Recent Great Stuff.

Time to be straight forward. Here's some stuff, that happened recently, that I deem great:

Tomato Season. I ate a tricolor pint of cherry and grape tomatoes for lunch the other day.

The Wednesday downtown farmers market. Mere block from my office.

Hands down, my favorite farmar.

Crazy-gluing that hand down - the Cafe Velo cart.

It's a smaller set up (this one is a bike! Oh, Portland) than the Saturday markets', with 400 fewer people on line with cute crying babies in front of you. Individually dripped cups of Stumptown, you choose the roast! I went with an Indonesian roast this past week.

Soymilk on the counter!!!!

Holding on the farmers market theme for one more addition: Pimientos de Padron. I can't let these go this summer. These were sauteed classicly with olive oil, coarse sea salt and crushed red pepper.

I brought the above peppers to the Try Vegan Week Potluck & Trivia night, along with these cookies from the upcoming Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar.

Citrus Glitters

Heading back to test kitchen land, I've started testing for Isa's upcoming 'healthy' book. I am so freaking busy lately, but if I'm making a point to cook at home, odds are it will be her recipes. It's just how life is.

Summer Lovin' Curried Corn Chowder

Moving on from corn, to corn - the down home, smoked corn on the cob from Homegrown Smoker Vegan BBQ. If you've read my Stumptown Vegans review, you know I'm quite fond of them. They've recently labeled quite a few main items gluten free, and I swear, their home cooking style food is better every single time I go.

From corn to......pizza! Because sometimes Hot Lips puts corn on their pizza..... At this week's Yelp Portland Ballroom Bash. Here's Maeve with the vegan foccacia pie Don personally delivered to the table of awesome Yelpy vegans.

The Yelp Elite Hour & Ballroom Bash was super fun! I'm not a huge Hot Lips fan, and I despise their cilantro pesto, but how cool! I was able to get a tomato base slice a bit earlier, fortunately for my tastebuds and sanity, had I been induling in more of the complimentary beverages.

Oh hey, walking across the Morrison Bridge safely for once, thanks to construction, is pretty great. And random.

And really, really great - a veganized Vermecilli Bowl from Huong's Vietnamese cart downtown. He has other vegetarian options that are alright, but I've been wanting to request a vegan version of the pork or chicken bowl for too long! So, I finally did. He even volunteered a summer roll for the eggroll before I could even think to ask. I'm on a rice noodle kick.

It was tasty, and HUGE! And $6! It had fried tofu strips and this strange white gluten, which was good stuff.

All in all, Really Great Stuff.