My First Vegan Cake

Tweaked from here, via miriammoules

Vegan Chocolate Cake

1.5 cups plain white flour
0.5 cups cocoa powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsps cinnamon
1 cup caster sugar
0.5 cups flaked almonds
0.5 cups sunflower oil
0.5 cups soya milk
0.5 cups orange juice
2 tsps vanilla essence
2 tbsp vinegar

Pre-heat oven to 190C (v important as you can't leave the cake standing once the vinegar is added)
Sift dry ingredients (except almonds) into a bowl. Add almonds and mix well.
Whisk in wet ingredients (except vinegar) to form a smooth batter
Transfer to cake tin, add vinegar and stir well.
As soon as the vinegar is added place it straight in the oven for 25-30 minutes.

One of the best chocolate cakes I've ever made. Who needs eggs! :-)

The Globe As You Like It

Last weekend there was "As you like it" at the Globe. It's not a Shakespear play I know, but there was the obvious "oh that's where that's from" when they launched into the 7 ages of man speech.

I think they may have taken the "All the world's a stage" bit a bit too literally though as they seemed to have expanded there's to take over half the yard. It was quite cool the way they integrated with the audience though, especially the way Jacques kept appearing in completely different parts of the auditorium for his different lines.

It was one of the Globe's better casts (as I previously said, I was disappointed with the cast of Romeo + Juliet, so it was nice to have a really strong cast this time). I particularly liked Jack Laskey as Orlando, Laura Rogers as Celia and Tim McMullan as Jaques. There was something about Celia that really reminded me of Miranda Richardson's Elizabeth II from Blackadder, not sure how much of that was down to the fact that the first costume was somewhat similar, but there was a lot of the playfulness there too, which worked well in the context of the play.

Jamie Parker who plays Oliver, is supposed to be very good too, but there wasn't very much of him though. morganmuffle has a lot to say about him though if you're into that sort of thing.

Overall, it was one of the better plays I've seen at the Globe and well worth a visit. It's showing until 10 October.

Off To The Rally

For those of you that aren't already aware:

There is a giant domino rally using concrete blocks running from Mile End to Greenwich this afternoon.

I guess that decides my Sunday afternoon then... This I've got to see!

Suddenly Life Becomes Surprisingly Supportive

When I went veggie, the average response when telling people seemed to be something along the lines of "Won't you miss Bacon?".

The standard response to the vegan thing appears to be "That's admirable"

Has the world change that much in 6 years? or just my friends? or is it just more socially acceptable to be vegan?

I suppose the fact I was veggie, put me over in that direction in the eyes of most meat-eaters to start with, so it's just become a more extreme version of what I was before rather than something new.

I also wasn't broadcasting the intimate details of my life on the internet back then either, so that probably affects who I've had comments back from as well I suppose. After all, internet forums are renowned for their habbit of often being more liberal than the outside world.

I suppose also, the fact that a blog is more one sided then a conversation changes things a bit as well. Whereas most of the feedback for the veggieness came from conversations including lines like "I've become a vegetarian", a lot of the feedback for the vegan thing has come from the post I made which also explains a lot of the reasons behind the decision.

It's been somewhat surprising how positive the comments I've had about it have been so far, but *shrugs* I'm certainly not going to complain about that, even if it is bizarrely unexpected.