We left Portland on October 19th with an assortment of vegan, gluten-free meals for the long flight to London. Vegan meals had been ordered for me, but there isn’t an option available for vegan AND gluten-free, so we had to plan for Christie. I made up some crustless quiches, we had some roasted potatoes, rice, grilled nootchy tofu, corn cakes, nuts, cookies, and hummus.

During the flight I was served a dinner with rice, spinach, a veggie/bean patty, crackers, a roll with margarine, a salad with balsamic dressing and some fruit. I totally forgot to take photos of the Delta airplane food for vegans. It was reasonably tasty. Later as a snack I was brought an apple and a roll with some lettuce, cucumber & tomato slices on it… which was rather uninspired. Breakfast was some sort of roll, again uninspired, and a banana.

We arrived in London on Monday around noonish and were so grateful for the car Christie had arranged to drive us to the flat we’d rented near Walworth Street, with good access to several buses and a reasonable walk to the Elephant & Castle Underground station. Before we let ourselves collapse, we set out to check out some of the neighborhood markets. We discovered a G. Baldwin & Co. shop just a block from the flat where we were able to pick up the bare necessities to get us to the next day: baked beans, brown rice, soy milk, tea, sugar, cookies, CoYo Yoghurt, gluten-free muesli, a loaf of seedy, brown bread (for me) and Booja Booja ice cream.

First London meal was baked beans over brown rice with cookies (GF quinoa & fig for me) and we were so grateful. Soon after we went to bed.

First breakfast for Christie, muesli and yogurt, was a little disappointing. We’d only been able to find a gluten-free muesli made with qunioa flakes as opposed to oats. They were crunchy in an unsatisfying way, probably would be alright simmered on the stove but not great cold in yogurt. I however totally indulged in two generous slices of bread with Earth Balance and some of the jam thoughtfully provided by our Air BnB host.

Our ability to be hugely adventurous about dining on trips has been curtailed by the need for gluten-free options. This means a couple of times we had a meal at a Chipotle because we knew we could get something and didn’t have energy to hunt down a place (one was pretty good, one was way over salted and we both ended up with indigestion). On the plus side of this, we cooked a lot more. Simple things like beans with rice or pasta and veggies, which helps keep costs down (which we then spent on books and other cool things). That said, there were some great meals to be had. I tried making my pumpkin curry while we were there, but didn’t find the best coconut milk and it also turned out pretty damn spicy!

For two of the days of our visit Christie was having meetings, so I set off to explore. One day I’d walked for quite a while along the south bank of the Thames from the London Eye, then onto Vauxhall Park. After all that walking out in a chilly breeze I was hungry and on the hunt for food. I happened upon the cosy Windmill Pub.

I went in hoping for no more than some chips (I was so hungry and cold I was considering not even asking about the oil used to fry the potatoes) and tea. However, when I checked out the menu I discovered I could order a jacket potato with baked beans! They also were offering mulled, hot cider by the half pint. The potato came with a salad, a nice surprise, with some suspiciously creamy topping (I later discovered while perusing a grocery store several bottles of “Salad Cream”. I didn’t know it would come with it and tried to eat around it. After a long, chilly walk in the wind, this we such a welcome find! I was delighted to find the a jacket potato is just a roasted potato and the option of having it served filled with baked beans, no butter, is an awesome gluten-free vegan option!

The next day found me enjoying seeing artifacts I’d studied in college at the British Museum.

After wandering around admiring and photographing Greek marbles, Egyptian artifacts and mummies, and much more, all amidst many school groups, of varying ages, I was worn out. I decided the quietest place would be the restaurant at the top of the rotunda, where I again hoped for at least something simple like olives and a glass of wine. What I was delighted to find on the menu was a vegan, gluten-free salad made with saffron roasted cauliflower, slivered almonds, sultanas, thinly sliced green onions, and marinated cipollini onions. I had a small glass of wine and totally enjoyed this light, tasty lunch.

