The Unwise Decision to Bake & NYC Noms

First things first: a while ago I agreed to bake a few batches of yummy things for an event my mom and I are going to tomorrow. The temperature today is somewhere in dear-god-I'm-being-boiled-alive territory, but I'm not one to duck out of baking. Luckily, a few people are avoiding refined sugar, so I got to switch out no-bakes for regular cookies--more on those later. In addition to that, though, the oven was on for almost three hours today for these lovelies:

Blueberry Scones (Vegan Brunch)

Toasted Coconut-Chip Muffins (Vegan Brunch--dried mango swapped out for chocolate chips)

Banana-Raisin Scones (Veganomicon--dates and walnuts swapped out for raisins)

Oat Bran Muffins with Jam (The Joy of Vegan Baking)

You know what's even better than a well-planned, thoroughly-thought out trip? Deciding to hop on a train to New York City then doing it hours later.

Backstory: My cousin, who lives in Oakland and whom I haven't seen since I was a wee child, was staying in New York. Since it's easy enough to take a train from New Haven, my brothers, Avocado, and I decided to go visit.

Our first stop was Lula's, of course. Both brothers thought it was damn fine ice cream, so if you've got skeptical non-vegan friends, bring them here! Their peanut butter-chip ice cream is the only vegan ice cream I've ever had that has the exact right ratio of peanut butter (a lot) to chocolate (a little).

We ended up stopping at a Mexican place fairly close by called Mary Ann's, which said they could do vegan food. My food was pretty tasty, despite the plain tofu; everything else was so flavorful that once I mixed it up it wasn't bland at all. Unfortunately the service was kind of poor. Avocado told the waiter she was a vegetarian, and they gave her a chicken taco instead of vegetable (after forgetting her food completely) and for some reason both of the brothers' entrees came with no cheese. When it was brought up to them they gave us a discount to make up for it, but still. Kind of a bummer. Remember to check your food at non-vegan restaurants, mistakes happen!