Halloween is nearly here and soon bags of sugary concoctions will be brought home to be devoured by little ones. For those of you who are vegan and have kids do you plan on trick-or-treating? Is there really much point in going door-to-door only to get candy that you can’t eat? If you are vegan and giving candy out what are you going to give, a vegan candy or otherwise?

We don’t plan on going trick-or-treating this year, but for those of you confused as to what to give out I did happen upon a bag of small play-doh cans at Target, 25 for $3.99 A pretty good deal and a very good alternative to the sugar overload.

I think I read at least one letter a week to the editor of The Tennessean voicing desire for a Trader Joe’s location in Nashville or just the outright prediction that it is happening but the time is not known the place is not known and the reason they know this information is unknown. People claim the reason it won’t come is the inability to sell wine by Tennessee liquor laws, some say it can happen anyway and cite other states as proof. Maybe there are other reason keeping Trader Joe’s out of this area, it is not like Tennessee is the last state in the US without a store. What’s keeping them out of Colorado? Boulder sounds like a dead-on perfect location. How about Maine?   I love Trader Joe’s, enough to make trips to Atlanta to pick up vitals and a location in this area would be most welcomed by me but I am afraid it’s not going to happen.

After a little over 3 years of this incarnation of the nashveggie.com messageboard the first troll has made its way in.  I don’t immediately plan on deleting this post or the user, I only see good things happening with this.

UPDATE 5/30/14: I just made a visit to J. Alexander’s and inquired before ordering, as I always do. I was told that the recipe for the veggie burger had recently changed and now contains egg. While vegetarian, the veggie burger from J. Alexander’s is no longer vegan.

If you haven’t tried the veggie burger at J. Alexander’s you should. It is made in-house, not a frozen shipped-in patty and is completely vegan AND prepared on a separate grill from the meat items. How do I know this? My wife spoke with the chef who prepares the burgers when he visited the store where she works. So far, this is the best veggie burger I have had in a restaurant. I visited the Coolsprings location but I did call the West End restaurant and asked about their veggie burger and they told me that it contained no eggs or dairy.