Another Sunday, another visit to the Hollywood Farmers Market. Because today is Easter there were fewer vendors as well as fewer visitors, though it was by no means empty. Here’s a look at the bounty I brought home with me today…

Starting with the bowl in the center: asparagus, broccoli, cherimoya, Fuji apples, red bell peppers and strawberries. All local and organic. I paid $2.50 a pound for the cherimoyas, later this evening while at Follow Your Heart market I saw that they were selling them for $6.99 a pound.

The thing that looks like a log wrapped in plastic is called “kürtös kalács” and is a hollow, cylinder-shaped pastry, a traditional Transylvanian treat. The nice Hungarian man selling these offered me a sample and with just one bite I was sold. I bought this one for my dad. They are entirely vegan and have no preservatives (high gluten wheat flour, yeast, canola oil, sugar, vanilla, real lemon, salt) and come coated with different toppings. The one I picked is made with caramel and walnuts. Delicious.

The lovely hyacinth in bloom is filling my entire house with it’s full and heady scent, which has put me in the mood to listen The Doors.

For lunch I opted for the Korean food stand again, though my verdict this time around is that I just don’t love these pancakes. They are dairy free, made with rice & barley batter and vegetables… for all intents and purposes, something I should really like. The last time I tried them they were a bit runny in the middle. This time I asked the lady to make them “well done” for me, but even though they did come out sufficiently well cooked on the outside, the center is still just a bit too soft for my taste. They look like they should have a similar chewy texture to those scallion pancakes they serve at Chinese restaurants, but that’s not what they’re like. The taste is pretty good but the mush factor kinda ruins it for me.

This was my first time trying her tofu and it was just ok… looks a lot spicier than it really is. The noodles I like and adding the sweet & spicy chili sauce over the top makes them even better.

Obligatory celebrity sighting of the day: C-Diddy! He’s the champion of the World Air Guitar Competition, holder of the title “The best Air Guitarist in the world”. If you have no idea what air guitar is or what I’m talking about, you are not alone. I had no idea what I’m talking about either until a few short weeks ago when I saw the film Air Guitar Nation and it rocked my socks off. I highly recommend you see it, then you’ll understand why seeing someone like C-Diddy on the street is a cause for excitement… this guy brings it! Behold…

Greetings fellow Foodies,
I thought I’d share with you yet another glorious display of vegan soul food:

This anything but humble offering is yet another fantastic lunch from the Taste of Life booth at the Hollywood Farmers Market. We’ve got the macaroni & cheese (so good and cheesy… how do they do it?), the pot roast (god I love this), the black-eyed peas (kinda plain but still tasty), and at the suggestion of one of my readers (thanks Scott!), the veggie lasagna. The lasagna was the only item I had not tried from these guys yet, and yeah, it was all that. The sauce was delicious and I don’t know what they used to simulate the Ricotta (tofu?), but it was spot on both in texture and taste. True, lasagna has got nothing to do with soul food… don’t ask me why they decided to add it to their menu. I for one am sure glad they did.

Oh and of course the cornbread on top was the proverbial icing on the cake. Although it wasn’t icing. And this wasn’t a cake. And I would have liked about two or three more pieces.

If you’re in L.A, head on over to the Hollywood Farmers Market tomorrow (if it’s not raining) (or on any given Sunday) and get your belly nice and full on some of this filling, comforting, fattening and authentically scrumptious down home cooking.

Update: Thanks to Your Vegan Mom for pointing out that the farmers market will have different hours tomorrow due to the L.A. Marathon. Here’s the scoop:

The Hollywood Farmers’ Market will be changing its hours for One Day Only! The market will operate from 11 am to 2 pm on March 2nd. This is to make it easier for everyone to get to the market once the Marathon has passed through Hollywood. Validated parking will be available during market hours at the Arclight/Cinerama Dome parking structure at Sunset & Ivar. 1st Hour free with market validation. Limited free parking will also be available at 1623 N. Vine Street in the Doolittle Theatre parking lot from 11 am to 2 pm.

And for the love of dog, whatever you do… despite the offers of validated parking, avoid driving out there tomorrow as if your life depended on it. Traffic will be an absolute nightmare. If there was ever a better day to ride the Metro, tomorrow will certainly be it.

There are those who hate on L.A something fierce. I’m willing to bet that none of them have ever visited the Hollywood Farmers Market on a fine mid-winter day like today (sunny and warm, crisp blue skies and just the tiniest hint of a breeze).

The Hollywood Farmers Market rules for so many reasons, so don’t even get me started. Just go if you haven’t already. And ride the metro… it’s right there and you won’t find parking any closer, or cheaper. You might even run into a celebrity. Like Gwen Stefani.

Instead of my usual soul food lunch at the farmers market, today I ventured out and tried the Korean food stand instead. The nice lady there makes these delicious vegan vegetable pancakes.

The plate came with noodles, rice and kim chee. It was all great, though my pancakes were a little bit under cooked on the inside. If I get these again I’ll ask for them well-done and crispy. I also want to try her tasty looking tofu, which looks like it’s nice and spicy with Korean goodness.

And here’s the bounty I came home with. From left to right: mandarin oranges, purple cauliflower (oh joy!), artichokes, fuji apples, arugula, watercress, mint, sage, cherimoya, rainbow chard. The lemons are not from the farmers market but they insisted on being in the picture. What was I going to do, argue with a lemon?

