Taste test: It's news to them

As part of my arduous research for this article, I sampled some eggless chocolate brownies from Allison's Gourmet (

» READ MORE: 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.

We can't say that this is 100 percent objective, since some people know my eating habits and helpfully warned, "They're VEGAN!!!" thus somewhat muddying the purity of the sample.

One particularly curmudgeonly columnist worked hard to articulate how the texture was not quite perfect, finally stating that they weren't "fudgy" enough - even though three other people separately volunteered, "It's good and fudgy."

- Vance Lehmkuhl