Keri Cronin


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Happy Birthday, Rise Above!

Rise Above, Niagara’s only fully vegan restaurant, is now two years old! For two years Kyle Paton and his staff have been serving up vegan goodness in downtown St. Catharines. Rise Above started off selling vegan doughnuts out of a small location on Summer Street, but quickly expanded to a full-service restaurant over at 120 St. Paul Street. (don’t worry, you can still get the famous vegan doughnuts that put this place on the map!)

Kyle and the Rise Above team have become a fixture in downtown St. Catharines, participating in everything from a fund-raising Chili cook off to our very own Niagara VegFest. Rise Above’s presence in downtown St. Catharines has had a ripple effect, with several other restaurants, bars, and cafes in the neighbourhood now boasting vegan options.

One of my favourite things about Rise Above are the “tasting menu” evenings, special events where diners are treated to a 5 course meal comprised of dishes not found on the regular menu. These are gourmet courses, edible works of art. These dinners sell out within hours and are among the hottest tickets in town. Keep an eye on Rise Above’s Facebook and Twitter feeds to catch wind of when the next one is happening. (I hear there are 3 slated for early December)

The regular menu at Rise Above is pretty spectacular too. I’m particularly partial to the gnocchi (served with a cashew cream sauce that will blow your mind). And have I mentioned brunch? The brunch menu changes regularly, but is always incredible. With options like banana bread french toast (pictured below), you won’t be disappointed!

Congrats on this anniversary, Kyle, and thank you for making downtown St. Catharines such a great place to be a vegan! May there be plenty more Rise Above goodness in the years to come!

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Be Kind

I was honoured to be asked to curate an online exhibit on the subject of “Humane Education” for the National Museum of Animals & Society (NMAS) this year. After several months of research and preparation, the exhibit is now live. I enjoyed working on this project, thrilled to have had the opportunity to bring this story to a broader audience. So many people helped make this exhibit a reality, and I’m so grateful for all of their kindness, hard work, and generosity.

The NMAS is a wonderful museum dedicated to preserving the history of human-animal relationships, a history that has until very recently been woefully neglected by curators, historians, and academics. This is an important history, and the work that the NMAS is doing is so valuable. If you have any artefacts relating to the history of human-animal relationships or advocacy campaigns from previous eras that you would like to donate to the museum, they would love to hear from you!


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15 Cups of Kale!

When Jasmin Singer was on the Dr. Oz show earlier this month she talked about one of her “go to” recipes for comfort food, the aptly named Cheesy Pasta Supreme (vegan, of course!). As I’m a fan of both new recipes and kale I couldn’t pass this one up.

Ingredients: kale (15 cups of it! whoa!), sun dried tomatoes, quinoa pasta, nutritional yeast, hot chilli flakes, tahini, shallots, and garlic.

The only regret I have is not running out to get different box of quinoa pasta. The only one I had in the house was a spaghetti and I think this dish would be better with a smaller noodle. However, it still tasted amazing and I’ll be making this one again! Thanks Jasmin!


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Niagara’s First VegFest

Saturday June 2nd marked the first ever VegFest in the Niagara Region. I was part of the organizing committee for this event and while we were hoping the day would be a success we simply could not have anticipated the overwhelming response to the festival. Doors opened at 10 am and by about 10:30 we realized that we were going to be seeing some pretty large crowds during the day. The final attendance tally was 1250! This completely exceeded our expectations and at times things got a little crowded. However, everyone was in good spirits and took it in stride. As one of my colleagues remarked, “yeah, it was a little crowded, but it was exciting! It made you feel like you were really part of something.”

We had 30 fabulous exhibitors and vendors who ended up selling out of most everything by the end of the day. We had 4 generous sponsors who stepped up and took a chance on a new festival–a huge thanks to Kindfood, Sestres Coffee Shop, The Naked Sprout, & Bamboo Natural Food Market for their help in making the Niagara VegFest a reality. Thanks also goes out to VegFund for awarding us a grant to help put on the festival. We also were incredibly grateful for the assistance of Niagara Action for Animals and all our fabulous volunteers. What a day! I think more than anything what I took away from Niagara VegFest is just what an amazing community we have here.

I was also so impressed with all of our speakers. Marni Wasserman kicked off the day with a session on green smoothies, and even made enough to give samples to the audience. After that we had Jasmin Singer and Mariann Sullivan from Our Hen House speak on the subject of food activism (one of my favourite topics!). Our third speaker was Chef Douglas McNish who talked about the path that he took to become a vegan chef and cookbook author. (note: Doug sold out of books at the festival–they are a huge hit! Make sure you order one!) Our fourth speaker was local athlete Jennifer Hintenberger, who just happens to hold some world records in kettle bell and who also happens to be vegan. She talked about how she overcame numerous illnesses because of her plant-based diet and I love how people like Jennifer help to shatter the myth that vegans are weak–she is one of the strongest people I’ve ever met! (for more on Jennifer’s story, check out her appearance on this week’s Our Hen House podcast). All of these speakers were so compelling and talked about the many benefits of a plant-based lifestyle. They were funny, engaging, and informative, and I was so honoured that they all so enthusiastically agreed to be part of Niagara’s first VegFest!