All of this, along with the lunch and a round trip on the metro = under $30.
Wearing sandals and a t-shirt in January while sampling strawberries = priceless.

I love the Hollywood Farmers market. So many tasty vegan options… the amazing tamales, the Indian food, the salad lady, the fresh juices and so many other awesome options. Most especially though, I love the vegan soul food over at the ‘Taste of Life’ stall.

I went full force ahead today and got the sampler plate which lets you pick four items. I got the mac & cheese, kale, BBQ tofu and pot roast. This also came with corn bread. It was all delicious, especially the mac & cheese and pot roast. I was wishing they would have had some sort of yam dish but there was none to be found. I sure wasn’t lacking for food though, you can see what a huge serving this is and I only made my way through about half of it.

This fine food is only one of many reasons to wake your ass up early on a Sunday morning and head on over to one of the best farmers markets in town.

When my aunt brought out her homemade honey cake on the first evening of Rosh Hashana I asked if it had been made with eggs. My uncle replied that of course she had used eggs, or else it wouldn’t taste good, that no cake could taste good without eggs. I took that as a challenge to prove him wrong.

For the second night of Rosh Hashana I busted out with 2 dozen mini vegan cupcakes from Leda’s Bake Shop and proceeded to rock my egg eating family’s world.

I got two flavors, the velvet cake (their version of red velvet cake without the artificial red) and peanut butter-vanilla. Both were fabulous and moist and rich and delicious. I like the tiny little size, about two hearty bites worth each, which allows you to try out a couple of flavors without filling up or pigging out. Unless of course you keep all 24 of them for yourself. I had read many raving reviews about Leda’s and am very pleased to report back that it’s definitely all that, and then some. They also have vegan scones, brownies and cookies. Quite an indulgence.

A delight indeed. I got this pre-made lunch at Whole Foods, unsure as to whether it would actually be good, or kinda dry and tasteless like some of these ready made meals often tend to be. I was pleasantly surprised to find it not only juicy and fresh, but also totally yummy.

The “Asian Mex Delight” is made by Foodology, a local company that supplies natural prepared foods to markets. It’s a spinach tortilla wrapped around organic edamame, black beans, corn jicama, green and red bell peppers, red onions and comes served with a tasty mild salsa. Pretty simple in theory but awesome in the execution. It makes for a delicious and hearty lunch… filling but not too heavy. Good stuff for when you’re too lazy to make anything but not too lazy to roll into Whole Foods to pick up something quick.

I’ve been wanting to attend the tofu festival since I’d first heard of it years ago and last weekend I got my chance. I can’t say that I was overwhelmed by it’s greatness, I was expecting something better. My favorite point was getting to catch about 5 minutes of the Taiko group playing their amazing drums.

It was super hot and sunny out and there is nowhere along the few festival blocks to get away from the sun and into the shade. Couple this with the fact that the festival was packed, and closed off on both sides so that everyone is stuffed into the middle of a narrow street filled with booths on both sides.

For a festival all about tofu I expected more… uh, tofu. And food in general. But the focus didn’t seem to be on the food, with just as many vendor stalls as there was food. Many of the booths had nothing for vegans or even vegetarians, and some of those that did only had unappetizing options. A lot of what I saw just didn’t look tasty or in any way unique. On the other hand, there were a few places that did have stuff that looked really good, but all of those places had super long lines, where you would get stuck standing in the middle of everyone’s walk way on this packed street, with the sun beating down on you. Not my idea of fun. Even though it wasn’t chaotic and everyone (including myself) seemed to be having a pleasant enough time, I still felt that it wasn’t laid out well from a space planning perspective (it felt quite claustrophobic in there), and it wasn’t well organized either in regards to the food options and ways of getting it.

That said, here are some pictures of what I did get to try:

This was the “Vegan Sweet Potato Pie with Tofu Cream” from A New Way of Life Cafe. This was my favorite of everything I tasted at the festival, it was quite delicious. I want more.

House Foods of America were one of the sponsors of the event, this one above came from their booth. First off was the “Honey Orange Tofu”. It was pretty good but nothing special. Generic Chinese food restaurant sort of flavor. Next to this dish you’ll see the (non-alcoholic) “Mock Tofu Margarita”. I tell you, this was one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever tasted, and trust me, I’ve eaten some weird shit in my time. It was so gross! You’ve all seen the sorts of things I eat, you know I have eclectic tastes and appetites and am open minded when it comes to food. This though… this was just wrong. I took two sips of it and threw the thing away with disdain. They basically took Margarita mix and blended some plain soft tofu into it, at least that’s what it tasted like to me. I don’t know if there was anything else in there such as soy milk maybe, but whatever was or wasn’t in it, that was just a bad idea that should have never seen the light of day.

This was the last thing I got to try, anything else that looked good had at least a half-hour line in front of it. From Curry House this is the “Tofu Keema Curry Rice”. It was very tasty, a thick Japanese style curry over tofu, vegetables and white rice. Came served with hardboiled egg which I declined. They also had iced barley tea which I love and theirs was very good. I should learn to make it at home.

So yeah, ate some tofu and got a bit too much sun. Oh, and I also walked over to Olvera Street and had a fresh sweet corn tamale filled with pineapple (not pictured) which was way better than anything at the Tofu Festival. I probably wouldn’t go to this event again but it was nice to get out of the house. I just read on LAist website that this may have been the last year for the festival because they didn’t bring in enough money.

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