Fancy vegan

I turned 31 yesterday, and celebrated with the most decadent vegan food I've ever eaten, at Feelings Cafe's Vegan Fine Dining Festivals of Light event. It was a happy coincidence that it happened to take place on my birthday, and that my friend Cate found out about it and passed the info along to me.

Being vegan in Louisiana means cooking at home a lot, or having the occasional meal out of ethnic food or diner-type stuff. That's cool with me for the most part, but I must admit I occasionally miss my pescatarian/vegetarian days, when I could eat at Galatoire's if I wanted to (and had the money...which was rare, but did happen a few times).

The chef at Feelings definitely went for fancy with her meal, which included lentil "caviar" and an entree (fried hearts of palm stuffed with cashew cheese) so rich that it was hard to believe it was vegan. But my favorite part of the meal was what she called "Sri Lankan Borscht." It was a pureed, bisque-type thing (sorry, I'm not so up on the foodie lingo), which was interesting for a borscht. It also had some Indian spices in there, and crispy little fried curry leaves. I could eat that stuff every day. I might have to fool around in my kitchen and attempt to recreate something similar.

It was also, of course, wonderful to have a nice dinner with my husband, without Anton watching and shrieking from his bouncy seat until one of us gave in and held him while attempting to eat one-handed. Ahem. Anton was with his grandma, and apparently decided it was finally time to drink pumped milk from a bottle without fussing and protesting. Good timing, kid.