vegan

3 Comments Posted on November 1, 2015 food reviews, Health, Uncategorized, vegan

I Invented the Vegan Frosted Chocolate Coffee Cake at the Whole Foods in Franklin, Tennessee

If you ever visit the Whole Foods in Cool Springs (Franklin, Tennessee), just turn to the right as soon as you walk in, and go all the way to the back of the store, where you’ll discover their bakery department; which is where I ordered my son’s vegan birthday cake a year ago when he turned 4.

Once you are standing there in front of their bakery display, you’ll notice a few containers of chocolate coffee cake, marked “VEGAN”.

That’s because of me. You’re welcome.

I invented the vegan frosted chocolate coffee cake about a year ago.

After we had bought my son’s birthday cake last year, I then specifically looked in the Whole Foods bakery to see if they already make some kind of vegan cake on a daily basis for my wife and I to casually enjoy.

Turns out, they did: For about 2 bucks, I could get a small vegan chocolate coffee cake; which serves about 4 people.

But there was no icing.

So I asked the baker if they had any vegan icing they could put on there for me, being familiar with the fact they indeed make vegan icing because of my son’s birthday cake.

The baker went to the back, and returned with my piece of vegan chocolate coffee cake; this time with icing.

To get the icing, it does cost around a dollar more, since they charge you by weight; but it’s worth it.

I made a habit of having them frost it for me and it wasn’t before long that they just began including the icing on those cakes anyway; keeping them in stock not only for me, but for the general public.

Therefore, I take credit for making it possible for vegans in to walk in to the Cool Springs Whole Foods and pick up a vegan treat.

My name shall go down in history.

Leave a comment Posted on October 29, 2015 funny, parenting, Storytelling, Uncategorized, vegan

Dear Holly or Logan: Daddy’s “Sympathy Hunger Cravings”

15 weeks.

Dear Holly or Logan,

Mommy is now officially one week into in her 2^nd trimester with you. I have noticed her nausea has seemed to have majorly subsided since crossing that line.

However, her hunger cravings are on still on full speed! And as for me, I’m along for the ride and enjoying it…

After all, it’s only right that I should “sympathize” with her hunger cravings. The best way for me to do so is to join Mommy on this!

She and your brother Jack made some vegan chocolate chip cookies this weekend. And yesterday, Mommy had me pick up some vegan cake from Whole Foods.

(And Halloween is coming up this weekend. I can only imagine the temptations Mommy will face!)

Until now, we’ve never kept fruit juice in the house, because truthfully, it’s just sugar water with vitamins. It’s a processed food so we stay away from it. Once the sugar is extracted from the fruit’s fiber, so much of the nutrition is gone and it just becomes a classier form of high calorie junk food; mostly empty calories.

But here lately, Mommy has been craving grape juice, so now we always keep some in the fridge.

It had been about 6 years since I had enjoyed a nice full glass of grape juice. Because I used to have eczema (dyshidrosis), I had to stop drinking juice because it always instantly flared up my rashes.

But now that I’ve been a vegan for 2 and a half years, I guess it somehow flushed out my body of the toxins causing my eczema to even go back into remission.

Therefore, I discovered that I can now get away with drinking grape juice again! It’s like candy to me!

I see it as a bad habit that I am enjoying a little too much right now. However, this is the time to live it up. (I’ll need to pull the plug on that once you are born, though.)

Your development inside of Mommy’s tummy is causing her to crave more of stuff she wouldn’t normally want. So I might as well enjoy a little bit of the fun along the way.

Love,

Daddy

2 Comments Posted on October 28, 2015October 28, 2015 Health, parenting, Pregnancy, Uncategorized

Family Friendly (Mommy) Blog: Jill Shell on Pregnancy Hunger Cravings

People often ask me what type of cravings I am having now that I am pregnant.

This used to be a funny question to me because when I was pregnant with Jack, I felt like I had virtually no cravings at all.

Actually, aside from the horrendous leg cramps that crept up in the middle of the night throughout the second trimester, I felt like I had very few “normal” pregnancy symptoms throughout the duration of it.

Well, I can tell you for a fact, I have cravings now!

It’s not the old fashioned “pickles with ice cream in the middle of the night” cravings; it’s the “you name it, I want it” type of cravings. For example, I was talking to a co-worker one day (who also happens to be preggers, too) and she mentioned how she stopped at Panera to grab a breakfast sandwich on the way to work.

Now, I am vegetarian not a vegan (because I don’t have the will power to say no to ice cream and things of that nature at all times), but because Nick is vegan, I often eat more of the vegan fare, which means we stay away from foods with animal products (no beef, no chicken, no fish, no dairy and definitely, no eggs).

Just a few months ago, I think I had even convinced myself that I was allergic to eggs. But wouldn’t you know, as soon as my friend began talking about that breakfast sandwich, the brain in my stomach started churning and demanding some eggs.

When I got home that night, nothing sounded good to me, but an egg and cheese sandwich, and I barely ate my dinner. Hours later as I laid myself down to sleep, I made my plan to get up just a few minutes early to make it into the Panera closest to work.

