What Vegans Eat: Mango Lassi Popsicles

Are mangoes weird? I'm not sure, but I'm using my occasion of making mango lassi popsicles as further evidence that vegans are not weird. Is making your own popsicles weird? I could totally be doing something counter-productive here. At any rate, I wanted to make a snack to incorporate into a mostly raw diet that I implemented for a few days after birthday feasting. I also wanted an excuse to use the new popsicle molds Bill gave me for my birthday. Here's what I did:


Step One: Pick out your popsicle slingin' music. Nothing says "detox" and "mangoes" like Johnny Cash and June Carter.

Step Two: Get your copy of Ani's Raw Food Kitchen by Ani Phyo. Sift through the million pretentious photos of the author mingling at the market and eating like a gerbil outside an old school L.A. TV repair shop and find the recipe for the Mango Lassi smoothie. You will be freezing this smoothie to create your popsicles. Google "lassi" to find out what the heck it means.

Step Three: Assemble your army of ingredients. Even though it is "raw," there are no strange components to this smoothie, because, alas, smoothies are pretty much raw by their nature. This recipe calls for water, mangoes, raw almonds, dates, and a vanilla bean. You will be replacing the dates with maple syrup because a little boy who lives in your apartment thinks dates are icky. You will also be using pure vanilla extract instead of a vanilla bean because buying one vanilla bean for a batch of popsicles seems like a pretty yuppie thing to do.

Step Four: Peel the mangoes. It's tough as hell, but don't be discouraged. It can also be slippery once you get part of the rind off. But you can do it. You will eat this mango. Dammit you can do it! If a little dainty lemur can tame this fruity beast, then so can you. You will.

Step Five: Don't cry when the peeler slips and slices the tip of your finger open. Frickin lemurs. Who do they think they are?

Step Six: Haphazardly wrap a bandage around your finger to prevent blood from dripping into the smoothie.

Step Seven: Pretend you know how to chop a mango. Seriously. What is going on in the center of this thing? Whose idea was it to put a bone china saucer in the center of a piece of fruit? Is this really vegan?

Step Eight: Put everything in the blender.

Step Nine: Realize your blender probably can't handle all of that mango, and take a few cups out of the blender as a safety precaution.

Step Ten: Blend everything together and fill your popsicle molds. Leave some room at the top of the molds, because the smoothie goop will potentially expand while freezing. Then realize you could have halved the recipe because there's still a ton of smoothie left.

Step Eleven: Place the molds into the icebox. They need to freeze for at least four hours. While this magic is taking place, drink the leftover smoothie out of the blender and then do the dishes. Watch some YouTube clips of lemurs being all adorable and junk. Tickle your cat's paws while she's sleeping. Read National Geographic. Dust the furniture. Sleep. And then, after hours of torture enjoy your popsicle!

The 4th of July in Ukrainian Village is insane

I grew up in Indiana, where buying and igniting fireworks is more legal than paying your income taxes. Back in the 80s, we'd go to the parking lot of this junkyard on the corner of Route 6 and Lake Park Avenue where some mysterious men set up tents of explosives for sale. My parents spent who knows what sum on sparklers and smoke bombs and fountains and spinners. On the big night everyone in the neighborhood would sit on on their curbs (or hide in the backseat of their station wagons if they were too scared) while their dad's set off the fireworks.

When I was a little older, I think my parents realized they were throwing their money down the toilet through this patriotic process, and we started going to the city fireworks in Hobart and Portage. When I first moved to Chicago I would trek back to Indiana for the festivities. Something about sharing the night under the fireworks with countless other simple folk was magical. Especially in Hobart, where that old-town feel at the downtown parade and the lakefront park ambiance at the fireworks make you feel like you're living in some sort of Pleasantville reenactment.

The past several years, however, Bill and I have attended the Oak Park fireworks. They didn't have quite the charm as Indiana fireworks. Something seemed, I don't know, sterile about the entire experience. Last year we sat on a soggy tennis court next to a family that obviously hated each other and everyone in attendance. But still, it was fun. It reminded me of going to the city fireworks as a lass and being part of a community, and I thought I would miss it when we moved into the city.

Alas, read the title of this post! On Independence Day eve, we were keenly aware that many fireworks were being detonated in the vicinity. I'm talking being detonated by average folk who live in the neighborhood, not by professionals ordained by the city. I was shocked. I didn't think people did this in Illinois. I've lived in several Chicago neighborhoods previously, including Roger's Park, Wrigleyville, and Andersonville, and the skies were silent around the 4th of July.

So on the 4th of July night Bill and I took our camera and sparklers and wondered about the streets of our new neighborhood. It was crazy! I've never heard such random crackling and ubiquitous booms before, not even in my Indiana youthdom. Every time we passed an alley, someone was there lighting a fuse. The sky exploded. The earth rattled. It was a real hoot, and way better than sitting on metal bleachers listening to "Born in the USA." It made Ukrainian Village seem a little more like home.

I Can't Sew

In middle school we took "Life Skills" instead of "Home Economics." Call it what you want, it still was a class about cooking and crafting. And our crafting involved using a sewing machine to create a drawstring bag. It was the most horrible week of my life.

I made my bag out of this fabulous Bugs Bunny basketball fabric, which, delightfully, someone is currently selling on Etsy. I was excited about the project, but my ambition quickly fizzled when every step turned into the most difficult task I have ever faced. I'm not sure what it was. I had trouble just cutting the fabric properly. And threading the bobbin and needle? Forget it. In school (excluding gym, of course), I had always churned out nothing but exceptional work, and so sewing this god-forsaken bag turned into a nightmare because I was not good at all. I had to put in extra time after class to finish it, and I'm sure tears were involved. When I finally finished the stupid thing I felt no sense of accomplishment. I was relieved to be rid of the sewing machine, and I didn't touch another one for seventeen years.

My husband, on the other hand, can sew. Whenever I mention the failed drawstring bag, he puffs his chest and tells the story of how in his home ec class, he sewed not a lowly drawstring bag, but a fancy duffle bag, and his teacher thought it was the most perfect specimen of sewmanship she had ever seen. A few years ago I bought him a sewing machine for Christmas. He's only had the chance to sew a few things with it, including this stellar tapestry that now hangs above my desk.

I had figured enough time had passed that perhaps I could try to form a new relationship with the sewing machine. So one day I tried to sew the ends of a small strip of fabric together, and the result: disaster. The thread kept getting tangled and turning into a big clumpy mess. I don't know what I was doing wrong. Bill's theory is that I'm being too timid with the machine, that I have to show it who's boss. I don't know. I had great ambitions of using the sewing machine to create things, but now I think I'll just stick to hand sewing.

My husband, on the other hand, decided to make curtains for our new apartment. We usually paint our apartments in bold colors but this time decided to save time and instead create accents of color through curtains. Bill had an easy go of it. I didn't even try to help. Well, I did cut the fabric for some of the tie-backs. And of course I couldn't even do that correctly; I cut the strips of fabric too small. One thing I was successful at in this entire process was nailing the tie-backs into the wall. I'm not bad with a hammer and a nail. Well, actually, that's not true. If the hammer is to big and heavy it frightens me, and 25% of the time I try to hammer a nail I bend it. Oh, well. DIY isn't my greatest forte. That's what Bill is for.