I am always grateful to carnivores who have a meal--maybe for health reasons, maybe to accommodate a non-carnivore--that is plant-based.  That's what we got when a group of us unionists got together for our monthly walk in Bernal Heights.  There was some goat cheese, too, but the major dishes were free of animal products, delicious, and beautiful--as beautiful as the floral we saw on our walk!  Thank you, Camilla and Ron Bixler--and Ann Killebrew, who brought melon.  I made some cookies that were both gluten-free and vegan, but I gave them all away to the man who helped me across the over-pass from Bayshore Drive and Oakdale to Bernal Heights.
 

 Enjoy Vegetarian on Kearny (and there's another on Kirkham, in the Avenues) is really vegan.  That's where I enjoyed a 12-course meal with the SFVeg Society to celebrate the Lunar New Year back in February,  the Year of the Rabbit--not served). 

Yesterday before a performance of "Dear San Francisco" at the Club Fugazi, I invited a couple of friends to Enjoy to celebrate the graduation from law school of one of them.  I'm happy that these two friends, who eat animals and animal products, liked all the dishes we ordered yesterday:  dumplings,  spicy wontons, eggplant with string beans, and sesame balls.  (Rice of course)

 

How wonderful to have friends who are willing to try something new--delicious dishes free of animals and animal products.  (An otherwise intelligent friend recently asked me, "Don't you like animals?")  

This was a birthday celebration at Wildseed on Union in the Marina.

Today a friend took me to South SF to Sky Cafe to try what we'd read about in the Food Section of the SF Chronicle:  An Eggs Benedict that oozes vegan yolk!  It was delicious!  We also had their cauliflower "wings" and vegan lupia.  But nothing can beat the vegan eggs!

 

 A kind friend whose birthday we were next celebrating in our birthday group said she "loved trying new places" and suggested that I introduce them to a vegan or vegetarian restaurant since so often we went to restaurants with limited choices for a vegan.   (The Basque Cultural Center is particularly notorious in this regard although she didn't name names.)  I thanked her for her kind consideration and said I didn't need to be catered to, but "I do like the idea of supporting a restaurant whose dishes are both delicious and kind to the environment and all animals (including us)!"   I added, "I think we'd all enjoy Wildseed, where they don't use the v-word.  It's very pretty--especially indoors--and the food is very tasty. 

Today we had a delicious lunch there.

 "High court upholds ban on small pig cages" is the headline for Bob Egelko's article I just mentioned on Facebook, where I usually write about only "pretty" things.

So glad that pigs in California will now be allowed enough space to turn around in their cages when they're pregnant and maybe even after they give birth! Scientists say that pigs are even smarter than dogs. Imagine a favorite pet cat or dog being thrown in a cage with other cats and dogs so they can't even turn around! It's amazing to me that we're taught to regard farm animals as insensate food producers when we love our cats and dogs and treat them almost as family members. This first photo does not shout out "Happy Mother's Day." It's not that California will treat factory farm animals well. But Californians will believe that the animals they're eating were not immobilized and otherwise tormented before they wound up on their plates.

Proposition 12 in 2018 was a ballot measure approved by more than 62% of Californians who voted.  This proposition also set standards (not particularly high) for cages holding egg-laying hens and veal calves.  Pork is produced almost entirely in other states, where animals  are held in cages violating the standards.  Such people as Neil Gorsuch, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Amy Coney Barrett weighed in supporting the ban.  Neil Gorsuch said that "many (maybe most) state laws have the "practical effect of controlling extra territorial behavior."  Barrett said that allegations of damage to their industry couldn't outweigh the concerns of California voters.  

The judges dissenting were John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.  

Wayne Pacelle, who took part in launching Prop 12 and now president of Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy said, "It's a loss for hog factory farmers and a win for the vast majority who want to know that animals raised for food were not immobilzed and otherwise tormented in production..."

AJ Albrecht, manging director of Mercy for Animlas, said, "We celebrate that in the near future, countlress pigs, calves, and hens will no longer needlessly suffer the most extreme forms of confinement."

https://www.pressreader.com/usa/san-francisco-chronicle-late-edition/20230513/281616719715538

 

Maybe it was at or on the Vegan Earth Day march that I first heard that Ananda Fuara, one of my favorite restaurants, had closed!  See how I've posted a picture of it with an open door?  That's how I wish it still were.  There are other vegan restaurants in that area--Thai Ideal, Baia, and Golden Era are three--but this one was perfect coming off Muni or from the SFPL.  

You can see that this is where I brought a lot of friends, and only the ones in the photo right above seemed disenchanted.  (More on that phenomenon in another post.)

Here's an article on that vegan-vegetarian restaurant so close to the SF Public Library and the Civic Center.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/restaurants/article/ananda-fuara-17756954.php

 Two friends I love invited me to a concert and suggested that we have dinner together afterwards.

We hoped to go to La Mediterranee on Fillmore, where they have a complete vegan menu, but it was closed, so we wound up going to the Mediterranee on Noe, much less vegan-friendly.  Lots of Mediterranean dishes are free of meat and dairy, but I have humus, felafels, and other items like those in my refrigerator although these pictures show that their presentation was beautiful and colorful.

I was surprised that one of my friends ordered lamb moussaka, but I didn't refuse to pay for that dish.  I didn't say, “I’ll pay for everything except your lamb moussaka.  You can pay for that.  The animals and workers at factory farms have already paid, and of course they continue to pay as the environment also does.”

There are good people even among people who eat animals, just as there are good people among those who support Trump.