The Death On The Nile reboot has become something of a hot potato for what could have been a home run, even during the pandemic. We’re getting an Agatha Christie adaptation from director Kenneth Branagh that stars Wonder Woman leading lady Gal Gadot, after all. Unfortunately for 20th Century Studios and Disney, Gal’s co-star, Armie Hammer, has been swallowed up by a social-media controversy (which he has called “bullsh*t”) that aired out alleged “cannibal” texts and accusations of rape against him. Hammer subsequently dropped out of Shotgun Wedding (starring Jennifer Lopez), but Death On The Nile was already too far into the thick of things to erase him.
The film did, however, attempt to minimize him in the newest trailer, but yup, it’s hard to convince anyone to watch an Armie Hammer movie these days. That’s not the only source of cast controversy, though. The film’s set to hit theaters this weekend, but two countries announced that it won’t be welcome there. As Deadline confirms, both Lebanon and Kuwait decided to pull the plug on screenings out of protest for Israeli-born Gadot, who served two (mandatory) years in her native country’s army. As Deadline further explains, the Gadot ban in these countries is an ongoing practice:
Given her connection to the IDF, Lebanon previously blocked the actress’ movie Wonder Woman from release in May 2017. At the time, the country was reportedly prompted to do so by the group Campaign to Boycott Supporters of Israel-Lebanon. Wonder Woman was also banned in Qatar. Wonder Woman 1984 was banned in Lebanon as well, however, at the time Kuwait theaters were closed at that point in time during the pandemic.
Gadot saw some backlash come her way last year when she tiptoed into the Israel-Hamas conflict over on on Twitter (she subsequently turned off replies), given that nearly any comment made on the subject is seen as incendiary by those who don’t agree.
With that said (and as noted by Page Six), Death On The Nile has a few other cast members who could be seen as political firebrands. One of them, Letitia Wright, came under fire for her expressed anti-vaxxer views. And Russell Brand got called out last year for an apparent far-right-wing bender, a label that he’s pushing back on, and that’s probably not the last word on that note. So, one can only guess how the Disney-distributed movie will fare on its February 11 release date (later to stream) in the U.S.
After a wild NBA trade deadline day, there was still an NBA transaction yet to happen on Thursday night as LeBron James and Kevin Durant needed to draft their All-Star squads.
The festivities got started with Kevin Durant addressing the James Harden trade, as they recorded the draft right after that news broke. Durant was drafting for a team he wouldn’t play on, and LeBron took advantage of his fifth year as a captain (4-0) to use some savvy in his draft strategy and steal some advantages. After Durant took Joel Embiid with his first pick, LeBron left Jokic for his final pick knowing KD wasn’t likely to select two centers, and then later left James Harden on the board the entire reserve selection, knowing Durant wouldn’t want to pick him after he just forced his way out of Brooklyn, leading to some hilarity on the TNT set.
It was the most entertaining All-Star Draft yet, and while both sides are stacked with talent as one would expect with an All-Star Game, you’d be hard pressed to find many that wouldn’t name Team LeBron as a favorite for the Feb. 20 exhibition in Cleveland.
TEAM DURANT
Joel Embiid
Ja Morant
Jayson Tatum
Andrew Wiggins
Trae Young
If you ask the average baseball fan about great Negro League players, they’ll probably bring up people like Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige or James “Cool Papa” Bell. Obviously, there are plenty of Negro League players that should be on the tip of any sport’s fan’s tongue, but the discrimination at the time meant that a lot of great names were never elevated to the status they deserved.
Google is paying tribute to a Negro League player from the ‘40s and ‘50s who should be known by Americans everywhere whether they like baseball or not. Marcenia “Toni” Stone, the first woman in history to play as a regular in a men’s major baseball league, is the subject of a new Doodle that’s gracing the front page of the search engine.
Stone should be known for her play on the field as well as the incredible tenacity that allowed her to break the gender barrier at a time when the thought of women in sports ruffled a lot of feathers.
“I am a woman, a Black woman, and I want and will play men’s baseball. I’m not even getting paid the same amount of money these guys are making. But I do it because I love the game, and I do it to show other women that they can do it too. Remember, a woman has her dream too,” she used to say.
The Doodle was created by California-based artist Monique Wray.
Stone loved baseball as a child but she was only allowed to play on the girls’ softball team and their level of play just wasn’t good enough for her. So she hung around the high school baseball team and badgered the coach until he gave her a shot.
“I just couldn’t get rid of her until I gave her a chance,’’ the coach recalled. ‘‘Every time I chased her away, she would go around the corner and come back to plague me again.’’
At just 15 years of age, she broke the gender barrier by joining the all-male semi-pro Twin Cities Colored Giants in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After moving to the west coast to live with her sister, she did it again in the spring of 1949 by talking her way onto the roster of the San Francisco Sea Lions. After learning that she was paid less than her male teammates, she joined the New Orleans Creoles, where she played for three seasons.