On the next day we set out to explore the Tate Modern, after which we were in need of lunch and were happy to find a Crussh nearby. They were out of the vegan noodle soup option, I was sorry to say, and they ended up having only one thing we could order, an aubergine ratatouille over brown rice, with the option of fresh herbs and seeds on top, with no cream drizzle. The fresh herbs turned out to be cilantro and the seeds sunflower, but it was surprisingly tasty despite my worry that the flavors would not compliment each other.

The two days were spent at Mozilla Festival 2014. A vegan lunch option was offered, which I had the first day. It was really a carb fest (filo dough based tart, quinoa/bulgar salad, orzo salad – all tasty, but all carby) that left me longing for something heartier. On Saturday we went to Wagamama for dinner, which is known to be very accommodating to special diets. There was a soup on the menu that was already vegan & gluten-free, which Christie had. I was in the mood for udon, but all the dishes on the menu involved meat, they offered to make a vegetarian dish with egg-containing soba noodles with the udon and the result was incredibly satisfying and delicious. We also had some edamame with a garlic chilie salt and I ordered dumplings, which were really just alright but it was nice to have dumplings.

Lunch options at MozFest were the same on Sunday, so at lunchtime I went back over to get take-away. Christie had the same coconut milk-based soup and I decided to try their warm tofu salad, which was topped with fresh red chilies, fried tofu, tempura eggplant, and cashews on a bed of romaine leaves (I wished they’d been chopped up a bit). The salad was very tasty.

On Monday our day included a walk along the north bank of the Thames. Our lunch was a picnic enjoyed on some stairs in the sun and wind. We picked up an assortment of food and a Little Wait Rose. We selected some roasted, marinated artichoke hearts, hummus, dolmas, crisps, sparkling water, and a wheat-berry & bean salad for me. I regret not getting a photo, we ate everything too quickly. I did snap a shot of an impulsively purchased cocktail in a can… it tasted about as good as you’d expect it to.

On Tuesday we packed up a picnic lunch of jacket potatoes, sautéed cabbage, hummus, and a can of baked beans and made our way by train out to see Bletchley Park and the National Museum of Computing (AMAZING). We had a break of CoYo yogurt with an oat-based, gluten-free meusli we’d found at Whole Foods and tea at mid-day followed by a “tea” of the potatoes, cabbage, hummus, and baked beans. We were grateful the catering staff at Bletchley didn’t mind our eating in their dining area. We’d likely would have been able to get the potato & beans option in the cafe found in Hut 4, but we’d missed their open time for serving hot food.

As the museum closed up a friendly volunteer suggested the Eight Belles Pub, which was a short walk from the park as a nice way to kill time until our train back to London. We were delighted to discover a tasty English cider, Thatcher’s, and were lucky enough to get the first batch of chips fried up in freshly changed oil. There is no picture of the chips, we ate them as quickly as we could given how hot they were!

We spent a damp day visiting VX near the King’s Cross tube station, I left them with stickers brought from Herbivore and Food Fight, and we picked up some badges, stickers and a patch. We also picked up something special, food related, but it is a gift so I’ll post about it after we’ve given it to the recipients.

From there we made our way to the markets in Camden Town (Locks and Stables  Markets). We were totally delighted to find Cookies & Scream, all vegan AND gluten-free, while exploring the endless maze of stalls that make up the markets. Christie had an espresso shake and I had a cup of tea. We also got an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie (Christie) and a sticky plum & almond cake (me) to go. We had these the following day and we each found our respective treat to be awesome!

We eventually had lunch at InSpiral Cafe which was disappointingly uninspired, but we were happy to be served warm (mostly…) vegan food with a gluten-free option. Christie ordered the full breakfast fry up, however, making it gluten-free meant no toast, no sausage, and no house-made baked beans. I’d ordered rye toast with baked beans; they were just okay, not bad just, again, uninspired.

On our last day I went on a tea procurement trip and in the afternoon we finally explored a nearby street market that happened every day. I was glad we finally made it, but a little sad too, since there were several stalls with great fresh produce for incredibly cheap. I ended up buying all of this for 1 pound, 20 pence ($.192 USD) and made us dinner as well as food to take on our long journey home.

