TERRY’S PICKY PALATE / Vegan pasta and a smoothie at the Sugar Apple Cafe & Market

BY TERRY SCHMIDA

On the day I strolled into the Sugar Apple Cafe at 917 Simonton St., an item on the the specials board read “Italian Veggie Stew.”

Being something of a gourmand for hire, I’ve eaten a lot of dishes that while quite delicious, didn’t exactly qualify as healthy.

So I was both intrigued and excited to sample this simple-sounding offering.

Simple it certainly wasn’t.

This fantastic, all organic and vegan feast was a complex and satisfying combination of flavors worthy of the reputation of the Sugar Apple which, since 1993, has been dishing out food that’s both healthful and tasty.

As their website states, owners Tina Triggiani and Phillip Crumbley possess a PhD in Nutrition and a degree in Chemistry, respectively, and have made it their mission to “educate people about the healing power of good nutrition and dietary supplement plans as an alternative to the 24-hour fast food/pharmaceutical culture.”

As I was served my meal, I found my suspicion that the description of the stew, “served on vegan pesto pasta with garlic bread and a salad” could be misleadlingly plain, was valid.

The stew was created, as all Sugar Apple menu items are, by Triggiani and turned out to be chock full of vegetables, spices and veggie sausage, and tasted as good or better than any meal I’ve had lately. The “salad” contained not only spring greens, but also olives, cherry tomatoes, sunflower seeds, and was topped with a delicious, from-scratch miso dressing.

Even the garlic bread was fabulous.

On the side, Phillip Crumbley set out a sample of Split Pea Soup that was so good, it almost defies description.

To wash it all down I ordered a Cheery Cherry Chi smoothie, with banana, cherry, and chia seeds, that was so exquisitely sweet and wholesome, I’ve already been back to order it again.

“Anything you enjoy, food-wise, we can make in a vegan form,” Triggiani told me. “We get a lot of people in here who choose this kind of diet to lose weight, but they soon discover that they’re not missing any of the flavor of meat-based food.”

I couldn’t agree more.