Friday, November 28, 2008

A vegan Thanksgiving feast

Yesterday, Julie and I trekked our families to the Triangle Vegetarian Society’s Thanksgiving Feast at Cafe Parizade in Durham, and I think I’m still full! It was truly a bounteous spread of all-vegan food. I tried a little bit of almost everything, and there wasn’t a single thing I tried that was bad. There were many dishes I would’ve liked to go back for seconds of, but there was just so much food to try, I simply couldn’t stuff myself any more. Even carnivorous family members were satisfied.

The standouts for me were the lime-marinated, seared seitan (to-die-for!); the corn & squash with tempeh; the porcini-lentil cannelloni; a rolled-and-filled eggplant dish; and the tiny chocolate dessert cups filled with raspberry sauce.

Though Cafe Parizade and a next-door restaurant were both packed with people, there wasn’t a line to get your food at the buffet. They set it up well, with three pathways to get food. We happened to hit it at a good time and didn’t have to wait long for a table—there were longer lines later in the day.

It’s probably a bit far to drive for an every-year occasion for us, but I’d certainly love to go again!

Friday, November 21, 2008

The Great Turkey Gaffe of 2008

I’m sure that by now, most of you have seen or heard about the video of Gov. Sarah Palin talking about pardoning a turkey for Thanksgiving while a different turkey was having its head cut off in the background. Most news outlets seem to be treating it as a matter of fun—political gaffes are the gifts that keep on giving for the national media.

However, I’m hopeful that maybe, just maybe, being exposed so directly to how animals are killed for food—to see first-hand what happens to put meat on their table—might turn a person or two toward a vegetarian lifestyle. I hope this underlying part of the story will make it to some people beyond the humor/mocking aspect that’s the focus.

If you can stomach the unblurred video, it’s here on YouTube. So far, just this one clip (there are several available) has been watched almost 500,000 times.

Note: Chef Bill of Veg-In-Out meal-delivery service replied to an earlier post, and I thought it was worth putting it here, too: Veg-In-Out has a full vegetarian Thanksgiving menu that you can order if you’re in the Asheville area. It sounds divine! (You have to order by tomorrow.)

Thanksgiving Centerpieces

One year I made an impressive vegetarian Thanksgiving centerpiece dish for my family. It a glorious, layered dome of vegetarian stuffing, seitan, and gravy, encased in puff pastry, basted and baked to golden perfection.

In the spirit of the holiday, and in honor of my hip sister, I decorated it with a puff-pastry Peace symbol. That is, I tried to. As my sister gleefully pointed out, it was really adorned with the Mercedes Benz symbol.

Ah well; it really was a marvel of culinary engineering. As have been other nontraditional Thanksgiving main dishes over the years: The vegan spanakopita casserole, prepared from the recipe in Vegan With a Vengance; a nut roast from Venturesome Vegetarian Cooking; Christmas Eve couscous (a festive dish for any holiday) from Rose Elliott’s Vegetarian Christmas. The point is, there is no need for vegetarians to despair over a Thanksgiving centerpiece. Here are some recipes and resources for those in need of more ideas:

Meatout Mondays offers this recipe for Apple Stuffed Holiday Squash. More Thanksgiving recipes are available from a related site, Gentle Thanksgiving. (Both Meatout Mondays and Gentle Thanksgiving are projects of FARM – Farm Animal Reform Movement.)

Ingredients:
1 apple, skinned, cored & diced
1/2 cup barley
2 Tbs. fresh basil, chopped
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
2 Tbs. maple syrup
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 acorn squashes
2 Tbs. olive oil
1/2 cup apple juice

Directions:
1. Cook barley according to the package directions and set aside.
2. Combine apples, basil, walnuts, maple and cinnamon in a medium bowl; mix in the barley.
3. Wash and cut the squashes in half across the middle and remove the seeds; cut the ends off the bottom of each half so they will sit flat; sprinkle each half with olive oil and place on a baking sheet or baking dish.
4. Fill each squash center with the stuffing mix, cover with foil, and bake covered at 350 F for one hour; remove the foil and bake for 20 minutes or until squash is tender and browned.
5. Boil 1/2 cup of apple juice until it becomes syrupy, then drizzle over squash before serving.
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Many veggie cookbook authors and animal groups post recipes online. For example, Nava Atlas offers several festive recipes Nava Atlas. Vegan.com has recipes for an eight-course vegan feast with recipes from Robin Robertson, including such dishes as Roasted Wheatmeat with Oyster Mushroom and “Sausage” Stuffing and Ginger-Dusted Pumpkin Cheezecake. Mercy for Animals has recipes for every course – including vegan takes on pumpkin pie and green bean casserole.

And this is just the beginning. Enter “vegan thanksgiving recipes” in any search engine, and you’ll find more than you can use.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

November bites

*The results of this year’s VegNews Veggie Awards are in, and you can check out the winners here. Now I really want to visit Portland, Ore.!

*If you’re at Whole Foods this month, you might like to pick up a free copy of Delicious Living magazine—this month’s issue includes recipes for a vegetarian Thanksgiving meal. Or you could just visit their Web site. I’m totally going to make that pumpkin-seed spread! Their Web site also has some printable coupons to save you a bit of money.

*The Humane Society is holding several grassroots meetings in North Carolina in December, which you can see on its calendar here. There aren’t any in the Triad, unfortunately; the cities are Asheville, Boone, Charlotte and Raleigh.

*Google has a page tracking flu trends in the United States. It’s based on search activity, which doesn’t sound like it would be a particularly accurate indicator of flu activity. However, a graphic shows that it mirrors CDC data surprisingly closely.

Friday, November 07, 2008

Vegetarian Thanksgiving

It’s only a few short weeks until Thanksgiving, and the Triangle Vegetarian Society is now taking reservations for its vegetarian Thanksgiving feast. I’m excited because I’m actually planning to attend this year! If you’re interested in attending, you’d better hurry up and make your reservations—they say they received 211 reservations in the first 16 hours!

Have any of you readers attended this before? I’d love to hear your thoughts on it!