Gourmet | Moreton Neal | Eat Your Veggies

Eat Your Veggies

By Moreton Neal

Now that we’ve seen the pork belly craze reach its climax (some would say nadir) with chocolate-covered bacon, we can move on to the other big food story of the year, if not the entire past decade: vegetables.
When my meat and potato-loving husband brought home a copy of Vegetarian Times recently, I realized a meatless diet has grown far beyond a mere trend, it’s a lifestyle for a growing percentage of Americans. If a cover photo of collard greens and mushroom polenta proved irresistible to a devout carnivore like Drake, something significant must be happening in the food zeitgeist. Another sign is the sheer volume of vegetarians I’ve run into this year — as if the Church of Seventh-day Adventist has suddenly mushroomed into a major American religion.
Vegetarians, as we know, are averse to eating animals, but vegans take this practice even further. To practice a “cruelty-free lifestyle,” some vegans refuse to wear leather or wool and eschew dairy, eggs and any animal product, even honey. Yes. Honey.
Being a vegan in our culture ain’t easy. I recently dined at a popular local Southern restaurant with a group that included a vegan. The only thing the kitchen could produce without an animal component was a banana. Understandably, she felt “disrespected,” (her words) by the choice of this particular eatery. Consciousness raised, the rest of us continued to devour our juicy hamburgers and barbecue sandwiches, but with just a tad of guilt.
This sort of prickly frisson between omnivores and strict vegans appears to be fairly commonplace. In a holiday article called “Veg Etiquette,” the Vegetarian Times addressed the issue, advising vegans, “DON’T make comments about your nausea at seeing a bird corpse being hacked away at,” advised the author. “It may make you squeamish, but it’s something that some people drool over.”
Actually, there are many vegetarians who aren’t all that squeamish about flesh-eating but owe their conversion to health concerns. Losing weight, lowering cholesterol, and avoiding hormones and antibiotics used in commercially raised animals are reasons enough to steer one’s regime toward more fruits and veggies.
Home cooks familiar with classic cookbooks such as Patricia Wells’ Vegetable Harvest, Barbara Kafka’s Vegetable Love, Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian, Anna Thomas’ The Vegetarian Epicure and Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone already know how varied and satisfying cooking without meat can be. With the obesity epidemic in this country, it would behoove all of us to eat less animal fat and more nutritious plant life.
Fortrunately, the Triangle has a range of choices for meatless feasting. The excellent Sage Vegetarian Café in Chapel Hill (Persian cuisine), Udupi in Cary and Tower in Morrisville (both Southern Indian) serve no meat at all. Delicious vegetarian main courses can be found at Raleigh’s Sitti, Neomonde, and St. Jacques; Durham’s Blue Corn; Carrboro’s Glasshalfull; Chapel Hill’s Margaret’s Cantina; and Cary’s Bosphorus, to name just a few. This month, I celebrated my heightened veggie-consciousness by visiting the oldest and the newest vegetarian restaurants in our area.

The Irregardless Café
901 W. Morgan St.
Raleigh, NC 27603
Arthur Gordon, with not a lick of restaurant experience but a passion for healthy, tasty food, opened Raleigh’s first vegetarian restaurant in 1975. Thirty-five years later, his hospitable establishment still satisfies vegetable lovers at its original address on Morgan Street. Though the first café burned in 1994, Gordon rebuilt the eatery. His simply decorated space exudes permanence, as if it has been nurturing the neighborhood forever, and always will. One reason for longevity is the flexibility of the owner who met popular demand and added seafood and meat to the menu years ago. But his menu still offers many meatless items, including a few vegan specialties.
The dishes we tried, executed by Chef Daniel Cohn, a Culinary Institute of America graduate, were rich and generously portioned, ostensibly geared more to athletes than ladies who lunch. A huge grilled Portabella mushroom cap on polenta, topped with a large dollop of pesto, was served with spinach and carrots. The traditional baked macaroni and cheese was big enough for three football players, as was the voluptuous apple crisp. The goat cheese salad was more about the cheese than the lettuce, though I heard no complaints from my dinner companions. Billed as an appetizer, the Middle Eastern platter — butterbean pâté, hummus and tabouli — is a meal in itself.
Gordon has always been a nurturer — of his loyal staff, his patrons and his community (he was awarded Green Business Leader of 2009 by the Triangle Business Journal). Characteristically, his restaurant’s dishes are all about comfort. Those looking for a low-fat, spa experience should stick with the salads.

