This Sandwich is a life raft

I never thought I would be so excited about a sandwich. It’s been a really tough year, for a lot of reasons, and I know that many of you are unemployed, and struggling, and feeling the pinch of the economy. We’ve been struggling, like everyone else, and there have been some scary and stressful  months around here. It’s pretty difficult to ask for help when there are so many other causes that are so worthy, and we ask you to donate to them pretty often, and don’t want you to stop doing that. So we’ve done our best to stay ahead of the curve and try to figure out what it is that you’d like to buy with your precious “eating out” money that you keep stashed in a mason jar in your closet. And that’s why I’m excited about a sandwich.

Our lovely new sandwich menu, designed as usual by The Guy Upstairs (also known as Jared Souney). Portland is awash with vegan baked goods lately, and not as crowded with vegan sandwiches, so we’re taking a step in that direction. All of our bread will be house made, as well as our seitan, our jam, and lots of other stuff! I sincerely hope that after 5 years of serving baked goods to this community, we will be able to stick it out through this economic storm, and still be here for another 5, or 10, or 15 years. I’ve named the sandwiches after those near and dear to me here at the vegan mini-mall, all of whom have given me lots of friendship and support and advice, and their hard work, over the years. Come out on Tuesday (2/9) and help us celebrate our 5 year anniversary (which was in January, I know, I know) and try out a sandwich!  We also have a limited run of t-shirts for sale, printed by my friends at Ink Brigade, and the money from the sale of the shirts helps us pay off the equipment we had to buy for sandwich making. They’re $20 and they come with a coupon for a free sandwich. If it makes you more willing to buy a shirt, we’ll also let you come into the kitchen and try to lift our new panini press, which is small, but weighs 50 lbs!

A quick word to our gluten free friends, who really wanted GF options for sandwiches… we really considered this, and I even baked some pretty great GF bread, but we are having issues with customers complaining of cross-contamination with wheat. Serving GF sandwiches and avoiding cross-contamination was going to be really expensive (separate panini grill, separate knives, scoops and containers of sauces and spreads, separate cutting surfaces, etc.) so we decided that it isn’t something that we can do right now. We added a version of our Unsalads that are served on a bed of greens instead of bread (The Ruby Bird’s Nest), and most of our soups will remain gluten free.

what 14 lbs of margarine looks like

Not to eclipse the fun of valentine’s day, but seriously, is this gross or totally delicious? This is a regular sight here in the bakery, so sometimes I forget how weird it actually is. Once someone paid Jesse $5 to eat an entire stick of Earth Balance. I don’t think I’d do it for less than $20.

art is all around us

Valentine’s Day, Part Deux

Oh Valentine’s Day, you’re so enticing with your reds and pinks and hearts and love and stuff. Besides flowers and truffles, we’re putting together all of our regular suspects for the day.

Personalized Heart Shaped Cookies $1.50 each or $15/dozen.

You can call in advance and we’ll write whatever you’d like on your cookies. And we really mean ANYTHING, as long as it fits on the cookie.

how very tame

This year we are also adding Heart Sandwich Cookies ($1.50 ea, $15/dozen) to our list, reminiscent of that Pepperidge Farms cookie with the two butter cookies and the chocolate in the middle that I can’t remember the name of. Very subtle, so you can eat the entire bag in one sitting.

Choclate Brownie Mini Bundts ($4.50) are making an appearance, perfect for two…

a veritable volcano of love

Other exciting options are Heart Shaped Cheesecakes for Two ($10), or a larger Chocolate Raspberry Heart Shaped Cake (serves 8-10 $30) if you love a lot of people.

Call ahead to order  – we will have extras on hand, but when they run out, they’re gone! When you’re here that morning for our Buy one get one half off brunch you can pick up your Valentine’s Day order. Easy!