I know it's been awhile again, I'm still chuggin along on this here juice fast, today is day 26!! I'm feeling wonderful and feel like I've hit a new level of greatness in the last couple week! I was kinda shooting for 21 days, but I feel so good I'm just gonna keep going! Last week I started up yoga again full time (hopefully 3-4x/wk), bought a massage for myself, have an accupuncture session (which i won!) that I hope to use soon, and I'm still in love with the beautiful nourishing juice concoctions I'm guzzling down daily. I am feeling alive people. :)
So, today I decided, since I'm feeling so good and all, to do a lil bit o' horn tootin :) Yes, my own horn, which I dont do too often. There's been some fun new mentionings of Flourish and moi out in the veggie/vegan world, so I thought I'd share! AND I'm so excited to see I now have 24 wonderful followers on here, that just blew my mind today! It was only a couple months ago I really decided to stick to this and I think I only had 4 for the longest time. It's thanks to those new mentionings along the way that you have all arrived! So here we go.....
1) Earth Balance- my biggest vegan love- has featured two of my recipes on their blog in the last week! One of which (kale salad) won for St. Patty's Day! That link is HERE.
2)Earth Balance- (why are you so good to me!?) Featured another of my recipes! Which by the way, I highly recommend! They're so tasty for spring with all these wonderful veggies to pick from at the farmers markets these days! That recipe is HERE.
3) Suzie's Farm- Words can't say how much room I have in my heart for this peach of a farm. If a farm could fit in my pocket, I'd carry them around with me, they're so dear to me heart. They decided to do a feature on lil ol' me last week! Just a short Q&A on why I love them so much and what I do with all the lovelies I purchase from their stands every week. If you'd like to read it, it's HERE. If you are in the San Diego area, please support this amazing farm, just take a look at their CSA, need I say more!? Thank you :)
In other exciting news, speaking of Earth Balance, there is another AMAZING contest coming up! You all know by now how much I love me a good contest! Similar to their holiday round of 4 different categories with 8 winners, this time it's Appetizers, Side dish, Entrée, and Dessert. I, of course, am planning on entering all 4. :) Hello, chance to win a trip to NYC and eat at Candle Café and have your recipe featured on the menu??? Say no more. I'm already scheming away! This lady would LOVE to go back to Manhattan, I've not been since graduating cooking school over 10 years ago!
My dear mother also tipped me off to another contest Vegetarian Times has got going on now too. So prepare to be flooded with lots of recipes in the near future dear readers! I'm planning on having a contest of my own in the next couple months. We'll see if I can drum up some more fans before I put it out there. The prize will be some sort of delicious baked goody, which I have yet to determine. :)
For now, I will leave you with a recipe of my favorite cleansing juice cocktail of the moment! It's a super delicious morning cocktail of pineapple, apple, orange and fresh ginger root. I've done many variations on this recipe and have added kale, cilantro, and grapefruit. That's the beauty of juicing, there's so many options and no rules as to what goes with what. Just play with your juices and see what you like best!
Pineapple Ginger Sunrise
1 pineapple
2-3 oranges
2 apples
Fresh Ginger root (however much you can handle- i use 2-3")
Cheers to your health!
xoxo
Hi Mickey,
ReplyDeleteCraig Cochran has an amazing vegan restaurant in NYC. Visit www.terrinyc.com
I will locate his comments about opening
a vegan restaurant in New York and send them
to you.
Bob Cochran
How I Started A Vegan Business in New York City
ReplyDeleteby Craig R. Cochran
My dream is that one day, people won’t be asking questions like “where do you
get your protein?” and “what do you eat?” when they encounter a vegetarian or
vegan for the first time. I hope to accomplish this dream by making delicious
vegan food affordable and accessible to everyone.
Once there are good vegan restaurants like Terri on every corner, I’d like to
see a paradigm shift in the way we think about what we eat. I’m the co-owner and
co-founder of Terri, a popular vegan restaurant in the heart of Manhattan. My
restaurant serves tasty organic super foods
created to resemble familiar American favorites for people on the go. I believe
that wholesome foods should no longer be a luxury and at Terri, we strive to
make it the standard.
My inspiration for opening a vegan restaurant was my desire to combat the common
misconception that eating a plant-based diet is a sacrifice. I love food and I
really enjoy eating. So, when I decided to stop eating animal products, I sought
out the same comforting flavors that I was familiar with growing up, while also
exploring delicious foods I had never tried before. I found that there were a
lot of products that claimed to taste like the original, which very clearly
didn’t, but that there were also many products that, when prepared correctly,
tasted so good that it could fool my own meat-eating friends.
Terri gets its name from Mike’s (Michael Pease, co-owner of Terri) and my
respective mothers. While growing up, I spent a lot of time in thekitchen with
my mother and my grandmother, who was the best cook I’ve ever met. I wanted to
honor the matrilineal line of my family, and it seemed only natural that I
would choose a name that reminded me of where my culinary education came from.
Coincidentally, my business partner, Mike’s, mother also shares the same name,
so when it came time to name our restaurant, the decision was easy.
Mike and I came to NYC with the intention of learning the ropes from established
vegan restaurants and taking what we learned back home with us, upstate. We were
very fortunate to have the opportunity to help open a few vegan restaurants, all
of which are now considered some of the
finest in the city. We learned a lot and worked with some of the best vegan
chefs in the country. Because of our hard work and dedication, we were named
partners at one of the restaurants we managed. Then, with a little bit of luck,
we received the opportunity to open our own restaurantn and decided that it was
now or never.
