after dinner sneeze

t says:  Now, for those who’ve read adsz for a while, you know a few things for certain. 
#1) I’m not vegetarian.
#2) I’m certainly not vegan.
#3) I have no problems eating vegetarian/vegan for a meal or two (especially with good friends!) – but firmly believe that the goal is never to say, “wow! this is good for not having any animal products”, rather, just plain “wow! this is damn good [with no qualifications whatsoever]”. 

So, when I went to Pure Fare a while ago, I ordered up two of their cookies – one was chocolate-avocado and the other was some kind of chocolate chip …
They. were. super. gross.
Their textures were horrible, the flavors were horrible, and the price was horrible.  It was as if someone was playing a really mean practical joke on me (like making brownies with tofu).  I swore off Pure Fare …

… until now …
You see, they started advertising Blue Bottle coffee, a coffee which I have loved oh-so-much, both in NYC and SF (we visit every time we go to SF!). 

Pure Fare’s coffee isn’t quite as good as a real Blue Bottle’s coffee – I suspect the method of brewing is different.  Yes, Pure Fare uses Chemex, but it still contains a little bit more astringence than a lot of the products I’ve had at Blue Bottle (now of course, with so many brews available, it’s possible that it could just be literally a different coffee – but it could be due to technique).  Nevertheless, it’s close-by and tasty enough that I’ve had a mid-day cup on each of the past few days I was available.

But I wanted a little something to go with the coffee – a little bit of sweeet.  As I looked at the pastries and cookies they had, I could here myself saying, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”  So I bit the bullet, preparing to feel the shame …

This is a sweet potato chocolate brownie.  And to my surprise, it was delicious!  Yes, it’s dense and rich, but in a good-dense-and-rich-brownie sort of way.  It has intermittent chocolate chips.  (?”intermittent” chocolate chips? what the hell kind of phrase is that?  ugh – my worklife is invading my bloglife).  It’s nice and moist.  And no – there’s no essence of sweet potato anywhere.  It won’t impress people who like the corner brownies (lookin’ at you, k), but for middle-of-the-pan brownie lovers like me, it’s great!  Now it’s not going to usurp Ina Garten brownies, but as far as any store-bought or coffee-stand-bought brownies are concerned, I was very impressed.

The CRAZY part is that this is supposed to be a vegan item.  I’m no vegan expert, but I assume that means that there’s no butter or eggs or dairy.  So I’m not sure where the moisture is coming from – vegetable oil and sweet potato?  Beats me!  (Or if I was talking about their other chocolate pastry, it’d be “Beets me!”).

So maybe I’ll give Pure Fare some more props now, and maybe even try some other items in the future.  Just keep the Blue Bottle goin and I’ll be comin’ back for more …