When my alarm rang, I got up without even so much as a hitch in my step and was out the door 10 minutes sooner than I had been in weeks. I was second in line in Panera and couldn’t wait to get my hands on that egg and cheese sandwich. And, even though my mouth suffered a few burns from eating it so quickly, it was just as every bit of delicious that I had needed it to be.

Please do not ask me how many times I have been back to Panera to get this same sandwich . . . it’s a little embarrassing just how much this little baby wonder in me is causing me to crave things I wouldn’t normally care about.

And, don’t even get me started on meat (blackened salmon and steak have never sounded so tempting) . . .

4 Comments Posted on October 26, 2015October 26, 2015 marriage, parenting, vegan

Family Friendly (Mommy) Blog: Meet Jill Shell

Hi! Many of you probably don’t know me, but I’m Jill Shell.

You might recognize me as the wife beside the Family Friendly Daddy Blogger, Nick Shell. He’s my husband and Jack’s our (almost 5 year old) son. We recently found out that we are expecting our second child in April 2016 and we couldn’t be more excited! With a new baby on the way, you can imagine how things could be transforming in our daily lives.

One day we got to talking about the many interesting things that happen during pregnancy and I mentioned to Nick that it would be fun to do guest blog appearances on his site to write about all the changes. It started out with me wanting to write about the funny things that happen during pregnancy, such as the for real increased appetite, incredible cravings that leave you lusting after food, the inevitable weight gain, and other nuances of the kind.

But as we spoke more about it, it sounds as if it may evolve into some posts about my interests and hobbies such as cooking vegan dishes (because you don’t know what you’re missing and it’s not that difficult to prepare), reviewing baby items (to get at the heart of what you really need and what truly works), thrifty saving trends (because who doesn’t like saving money), and my new venture in crafting (totally investing in a sewing machine with my Christmas money after we get through the holidays).

This has been an incredible space for Nick to share information with people and I’m happy to contribute to this virtual forum to continue our story; connecting with people as we grow from a family of three to four.

To give you an idea of what you may be in for, I’ll be doing my next blog post on a vegan/vegetarian recipe for chili. Fall is the perfect time to break out the crock pot to create a flavorful, low-key easy meal, and what better dish than chili?

Oh, and don’t worry, I don’t venture into complicated recipes with crazy ingredients that you can only get in Mumbai and will never use again, or that take three hours to prepare and five hours to complete.

After all, I am a full-time working mom and if I have to go through a lot of trouble to prepare a healthy meal for my family, I’d just as soon invest in the “Never Ending Pasta Pass” at Olive Garden, and let’s be honest, I ain’t got time for that and neither do you.

1 Comment Posted on October 15, 2015October 21, 2015 Uncategorized

My Top 3 Ideal Hospitality Items I Wish Hotels Would Provide, As a Manly Dad

Fairmont Hotels is exploring for new hospitality ideas and asked me for manly insights (because my blog is so cool and famous, apparently) and asked me to share with them my top 3 ideal hospitality items I wished hotels would provide.

Specifically, they wanted to hear my take on “West Coast hospitality.” They have a location in San Francisco for example. For all I know, my information could be helpful to them.

While I was born and raised (and still live) in the South, I identify more culturally, in many ways, with the West, where my wife is from.

I’ve always been offbeat and therefore, so is my blog. Well, here is my list, for better or worse… My Top 3 Ideal Hospitality Items I Wish Hotels Would Provide…

1) Flushable wipes (or a bidet)

The 1^st ideal hospitality item I wish hotels provided is “flushable wipes or a bidet.” When I lived in Thailand for those 2 summers back in college, I grew quite accustomed to the fact that all their bathrooms, even in the most basic ones, all had a bidet. So if a bidet is out of the question, I will gladly accept “flushable wipes.” It just makes me feel classy in a subtle and slightly foreign sort of way.

2) A men’s magazine

When I am travelling across America on vacation, as our family does each summer in Sacramento where my wife is from, as well as about twice a year in Destin, Florida, my ultimate goal in staying in a hotel is to get a solid, uninterrupted night’s rest.

After our son is asleep in his bed, and after my wife falls asleep next to me while watching House Hunters, I am left alone to either watch an old episode of Seinfeld or to indulge in a marathon of Honest Trailer videos on YouTube. But really, at that point, I would just rather fall asleep while it’s still only 10:17 PM. But I have to “wind down” first.

I firmly believe in the importance of unplugging, while on vacation. I would prefer an interesting men’s magazine to fade out to. What comes to mind is Wired or Details. I find that their articles are always interesting, and not as limited to just sports or business.

That would be a nice touch.

My Top 3 Ideal Hospitality Items I Wish Hotels Would Provide, As a Dad

3) Manly-smelling essential oil.

I just think it would be cool (and classy) if there was a tiny bottle of a manly-smelling essential oil; maybe a medley consisting of something like cedar wood, tea tree, orange, lavender, and a hint of patchouli.

With essential oils, I don’t have to worry about carcinogens on my skin. It’s all natural, which is very “Western” to me.

Hopefully with this blog post I am able to help out Fairmont Hotels with a truly original, sincere, and entertaining answer in their quest.

These are things that communicate “West Coast hospitality” to me. They are subtle, classy, masculine touches that I personally would appreciate when staying in a hotel.

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