On the flight home I was served a meal with a salad (no dressing), roll with margarine, crackers, herbed tofu on a bed of sun-dried potatoes with a wild-rice blend and mushy, minted peas. There was also another roll with lettuce, tomato & celery slices, which was made tastier with one of the avocados from the market the day before. I was also served a snack of grapes and a “Tangy Tomato and Chickpea” Posh Wrap from Monty’s Bakehouse, which was pretty darn tasty.

For over five years Christie has suffered from a severe, life-affecting cough. She’s seen several doctors, had all kinds of tests, and taken several different medications, but nothing really has solved the cough. This year we changed physicians and our new one immediately started doing several tests for food allergies and sensitivities that could be causing systemic inflammation, affecting her lungs.

We were pretty worried it would turn out to be something we really loved, like soy (miso, tofu, tempeh, Soy Curls…) or tree nuts, peanuts, sesame seeds, etc. When the results came back the culprit was gluten. Another round of tests was ordered to rule out Celiac, which thankfully came back clear, leaving only the signs of systemic inflammation severely affecting the lungs. We were hugely relieved and felt like removing gluten was something we could do. Honestly, after so many years it feels good to have anything we can do.

I set about to rid our house of gluten-y goods, giving everything away to friends so that at home Christie would know she could eat most things (I am still getting one of my favorite cold cereal indulgences, Barbara’s Peanut Butter Puffins, which Christie hates and therefore won’t mistakenly eat). What it quickly brought to our attention was how often our “easy dinners” were centered around several products that contained gluten. Tasty things and easy on a busy night, but honestly not so great for either of us.

While I’ve been doing some creative things with tofu (two new recipes coming soon!), and we have several go-to legume recipes, I wanted to start experimenting with veggie burgers and cutlets. Hearty, healthy legume & grain dishes that I  can make up in large batches, cook, and freeze servings of for quick dinners.

One of the first things I’m trying out is my now, newly made gluten-free, Marvelous Quinoa Nut Loaf. A generous slice is in the freezer to see how well it does reheated.

Next up was the lovely looking Scarborough Fair Burger from Joni Marie Newman’s cookbook, The Best Veggie Burgers on the Planet. We’d been meaning to try making it for ages, but now we’re extra motivated since the recipe is already gluten-free.

When I got all the ingredients together I felt the mix was a little wet and added an extra 1/4 cup of nutritional yeast to help bind it and also because I’d forgot to make the TVP with broth!

After baking for the full time the burgers still hadn’t formed up fully. So I set our oven on convection and cooked them an additional 5 minutes, which helped a lot. They came out looking very tasty.

We served them on Happy Campers Gluten-Free Wild Buns and they dressed up beautifully!

Next week there will be another Burger Experiment to report on! Please post your suggestions for great gluten-free burgers and cutlets in the comments.

Being an Open Letter to New Seasons Market:

Dear New Seasons Market,

I’ve decided to make this letter to you public as it is too long to put on a comment card. I’ve already filled out one comment card and have not yet heard back, I’ve seen minimal response to my complaints on social media either, so I decided to write it all out. While this might be a fairly specific complaint to the Portland Metro area, posting this publicly may provide ideas for others to use when reaching out to local businesses when they make changes that impact food safety and increase prices for vegans to match animal flesh costs.

I want you to know that we’re fans, really. We get good produce, friendly service, and a nice selection of vegan products. You’re even a favorite, inexpensive date night; we come, get a Hot Wok, bring a small game, grab a drink and have dinner while playing a game in you common dining area.

We’re big fans of your Hot Woks. Over the years we’ve literally eaten hundreds of Hot Wok meals from various of your markets. We loved that we could pick out our veggies, add tofu, self-select noodles, add hot sauce, ginger, and garlic. We’d tell you the sauce and generally it meant a generous dinner (great for days when I’m famished from teaching yoga or gardening) of healthy veggies that were nicely cooked.

Once or twice we got an overcook wok, or one with too much sauce, but on the whole they were all great.

Now you’ve changed it all and I really think it is not for the better from a customer’s perspective.

