Vegan

IF VEDGE, the "vegetable restaurant," wasn't Philadelphia's most highly anticipated unveiling when announced, it surely is by now. Despite early promises of a "late summer" debut, it will still be a week and a half (or so) before Philadelphians can try this next step from the people behind Horizons. So what took so long? "It's excruciating," chef/co-owner Rich Landau admitted last week. "We wanted to be open a month ago, and I can only send out my apology to anyone who's missed a special date or an experience at Horizons or Vedge.

FOR 18 YEARS while growing up in Dallas, Victor Galli ate the standard meat and dairy diet. But when he entered his freshman year at the University of Pennsylvania, Galli took notice of all the nonmeat eaters and, for no particular reason, decided to try vegetarianism. People began warning him to "watch out" for vegetarianism, that it might be bad for his health, and Galli began to feel slightly bothered. Now a junior biochemistry nutrition major at Penn, Galli is the co-founder of the Penn Vegetarian Society, an organization that he and two dormitory floor mates created during the spring of 2009.

PART-TIME vegans are cropping up everywhere. There's the veggie-themed Meatless Mondays, a wartime campaign revived in 2003 by Johns Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health. And New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman has touted his daily "vegan until 6 p.m. " plan for a while. In February the trend truly arrived with Oprah Winfrey's One-Week "Vegan Challenge": 378 Harpo staff members went animal-free for a week - no meat, no dairy, no eggs - and many chatted about their experiences with food gurus Michael Pollan and Kathy Freston.

WERE YOU AWARE that October is Vegetarian Awareness Month? No? OK, we just have to try harder in the 27 days we have left. Fortunately, there's a campaign now picking up steam that makes the job easier. Volunteers with the Humane League of Philadelphia are connecting with veg-friendly eateries to tout their plant-based and cruelty-free offerings. They've come up with a small but eye-catching sticker the businesses can affix to an outside door or window that says "Vegan Options Inside.

I MAY NOT BE the first to notice this, but, geez, what a year, huh? I mean for veg dining in Philly, of course. Long a pioneer in this area (hey, without us there would have been no American Vegetarian Society back in 1850), our town is really moving into the big leagues. This year saw the opening of four noteworthy plant-based businesses, each carving a slightly different niche in a different neighborhood. HipCityVeg has taken Rittenhouse Square by storm (superstorm?) with its mix of burgers, salads and green smoothies.

Brave! Nicole Marquis is so brave. Visionary, too. In April, she opened HipCityVeg, an organic apple's toss from verdant Rittenhouse Square. Let us pause for a moment and parse her restaurant's name. Hip. City. Veg. For an eternity in Philadelphia, only one of those adjectives ever held true. You know, the city part. Philadelphia was so many things, but hip and healthy were not two of them. The first time I saw Marquis' place, I did a double take. The line was snaking down South 18th, coiling around Sansom, the young and not-so-young, including swells who were clearly not vegan, a Birkin-packing woman with her companion sockless in Guccis.

THANKS FOR Vance Lehmkuhl's Yo!Food section cover story (May 30). It's nice to have a vegan slant on things, especially during the mad cow/foot-and-mouth panic with millions of animals slaughtered and incinerated. What a perfect time to break the chain of flesh-eating! The grain and resources spent on raising animals for food would be better utilized feeding starving people directly. Joe Noce, Broomall As a vegan, it was good to see such an informative article in a mainstream publication.

AH, THE CORNUCOPIA: symbol of food abundance. A "horn of plenty" overflowing with food. And all of it 100 percent vegan. Wait, how can that be? Where's the deprivation, the scarcity, the righteous self-denial? Who came up with such a crazy symbol? It's actually logical, of course, because the cornucopia is a "harvest" icon, which means plant produce - and nowadays plant foods are being shared in more abundant variety and diversity than ever, if you know where to look. After I covered Bethlehem's VegFest, I reaped a bumper crop of comments pointing out veggie celebrations, although smaller-scale, much closer to home.

HERE are some well-loved sources for fish-free sushi, the "Top Five," though there are many places around town. Vegans and vegetarians should confirm the absence of fish-based "dashi" broth.   Fat Salmon (719 Walnut St., 215-928-8881, fatsalmonsushi.com ). Despite the name, this is one of the vegan-friendlier sushi places around, with three signature "veggie" rolls — the "Old School," the "Tofuholic" and "Lipstick Trace. " Terryin (358 Snyder Ave., 215-218-2888)

As part of my arduous research for this article, I sampled some eggless chocolate brownies from Allison's Gourmet ( www.allisonsgourmet.com ) and thought that they were pretty darn good. But as a vegan, I might be biased, so I handed around a couple of trays to the toughest customers of all - the reporters and editors in the Daily News newsroom. The result? Accolades almost across the board. The word I heard most often was "tasty," followed by "excellent" and "delicious. " Two people independently remarked that they didn't get the unpleasant aftertaste that they had expected.