We closed the day with a screening of Vegucated, a fabulous film that is getting great reviews all over the world. We had a great audience for the screening and many people have since asked me where they can get a copy of the film for their own collection. It is a must see!

A huge thank you to everyone who came out to the festival and helped make it the success it was. Plans are already under way for the 2013 Niagara VegFest. Stay tuned!

Update: check out Our Hen House’s episode featuring Niagara VegFest!


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Victoria & Albert

It is Victoria Day in Canada, a fitting time to write about my royally-named citrus trees!

Last year I got Victoria, a beautiful meyer lemon tree. She was so beautiful! The squirrels made off with many of the lemons before they ripened, but we did get a bit of fruit from her once we moved her inside for the winter.

Sadly, she didn’t survive the winter. I suspect that she simply didn’t have enough sunlight during the dreary days we have here in Ontario from Nov.-March. In hindsight, I wish I’d set up some sort of grow lamp for her, but she did seem to be doing ok in the first few months after we brought her in from the back deck so I thought she would survive.

I wanted to do something special with the last (and best) lemon that Victoria produced. The zest was used to make lemon poppyseed muffins, and the juice was added to soda water for a refreshing drink. (yum on both counts!). I was struck by how much more vibrant this lemon’s zest was when compared with a regular supermarket lemon. (the zest from Victoria’s lemon is on the bottom)

But I wanted something more than muffins and a fizzy drink. I did some reading up on how to grow a new lemon tree from the seeds. In a nutshell, it doesn’t seem like a very easy thing to do, but I was determined to at least try. I learned that I might have better luck with these seeds sprouting if I peeled away the protective layers (very carefully, using a paring knife). I then took the peeled seeds, placed them on a damp paper towel, and then placed the whole thing in a zip-lock baggie.

By this time we had already begun sprouting tomato seeds under grow lights in the basement, so I put the baggie full of lemon seeds under the lights with the other seeds. I basically left them alone for a few weeks (I did periodically check the moisture level, but the original damp paper towel didn’t ever need to be re-wetted), and until the seeds were sprouting. Time to plant!

I don’t know how successful this experiment will be, but I’ve got my fingers crossed!

In the meantime, I decided we needed another royal citrus friend, so I picked up Albert, the lime tree. Albert is currently sunning himself on the back deck and already has some glorious wee little limes starting to appear.


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Scrambled Veggs

Before I decided to go vegan, one of my favourite quick ‘n easy meals was scrambled eggs on toast. I loved this when I was a kid and loved it just as much when I was a broke grad student. Quick, cheap, and yummy.

Of course, now that I have learned all the reasons why eating eggs is a terrible idea, scrambled eggs are no longer a part of my diet. I’ve found a scrambled tofu recipe that I like, but I didn’t ever see it as a substitute. Scrambled eggs and scrambled tofu are two pretty different things. Until now.

Enter The Vegg, “the world’s first vegan fried egg.” When I first heard about this I will admit that I didn’t know what to make of it. I am totally repulsed by eggs now (once you learn about the horrors of egg production it is pretty hard to unlearn), but the ability to create vegan versions of different meals fascinates me. Plus, once I found out that some of the proceeds of the sale of The Vegg goes to Compassion Over Killing I decided I had to give it a try! I ordered 3 packages from Vegan Essentials, but have now learned that Karmavore carries The Vegg–nice to have a Canadian option.

I’ve been reading some of the ways in which people have been using the Vegg. All kinds of interesting recipes starting to surface! (by the way, there is even a recipe contest!) I thought I’d start with just some straight-forward scrambled veggs to get a feel for how this stuff works.

Step 1

-put 3 teaspoons of The Vegg + 1 cup of water in the blender. Blend until well mixed.

Step 2

-put a little oil in a skillet and crumble in one 8oz. package of firm tofu. Cook for a few minutes, until the tofu pieces start turning a bit golden brown.

Step 3

-pour The Vegg mixture over the tofu and continue to cook. The liquid will start to reduce after you’ve been cooking it for a few minutes and the “veggs” will thicken up. Cook until it has reached the desired consistency.

And that’s it! Season, serve with toast, tomatoes, etc.

The scrambled veggs were pretty amazing–delicious and very similar to what I remember scrambled eggs being like (it has been a while!). We are already thinking of other ways to try out new new product. Next up will be french toast, I think!

*UPDATE: I threw the leftover scrambled “veggs” in a whole wheat tortilla with some salsa and some cheddar-style Daiya. Simply delicious!

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