welcome to VR - who we are & how we do

welcome to vegan royale (aka VR), the brand new blog from emily k. and lauren k.: two vegan and thoroughly food obsessed sisters, currently residing in west philadelphia. we live in a big, beautiful house named clap it off, an homage to both our love of dancing and a killer song by soul singer shirley ellis. our roomates are 4 rad guys, inclding ryan e., our bff who will occasionally lend some non-vegan flair to the VR posts with his "dairy diary." the sisters will stick to the vegan foodstuffs, and other things that tickle - or enrage - our fancies.

as this blog unfolds, hopefully you will learn more about us and we will learn more about you. however, at this fresh beginning (rife with promise, like a clean and well organized kitchen), here's an introduction to the way this blog will work. basically, our posts will fall into one, or a number of, categories. each category has a corresponding little graphic (see below):


old favorites: classic jams from our collective repertoire. repeats and variations of the meals that sustain us most days of our lives. this is where you'll find the pastas, the stir fries, the curries, and the casseroles we hold dear to our hearts. look here for the splendor of comfort and simplicity.





culinary experiments: this is where we take our chances. dishes sprung from revered veg cookbooks, fancy gourmet recipes given the vegan treatment, or just the products of our insatiable foodie imaginations. eyes peeled for weird-o ingredients, thoughtful presentations, and the occasional failure.







D.U.I. (dining under the influence): man, sometimes it's 2 a.m. and the belgian fries we faced at the bar are just a hazy memory. the warm bed beckons, but so do the contents of the fridge. will we eat the snack or will the snack eat us?




baking: are we the sorts to haunt the kitchen at strange hours, bringing forth batches of peanut butter cookies or huge trays of pecan granola for no particular reason (other than the inherent soothing nature of baking)?
why yes, yes we are.


ryan's dairy diary: from smooth chevre to smoked cheddar, this dude loves it all. watch in awe as he coaxes the magical from the mundane and then proceeds to eat the whole damn thing. pizza lovers, grilled cheese connoisseurs, omelette oglers - ry is your guy.





kitchen tools: not "gadgets," hell no. we will praise the tools, ingenious or simple, that help accomplish the many tasks required to make kick ass food. also, we won't hesitate to make fun of how much wacky crap kitchen stores try to convince us we need (and make fun of ourselves when we buy said wacky crap).


produce notes: 5 a day? pshhh. we shoot for twice that. our discoveries, thoughts, feelings, rants and raves regarding nature's lustiest offerings: fruits and vegetables.



restaurant reviews (cheap): cheap for us means under $10 per person. sandwich shops! falafel stands! salad bars! read here our judgments on the food prepared by others that we could easily make ourselves, but got too hungry, lazy, or hungover to do so.



restaurant reviews (fancy): yes, our definition of the word "fancy" is questionable. regardless, anything over $10 per person will qualify as chic eats for us. here, we search for the ever elusive foodgasm. these reviews may be forgiving, may get brutal, but mostly, we'll just eat and drink our faces off.


outside adventures: accounts of our jaunts into the world beyond west philly. we can only assume that most of these accounts will include some sort of restaurant review(s), because, yeah we'll admit it, we get hungry about every three hours.



stuff we like: we know - though only sometimes acknowledge - that there is life outside of food, preparing food, eating food, reading, thinking, arguing, and dreaming about food. here's where we'll big-up movies, books, comics, art, projects by our friends and anything else that manages to distract us from our one true love.

does that all make sense? please feel free to comment or email us about anything; we're big fans of interactivity. thank you and trust us, there is much more to come soon!

love,
emily & lauren