Truck Parade

I'm sure you've heard that Hubig's Pies burned down. By now, you may be wearing a shirt that says, "Lemon."  Perhaps, if you live here in New Orleans, or once did, you even changed your facebook profile pic to some sort of clever Hubig's Pie meme, i.e. (The South Will Rise Again) or posted a status about how devastated you are, vegan or not. Maybe you rode your bike to pastry ground zero and wondered about the fantastic guardian angels that protected the neighbors' houses, and how you might get you one of those angels.

New Orleans loves her food icons. But sometimes our bureaucratic bullshit, for which we are also famous, prevents New Orleans, and more to the point, New Orleanians from acheiving higher goals.

Roman Candy and Lucky Dog would never have reached nostalgic, cult status if the food cart rules and legislation of today existed when these folks opened shop. By the way, you may wonder why a vegan gives a hoot for Lucky Dog, and besides evangelizing about local ownership, blah blah blah, here is your honest answer: Ignatius Reilly.

And what about the iconic ice cream truck? (The creepy music has to go, though.)

We really need to make vegan food another New Orleans institution, y'all. I thought it was a very good sign that the vegan epañadas were the first to sell out at the Food Truck Rally.

Of course, it wasn't a good sign for my starving husband and myself, especially when the lines to everything else looked like this:

But really, I know we hear about other cities and all of their totally vegan restaurants and we wanna eat our heart out. Lord knows, we're making progress here, finally. Vegan food carts would help tremendously, but what would also help is for vegan food to make its appearance everywhere. Does it always have to be an "other?" Come on, New Orleans, let's just let great vegan food be "ours." Here's my new restaurant and grocery store M.O. No matter how unlikely the place seems to ever carry, or want to carry, vegan items, ASK ASK ASK. Make them hear that damn word, "vegan" all the time. Let them think daiya cheese must be the hottest thing, because all these people keep asking about it. Over and over again. And act like you expect results. "Did you get the daiya cheese yet that I asked about?" "Did you add the scrambled tofu to the breakfast menu yet?" Be nice; be consistent.

And hey, I know we're not millionaires. We can't eat out at restaurants everyday. Sheesh, some of us, like me, even LIKE to cook!! So, this tactic is especially important at grocery stores. Stay tuned for my upcoming post about Rouse's and the ever expanding "natural foods" sections at our neighborhood stores. Demand your tempeh and nooch people. Demand with a smile.

Last photo taken at Tout de Suite in the lovely Algiers Point.