This room was a garage. Now it’s a kitchen. The “chicken” is ready. Where’s all the grease?
At dinner hour at Elaine’s Healthy Choice, the grease couldn’t be found.
Three months after the vegan take-out restaurant opened at 117 Whalley Ave., replacing the Good News Garage, the walls inside the bright kitchen seemed as clean as the day they were painted. The floors were spotless. The air, too, was clean.
Elaine Bernard was cooking cabbage. Not only didn’t she use oil; she didn’t bother adding water to the pan. She counts on the water expressed by the cabbage to provide the steam.
She and her husband Richard had just finished preparing barbecued vegetarian faux-chicken for a customer. No oil there, either. Fried oil is bad for you, Richard said. And their restaurant is all about what’s good for you.
The Bernards are vegans. That means they don’t eat any food containing animal products, including eggs or dairy. They’ve been vegans since coming here 15 years ago from Jamaica.
For them, veganism is about health. So on top of the animal products prohibition, they avoid frying — and even avoid dark chocolate.
Click on the play arrow to the video above to watch them in the kitchen as they prepare cabbage, discuss Richard’s road to veganism, and explain why they serve carob instead of chocolate brownies.
Their restaurant brings the number of vegetarian restaurants in New Haven to four. The others are Ahimsa, an Indian vegan restaurant; and Claire’s Cornercopia and Edge of the Woods, which include many vegan dishes among their vegetarian items.
All four offer different menus, from different traditions. The Bernards cook with the accent of their native Jamaica, including a milder curry dominated by turmeric. Besides the soy-based meat substitutes, they serve split pea soup, curried lentil, “macaroni and cheese,” and “vege fish.”
Because the Bernards are Seventh Day Adventists, the restaurant is closed for the Sabbath, from Friday mid-afternoon through Sunday morning.
Richard left an accounting job to open the spot with Elaine, who was home with their three children. The younger two keep them company in the kitchen at the dinner hour.
Hard economic times didn’t daunt them.
“Even in a recession,” Richard said, “people can still eat wisely and healthy at the same time.”