First complaint: Subsidizing Cruelty

In the past:  Cubed tofu used to be available with all the other veggies. A Basic Bowl, with tofu I’d selected, was one cost and if you wanted animal flesh it could be added while cooking for an additional cost.

Now:  You have to pay the same amount for tofu as animal flesh and it is added at the cooking line, by the cooks, not the customer.

Issue:  There is no way cubed tofu brings up the cost as much as animal flesh does. By now asking for us to pay the same for adding “protein”, it means that those customers ordering only plant-based foods are now helping subsidize your cost for people who have requested animal flesh in their dishes.

Second Complaint: Food Safety

In the past:  The customer picked everything out that went into the bowl: veggies, garlic, ginger, onions, tofu, and noodles. Only sauce was added by the cook.

Now:  The customer points at things and goes back and forth about how much they want of each thing, which takes a lot longer. The “protein”, noodles, or rice are added by the cooks.

Issue: In the past couple of weeks we’ve decided to get Hot Woks twice, this is actually pretty normal for us. In one incident, because I didn’t put the noodles on and the line cook at Mountain Park didn’t pay attention, my wok was served to me with non-vegan noodles (yakisoba) instead of the buckwheat soba I’d requested (and was marked on the ticket correctly). So we had to start all over with the conversation about what veggies to get, etc. The order was comped since I now extended the wait for taking home our dinner the addition 15-20 minutes it took to make a new one.

I have a larger concern related to the noodles now being added by the cooks: my wife is gluten-free and if she was in a hurry, getting a take-out order (so not as easy to see as on a plate) and didn’t happen to catch a mistake where wheat noodles had gone in instead of rice, she’d be sick for days.

Which brings me to the chicken I found while eating out at your Cedar Mills store last night. I was well into eating my wok meal when I started to pop a “broken” cube of tofu into my mouth. Luckily I stopped suddenly because it didn’t look quite the right color. That’s when I realized there was chicken in my meal. Which made me feel pretty queasy in general and unable to eat anything else.

I took it back to the Hot Wok station, the folks on duty were very sympathetic and understanding. In addition to being comped the cost of a meal I couldn’t eat anymore of, I was also give $20 in gift cards. Seriously, your staff are always awesome.

However, that does not alleviate my serious concerns about your cooking area. What is going wrong that chicken ends up with tofu? Are different tongs ALWAYS being used so cross-contamination isn’t happening for either animal flesh/tofu as well as noodles where some contain wheat and/or animal products and one is gluten free. Really, you should have policy in place when you’re cooks are suddenly taking over what goes into an order.

Please be aware that before you changed to the process of New Seasons staff entirely controlling what goes into my order I’ve ended up with animal products in my order twice in as many weeks, in two different stores! This NEVER happened when I made up my wok bowl and presented it to be cooked & sauced. That’s literally hundreds of correct orders with no random animal products.

As a long time customer I’m very unhappy at your changes to the Hot Wok bar. You’ve taken away my control over what goes into our meals and immediately I started seeing serious issues of health and safety. I question cross-contamination even more than I did when customers self-selected bowl contents. I also strenuously object to helping you offset the cost of consumers of animal flesh by making a customer like me pay the same amount for tofu.

I really would like to see you make some changes:

1. Put the tofu back on the bar with the veggies and stop charging extra for it. This will also prevent cross-contamination with animal flesh behind the line either from flesh falling in with tofu or the same tongs being used indiscriminately for all “protein”.
2. More clearly label the different noodles. Your menu has “Yakisoba” and “Soba”, I actually get that a busy cook might get those confused thus giving a vegan noodles with animal products in them. Similarly, a strong policy of providing single tongs for each type of noodles thus preventing both cross-contamination of animal products and gluten, in the case of rice noodles.

Better yet, go back to the way you had it as it worked best for the customer.

Regards,
Sherri Koehler
Vegan

I love to grill. Becoming vegan actually made me love grilling things even more. I’ve grilled all kinds of veggies, fruit, pizza, and even have made tea & wood smoked noodles with Kefir lime leaves. Yes, noodles, on a grill.

