A vegan/gluten free guide to Riverside

A few weeks ago my friend Marina asked me how to be vegan in Riverside. I was very honored by this question and had a fun time remembering all the yummy food that was eaten in Riverside. While writing this I have realized how much harder it is to be vegan/gluten free in Riverside and my heart goes out to all of you that are still there and not here (Bay Area). This list is not specifically gluten free although I have gone through and edited it to have a few gluten free tips. Riverside, this one's for you!

First things first: get some good cookbooks. Unfortunately there are not really any good small bookstores in Riverside that have have awesome cookbooks. Borders and Barnes and Noble have some but they are yucky stores. La Sierra Market (which I'll tell you about later) has a few good ones but not too many. I'll put a * next to the ones that you can find at Barnes and Noble/Borders and the rest are on the internet. They are also in order of ones that I think are the tastiest/easiest (best) to the ones that are a bit more decadent or don't have great recipes. Mind you also, I am a cookbook fiend, you do not need as many cookbooks as I have because I'm a little crazy haha.

*Vegan with a Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskawitz

*Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World by Isa/Terry Hope Romero

*Veganomicon by Isa/ Terry

*Vegan Brunch by Isa

(Can you tell that I'm kind of in love with this woman? She is one of the most prominent vegan authors out right now. She also has a cooking show/website theppk.com and Vegan Brunch has an epic recipe for chocolate beer waffles -seriously- how could I not be in love? *I am still working on trying to figure out how to make the waffles gluten free, I'll let ya'll know a.s.a.p.)

Hot Damn and Hell Yea by Ryan Splint

*The complete vegan handbook by Deborah Wasserman
(This one isn't great for food. Don't get me wrong, the recipes are tasty but they're not fabulous. However, it does have a lot of good information on veganism and the ethics of veganism.)

The following three I havn't tried yet but I just bought and they seem really yummy. I will, of course, update you as soon as I try 'em out.

*The Gluten Free Vegan by Suzan O'Brian

*Flying Aprons (gluten free vegan baking) by Jennifer Katzinger, Shauna James Ahern, and Kathryn Barnard

*Babycakes by Erin McKenna

This is a good start. There are tons of others but they kinda depend on your preference of foods. There's vegan Thai, Mexican, soul food, etc... just be careful because there are a lot of books out there that call for crazy ass ingredients that cost 13$ and you'll never use for anything other than that recipe. I really like the more anarchist self published cookbooks because they are more resourceful and call for cheaper ingredients. Hot Damn and Hell Yea is one of those cookbooks. If you want more of those I can buy them from the stores in San Francisco and send them to you or you could buy them from amazon, or preferably, microcosmpublishing.com/ (remember for buying cookbooks -or anything for that matter- local stores>the internet>corporate stores) But seriously, I really strongly suggest that you buy Vegan with a Vengeance first. I'm kinda biased because that's the first vegan cookbook I ever used, but I still think that it is the best, especially if you are new to cooking. She's very good at explaining ingredients and is really good at dumbing things down and giving you alternative ways to do things (for instance you need to use a double boiler but you don't have one so she tells you how to do it with out having to go buy new kitchen stuff).

Along with the books I suggest you check out vegweb.com (all vegetarian but not completely vegan or gluten free), http://glutenfreevegan.wordpress.com/ (awesome gluten free vegan blog), recipezaar.com (not all vegan or wheat free, but inclusive of both), and, of course, denstripea.blogspot.com Also, just google vegan/ gluten free recipes and you'll find lots of good recipes and food blogs.

Now, where to find this food...

Ralphs is pretty good at having vegan options around now and even Albertsons has vegan butter substitutes and tofu. But it is harder and more expensive to shop there and those stores just suck. Here I will list some of my favorite independent grocers that I have found to be very helpful.

Japanese Grocery
9552 Magnolia (corner of Magnolia and Van Buren next to Joes sushi)
They have cheap tofu, soy sauce, veggies, cheap rice, and lots of other strange ingredients that you either won't find at a corporate store or will get charged too much for at a corporate store.

Kings Market
10218 Indiana Avenue (near Tyler)
This is an Arabic market. They have suuuuuuper cheap spices and good prices on beans, hummus, bread, and other middle eastern specialty groceries. They also have cheap beer and cigarettes...just saying.

India sweets and grocery
779 West Blaine Street (near Iowa)
Indian specialty food and produce all dirt cheap. They also have a deli inside that is completely vegetarian. They have a thing called the Tali Special for 2.99$ They'll make it vegan if you ask and it's more food that I can usually eat.