After playing professionally with teams in the West Coast Negro Baseball League and Negro Southern League, Toni Stone made history when she played for the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro American League in 1953. #BlackHistoryMonth https://twitter.com/GoogleDoodles/status/1491275693300363269u00a0u2026pic.twitter.com/EdcJec8s4c
In 1953, Stone joined the Indianapolis Clowns where she played second base. She took over for Henry “Hank” Aaron, who had just signed with the Milwaukee Braves. In 1954, she played for the legendary Kansas City Monarchs but quit after the season due to a lack of playing time.
Life in the Negro Leagues was difficult for the male players, and for a woman, it was even harder. She endured barbs being thrown at her from the audience as well as her fellow players, who couldn’t stand having a woman on the team.
Stone was taunted at times by teammates, once being told, “Go home and fix your husband some biscuits,” but she was undeterred.
Stone claims that during her playing days she got a hit off of the legendary pitcher Satchel Paige, but the anecdote has been disputed.
“He was so good that he’d ask batters where they wanted it, just so they’d have a chance. He’d ask, ‘You want it high? You want it low? You want it right in the middle? Just say.’ People still couldn’t get a hit against him,” she said, according to Baseball Reference.
“So I get up there and he says, ‘Hey T., how do you like it?’ And I said, ‘It doesn’t matter, just don’t hurt me.’ When he wound up—he had these big old feet—all you could see was his shoe. I stood there shaking, but I got a hit. Right out over second base. Happiest moment in my life,” she continued.
After Stone retired from baseball she moved to Oakland, California to be with her husband.
Stone was inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame in 1993 and the Minnesota Sports Hall of Fame on February 9, 2020
People and their pets are almost always a winning combo, but pets going above and beyond the call of duty for their humans is the best.
Reddit users are sharing the kindest things their furry friends have done for them, from emotional support to literally saving their lives, and if this doesn’t make you say, “Awww” you might want to get your heart checked.
It started with someone sharing a screenshot of a story from Sarah Booth:
“My parents had a dog named Charlie who was absolutely terrified of the vacuum cleaner. But after I was born, any time my mother vacuumed, Charlie would stand steadfast between me and the vacuum cleaner. ‘Trembling in every limb,’ my mother says, but determined to protect baby-me from the monster.”
Aww, right?
Then people started sharing their own stories of amazing pet savior behavior.
“I have a dog that does this! Before the kids were born, she would hide in one of the bedrooms when I was vacuuming. After the kids were born, she’s visibly uncomfortable, but stays in the room to make sure everything is above board with the situation.
“She’s too funny when my daughter has a sleepover with her cousin. The dog gets super excited to be part of the sleepover too. She just smiles as big as she can. She’s dumb as a box of rocks, but she is by far the sweetest and kindest dog I’ve ever had.” – NailFin
“My dog would wake me up several times a night by licking my face then lay back down right next to me. I couldn’t figure it out and it was starting to irritate me. Several months later I found out I have sleep apnea and he was licking my face every time I stopped breathing.” – ResponsibleBasil1966
“My parents owned a boxer when I was not two. They took us to the lake and he would not leave my side or let me go deeper than my ankles. Dempsey was a good boy.” – QCFENUPXJL
“In elementary school I had a bad allergy to dogs, which sucked for me because my grandparents had a dog and we visited them every week for half of the year. I used to be sad since I couldn’t pet or play with her at all, but she would keep trying to jump on me. There was a chair that my grandparents would vacuum for me before each visit so that I’d have a place to sit without triggering my allergy.
“Eventually, the dog seemed to understand that I couldn’t touch her. My grandparents told me that she would stop jumping on that chair, and after a while she did a special ‘greeting’ for me. While she’d jump up to the other members of my family, she’d pass her favorite ball to me, which was one of the only games I could safely play with her.
“Then I grew out of the allergy, and I finally got to actually play with her.” – placeholderNull
“I had a dog who would walk me to the bus stop everyday. One time I missed the bus, and it was raining really hard. I had to walk a few blocks to go get the bus in a other stop. And I tried showing him away so he could go back home and not get so wet. But he followed me to the other bus stop and stayed with me until the bus driver picked me up. It’s not much but it was one of the most loyal things a dog has done for me.” – theevilhillbilly
“My Dad had an Irish terrier named Ginger. The neighbor had left her baby in a carriage outside the house. The carriage started to roll into the street. Ginger barked and created a ruckus . The lady came outside to save the baby and told my Dad that Ginger had saved her baby.” – agedchromosomes
“My dog is terrified of my basement. To the point where if I try to carry him down the stairs, he jumps back and runs away. One time, I was really sick, like to the point where I felt like it was my last ride, and I had to go downstairs to do my laundry as I live alone, and after a violent coughing fit, I hear a small pattering of nails on the wooden steps behind me. I turn to look, and he’s halfway down the stairs, shaking, trying to slowly go down each step, just to be with me. He looked relieved when he saw me, and stopped shaking, and I carried him back upstairs and slept on the floor with him. If I wasn’t already snotty and covered in tears from my illness, I would’ve broken down even more.” – Red-XlIl
“When I was two my grandma’s dog saved me from drowning. I had escaped the house early one morning before anyone else had woken up and wandered to the lake and fell in.