What is shocking is that for the past several years I’ve been doing all this grilling on a piece of equipment never intended for the kind of heavy use I gave it. Don’t get me wrong, the Coleman Road Trip Grill LX is an awesome grill. Perfect for taking car-camping, tail-gating, and for picnics at the park. The last time I cleaned it a bit rusted right off, so it has kind of been time to move on.

An unexpected windfall last month made up my mind to upgrade the grill just as summer really gets going in Portland. Given the amount of the windfall I couldn’t go crazy and get The Grill (something in the Weber line), but I could get a good, sturdy, serious upgrade that would let me grill All The Food at once, rather in waves as I’d been doing on the Coleman.

I choose a Char-Broil Classic 4-Burner Gas Grill with Side Burner, which is a huge improvement, as you can see.

On Monday a good friend met up with me, we went and picked up the “kit” and a blessedly short while later we were grilling up goodness!

I’m inspired to invite more people over for summer entertaining and I’m already working on a new recipe for Zaatar Grilled Tofu Cutlets with Grilled Lemon!

The grill also has a side burner, which makes it even more flexible on those rare, hot summer days. Plus in the event of a major event with the Cascadia subduction zone, we’ve got a good-sized tank of propane and a way to cook! In the meantime, potstickers on a very hot day, no heating up the kitchen.

Wow, this post is so late in coming…. I blame WordPress. The original one I was working on, which was all ready to publish and disappeared. Since that irritating moment I’ve been in “run” mode getting ready to take a week off to spend with Christie before she starts her new job (which beings with a two week trip down to California for meetings). She’s been off a week already and together we’re doing a serious work sprint to make our respective offices, our bedroom, the living/dining room, and kitchen all more pleasant to be in and functional. So… no blog posts! Enough about life and back to the food!

The second day of VVC was also my 42nd birthday. I’d originally envisioned a big party for this day, but since I was at VVC and with all the Mom Drama that had been going on, I just enjoyed having a quiet day. I didn’t even tell too many people it was my birthday.

Breakfast was the same spread as the day before. I wish there’d been some variation in the breakfast offerings. I feel bad to have any complaints about the food at VVC, since I run events I know how hard it is to deal with catering, but I was mostly disappointed to see the mushroom heavy scramble a second day in a row. I was at least amused to meet other mushroom-hating vegans in the buffet line to share our dismay. However, I enjoyed the biscuits and gravy again. I also left VVC breakfasts intrigued by the raw chia pudding — I loved the tapioca-like texture and although it ends up with a greyish tint, I think it might be fun to make a breakfast parfait with it and lots of fresh fruit.

The best part about my birthday breakfast on the 2nd day of VVC were the absolutely marvelous ladies I shared the table with, several who are real inspirations in my own cooking and how to talk to people about vegan nutrition. I found myself seated with Bryanna Clark Grogan, Ginny Messina, Julie Hasson, and Susan Voisin – Wow! Also at the table was a fabulous vegan chef from L.A. who is just getting into blogging, Chica Vegan – I admire her very smartly writing down names & blogs… since I cannot remember her name at all!

Both breakfasts also gave me the option of trying out new flavors and types of coconut yogurt from So Delicious. I thought the mango I had on Saturday was a good match with the tangy yogurt, but what I really wanted to try out was the Greek-style coconut yogurt they are coming out with soon. I’d been looking for some plain to go with the fresh fruit, but all that was left was raspberry. I was a little dubious, since I am really picky about raspberry flavored things, but I really wanted to try it out.

I was very pleasantly surprised by the tart, fresh raspberry flavor from real berries. I loved the thick, custard-y consistency that stuck to a spoon – something I even demonstrated for the table by holding my spoon upside-down to show that the yogurt was that thick and creamy! I really look forward to this product coming out. As much as the fruity kind might be nice, I’m really intrigued to get my hands on the plain for using in kormas, raita and tzatziki!

Side note: I was really tickled that the whole table appreciated my playing with my yogurt by holding the spoon upside-down. Not every conference can you be that kind of nerd about your food and people get it. Likewise looking around during meals and seeing at least 20 other people taking pictures of their food!

