Turning Veganese

Brent and I like to celebrate for no reason whatsoever. And sometimes there’s a reason like reaching the 20K milestone for visits to Turning Veganese!

What better way to celebrate than with champagne and caviar? Okay, well it’s cava and Cavi-art but who’s counting.

We started with the traditional black Cavi-art and the red chili varieties. We paired it with some regular rice crackers and some home-made cashew cheese. Both varieties of Cavi-art are pretty amazing both in appearance and texture relative to the real thing except that neither is driving a species to extinction. Sturgeon are really cool fishes. I want future generations to get to meet them. It’s still a little pricey for most budgets but compared to the real thing is relatively inexpensive at $10.95 for 3.5 ounces

Caviart is made from seaweed and has half the calories of the real thing. They’re also rich in flavor and come in varieties like wasabi, ginger, ‘salmon’, black, red, yellow and balsamic (which I recommend with pesto).

So Brent and I got to have a decadent celebration with some of the old school players. I want to make a quick note about sparkling wines. I’m a big fan of cava, which is the Spanish equivalent of French Champagne.  We’re big fans of Cristalino cava which has actually won awards as a value sparkling wine and I think it’s as good as some $70 bottles of champagne for a tenth of the price.

Why sparkling wine? Most high quality sparkling wines are fermented in the bottle and then clarified by a process called ‘riddling’ which was invented by Madame Nicole-Barbe Clicquot, also of my favorite champagne, Veuve Clicquot. Riddling is animal friendly so if you’re trying to figure out which wine to order at a fancy dinner party but don’t want to bust out your cell phone to check barnivore.com, look for a sparkling wine (cava, prosecco, champagne, etc.) and ask to see the bottle. If the bottle says “fermented in this bottle”, you’ve got a winner. Now go forth and celebrate for no reason whatsoever.

This is Christie, signing off!