“The dog, bell, had seen me leave the house and followed me to the lake. She dragged me out of the lake to the highway that was near by.
“There was a guy who had car trouble seen bell dragging me and came over to her. At first she didn’t allow him to touch me but then realized he wanted to help.
“She watched him closely and they eventually made it back to the house and seen my mom and grandma frantically looking for me. My family was grateful to her.” – rx7blue
“Anytime I get really upset my cat starts rubbing herself all over me and pushes for me to sit so she can lay on my lap. Petting her immediately makes me feel better. It’s weird because as soon as she senses that I’m upset she comes to be with me even if she was doing her own thing right before.” – Adventurous_Owl6554
“My parents had a cat named Casper when I was 2 years old. We lived in Arizona and Casper and I were out sitting in the lawn with my mother watching me through the window as she did dishes.
“Out of nowhere, Casper begins flipping out. Jumping up and down and hissing and my mom looks closer and sees a rattlesnake headed directly for me about 5 feet away. My mom freaked out and ran for a broom on her way out front. Casper, as terrified as he must’ve been, was provoking the snake and attempting to get it to alter its path. My mom arrived just in time to see Casper get bit and she began hitting and shooing it away with me in her arms.
“Casper died like 30 minutes later and my parents were heartbroken but thankful. Obviously, I don’t remember this, but I love hearing of our heroic Casper who literally gave his life for me.” – Ez13zie
“While my dog was out with his dog walker, he wouldn’t join the pack to go home. Just sat at the top of a 6’ bank above a river until a person came to get him. At that point, the person realized there was another dog stuck in the river mud below. She jumped down to rescue the dog, but couldn’t climb back up…so had to grab my dog’s collar to pull herself up (he was a Great Dane).
“I always knew my dog was awesome. Nice to get 3rd party validation.” – Guseatsstuff
“In high school I was suicidal as I had a bunch of undiagnosed mental health problems that had accumulated. My one dog who has anxiety herself knew something was wrong. And never let me alone in my room or in the bathroom. If it was just us home she was my shadow if others were in the house she’d always make sure to come check on me. I ended up talking with my parents with everything eventually but until I found the courage to she was like an angel watching over me to keep me safe. She saved my life… she just turned 10 and I don’t know how I’ll cope when she’s gone…” – Alymae_B
Seriously, these animal friends are amazing and prime examples of how pets can add enormous value to our lives. Here’s to our furry friends who watch over us and care for us as much as we care for them.
The Brooklyn Nets ended one big three with the hopes of forming another on Thursday when the team pulled off a trade deadline swap with the Philadelphia 76ers. The deal was headlined by Philly landing James Harden and Ben Simmons heading to Brooklyn, ending two of the most high-profile sagas we have had in the NBA this year.
The trade happened right around lunchtime on Thursday, and later in the day, Kevin Durant was put into a position to respond. Durant and LeBron James are the two captains for the 2022 NBA All-Star Game, and on the heels of the deadline, the pair went onto TNT to select their teams ahead of the league’s upcoming trip to Cleveland. Durant was asked to give his thoughts on the trade, and gave an answer that made clear that something was amiss in Brooklyn.
“I’m excited for our team,” Durant said. “Looking forward to finishing the season out with this new group and these new players. The playoffs are right around the corner, we gotta fast track into getting used to each other. But I’m excited, I think everybody got what they wanted.”
When asked by Charles Barkley if the Nets have a psychiatrist on staff because of everything that’s going on in Brooklyn, Durant replied, “What I gotta deal with? I’m making millions of dollars playing basketball.” Soon after, Durant picked Harden’s new teammate Joel Embiid with his first pick in All-Star draft.
If there was a lifetime achievement award for skateboarding, they’d probably name the trophy after Tony Hawk (maybe one already exists?) At any rate, Hawk just doesnt slow down and always seems to be in the news. In the last year alone, Hawk was announced as the subject of a documentary by the Duplass Brothers, tried his hand as an Olympic pro skating commentator (he quickly bailed), and was even caught in the middle of kerfuffle with Lil Nas X about skateboards painted with blood. Now he has announced the first ever Tony Hawk’s Weekend Jam festival of music and skate culture in Las Vegas.
The three day event is going down at the Downtown Las Vegas Events Center from from May 12th to 15th and it’s a collision of rock bands and legendary pro skaters. On the music side of things, Modest Mouse, Descendents, and Devo are topping the lineup, with Andy MacDonald, Bucky Lasek and Steve Caballero among a radical list of pro skaters who’ll be participating in events throughout the weekend. Hawk’s son, Riley, will even be playing with his band Warish, too.
Presented by Pollen, Weekend Jam is an all-inclusive festival and accommodation experience that promises “Skate Contests, Vert Alert Exhibition Hosted by Tony, Skate Shop, Gaming Activation From GCN, Live Bands, Food Trucks, and more.”