Butternut Squash Restaurant
133E W. Franklin St., University Square
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
The newest vegetarian restaurant in the Triangle, Butternut Squash, could be beamed in from an upscale health spa. Light and airy, pastel walls covered with abstract paintings, Butternut’s feminine ambience reflects the sunny personality of its owners, mother-daughter team Maisie Coborne, who runs the floor, and Kelly Bruney in the kitchen.
The spring-like décor suits Butternut’s health-conscious menu, and servers are trained to cater to the concerns of fussy purists. Before the menu arrived we were asked, “Do you prefer ice in your water?”
From the international selection of dishes, we tried the highly spiced spicy seitan chili, butternut and pear salad, Thai green curry and the pleasantly seasoned “A taste of India” with coconut rice. All dishes feature farm-fresh vegetables and fragrant spices, but at first bite, everything tasted surprisingly bland. This was easily remedied by a salt shaker. The chef uses little salt in cooking, but after we added it, flavors came alive and the meal was enjoyable.
Brunch was less successful with faux “sausage” and “bacon.” And Southern biscuit fanatics will be disappointed with Butternut’s rendition, as flat and tough as zwieback. Apparently faux shortening has not yet been perfected. Better to stick with the dishes that feature fruits and vegetables with no pretentions of being anything other than what they are.

NIBBLES
To learn more about vegetarian dining spots and food events, The Triangle Vegetarian Society’s Web site, www.trianglevegsociety.org, offers a calendar and a listing of veggie-friendly restaurants.
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Niall Hanley, owner of Hibernian and Solas, has opened his third eatery in the Glenwood South restaurant ghetto. The Diner promises to be another visual treat by the ambitiously creative restaurateur. Menu items include burgers, fries, milkshakes, steaks, salads and other traditional diner foods. It will be open 24/7 and serves breakfast at all hours.
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Chef Ricky Moore, formerly of Glasshalfull, will head the kitchen of George Bakatsias’ new Cary enterprise, Giorgio, on Cary Parkway at High House Road. Moore’s menu includes “new Mediterranean” dishes, such as chicken tagine and red snapper plaki.
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La Residence starts the year with new Chef Stephen Amos, formerly head of The Old Granary’s kitchen at Fearrington Village.
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Fins has closed in downtown Raleigh but plans to morph into an international street food restaurant to open later this winter.
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Iron Chef winner Walter Royal will host three fine-dining cooking classes this spring at The Angus Barn where he has been executive chef for over a decade. Guests will prepare a multi-course meal from start to finish. Reserve a space now by calling Kelly Joslin at 919-787-3505 ext. 268 or e-mail kelly.joslin@angusbarn.com.
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Barbara Ensrud's wine classes at Duke begin Jan. 29, five Friday night sessions exploring the likes of Pinot Noir, the Cabernets, Syrah and other top grapes from the world's top wine regions. Information: 919-684-6259 or www.learnmore.duke.edu/weekend/courses.
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The Triangle food scene lost one of its most memorable personalities last month when Fred Benton passed away. Benton began his food-writing career at The Spectator, then owned and edited by our own Bernie Reeves. Benton wrote “Off the Menu” for Metro, and most recently was the dining editor of Raleigh Downtowner Magazine. For 15 years Benton hosted “Food Forum” and “The Better Living Show” on Durham’s radio station WDNC-AM. He was a knowledgeable epicurean, but his real talent was comedy and his playful, wicked wit. As co-host on the show, I tried to maintain a sense of seriousness and dignity on air, and, fortunately for listeners, I never succeeded. Benton was all about laughter and enjoying life to the fullest, which he did for a much-too-short 58 years.
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We have also lost a wonderful chef, Marta Brewer. Brewer and her husband brought Spanish cuisine to Raleigh with their restaurant, Tasca Brava. Later she cooked at Dos Taquitos Centro. Raleigh foodies will miss her inventive Spanish and Mexican cooking.