Making Vegan a New Normal

Vegan Food Is in Mainstream in Southern California

J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times; Anais Wade and
Dax Henry for The New York Times; Axel Koester for The
New York Times

From left, vegetarian sashimi from n/naka; Kathy Freston,
a high-profile advocate for veganism, dining at Craig's;
the quinoa burger at Golden Road Brewing. More Photos »

By Jeff Gordinier
NYTimes.com
September 24, 2012

It was a warm California evening in the city of West
Hollywood, and Kathy Freston was sipping a martini.

“Just because you’re a vegan doesn’t mean you don’t want
to have fun,” she said, sitting in a booth at a
restaurant called Craig’s. “I’m a decadent gal. I want to
drink. I want to feel full at the end of a meal. I just
don’t want it to have any animals in it, for a variety of
reasons.”

Tall, slim and golden-tressed enough to be mistaken for a
movie star, Ms. Freston is the author of books like
“Quantum Wellness”*and “The Lean,” and a high-profile
advocate for veganism. She strives to consume nothing
that can be traced back to sentient creatures: no meat,
no eggs, no dairy.

But chilled vodka with extra olives? No problem. Nor did
she have any qualms about eating from a menu that
includes an 18-ounce bone-in rib-eye steak.

Craig’s, hatched last year by Craig Susser, an alumnus of
Dan Tana’s, the age-defying hangout on Santa Monica
Boulevard, is not a vegan restaurant. It represents a new
culinary wave that can be felt all over Southern
California, that reliable ripple-generator of so many
national trends: the omnivore’s restaurant that courts
vegans and vegetarians (particularly the glamorous and
powerful ones who are a crucial engine of the dining
economy here) by preparing meatless dishes that surpass
the droopy steamed-vegetable platters of yore.

“You picture vegan restaurants with a lot of people with
sandals and dreadlocks, drinking carrot juice,” said
Ellen DeGeneres, who stopped by with her spouse, the
actress Portia de Rossi, to chat with Ms. Freston. Here
at Craig’s, the mood was more high heels and blond locks.

In fact, from power tables in Beverly Hills to pubs in
the San Fernando Valley, the surging popularity of plant-
based diets is drastically changing the dining landscape.
That shift is under way in various cities around the
world, but it’s happening in an explosive way in and
around Los Angeles: at the elite gastronome magnets, at
casual gathering spots and everywhere in between.

Continues at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/26/di...nia.html?_r=2&

Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti

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