Other skaters currently slated to attend include Christian Hosoi, Kevin Staab ,Lizzie Armanto, Rune Glifberg, and Sandro Dias, Steve Caballero. While on the music side, X, Cold Cave, The Vandals, Rough Francis, and The Downhill Jam will all be on stage.
Whether you’re a staunch vegan or a hardcore carnivore, it’s easy to see that the vegan food space is more exciting than it’s ever been. Store shelves, fast food menus, restaurant concepts — they’re all beefing up (pun very much intended, sorry) efforts to cater to the palates of vegans and vegetarians across the nation. Why? Speaking broadly, meat consumption is on the decline. Bloombergreports that the United States, Brazil, Argentina, and the whole of Europe are buying less meat than ever before. Now granted, a lot of that has to do with the rising price of meat and environmental concerns, but those reasons are more than enough to drive many of us to eat less meat when cooking at home.
Thankfully, people like Pinky Cole — CEO, and co-founder of the massively popular Slutty Vegan — are making it easier for us meat-eaters to expand and rethink the ways we think about the food we stuff in our maws. It’s less about ditching flavor and the “fun” of food and more about experiencing new flavors. That’s exciting. The success of Slutty Vegan in Atlanta, a city known for its love of big burgers, fried chicken, and barbecued meats, is a testament to Cole’s mastery of turning veggies into the sorts of umami bombs diners love.
Photo Courtesy Of Pinky Cole
Now Cole wants to give us the tools to make delicious plant-based food on our own as she prepares to drop her first cookbook, Eat Plants Bitch, which features 91 recipes of “vegan comfort food,” that expand upon and capture the magic of her flagship restaurant. Unfortunately, Eat Plants Bitch doesn’t drop until June 21st (the book is available for pre-order now) but anticipating Super Bowl Sunday, we hit up Cole for some quick snack recipes to liven up our Sunday spread and picked her brain for her thoughts on the current food space.
What can you tell us about Eat Plants Bitch, What makes it different than other cookbooks out there?
Eat Plants Bitch is basically a combination of recipes that the meat-eater would typically eat, but it’s all made plant-based. I wanted to create a book that speaks to the audience of the people who come to Slutty Vegan. 90 percent of the people who eat at Slutty Vegan are meat eaters, so our audience is the person that has no desire to be vegan but are trying vegan options, so when I came up with Eats Plant Bitch, I wanted that to be an extension of that concept.
I wanted people who eat meat to say “you know what, maybe I don’t want to go vegan but as long as I have this cookbook I can create different menu items with the recipes in this book without feeling like I have to give up the things that I love, like burgers and fries, Philly cheesesteaks, all of that good stuff” and that’s what makes it different. I’m not specifically talking to the vegan audience, vegans already get it, but we’re really tapping into the minds of the person who really likes to eat meat and doesn’t necessarily want to compromise.
What would you say to meat-eaters regarding why is it important to adopt vegan food into their lifestyle? Why should we all be lowering our meat consumption?
We save the planet when people eat less meat, that’s a given. People don’t realize, even I had to learn this, the emissions and the gas that animals give off affect our economy, our world and our ecosystem. The less meat people eat, the healthier we are in the end. But to tell people to eat less meat is not really my message, my message is to just have options. I want people to feel comfortable in the options that they have. So I’ll tell you, the first thing I want you to do is come to Slutty Vegan, if you don’t live in Atlanta or Georgia, take it one step at a time.
I think the goal in life is if we can get more people to be vegan it’s a win, but everybody is not going to make that lifestyle switch, so what we can do is make people think about food differently, which is why I love to help people reimagine food.
I think there is a misconception in the vegan space that vegans are throwing their agenda on people or forcing people to eat vegan, and I think that it pushes people away, well, for the past few years anyway. I’m just taking a different approach, it’s just necessary for people to understand food differently than they’ve known it before. Most people, up until recently, weren’t really interested in vegan food because they had this misconception that it was nasty and didn’t taste good. “This won’t do anything for me I’m going to stick to my meat.” Now we can educate people in the funnest way, I think that people are starting to adapt and allowing themselves to make their own decisions.
Could you explain to us the Slutty Vegan ethos? What do those words mean to you?
We create a cultural experience that helps people to reimagine food. The keyword here is “experience” and that’s the internal and external experience. When I came up with Slutty Vegan I knew that customer service was the key to keeping me in business and keeping the consumer coming back. We’ve never paid for paid advertisements, people come to Slutty Vegan because they love the energy, they love the vibe, they love the frequency of what we offer. What we do here is create an ultimate experience for you that is memorable, like an amusement park or a family reunion, by the time you leave you don’t even realize that you just had a vegan burger and you just started the first step in changing your lifestyle, but it’s a cultural experience.
And when I say “cultural” I don’t mean a black or white thing, culture can be many things, right? We bring people together in the name of food from around the world and we do that through a fun ultimate safe space where people can just be themselves, and that’s internal and external.
