Another year another Vegan Month of Food! Since 2008 I’ve been participating in veganmofo and I’m so stoked to begin another year. I have a lot of stuff tentatively planned but no formal theme this year so it should be more of the usual, tacos, restaurant talk, bake sale planning, travel pics, favorite recipes and maybe some of my own recipes which I’ve really gotten away from in recent years. Writing recipes takes forever. I don’t know how you all do it and where you find the time, I’ve got books to read and TV to watch. Also this is my 401 post! That’s a lot of blah blah blah vegan.
And speaking of talking too much, there is one subject I can talk about all day and that’s coffee. I love it. Ever since I was 11 and my Dad handed me a cup saying. “this is a cappuccino” I’ve been hooked on fancy coffee. It is so easy to spend way too much money every day going to coffee shops and getting a nice soy latte but sadly it is not something I can afford to do every day. So over these many years I have suffered, sure in a first-world comparably-rich easy-office-job-lifestyle-way, but suffered nonetheless with shitty cups of coffee. Some of you may know that I spent much of last year in pain and unable to walk and it is all because I fell in a hole on my way to get coffee, passing at least three places I could have picked it up along the way, because I have standards folks. I’m a total snob when it comes to coffee at home too and after using drip machines, and french presses for some time I have finally found my ideal family of coffee making equipment. 
For my birthday this last year Dan got me a Toddy and really at the time it seemed kind of silly. I was perfectly satisfied with using the french press to cold brew coffee and I wasn’t even looking for something else. But like heroin once I tried it, I couldn’t resist. The Toddy works very similarly to the french press, you cover some coffee grounds with cold water and let it sit overnight. The difference is really in the filter. Instead of the single screen in the french press the Toddy has a really thick multi-layered filter and it ends up taking out a lot of the acid taste which I never even noticed was covering up all the flavors. The liquid that comes out is concentrated so it lasts for quite a few cups and then you can mix it with soy milk, water or whatever.
All summer I’ve been enjoying it over ice but now that the weather has gotten into the 70s I’ve been craving a hot cup of joe. A few weeks ago I pulled out my Bodum frother and I have got to tell you that the frothy vanilla soy milk with the toddy cold pressed coffee has lead to the greatest cups of coffee in my life, especially with this Indian coffee they have at the Fair Bean. You can just taste every nuance of the beans and it doesn’t hurt my belly the way shitty coffee does. It almost seems healthy but folks, I promise I’m highly caffeinated See all these run-on sentences? They all comes from this coffee!!!!! I could really go on all day about this but instead I am going to leave you with a clip from a place where they take coffee very seriously.