I had a frustrating food day yesterday.

Our kitchen was unusable because of some work being done in there.  We went out to breakfast to a local gourmet market.  (Most of the grocery stores around here have restaurants in them.)

I’ve been a vegetarian a long time.  I’m used to not having many choices in what I eat when I go out.  But there was absolutely nothing available that I could eat here.  I was shocked.  The husband asked at the counter.  The staff was baffled.  And so started a conversation that consisted of every bad vegetarian/vegan cliche out there.

I suppose you could have a salad.

Yeah, I could.  There’s nothing wrong with salad but we’ve already covered that restaurant salads are pitiful excuses for salad.

Do you eat shrimp?

Um, no.  This was followed by, I kid you not, “What about tuna?“  I was bracing myself for the ultimate question – How do you get your protein then?  When another person behind the counter stepped in.

She heard the word vegan and lit up.  Perhaps she is one of the tribe.  She recommended their veggie wrap without the cheese and mayo and substituting honey mustard dressing  “if honey is ok with you.”  I wanted to kiss her.  It didn’t end up to be the greatest meal but I was glad to just get food.

Later we had to go out again for dinner.  We were going to another supermarket restaurant but this one is super vegan friendly.  They even have vegan carrot cake.  I was focusing on vegan carrot cake.  They were closed.

We ended up at a place that has a decent veggie burger – hold all the cheese they normally top it with – with a side of “vegetable rice” that contained 5 kernels of corn in a bowl of rice.  There was no carrot cake.

I don’t think I would have been so frustrated if I hadn’t been drooling over the menus for vegan-loving restaurants that I’m going to go to next week when I’m at a conference.

I came home and whipped up some chia seed pudding.  I’ve never successfully made this before.  It always tasted like sludge.  This time it was good though.

Chia Seed Pudding Formula

1.25 cups plant milk

1/3 cup chia seeds

2 T maple syrup

Mix these all up and refrigerate.  Stir every so often until it looks like tapioca in about an hour.

You can mix in flavors as you want.  I added unsweetened cocoa powder to make chocolately pudding which makes everything better.