I was so hungry for lunch that I didn’t take a picture of it on the second day, I just got eating it all up! Soy Curl fajitas, beans, rice, a raw zucchini hummus, and raw tacos in big lettuce leaves with a walnut meat filling and fresh pico de gallo. There was also Daiya cheese and yummy D.A.M. salsa. It was absolutely delicious and over lunch one of my awesome dining companions told me how easy it easy to make the raw walnut filling (raw walnuts, “taco seasonings”, sun dried tomatoes in the food processor with some liquid – either water or lime juice).

After lunch I finally was able to meet Christy Morgan in person. I’ve been testing some recipes for her for a SE Asian cookbook, so it was a treat to really meet in person. I also got her cookbook, Blissful Bites, from her (extra-special since she also got to sign it) and Christie’s already been picking out things she wants to try.

I enjoyed the panels on ethics & product reviews and publishing I went to. I spent one block of time just hanging out talking to people. Picked up a box of herbal tea out on the registration table – haven’t tried it yet. I left right after the publishing panel and apparently missed out on the wine given to presenters as well as a closing talk by Isa Chandra Moskowitz (bummer).

After all of that I hung out with Christie, Devon and Jax for some very mellow birthday celebrating. They all had lunch from Homegrown Smoker (I had bites of Christie’s “MacNoCheese” – of course) and then a little birthday shopping for me at Art Media (gel medium, gesso, a fantastic brush cleaning jar, and a tiny easel for ease in photographing ATCs). Then on to Back to Eden for some birthday cake followed by a cocktail at The Bye and Bye (I was highly disappointed to not get carded, but the bartender reminded me that he recognizes me).

A quick cookbook round-up – in addition to Blissful Bites, I was given two cookbooks for being a presenter: The 30-Day Vegan Challenge as well as Peas and Thank You. All attendees received a copy of My Sweet Vegan which Christie had been wanting to purchase so it was a perfectly timed bit of swag.

Earlier this week Christie made the baked mac & cheese from The 30-Day Vegan Challenge and it was really delicious. It was really inspiring to hear Colleen Patrick-Goudreau speak about compassion during VVC. We’re excited to read some of her other books and start downloading her podcast!

This year I’m spending a fantastic day with a couple of hundred other vegan bloggers at Vida Vegan Con for the next couple of days. It has been amazing to meet many people I’ve connected with via Twitter and blogging. This morning I spoke on a panel with Amey Mathews (Vegan Eats and Treats) and Bianca Phillips (Vegan Crunk) on how to build a blog, drive traffic to it, and clarify your voice in blogging.

I didn’t think to snap of picture of our breakfast this morning, but check out this fabulous BBQ lunch served today:

BBQ Lunch Joy

Pesto potato salad made with Mindful Mayo, raw purple cauliflower hummus, raw kale salad, orzo salad, grilled corn, a golden beet/citrus salad, and a big hunk of BBQ tempeh! All of this was so delicious, I really loved the raw cauliflower hummus, and was followed up by a dark chocolate Coconut Bliss bar for dessert.

We kicked off the garden with a bang last weekend. I also started clearing off our front porch and replanted several pots with beautiful flowers. This seems an entirely fitting way to celebrate May Day!

Serenity & Whimsy Side-by-Side

Christie spent much of the 2 days deep-digging, amending, and turning nearly all of the big fourth bed. This has always been intended for root vegetables, but with our clay-dense soil it requires a fair bit of digging to get a deep bed. We added agricultural sand, 5-part soil mix (contains compost, sand, as well as soil) and peat moss to loosen up the bed for growing carrots, red & sweet onions, leeks, and beets…. for now, we’ll be adding even more beets, carrots and radishes to this bed. I’m even pondering daikon!

Baby Roots!

In another bed we decided to start some salad greens, savoy & “personal” red cabbage (they make miniature, single-serving heads), broccoli rapini, and a red variety of Brussel sprout. We plan to build a fifth bed this year to be our “salad bowl” where we’ll have all kinds of salad greens. We might yet still continue to do brassica type veggies in a separate bed, perhaps alternating with summer squash.

Greens!

