Dinner is a battlefield

At this point, the most challenging aspect of maintaining veganimity is finding restaurants whose chefs geek out over vegetables the same way they obsess over meat and cheese—and don’t categorize fish as a vegetable. This ultimately means when veganizing a dish, it’s not about merely subtracting or substituting the flesh or dairy elements, but about rounding out the dish’s flavors to make the final product a satisfying work of art worth masticating. The chefs at the restaurants participating in the Sacramento Vegan Chef Challenge are up for the test. As of press time, the full list of eateries in the friendly monthlong competition had not been announced, but the V Word is particularly excited to see what Blackbird Kitchen+Beer Gallery (reopening mid-October, according to its Facebook page) concocts, after nailing it with a risotto burger last year. The Challenge goes from October 1 to October 31; see http://sacveganchallenge.com.