Convert Concept Shop, Fast Vegans & Awful Offal

• CONVERT is a new concept shop in Berkley, CA featuring sustainable designers. It's the only store in Berkeley's Fourth Street shopping district to carry men's apparel. It also offers a selection of women's clothing, stylish accessories and Bay Area-based labels.

1809B Fourth Street, Berkeley, CA 94710   •   (510) 649-9759 Open: Monday – Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sunday – 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

• It's rad that another NBA star has gone vegan (for at least 4 days) but I can't help being ever-so-slightly insulted that Phoenix Suns player Amar’e Stoudemire considers this vegan diet a "fast". Call me crazy, but isn't a fast when you eat nothing at all? Clearly he hasn't had my Pistacio Crusted Seitan, or he'd be talking about his vegan feast. Full story at Ecorazzi.

• Just Offal. Did your food have a face...that you ate right off the skull? If the idea of eating face, entrails, scrotum, testicles, brain, snout, feet, heart, organs, blood pudding, heads, and tripe (rectum) makes you feel awful, it's no coincidence that offal sounds as bad as it's name. However, there is a huge and dedicated following of offal foodies, and I can only wonder if these people want something all-their-own just to give them cool points, street cred, or something of shock value? Or are they just more honest about what they're eating; the parts that everyone else throws away because they're "gross". A lot of people require the ambiguity of meat to enjoy it, but offal is difficult to hide whose body it came from, especially if you're eating a face or a brain.

I was especially disturbed by Pajata, a traditional dish from Rome. According to wiki, it refers to the intestines of an "un-weaned" calf, i.e., only fed on its mother's milk. The calf is killed soon after nursing. The intestines are cleaned, but the milk is left inside (how do you both clean the intestines, yet leave the contents in place?). When cooked, the combination of heat and the enzyme rennet in the intestines coagulates the milk and creates a sort of thick, creamy, cheese-like sauce. Blach! I thought veal was already sick, but this? Cooking the mothers milk inside her baby? Twisted. I'll stick to my walnut-mushroom pate and cashew cheese, thank you very much.