BoBo Gallery is an art gallery, music venue, and vegetarian cafe all rolled into one. They are one of the few restaurants that seems to value the growing number of people who want vegan and gluten-free - not just one or the other. Their menu is mostly vegan and has extensive gluten-free options.

About half their menu is also raw and living foods, which is a first for Asheville. Other restaurants in town, such as Ophelia's and Laughing Seed, offer raw specials or a couple of raw salads, but BoBo has a full menu of raw appetizers, entrees, and desserts.

This little gem is rare in the world and Asheville should feel very fortunate to have it. I hope everyone will support BoBo Gallery and enjoy their awesome food and friendly, welcoming environment.

BoBo Gallery is located in downtown Asheville at 22 Lexington Ave.

Like a kid asking if it's Christmas yet over and over again, I've been running out to my garden every day for the last week, hoping to see a few plants sprouting up. I planted dino kale, winter lettuce, and rainbow chard 11 days ago and was starting to worry that my haphazard gardening system (if you can call it a system) was going to fail straight from the get-go.

You cannot imagine my joy at seeing little greens shooting up from all 3 rows. The dino kale has quite a few plants growing - a couple look like they are already an inch tall. The lettuce has about half a dozen sprouts, and I found just one chard sprout starting to grow.

After planting the seeds, as discussed in my last post, all I had to do to get the plants to this point was (1) water the garden regularly and evenly and (2) chase my cat out of the garden so he wouldn't use it as a litter box. Most times, both (1) and (2) happened simoultaniously.

My camera doesn't take very good closeups so there is a somewhat blurry picture of a few of the kale sprouts.

I made a commitment at the beginning of the year that I would plant a garden before the year ended. Here it is October and all I had was a big sheet of black plastic covering a big chunk of my back yard. I put it down in January to kill the weeds, thinking I'd have a thriving garden a few months later, but never got farther than pick axing some of the area to break up the dirt.

Yesterday, I called over to my favorite local gardening supply store and asked if there was anything at all I could still plant this late in the year here in Asheville. Lucky for me, they listed off a few of my favorite leafy green vegetables! They sent me away with 3 packets of seeds, a small box of fertilize, and some frost cover for the nights when it may drop below freezing.

To get the soil ready, I broke it up just a little more with a pick ax,  mixed in a cup of the fertilizer and just over half a bag of "Nature's Helper" (soil conditioner) I still had left over, and then mixed it all around and smoothed it out with a metal rake. I planted one row of seeds each of dino kale, winter lettuce, and rainbow chard.

To prevent my dog from turning into a nice cool, messy dog bed (and hopefully discouraging the cats from turning into a litter box), I picked up 30 ft. of garden fencing to protect it.

And so there you have it - I now officially have a garden. Smaller than I had envisioned but it's a start! We'll see in a few weeks how well it works out.

Bacevich is a breath of fresh air. Wouldn't it be nice if people like this guy were on the ballot? Go to the Bill Moyers Journal website to watch part 1 and part 2 of this interview with Andrew Bacevich.

Bacevich suggests that, as a country, we keep looking outward for the causes of our problems when we should instead be looking inward. Just goes to show that we really do get the government we deserve. As individuals, we tend to do the very same thing. Our government is a direct reflection of who we are.

It's time to cast your vote for the 2008 Veggie Awards and this year, Asheville's Laughing Seed Cafe has been nominated for "Favorite Vegetarian Restaurant"! VegNews Magazine will publish the winners in its 2008 Holiday edition.

I've eaten at about half of the restaurants on the list of nominees and I can honestly say that Laughing Seed is the best of the bunch. The only one that makes it competitive is Millenium, in San Francisco. The food at Millenium is absolutely amazing but it costs about 3 times as much to eat there and the food definitely isn't 3 times as good as Laughing Seed. If you agree that Laughing Seed is the best vegetarian restaurant around, make sure you vote!

While you're there, I'd like to plug some absolute favorites of mine, also up for awards:

• Pigs Peace Sanctuary - "Favorite Animal Sanctuary"
• Sidecar for Pigs Peace - "Favorite Vegan Storefront"
• Flying Apron Bakery - "Favorite Bakery"

Sidecar is a volunteer-run store and all its profits are used to support Pigs Peace Sanctuary. They need the publicity and deserve all the support you can give them. Their prices also tend to be lower than the nearby Whole Foods and PCC natural foods stores.