Slutty Vegan is literally a place where you can be all of the things you can imagine. How we build and grow this company is a universe of Black excellence, and excellence and general, and it feels good to know that we’re part of an empire that is teaching people about love and community and family and showing up in a way that is tasteful but we still get the job done in the funnest way.
What’s the easiest dish from the book you’d recommend for beginners? Can you walk us through that process?
Street Corn, anyone can make street corn. Start with four ears of yellow or white corn, remove the husk, then you just need some salt, some mayonnaise, hot sauce, vegan parmesan cheese, some Chinese chives, vegan butter, and minced garlic. You can choose to add paprika and cayenne pepper, to each their own, but all you’ve got to do is boil your corn, put all of those ingredients together, top them, and voila, that’s about the easiest recipe you can make and you don’t have to be a cook to do that.
Photo Courtesy of Pinky Cole/Simon & Schuster
On the flip side, for the more advanced vegan what recipe from your book is really going to blow minds?
I have a paella and vegan shrimp recipe. Not everyone can make paella, I barely could make it before I learned how. But I love it. I wanted to put this recipe inside as a curveball because you usually get paella from a restaurant unless you really know how to cook but I wanted the everyday person to be able to make this with a vegan shrimp.
For this recipe I use Chorizo, vegan bacon strips, slutty vegan bacon strips actually, I use garlic, tomato, tomato paste, paprika, some crushed tomatoes, some Spanish Paella rice, I use a vegan broth, you can get that easily from Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods, onion powder, garlic powder, pepper, some saffron threads, and then the jumbo vegan shrimp.
Cook up the rice sauté the ingredients, add them all together sautéed the shrimp, voila that’s your paella. Yes that’s a little more complex than the corn, but if you really know how to follow directions, it’ll taste like your favorite Spanish restaurant. This is why I created these recipes, I wanted the everyday person whether vegan or not to be able to say “I can do this, this is easy and its fun and it tastes good, and it’s vegan” so there are wins across the board!
I know you have a lot of famous fans has anyone left you most starstruck? I know Snoop Dogg, Justin Timberlake, Queen Latifah, and Tiffany Haddish have all shown up.
My most memorable experience was with Snoop Dogg — that experience was so dope, he was so laid back and so cool. Most celebrities are high-energy, he was just chill, you can tell he has been doing this for a long time. He said “I’m so proud of you, these fries taste so good” I don’t know if it was the weed or what but his energy was magnetic.
Justin Timberlake just recently came, not so much starstruck but it was a full-circle moment. I grew up watching Justin Timberlake. For him to have my food and he gave us a post, celebrities don’t do that, he put that on his page to support us and we didn’t even ask for it, he just did it on his own and that made me feel good.
Oh you know what my most memorable was actually? Alicia Silverstone, She came to my restaurant but she was incognito, no one knew it was her she was so low key. I ended up doing a podcast with her and she said “I went to your restaurant.” Her energy was so dope. I’m sure the world already knows this but more need to know how amazing she is. And she sent me some gifts in the mail, she was just so special it went beyond the restaurant.
And that’s what I love about Slutty Vegan, it’s not just a one transaction exchange — we’re building relationships with people and that for me makes it feel more familiar. This is not a brand where we just collect money and provide a service, we’re building an empire based around family and that feels good.
I wanted to ask about your burger with Shake Shack, the Slutty Shack. Are there ever any plans to bring that nationwide?
We did it in Atlanta and New York and the response was so crazy that people kept reaching out. I can’t say that there is going to be anything in the near future, but what I can say is that we created such a demand that I’m sure that people will be happy if we put that on their menu permanently.
The burger has Slut Dust… what is Slut Dust?
Let me tell you something funny. Slut Dust is Slutty Vegan’s fry seasoning that we put on every single fry that you taste… but first of all, I don’t know the first thing about adding seasonings together, I just use my tongue and taste it. When I started Slutty Vegan I knew that I needed a fry seasoning so I started playing with some seasonings and it actually tasted good. It was so good that people are like ’we gotta buy this seasoning’ so it’s my own proprietary recipe, and now we sell our retail Slut Dust and people love it. We sell it off the shelves almost every single week. You can put it on everything, you can put it on vegetables, hey you could put it on meat, it’s become a staple in people’s kitchens.
What do you think of the fast food space, what restaurant is catering best to vegans and vegetarians? Do you have a go-to pick?
The easiest is fries and a side salad, you can’t go wrong with that and you can get it at virtually any restaurant as long as they don’t make the fries in a beef juice. But the good thing about what’s happening in the vegan space, and I like to think Slutty Vegan anchored that — we were the guinea pigs in jumpstarting the fast food vegan movement on a mainstream level that now all the big mainstream restaurants are starting to add vegan options to their menu. You can go to other big-name restaurants and get chicken nuggets and burgers and fries and meat substitutes that are vegan.
It’s so much easier now to go vegan because now we have options. I can remember back in the day being a vegan and being isolated, there used to be one item on the menu that used to be vegan, and I was still happy about it, now I can go to any restaurant for the most part and there are at least two or three options that are vegan and that makes me feel good.
