Sophia's Year in Review

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Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling:


In July we recorded 3 songs with Mike Quinn at The Moontower (download them here!), and had a kick-ass photo shoot with Kelly Davidson. In August, we played our first real show on my birthday at The Middle East Upstairs, which was an amazing evening for me. We also played Church and finished out 2009 with a show at Harpers Ferry. In November, we shared our top 10 movies with a British underground film magazine, Electric Sheep Magazine. In December we were interviewed by them for a podcast that should be up shortly, also we were interviewed by SciFiPulse for their podcast that should air in January. At the end of December, we began work at The Moontower to record our next three songs.

Looking forward to 2010: We’ll be on WMFO’s On The Town on January 6th, we’ll be finishing up our first EP to be released this Spring. We’ll be opening up Mascara’s CD Release on January 29th, and playing with HUMANWINE and Walter Sickert and the Army of Broken Toys in February, and shortly will be beginning preproduction on a music video to be released in the Summer.



Boston Band Crush:

I had a great time meeting tons of new bands and people this year through Boston Band Crush. Highlights include my SXSW and WBCN Rumble coverage (including talking about it on Boston Emissions with Anngelle Wood), interviewing Gordon Gano of the Violent Femmes, and co-planning and executing our coming-out event, One Night Band.

Launch Over:

Mike and I started the groundwork on a Boston music licensing, publishing, strategy consulting and targeted marketing company that will be operational in 2010.

Personal Highlights:

I enjoyed trips to (vegan eating guides are linked): San Francisco, San Diego, & LA; Portland, OR and Seattle, WA; NYC; the Finger Lakes Region of Upstate NY, Maine, & North Carolina.

I got to spend two wonderful weekends with my adorable 1 year old niece – I’m hoping to be able to spend more time with her this year.

Saw more than 100 different local bands play (full list is forthcoming) and attended 18 The Motion Sick shows this year.

Had the privilege of experiencing Leonard Cohen in concert.

Had a ton of fun being an extra in Ad Frank’s music video for Winterthru – I’m excited to see the finished product!

Vegan Eating Tour of Seattle 2009

Bamboo Garden was our first stop after getting off the train. This is Chinese food with mock-meats and tofu, not unlike Boston’s Grasshopper-except maybe more authentic. We got General Gao’s and Ma po Tofu, both really tasty.

Mighty O Donuts - We never made it to the actual mighty-o location (okay, we did, but it was closed and we only got to peer inside) but we ate some at a few coffee shops and after a week of eating Voodoo Doughnuts, they just didn’t compare. They did taste more “healthy” than voodoo, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Pizza Pi – is an awesome all vegan pizza place right in the U-district. Their default is to use Teese, but they also have all sorts of home-made white sauces (and nutritional yeast flakes at the tables!), and they were very happy to work around Mike’s many and random allergies to make us a super-awesome pizza. Highly recommended.

Next door, we were excited to find yet another vegan grocery, SideCar for Pigs Peace (which benefits a pig sanctuary). They had a bunch of typical vegan goodies, and some tasty chocolates, and individually wrapped ice-cream bars, and cupcakes and Mighty-O donuts. It’s also worth a stop if you’re looking to stock up on the harder-to-find vegan pantry items.

Juliano’s Pizza – is a regular pizza joint that was open late and near our hotel – that also has a vegan pizza! Their default is Follow Your Heart Vegan Gourmet Mozzarella (which I actually like better than Teese) but you can also get a garlic–tofu mash as your “cheese” just tell them that you don’t want the FYH. They were super nice and there were some drunk people commandeering the internet/tv connection to play songs on youtube (to give 'em credit -they were picking some good tunes--mostly 60s stuff, Bob Dylan, etc) and encouraging us to write on the sharpie-graffiti covered walls (which, of course Mike took a picture of):

It’s definitely an adventure at night!

Café Flora – was a substantial bus ride from downtown but totally worth it. This was the only “upscale” vegetarian restaurant that we found on the entire trip. As such, Mike picked on me a little when I ordered the Black Bean Burger with Yam Fries (which, happened to be really tasty.) Mike got some sort of arugula-chick pea croquettes which he said were delicious, and we started with deep-fried avacado –which was unusual and good. Dessert was a super rich, super moist chocolate cake, that was probably better than any chocolate cake that I've had out, but I'm not ready to say that it's better than my own.

Squid and Ink – I have a mixed review of. Mike got a chick-pea puree sandwich that was akin to a tuna salad sandwich and a tomato soup, which he raved and raved about. I got the pastrami reuben—which was okay, but I have a weird relationship with seitan where the more I eat it the more I dislike it, and this sandwich was huge slabs of seitan. It was alright, but not my favorite meal of the trip.

We tried to go to Carmelita in Greenwood, but got there an hour before opening (at 4 pm) and when we read the menu it was full of tree nuts and mushrooms (the two things Mike is most allergic to) so we left and went to…

Sunlight Café instead. Sunlight does hearty home-cooking with a slight middle-eastern flare. Mike had a stew/soup and a tofu stir-fry; I had falafel patties, it was alright –but not the most “gourmet” meal ever.