This video is rare in that it approaches veganism from a positive and hopeful perspective.  I'm not going to knock the disturbing factory farming videos with their  naked violence, and ominous music since that is what brought me to live a more compassionate lifestyle.

At this point, 15 years later, I can't bear to watch those movies anymore.  It's too painful and I don't feel that it helps me.  My life is no longer about being angry at the awfulness of the world.  It's about what I can do, as just one person, to make things better.  Maybe it isn't enough to end all suffering everywhere, but it is all I can do.  Being pissed off doesn't help anyone but myself - it's entirely self-indulgent.  Meanwhile the animals, the planet, and the people of the world go right on suffering.

It seems to me that a lot of people are reaching a similar conclusion in their own lives.  I am posting this video because I believe it is more in line with this new way of living and thinking than any other video on veganism that I have seen.  I hope you will watch it with an open heart and an open mind.

Call me a sentimental vegan if you like, but I can't bear to hurt nature's miraculous little robots - the ants. Even before I ever considered going vegetarian, I flicked one off a wooden foot bridge and into the creek below. The guilt of that moment haunted me for quite some time. Maybe it even still does a little.

About a week ago, ants discovered my cat food bowls. For several days in a row, I'd wake up in the morning to find ants swarming the uneaten food leftover from the cats' dinner the previous evening. Maybe it's the summer heat, but the cats have taken to slowly eating their food in a few phases, rather than wolfing it all down at once, thereby preventing me from cleaning their bowls thoroughly before I go to bed.

But no matter, I discovered a solution. The cat food moat! Simply find a tupperwear bowl or other shallow container that is slightly bigger than the food bowl, fill it with an inch or less of water, and center the food bowl in the middle. Make sure the food bowl is at least a half-inch away from all sides of the tupperware or the ants may still be able to make their way across without going near the water.

My kitchen is now completely ant-free! No harm came to any ants and I didn't need to poison my home with chemicals.

Outside the grocery store this weekend, a man was selling pints of blueberries, picked fresh on his farm that very morning. He had a couple of blueberry bushes for sale as well for $24.95 each. Always looking to be more self-sufficient, I couldn't resist taking my own blueberry bush home with me.

The farmer was happy to give me some advice about how best to plant it, and I got some further instruction from the guy at the local garden supply store.

Blueberry bushes can tolerate some shade, but the more sun they get the better they grow. Also, because my yard has a lot of clay, I need to take extra care to add some things to the soil so that the roots don't get soaked with water.

The farmer suggested that after digging a hole for the bush, that I put some mulch at the bottom to lift the roots up away from the clay. The bush should then sit a few inches higher than the level of the yard around it. That way, if it rains, the water will have somewhere to go, away from the roots, until it is able to absorb fully into the ground.

The man at the garden supply store recommended adding something called "Nature's Helper" which is a soil conditioner. It costs less than $3 for a 20 pound bag. He suggested that I mix in some of the yard dirt in with the Nature's Helper to "get the plant used to the yard."

They are the experts so I followed these instructions as best I could.

When I decided to start gardening (see earlier posts in this category) I really thought that by now I would have a lovely backyard garden, springing forth a bounty of fruits and vegetables. It's taking a long time to get that going. I need to bring in some decent dirt and finish loosening up what's there with a pickax. I've been dragging my feet on it quite a bit due to the expense and the effort involved.

But that's no reason not to get some other gardening projects done. I always thought that planting herbs around my front yard would be a practical and beautiful addition to the decorative plants that are already there. There is probably a "right" way to do that. Waiting until I found the motivation to look into all of that was just holding me back from actually doing it.

I've had a potted mint plant in my kitchen for months, doing quite well. I recently saw a cilantro plant for sale at the grocery store and just had to bring it home. My kitchen counter was getting too crowded so I figured it was time to plant the herbs.

So, what was the complex process for starting my "herb garden"? I dug a hole, planted the herbs, and gave them a little water. After 2 days, they look quite well. I'll post another picture after they've either flourished or died.

You know if Oprah is doing it, then half the soccer moms in the Western world are soon to follow. Oprah Winfrey is several days into a 21-day vegan cleanse. She will eat no meat, dairy, eggs, sugar, gluten, or caffeine. Good for Oprah!

Read the full story on People

This is the same woman who went to court with Howard Lyman, the "Mad Cowboy," over her comments that information about cows being fed to other cows "stopped me cold from ever eating another burger." Does anyone know if she stuck with that promise?

You go, Oprah!