I think that the vegan fast food space is emerging I think it’s really opening up. I like to say that Pinky Cole and Slutty Vegan really had a hand in making that movement as popular as it is today.
From your perspective, what is the fast food space doing right or doing wrong?
For a long time, they got this wrong but now they see an opportunity — They didn’t cater to everybody. Not everyone eats meat. The basics on the regular fast food menu are not for everyone and I think it crippled business a bit because I don’t think they realized how big of an audience the vegan and plant-based lifestyle movement was. Now I think they are utilizing this opportunity to be able to add to their menus.
I think one thing that can be fixed in a typical space is really separating what is vegan and what is not. Everyone wants to add vegan options to their menu but you have to know what oils to cook the food in, what oils not to cook the food in, making sure that you’re not cross-contaminating. I think that fast food restaurants still don’t have that tip top but I’m hopeful they’ll get it right because I too, as a consumer, want to be able to go to a fast food restaurant and get some food without wondering if it was made in the same oil as chicken or beef.
But it’s definitely showing how much progress we’ve made in the last four years. I can guarantee you before I started Slutty Vegan it did not look like this. The only place where there were so many vegan options was LA and now you see a lot of options in other places. They just have to identify the difference between straight vegan, or this is a vegan sandwich, but this is not vegan bread.
KFC just dropped a plant-based chicken, but it is fried in the same oil as their regular oil, so not technically vegan.
Exactly, they’re still trying to figure it out. I want more fast food restaurants to be more intentional about adding these items to the menu versus just adding them to make money just because the trend is hot right now.
To close out, what is the perfect vegan snack to make for Super Bowl Weekend?
I have a Vegan Hot’lanta chicken dip that’s coming out and a spinach dip. You will see that recipe very soon. Super Bowl is a very fun event and a time where people come together as a family. My dip will be number one, but aside from that, you can’t go wrong with vegan beef egg rolls.
Everybody loves an egg roll you can make at home. They taste so delicious. Now I can have a vegan egg roll and eat that around the Super Bowl and dip that in a sweet sauce!
Well, that didn’t take long. Less than two hours after Kanye West posted on Instagram demanding that Billie Eilish apologize to his would-be Coachella special guest Travis Scott for her comments during a recent show, Eilish responded in the comments to notify West that she not only has no intentions of doing so but she also doesn’t have anything to apologize for.
Kanye, who, like many, interpreted Eilish’s recent comments as a dig at Travis Scott posted the all-caps demand after apparently coming across an Instagram gossip account’s report of the facts. “COME ON BILLIE WE LOVE YOU PLEASE APOLOGIZE TO TRAV AND TO THE FAMILIES OF THE PEOPLE WHO LOST THEIR LIVES NO ONE INTENDED THIS TO HAPPEN TRAV DIDN’T HAVE ANY IDEA OF WHAT WAS HAPPENING WHEN HE WAS ON STAGE AND WAS VERY HURT BY WHAT HAPPENED,” he wrote, before adding the threat, “NOW I NEED BILLIE TO APOLOGIZE BEFORE I PERFORM [at Coachella, where Billie is also set to headline].” This is the rockstar equivalent of getting skunked at pickup so you take your ball and go home, but Billie handled the situation as graciously as could be.
“Literally never said a thing about Travis,” she reminded the mercurial rapper. “Was just helping a fan.” This is, in fact, what she did, stopping her show mid-performance to ensure a fan who couldn’t breathe got an inhaler while noting, “I wait for people to be OK until I keep going.” Some construed this as a slight toward Travis Scott, who reportedly performed for nearly 40 minutes during the Astroworld mass casualty disaster, but anyone who’s been to enough shows can tell you this is something performers say quite a lot — I mentioned in my recap of 2019’s Real Street Fest that Kanye’s own former artist Big Sean did and said as much during his own set.
Billie Eilish responds to Kanye West asking her to apologize for allegedly dissing Travis Scott:
If Travis Scott’s feeling guilty, that’s on him to settle with his own conscience. And while Kanye is running around demanding apologies perhaps he should consider offering one of his own for the last five years he subjected us all to.
So far, Saweetie‘s had the most success with two kinds of singles. The first is throwback party jams like “Icy Grl,” “My Type,” and “Tap In,” fun tracks built on samples of 106 & Park staples that net the nostalgia of her peers (and the unfortunate derision of her elders). The second are songs in which her “icy girl” philosophy can be shared with a female companion, elevating women with the cheerful “girl power” themes of songs such as “Best Friend” and “Back To The Streets.”
Her newest single, which she teased earlier this week before releasing it today, falls into the latter category as she recruits HER to sing along on “Closer,” a flirtatious, dance-ready piece of disco pop reminiscent of her “Best Friend” collaborator Doja Cat’s big hits “Say So” and “Kiss Me More.” On “Closer,” the two performers — who share Bay Area roots and mixed Black-Filipino heritage — revel in the warm, fuzzy vibes of a new relationship. “It’s the freak in me I wanna show ya,” coos HER, while on her verse, Saweetie once again praises the benefits of her flashy lifestyle, sighing seductively, “Wanna quickie in my Rolls on the Hermes leather.”