La Sierra Natural Foods
11550 Pierce Street (near La Sierra University)
Completely vegetarian food store and burger shack. They have every meat and dairy substitute you could ever dream of and a wide selection of gluten free items. Some things are a bit pricey (their soy milk is usually a few cents more than the grocery store) but some things are a lot cheaper. Just pay attention to the prices. The burger shack out front has a few really good vegan options (vegan potato taquitos= omfg!)

Goodwins
191 West Big Springs Road
They are okay. Really pricey but have good vegan and gluten free items. They're dumpsters are usually full and really easy to get in to.

Clarks
4225 Market Street, Riverside (near 14th)
Natural food store. Similar to La Sierra Natural Foods but with more vitamins. Lot's of good vegan/gluten free substitute foods and bulk foods. They also have a little deli out front with a couple vegan options including a super yummy and super cheap breakfast burrito. This place is also really good at throwing away a lot of usable produce.

There are a couple more little markets that I can't think of off hand. Downtown especially has a decent amount of Hispanic grocers and Indian grocers that are full of vegan wonders, just keep your eyes open. I knew that Kings Market was a liquor store for years but had no idea that they had so much food because I always just glanced and assumed that everything was junk food.

There are also the farmers markets including:

5261 Arlington Av. (at Magnolia in the Sears parking lot) every Friday 8:30am-noon

There is also one downtown at the pedestrian mall on Main st. but I couldn't find it on the internet, I'm assuming that it doesn't happen during the winter time but keep an eye out for it. It used to be on Saturday mornings.

When looking at foods make sure to avoid some sneaky non-vegan ingredients such as casein (a milk protein) which is found in many soy/rice/nut cheeses, calcium stearoyl lactylate(a calcium source from bones), lactose, lactic acid (unless specified that it's vegetable derived), gelatin (gelatinized wheat flour/gelatinized flour is vegan but not gluten free), whey (milk protein), glycerin (unless specified that it's vegetable based), red 4 (dye made of beetle wings in a lot of make up, sometimes in food). Some vegans choose to ignore these things but it is really up to you. I avoid them all but in a pinch I'll ignore a calcium source or two...(don't judge me).

In case you're too lazy to read the cookbooks and cook the food Riverside has a pretty good amount of vegan friendly restaurants. A good resource to have is happycow.net You can type in pretty much any city in the world and it will tell you a list of vegan restaurants and food stores in the town. My favorite places to eat are the deli's listed above.

Pizza Kiln
12625 Frederick Street, Moreno Valley
Super yummy pizza, anyone know if they have a gluten free option?

Simple Simons
3639 Main St, Riverside
They have one vegan sandwich. It pretty much rules. I believe the only gluten free item they have is salad.

Back to the Grind
3575 University Ave, Riverside
This is dominantly a coffee shop. They occasionally have vegan food options and always have vegan cookies and baked goods. Talene is also a dear and will occasionally makes gluten free yummies. God bless you Talene.

Collette the Tamale Lady
Wanders the streets of downtown
Collette (who you may know from various IE Food Not Bombs chapters) now sells tamales down town. They are usually vegan (she'll tell you if they are or aren't) and often gluten free (sometimes they contain fake meat which is gluten based). She doesn't have a set time/day/location but you can check her myspace here: http://www.myspace.com/332163052

These are pretty much the only “vegan” things left in Riverside but there is a lot more hiding. Mexican food is easily vegan if you ask them to hold the cheese and sour cream (and make sure they don't use sour cream in their guacamole). Also make sure that there is no meat or lard in their beans and no chicken bullion in their rice. For gluten just order everything with corn tortillas instead of flour. Thai food is vegan if you get it with tofu instead of meat. Make sure tempuras are not made with egg and that they use only coconut milk and not cow milk. For gluten concerns make sure that there is no soy sauce involved and that any fried foods aren't fried with breaded foods. Tempura is sometimes gluten free, just ask what kind of flour they use. Chinese and Japanese foods are also easily vegan/gluten free if you ask the same questions. Indian food is generally vegetarian but frequently put butter in their food so ask them to hold the butter or what items they have that do not contain it. Arabic food is almost always vegan if it isn't meat, just double check that there isn't cheese on it. Both Arabic and Indian food is all gluten free with the exception of breads and phylo dough.

This is all I can think of at the moment. I havn't been to Riverside in quite a while but I'll be home soon and do some more research. I hope this helps all you Riversideans and people that will (for some God forsaken reason) visit/move to Riverside in the future.