Suburban Vegan Stories of Survival in the Land of Meat & Dairy

My parents are in town and we started the celebration of America’s birthday with America’s pastime. It was my first time to US Cellular Field. The White Sox were playing the Texas Rangers. The White Sox soundly beat the Rangers, 19-2. Not that I go to a lot of baseball games, but this is the most runs I have ever seen scored. It made for a very exciting game.

I heard there was a vegan Sloppy Joe at the ballpark, but during the third inning or so, I read that it is only available on the club level. Unfortunately, you cannot get there without club level tickets and they are quite strict about it. I was a little annoyed about that, because, besides that MLB website, no one bothered to mention the Sloppy Jane was only for the elite. According to the concession stand workers, the veggie burger is vegan. However, the veggie dog is not.

The one bad thing about the evening was the trip home. We took the 11:30 train, which only goes to Crystal Lake. There are always cabs at Crystal Lake station, except Tuesday night. We couldn’t get a cab to come, so we just waited. Of course, 10 minutes before the next train came in (the one that went to Woodstock), three cabs show up! At that point it was quicker and cheaper to take the train. We didn’t get home until after 2 a.m., so our plan to go to Moraine State Park in the morning was scrapped.

On Wednesday morning, we started off with a patriotic breakfast: granola, strawberries, blueberries and vanilla coconut yogurt.

That afternoon, we drove up to Lake Geneva, WI with a picnic lunch. We totally lucked out and found a nice shady spot with a picnic table.

I made festive five bean salad from Vegan Holiday Kitchen; red, white & blue potato salad from Party Vegan; and red pepper, artichoke and pesto sandwiches from The Vegan Table.

And of course, cupcakes. Chocolate stout cupcakes from Sticky Fingers Sweets with leftover cream cheese frosting from the Uncle Same cake. Unfortunately, the cream cheese frosting did not travel well.

After lunch, we walked around the lake and some of the shops.

For dinner, we went to the Baker House. It’s a lovely old house with lots of hats, which patrons are encouraged to wear.

The cocktails were pretty good. I ordered a bellini.

The gazpacho was good, too. In fact, I probably should have just ordered a big bowl of soup.

But instead, I let the chef get “creative” and this is what I got: overcooked veggies, enough rice for a family of twelve and a paper American flag.

After dinner there was a sunset toast. Everyone moved outside for free champagne. We got a little history of the house. Like most houses around the lake, it was once a summer house.

I was previously informed that the dark chocolate fondue was dairy-free. Of course, on July 4th, they ran out and made their own dark chocolate with butter. So I had a couple bites of fruit and pretzels for dessert.

We ended the evening with fireworks over the lake.