Opening a vegan restaurant is hard work, but extremely rewarding. Here’s what
I’ve learned so far:
Part 2
ReplyDelete1. Don’t rush the opening: One of the biggest lessons I learned was to be
completely ready before you open to the public. There’s often pressure to open
as soon as possible in order to have positive cash flow, but opening prematurely
is a big mistake. A mistake that will cost a restaurant far more than it could
ever make by opening a few days, or even weeks early. The initial buzz will only
turn into negative reviews and people who would otherwise try you out, may pass
you up completely. It can take years to undo the public’s first impression.
2. Appeal to non-vegans: You can’t rely only on vegans to support your business.
It’s imperative to appeal to the mainstream. Vegans make up less than 5% of my
clientele. Many of my most loyal customers are hardcore meat eaters. In my
opinion, it’s important to make them feel welcome so they not only return, but
also have a good feeling about vegetarian and vegan food in general, and may end
up becoming loyal converts!
3. Surround yourself with good people: I also strongly believe that the people
you surround yourself with, will define your success. Mike and I have been very
fortunate to work with an incredible group. Everyone we work with is a key
player. No one can do it all by themselves, so it’s crucial to surround yourself
with talented people that you can rely on. I also believe in hiring kind,
pleasant people because I can teach anyone the basics of how to work at Terri,
but it’s hard to teach kindness.
Part 3
ReplyDelete4. Be a committed vegan yourself. Another important thing I’ve learned while
running a vegan business is that it’s important to be vegan yourself! This may
sound slightly obvious, but I’ve realized that being vegan keeps me in touch
with a lot of the new and developing trends that my
customers want to be a part of. It’s also just nice to be able to speak to
customers about new vegan food products or even non-food products that we’ve
both just discovered and share a love for.
5. Your customers are your business: Most importantly, remember that it’s really
the customer that determines exactly how successful you are. Even if you are
dedicated and work hard, surrounded by great people, it won’t matter unless your
customers want to keep coming back. Not only is it important to give them what
they want from a service perspective, but also to simply be personable and
really care about them as people.
Not only can you not fake sincerity, but everything is more enjoyable when you
truly look forward to going to work and interacting with the people that make
your business.
My goal for Terri is that soon there will be one on every corner in the world.
Related to that, my goal for the world is that one day vegan food would be the
norm, so that we eat better, live better, and help the animals to live better,
too. I hope you enjoyed this article, and I hope to see YOU at Terri soon!
Craig Cochran is Co-Owner and Co-Founder of Terri. After managing at some of the
finest vegan restaurants New York has to offer, including Angelica Kitchen,
Candle 79, and Cafe Blossom. Craig soon discovered a serendipitous opportunity
to open his own restaurant called, Terri with his friend and now business
partner, Michael Pease. Terri, named after Craig’s mom, is located in the
popular and bustling Chelsea neighborhood of NYC and has quickly became a local
and vegan favorite.
www.terrinyc.com
Terri, is located at 60W23rd Street, NY, NY
ReplyDeletewww.terriNYC.com
Bob is at bobcochran@roadrunner.com
and lives in North Tonawanda, NY 400 miles
from NYC.
Note to MIckey,
I love your blog.
I thought I posted the text
ReplyDeleteHere's what I learned so far...
Here’s what
I’ve learned so far:
1. Don’t rush the opening: One of the biggest lessons I learned was to be
completely ready before you open to the public. There’s often pressure to open
as soon as possible in order to have positive cash flow, but opening prematurely
is a big mistake. A mistake that will cost a restaurant far more than it could
ever make by opening a few days, or even weeks early. The initial buzz will only
turn into negative reviews and people who would otherwise try you out, may pass
you up completely. It can take years to undo the public’s first impression.
2. Appeal to non-vegans: You can’t rely only on vegans to support your business.
It’s imperative to appeal to the mainstream. Vegans make up less than 5% of my
clientele. Many of my most loyal customers are hardcore meat eaters. In my
opinion, it’s important to make them feel welcome so they not only return, but
also have a good feeling about vegetarian and vegan food in general, and may end
up becoming loyal converts!
3. Surround yourself with good people: I also strongly believe that the people
you surround yourself with, will define your success. Mike and I have been very
fortunate to work with an incredible group. Everyone we work with is a key
player. No one can do it all by themselves, so it’s crucial to surround yourself
with talented people that you can rely on. I also believe in hiring kind,
pleasant people because I can teach anyone the basics of how to work at Terri,
but it’s hard to teach kindness.
4. Be a committed vegan yourself. Another important thing I’ve learned while
running a vegan business is that it’s important to be vegan yourself! This may
sound slightly obvious, but I’ve realized that being vegan keeps me in touch
with a lot of the new and developing trends that my
customers want to be a part of. It’s also just nice to be able to speak to
customers about new vegan food products or even non-food products that we’ve
both just discovered and share a love for.
5. Your customers are your business: Most importantly, remember that it’s really
the customer that determines exactly how successful you are. Even if you are
dedicated and work hard, surrounded by great people, it won’t matter unless your
customers want to keep coming back. Not only is it important to give them what
they want from a service perspective, but also to simply be personable and
really care about them as people.
Mickey,
ReplyDeleteThis blog limits how many words you can post
at one time, therefore I sent Craigs notes in three sections. Hopefully you will be able to sort this out.
Have a great day.
Bob
Thank you Bob for all of that info! I'd love to check out that restaurant! It looks wonderful, and like he's doing a good job. If I win the contest I'll check it out :) I'm glad you enjoy my blog, thank you for reading!
ReplyDelete