies came up with the idea to combine Ike’s sandwiches and karaoke into one night of both pure scrumptiousness and hilarity.

We made the pilgrimage to Ike’s Place after work, where Charlotte and I split a sandwich. (A side note: you will be made fun of for not eating a whole sandwich by yourself when dining with the VN crew.) The perfection of this sandwich helped me ignore the haters. Take a look at the gorgeous vegan “We’re Just Friends” (can’t tell you how many times I’ve uttered that line).

Vegan turkey layered with orange glaze, avocado, soy cheese, tomato, and lettuce all within Dutch Crunch bread

Happily full, we trekked the few blocks to The Mint. Some sang, some danced, some (aka Laura Beck) performed "The Thong Song" with incredible aplomb, and we all enjoyed a much needed night out.

The Best Day Ever

Lyndsay poses with her "Backstabber" vegan turkey sandwich.
It will be completely devoured in about .2 seconds.

Who: VN Office Manager Lyndsay Orwig + VN Editorial Assistant Melissa Feineman

What: Super-scrumptious sandwiches and so-good-it-should-be-illegal ice cream

When: Sunday, April 12, 2009, from here on out known as "The Best Day Ever"

Where: Ike's Place and MaggieMudd, San Francisco

Why: To see just how much utter deliciousness could be fit into one day. The short answer? A lot. For the long answer, see below.

The Scoop: Pop quiz: Can a sandwich change your life? If you answered yes, chances are you have already experienced the joy and wonder that is Ike's. If you answered no, you poor dear, then you must drop whatever you are doing and arrange a trip there as soon as is humanly possible. If you fall into the latter camp, perhaps you are thinking "What's the big deal? It's a flippin' sandwich for cryin' out loud." But that, my friend, is where you'd be wrong.

Let's start with the options, of which there are many. No matter what your dietary leanings, from dedicated omnivore to e"vegan"gelist, we're pretty sure you'll find something to please your palate. On the vegan side of things, not only are there vegan meatballs (more on those bad boys later), turkey, and cheese, but also a substantial range of vegetable-only delights.

Having perused the menu online ahead of time (which I recommend doing just before going. Too far ahead of time and you might find yourself gnawing on your hand, mousepad, or anything else that happens to be lying around just to stave off the hunger pangs), I already knew what I wanted, which was the "Not So Sloppy Ike." This is a vegan meatball sandwich with barbecue sauce and cheese. Lyndsay went for the "Backstabber," a vegan turkey sandwich with marinated artichoke hearts, garlic and herb sauce, and soy cheese.

We had been warned ahead of time that the lines can be long and the wait torturous, but lady luck was most certainly smiling upon us since we were eating no more than 15 minutes after we arrived. Ike himself (dressed up in his Easter Sunday finest), hand-delivered the sandwiches to our table, and after that, well ... I can't really tell you too much of what happened after that because I was so focused on my sandwich that the rest of the world just seemed to fade away. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what made it so incredibly, mind-bogglingly delicious. Was it the tangy sweetness of the barbecue sauce? Maybe. The satisfying bite of the "meatballs"? Perhaps. The mingling of complementary textures from crisp to saucy? Quite possibly. I've said it before and I'll say it again–this sandwich will change your life.

Now, any normal person might stop at this point and think, "Hey, I've just had the best sandwich of my life. I think I'm ready to go out on a high note and call it quits for the day." This type of thinking, though, will get you nowhere, and luckily Lyndsay and I were on the same page here. It was a beautiful San Francisco day. The sun was shining and the birds were chirping. The only possible move that made any sort of sense was for us to head up to MaggieMudd for a vegan-ice-cream blowout.

As a small side note here, if you ever intend to recreate "The Best Day Ever," which I highly recommend that you do, I would also suggest that you walk from Ike's to MaggieMudd. This journey takes about an hour if you don't stop anywhere along the way, and it provides you with just about enough time to make room in your stomach for ice cream.

Is there anything better than vegan mint chocolate cookie ice cream on a beautiful day?
No, I don't think there is.

MaggieMudd, like Ike's, is a place of diversity, so you can find everything from dairy to soy to coconut-milk-based ice creams. There is also an unbelievable selection of sundaes and blended drinks. Lyndsay opted for a Maggie Muddy Fudgy Sundae (just try saying that three times fast!) with "Death Squad" and "Chocolate Mint Cookie" flavors. I went for a cup with "Mint Cookie Swirl" and "ChocoRaspberry Cookie." Since mint chocolate is, as far as I'm concerned, the be-all and end-all of ice-cream flavors, I was really surprised to see two different mint-chocolate combos on the menu. The one I ordered was mint-flavored ice cream with swirls of chocolate and cookie pieces, while Lyndsay's choice was a chocolate ice cream with mint flavor and cookie pieces. The only apparent difference was that mine was green and slightly mintier in flavor, but both were excellent.

Just as Nelly Furtado sings, "All good things come to an end," and so, too, did "The Best Day Ever." It was mind-blowingly amazing, and I can't wait to do it again!