If you’re in the downtown area, there isn’t a whole lot of vegan to choose from, but we did find a really delicious Ethiopian place called Pan Africa Market that had a whole vegan section (that was even labeled vegan!) It was also way cheaper than we are used to paying for Ethiopian ($8 each instead of about $13) and they carried a tasty Moroccan beer (called Casa, I believe). Highly, highly recommended if you are stuck downtown and/or are famished from Pike’s Place.

Cinnamon Works at Pike’s Place – first shimmered at us like a mirage in the middle of Pike’s Place Market by advertising vegan and gluten-free items. They had many vegan choices, and we finally decided on a frosted cinnamon roll. They listed ALL of the ingredients which I recall were really simple (and it’s nice to know what is in the thing you are eating!) the roll was moist, flaky, I’ll go so far as to say ‘heavenly.’ Such a treasure amongst the fishmongers!

Vegan Eating Tour of Portland, OR

May 2009

Sustainability is a big buzz word around Portland, OR. Though I was pleased that most places had bins for compost, and left water out (for me to easily refill by steel bottle-and let me avoid buying bottled the whole trip.) Most of the vegan places in Portland are cafes - so we ate a bunch of sandwiches all week. You can only live on sandwiches for so long, I've decided.

Here is the run-down on all of the places we went.

For food, our favorite by far was Blossoming Lotus. We went twice even. The weird thing about BL is that it is attached to a yoga center - it was very distracting walking into the bathroom of the restaurant you're eating in and seeing naked ladies walking in and out and around the showers. Day one - I had the most enormous burrito (which tasted like the best thing ever, after being on the plane for what seemed like decades). Mike had the bbq soy curls sandwich (our first experience with soy curls - my opinion is that they almost cross the line to being too 'meaty'-didn't stop me from bringing some home though-as you'll see later) They also had vegan soft serve ice cream! They carry one flavor at a time, and the first day it was mint chocolate chip--it was seriously rich and delicious. Our second visit there, I got the monk bowl, which was brown rice, beans and kale with a peanut sauce - very hearty and tasty. Mike, again, got the bbq soy curls sandwich. This time the soft serve was plain ol' vanilla - while it was good, it wasn't nearly as exciting as the mint chocolate chip - which Mike had delcared was the best thing he'd ever put in his mouth hole.


Voodoo Doughnuts, I've decided, is the happiest place on earth. They have the best doughnuts I've ever tasted - and a large vegan selection. We went there three times in four days - each time eating more doughnuts than I care to admit. We stuck to three flavors, of which our favorite was the frosted sprinkles, Mike liked the powdered doughnut, and I also enjoyed a "Portland" (ahem, Boston) Creme. Voodoo also does weddings - if only I had known! Go there, eat, get married!

Papa G's Vegan Organic Deli A Vegan Deli – how awesome is that. We enjoyed mashed potatoes with ginger gravy, a meatball sub, a bbq tofu sandwich, and a bowl of macaroni salad so close to the real thing it was almost gross!

Bye and Bye - is a hipster bar that was non-smoking before non-smoking was a law. The place reminded me of Bukowskis in atmosphere. I got the Eastern Bowl: brown rice, broccolli, tofu in a peanut sauce. Mike got the BBQ platter: collard greens, bbq tempeh, and baked beans. Tasty, and if you go at happy hour, as we did--super cheap!

Proper Eats was way in the middle of nowhere - after a 45 minute bus ride through residential areas we came upon a block of stores in "St. Johns." Proper Eats is located behind a small grocery. The food had great presentation - very fancy with the garnish. I got the nachos--PE makes their own cheese sauce - which my tastebuds would guess was made from cashews and nutritional yeast. Mike got the tempeh reuben.

Finally, to the 'vegan mini-mall' - which is more like a block of cool vegan stuff. I'll go in the order that we went to them:

Red and Black Cafe - a worker owned collective, we ate more tasty sandwiches. This time I got the tempeh reuben, and Mike had a "tuna" like sandwich. Our order took a few minutes to come because one of the customers got all of the workers to take a survey on what it means to be vegan - I was sad she didn't ask us to also take the survey.

Then, to Herbivore - a cute clothing store with slogan’s like “eat like you give a damn” and “I heart tofu” I picked up a pretty awesome wallet here, additionally the staff were super nice.

Next door over is Food Fight Vegan Grocery - a place I've done online orders for obscure vegan stuff a bunch of times. The physical store was more like a mini-mart. I regret not buying the can of vegan haggis, or the vegan caviar or the pate, but we did pick up some soy curls, jerkey, and chocolates. Check out their website and read thier snarky descriptions of items (example: Vegan Chedder Crackers "Product Description: Most Holy Jeebus! We finally got these. Pretty much just like those "goldfish" crackers every kid used to make a mess with. Except organic and more expensive! Awesome!")

Our final destination on this block was Sweetpea Baking Company we got a coffee cake that was delicious, and a chocolate-peanut butter bar that was good but really rich. We also found Sweetpea cookies at most of the independant coffee places that we went to.

Speaking of coffee, try Stumptown Coffee Roasters if you go--I didn't actually make it to one of their locations, but Backspace cafe served Stumptown coffee and it was the best latte I've had in a while. Backspace also has vegan sandwiches but we were there before the kitchen opened and had to make-do with bagels. Backspace also carries Voodoo Doughnuts, and has cool art - so all-around local and worth checking out.