SxE Link of the Week

The Post Punk Kitchen: Vegetarian cooking & vegan baking with no attitude

Vegan Delights

So I'm not a vegan, but I'm lactose intolerant. Thus I have been trying for years to find decent deserts that don't contain milk. Sure I can bake a cake with out it, which I might add I'm pretty good at, but that gets to be difficult when you're lacking time or desire.

So I've tried all kinds of stuff. Recently Rooster's Coffee Shoppe, a coffee shop in PA, sells these great vegan cookies from the Alternative Baking Company. There are a bunch of flavours, the Double Chocolate Decadence is my favourite.

I've also found some tastey candy bars. Green & Black's bars actually claims certain varieties to be suitable for vegetarians and vegans, their Dark Chocolate bars are 70% cocoa and are superb. Another company makes carob bars in a few nice flavours, the are called Goldies Carob Bar, I prefer the Rice Crunch. Whole Foods in New York carries both of these bars.

All Ages Review

A while back I started reading All Ages by Beth Lahickey. I enjoyed the book for the most part but felt that it became a bore to read after a while and I had to take a break from it. I thought when I read this book that I find something inteligent and enlightening about the people that were at the forefront of the Straight Edge movement, but that was nowhere to be found. And I was quite saddened to know that some of these people that sang so much about how SxE was a life choice that made themselves better they broke edge to fit in.

I felt that Beth should have had some more in depth questions and attempt to get more than the same answer from everyone she interviewed. It became trite after awhile to hear the same things regurgitated interview after interview.

Here are a few quotes (with some comments by me in italics):

Mike Hartsfield [Outspoken] - "Yeah, it's really weird I remember all of that stuff pretty vividly"
Beth Lahickey - "That's because you were straight edge"

Susan Martinez - "I bet the straight edge kids remember so much more" ... Of course we do

Drew Thomas [Bold] - "It's easy to be straight edge if you have a really clean lifestyle and your parents are rich." What a fucking cop out, being an alcholic or a drug addict can happen to anyone. You can never say someone had an easier life only by looking from the outside inward.

So I honestly feel that the idea behind the book was great, and it was nice to read some of the interviews, but don't read it cover to cover. Read the interviews that you think would be important to you and skip the rest.

Straight Edge Link of the Week

XclothingX

More to Come...

Sorry that it's been a while since I've posted, but I've been a bit busy and not very much in the mood to post. I have since realized that I never got around to reviewing a few of the SxE things that I promised I'd review. So over the next few weeks I'll post those reviews (I hope) I just finished that last book that I mentioned, Straightedge Youth: Complexity And Contradictions of a Subculture, I thought is was great and will tell you more about it soon.