The new track could be an indication that Saweetie finally deems her upcoming debut album, Pretty Bitch Music, fit for public consumption, as she’s held it back multiple times to make tweaks over the past year. If her perfectionist streak pays off, this could be the release that finally silences her haters once and for all — and if not, at least we’ve got another fun song to dance to on TikTok.
Check out Saweetie’s new single “Closer” featuring HER above.
The 2022 NBA trade deadline was not short on activity. Things got moving in the days leading up to the deadline with a few notable trades, and once Thursday arrived, there were tons of fireworks.
A lot of teams got involved and a lot of players are now on the move to new locations, whether that’s for good or after they hit the buyout market. It was a deadline that saw numerous former All-Stars get traded, some teams commit to being sellers, contenders bolstering their rosters, and a few teams getting left out in the cold. Here, we’ll look at the winners and losers of the last week of trade action, starting with the participants of the biggest trade of the day.
WINNERS
Getty Image
Everyone involved in the James Harden-Ben Simmons trade: This was genuinely great work by everyone involved in a rather disastrous situation they all shared responsibility for creating. Ben Simmons goes to a legitimate contender where he fits extremely well on paper, getting to play defense and be a connector and cutter offensively between two elite scorers in Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant. James Harden goes to a contender where he, likewise, fits very well, getting to do the bulk of the ball-handling while not needing to do absolutely everything offensively next to Joel Embiid. Seth Curry moves from contender to contender and slots beautifully into the role vacated by the injured Joe Harris. Daryl Morey proves himself right to drag this out and demand a superstar return for Simmons, all while holding on to Tyrese Maxey and Matisse Thybulle in — pun not intended — the process. Sean Marks gets a star under team control for longer than the guy who looked primed to leave this summer, plus Harris insurance and several first-round picks to maintain the flexibility to either add young talent or have real trade assets should they want veteran help. Joel Embiid got to do a funny tweet. We, the basketball viewing public, get to be done with reports about Simmons and the Sixers, as well as reports about Harden and the Nets.
Just a great job all the way around. Now, give me the playoff series between these two in a few months.
Boston Celtics: While their divisional rivals were swapping superstars with each other, the Celtics went out and had a very nice deadline. Brad Stevens accomplished ownership’s goal of ducking the luxury tax, which no one outside of the ownership group should celebrate, but he did so while also upgrading Boston’s roster as they look to be a factor come playoff time. Sending out Dennis Schröder, Enes Freedom, Bruno Fernando, Josh Richardson, and a first rounder to get Derrick White and Daniel Theis in return is pretty terrific deadline maneuvering. They know Theis is a good frontcourt fit and it allows them to bolster their center rotation. Meanwhile, White should fit like a glove next to Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown as a terrific perimeter defender and capable off-ball connector guard on offense, which they really needed. His shooting will be the swing skill that determines if this looks like a steal for the Celtics, but if nothing else, they bolstered their roster for a playoff run and managed to add some upside they previously didn’t have in the form of White.
Phoenix Suns: While the top contenders in the East were going wild, the Suns went about their business, bolstering depth as they look to cement their place at the top of the West. Torrey Craig returns, and having to only give up Jalen Smith and a second is a worthwhile price for a team that wanted some more wing depth and was overflowing with centers ahead of Smith. They also went out and snagged Aaron Holiday for a touch more guard depth, which is more of a regular season help as Cam Payne continues to rehab a wrist injury (and make some headlines by jumping in Twitter Spaces).
Also making the Suns a winner is that the rest of the top of the West stayed mostly pat at the deadline, with the Warriors, Jazz, Grizzlies, and Nuggets all punting on making a big move. One possible contender that made a swing was Dallas with a wild trade that left a lot of people scratching their head (we’ll get to them in a moment, but as you can guess, it’s not in this section). No one around them got better, which is always a welcome sight for the top team in the conference.
Getty Image
Sacramento Kings: You know what? I’m in on the Kings deadline. Yes, trading Tyrese Haliburton gives up something significant, but they acquitted themselves nicely in terms of adding talent that actually makes sense in terms of roster building. When graded on a curve against other Kings deadline and offseason moves in recent years, this deserves a winner tag. Domantas Sabonis is really, really good, and showed how he can help elevate the rest of this team in his first game on Wednesday night. Adding Donte DiVincenzo is, at worst, a major upgrade on the wing on the defensive end and adds a quality spot-up shooter around De’Aaron Fox and Sabonis. If he can regain some of his pre-injury form, it might look like a steal to snag him for the price of Marvin Bagley III, who simply had not worked out and was not going to be a factor in their future, particularly after the Sabonis trade. Whether it results in a playoff berth over the next few years to snap their decade-plus drought remains to be seen, but for a team that has been so miserable this season, there’s some genuine reason for optimism and sometimes that’s important.