Our friends Caylee and Carolyn came over to help with the planting while I took off to go with Devon to see the Johnny Clegg Band. I’d kind of tossed the starts from Portland Nursery out along the bed, roughly where I wanted them. I then ran off without explaining the exact locations nor that the plant tags should be left with them. So a few things might be a little close on one side, but it should work out pretty well. However, we can’t quite recall what one thing is, we’re thinking some kind of red/purple broccoli perhaps.

Mystery Brassica

And then there’s the tomatoes. Yes, tomatoes, damnit. Here and now I throw down the tomato gauntlet and declare that we’re going to have the first home-grown tomatoes in the city. Hell yes!

Cold Hardy Babies

These first four, eventually the entire bed will be tomatoes, are cold-hardy varieties with names like “Moscovite”. As you can see they’ve got red plastic “mulch” to heat the ground (the raised beds also help to heat things up). But wait, there’s more garden-fu happening! In the middle of these little babies there’s a gallon jug of water acting as a passive solar heater, and over the top of them are small pvc pipes holding up 6mm clear plastic. Yep, we’ve got ourselves a tunnel cloche! Now that’s the way to get tomatoes going on May Day!

Can I Get An Amen for the Tunnel Cloche!

There’s still a lot of digging to go. In addition to the “salad bowl” we also have to clear the last raised bed of monster weeds and over-wintered kale (we’ve been snacking on the rabe). This bed will contain peppers of all heat-levels and a few eggplants for me. We also want to convert a 140 gallon stock tank I’ve had for a few years into an herb garden. Getting such a good start right at the beginning of May feels great, eventually we’ll be going all year round for many veggies.

Christie and the Dirt Pile

When you’re vegan complete strangers often feel the need to interrogate you about what you eat and how you could possibly celebrate holidays without animal products. I’ve been asked so many times how I could possibly get enough calcium, protein, B12, etc. that I’ve honestly lost track of the conversations. Likewise, just about every big holiday comes with the shocked question, “But how can you have a proper {insert name of holiday} without {insert animal product}?!”

Thanksgiving is a biggie because traditionally the meal all revolves around a gigantic roast turkey. Growing up we always had a turkey for Thanksgiving, filled with bread dressing, and accompanied by mashed potatoes, gravy, peas, celery stuffed with cheese, rolls, olives, cranberry sauce (quite usually the canned, jelly kind), a carrot/orange Jello salad, and always lots of pie for dessert. In my mid-20s I hosted this extensive meal for several years, having many guests over. When I became vegan I saw no reason that this holiday should be anything less than a feast that showcased the harvest.

The big one I’m asked about all the time is the turkey. How could we possibly replace the turkey? The answer is incredibly obvious to me; we serve a very large roast winter squash filled with bread dressing. It makes a great presentation piece and is delicious! I usually use a Hubbard style since these tend to be rather large as well as a very nice texture and taste.

Blue Ballet Hubbard Squash

The dressing is one of my favorite parts of the meal and I found it very easy to make a vegan one. I use things like Field Roast sausage (apple/sage), celery, onion, fresh parsley, chopped apple, and nuts along with artisan bread. This year I’ve fallen in love with freshly roasted chestnuts and they went into the dressing.

Ready to peel!

Christie has taken upon herself to perfect mashed potatoes. She makes a lemon and cashew creme sauce which is then mixed into the hand-mashed, Russet potatoes. We serve my miso shallot gravy along with the potatoes and it is divine!

I’ve also played around with making a green bean casserole, but this honestly was never a big hit for me as it often involved cream of mushroom soup. When I’ve tired it I’ve used some potato leek soup, but still wasn’t that impressed. This year a friend brought green beans cooked with pearl onions & almonds and I enjoyed this a lot more. Other friends brought over some fried and braised Brussels sprouts and I loved those!

Cheese spread, usually stuffed into celery, was always a part of big holiday meals in my family. I loved this stuff as a kid, particularly the port wine style. I’ve enjoyed the vegan ones people have brought over in the past and this year I tried my hand at making my own. They turned out great, so I will be coming up with recipes for these.

