Vegan Crunk: Sheridan Turns 37!

My best friend Sheridan turned 37 last week, but she lives two hours away in Little Rock, Arkansas, so I couldn't celebrate with her until this past weekend. We've been besties since junior high, so we've celebrated A LOT of birthdays together. I'm just a few months behind her (October), and we're getting old. But we're still tons of fun! And we certainly don't feel almost 40.

Paul and I drove down to Little Rock on Saturday to meet up with Sheridan and her partner Drew. Sheridan is a theater teacher, and she spent her summer off directing a production of Hedwig & the Angry Inch at Studio Theatre in Little Rock. This was opening weekend, so we combined her birthday celebration with a visit to the show. But first, she opened presents at her house. I got her an Origin of Love friendship necklace (from Hedwig!), an assortment of crystals, and some phases of the moon cocktail glasses.

And we met her and Drew's new kitties — Ari and Azure! They just adopted them from the shelter a few weeks ago. For some reason, I didn't get any photos of Azure (I'm terrible at photographing anything that isn't food), but we did get this shot of beautiful Ari!

Then we grabbed some dinner at Three Fold Noodle & Dumpling Co. downtown before the show. I got the Tofu & Shiitake Steam Bun Sandwich with Carrot Slaw. Y'all. Seriously. I wish I could eat this again and again. It's a large steam bun stuffed with marinated tofu, a daikon radish spread, and shiitake mushrooms. The carrot slaw was super garlicky and amazing.

And Three Fold has Dairy-Free Bubble Tea made with soymilk! Yay! It's so rare to find vegan versions of the milky bubble teas. In Memphis, I can only find the vegan bubble teas that are fruity.

After dinner, it was time for the show!

It was soooooo good! Anthony, who played Hedwig, is a drag queen in real life, and he NAILED Hedwig. Anthony's real-life BFF Brittany played Yitzhak, so they had amazing chemistry on-stage. We were all blown away by how great the show was. And bonus: We sat in the front row, and I got the carwash! (If you don't know what that means, watch this clip from the movie). Here's a shot with me and Anthony after the show.

After a drink at the theater lobby bar, we went back to Sheridan's for snacks, cocktails, and birthday dessert. Sheridan made her famous Vegan Onion Dip, and we had PB&J Oreos.

I usually make Sheridan cupcakes for her birthday, but Drew had made her cupcakes earlier in the week since her birthday fell on a Tuesday. So I made her a Cherry Pie instead!

We had our pie with scoops of So Delicious Vanilla Soy Ice Cream.

By the time we were done with pie and drinks, it was about 1 am, so we retired for the night. This morning, rather than go out for brunch as we usually do when I visit, we opted to cook at Sheridan's house. We made Vegan Biscuits & Sausage Gravy. So good!

And then before we hit the road back to Memphis, I tried one of Drew's Vanilla Birthday Cupcakes! These were yummy and so cute. He used the sprinkles Sheridan got in her August Goddess Provisions box (which I'll be blogging about tomorrow!).