Indiana Pacers: The Pacers are very good at dealing with a situation where everyone knows they have to trade a star. I am not saying this as a backhanded compliment, it is just a truly astounding skill they have as an organization at navigating these situations. They have done about as well as one could imagine in the Paul George, Victor Oladipo, and Domantas Sabonis situations (both of those players, ironically, were who they got for George). I am not in the “Tyrese Haliburton is an absolute lock to be a future All-Star” camp, but he is a very good young player who absolutely could take that step. Getting him and Buddy Hield, who will be quite tradable this summer, for Sabonis is good return as Haliburton is, in my eyes, better than getting a lottery ticket in the form of a draft pick from a Sacramento team that’s aiming to be competent. They also got the draft pick they were craving in the Caris LeVert trade, as they manage to wheeze the juice from a disastrous situation with Oladipo in which his value cratered after getting injured, getting LeVert in last year’s Harden trade and then getting a first for him this deadline. This summer figures to be more rebuilding moves, as Malcolm Brodgon becomes eligible to be traded and Hield certainly doesn’t feel like a longterm Pacer, but for a team everyone knew needed to hit the reset button, they still managed to extract value.
Fans of chaos: Congrats to everyone who craves chaos at the deadline, because we sure got it this week. The big trade everyone hoped would happen but wasn’t sure would went down. There was a true WTF trade between the Mavs and Wizards that no one saw coming. And we even got some lovely appetizers in the days leading up to the deadline. A truly entertaining deadline with a little something for almost everyone. We say “almost everyone” because it leads nicely into…
LOSERS
Los Angeles Lakers: The Lakers moving Russell Westbrook was never something people should’ve expected them to be able to do, but the fact that they couldn’t do anything to upgrade this roster is an abject disaster that is hard to see getting fixed on the buyout market. It’s either a failure of creativity to go find something out there that could inject some much needed life into this team, or a failure of roster construction to not have anything approaching a desirable asset. Neither option speaks well of the Lakers front office. Maybe they can coax Goran Dragic on over, but he’ll have suitors that are better positioned right now than the Lakers for a deep playoff run. Otherwise, it’s rare to find buyout guys who can make a real impact on winning, and the Lakers just seem stuck where they are, which is, currently, what appears to be rock bottom. The problem is, there isn’t a guarantee there isn’t further to dig.
Getty Image
New York Knicks: Speaking of horrendous vibes, it’s the Knicks! Despite reports that literally everyone on the roster was available for the right price, the Knicks also were unable to make any moves at the deadline to shake up a stagnant roster that has struggled to replicate the surprising success of last year. The one trade they made, acquiring Cam Reddish, has been a dud, in part because Tom Thibodeau has barely played him. Like the Lakers, finding value for guys playing poorly right now is really hard to do, and the Knicks are choosing to weather the storm and hope there’s a turnaround coming at some point. It’s hard to see what that is, but Knicks fans can at least cling to the belief that no move is better than making a bad one, which they’ve unfortunately seen happen far too many times in the past.
Dallas Mavericks: You can’t say the Mavs didn’t try to make a splash at the deadline, but color me skeptical on this being a deal that raises their ceiling much at all. Davis Bertans has been dreadful this season in Washington, but maybe playing alongside Luka Doncic in a new place can bring back the magic in that shooting stroke and open up the floor for Dallas. Spencer Dinwiddie likewise has not been good after a hot start in Washington, and the Mavs are banking on him finding the pre-injury form that we just have not seen yet consistently in 2022. They do get off the Kristaps Porzingis contract, which was obviously the goal here, but they didn’t gain any flexibility financially beyond the concept that it’s easier to trade one $18 million contract than it is to trade a $34 million one. I just don’t see how this does much for them this season in terms of leaping into the contender tier in the West, but for a more optimistic look, Tim Legler’s a big fan of the move.
Portland Trail Blazers: Portland seemed to be trying to set up something by getting the Powell-Covington and McCollum deals done in the days leading up to the deadline, but as 3 p.m. on Thursday came and went, the Blazers had done nothing else. There were reports they were chasing Jerami Grant, whose fit between Damian Lillard and Jusuf Nurkic for the future makes sense, but Grant remains in Detroit and one would expect trade talks to pick up again around the draft regarding his availability. The problem for Portland is that more teams are usually able or willing to get involved in offseason trade talks, and the competition for Grant might mean they have to pivot to Plan B or C for all that space they opened up.
It wasn’t a disastrous deadline and this is maybe a bit nit-picky, but they didn’t acquire a ton in terms of young talent, nor considerable draft assets, and fell short on the promise of continuing to seek out help at the deadline to replace all the production they dealt away. This is really an indictment of Neil Olshey, who held onto this roster for too long and left the Blazers in a situation needing to sell low, but it just felt like Portland wanted to salvage something with one more deal to bring someone in. Maybe they can make that move this summer, but I’ll admit to being skeptical of top free agents choosing Portland despite their cap space.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