Although I don’t hate the jellied cranberry sauce in a can, it isn’t my favorite. For Christie the canned stuff is an integral part of her Thanksgiving experience, so we have it in addition to a freshly made cranberry relish.

This year we served a new Celebration Roast from Field Roast. A cranberry hazelnut roast wrapped in puff pastry (en croute)! It was beautiful and incredibly tasty. We look forward to serving one for the open house & games day we’ll be hosting on Christmas Day.

In addition to all that amazing food, we also include the delicious pumpkin pies and squishy yeast rolls from Sweetpea Baking Company. We’ve not figured out a great pumpkin pie ourselves and the ones made by the bakery are fantastic. The rolls cannot be beat and I swear I manage to eat a half dozen of them every Thanksgiving!

Another Squash Picture - So Lovely

There are a few ingredients I consider indispensable in my kitchen. Several items I’ve been known to bring with me on trips when I know I’m going to be cooking or I’ll have researched where I can procure them locally. Most of these are pretty easy to find and they show up in a lot of my recipes!

Miso – My wife and friends joke that this is my “secret ingredient” in many dishes. I use white miso in light things like a sweet/salty glaze for grilled tofu or salad dressings, the much stronger red miso in stews and gravies, and I’ve used chickpea miso to make some dishes soy-free! It adds a wonderful salty, sweet, savory taste to any dish.

*My current favorite miso is a product called Jorinji Miso made by the Soy Beam Jozo Company right here in Portland, Oregon! They make miso a small batches and it is amazingly good. A friend visiting from San Francisco, who has also lived in Japan, has asked that I please bring some down when next I visit.

Maple Syrup – I love the sweetness that maple syrup adds and will use it a lot in salad dressing, sauteed or roasted veggies, baked beans, and tempeh bacon. I do use agave, but only when the warmer, stronger taste of maple syrup would be distracting.

Nutritional Yeast – We go through so much of this in our house that I’ve been tempted to get it in 25 pound bags! This is one of very best ways to add a salty taste to a dish without adding a lot of extra sodium; only 5mg of sodium in 2 tablespoons! The fine flake is extra nice for just shaking onto stuff or using for salad dressings because it mixes in so smoothly.

Dried shiitake mushrooms – I don’t actually like mushrooms much, unless it is something fabulous the chef at Andina surprises me with, but I will admit that the flavor dried shiitakes impart to broth is really awesome. I regularly use big, dried shiitakes to make my own dashi (a Japanese stock) or just to add a richer, darker flavor to vegetable stocks.

Hoisin sauce – Often mistakenly called “plum sauce”, hoisin is a sweeter, thicker cousin of soy sauce. I occasionally add a little to a quick stir-fry and call it dinner! More than any of the other distinctly Asian condiments I keep on hand, I think the hoisin gets used the most.

Bragg’s Liquid Aminos – I generally add very, very little salt to any of my dishes. If we want a little more saltiness we add it when we eat, usually via a little bit of Bragg’s. Yes, it still has quite a lot of sodium, but it also has a whole pile of amino acids along with that sodium and I like the way it tastes in things like soups.

Citrus – I like to try and keep at least one lemon and one lime on hand. Nothing beats the taste of freshly squeezed citrus in dishes, not to mention the option of adding the grated peel! A little fresh lemon and some miso whisked together and you’ve got yourself an awesome glaze!

This past weekend I paid a visit to my far-geekier past and attended OryCon for a day. It was a lot of fun seeing friends I’d not seen in a long time and hanging out gaming, but the thing that really stuck me was how terrible the food was overall. I was happy I’d started the day off with lunch at Blossoming Lotus before going.

I found myself wondering if the food at science fiction conventions had gotten worse, but I finally realized that it hadn’t. At one point I had been willing to tolerate the cheap peanut butter and slices of white bread or be grateful to have the option of a big bowl of iceberg lettuce with lousy dressing because at least it resembled a vegetable. Taken as a whole it seems like the Con Suite food has always been mediocre at best.

Given the bad and really only snack level food available from the Con, and having heard about the poor quality of the hotel restaurants, a group of us decided to have some Chinese food delivered. I had a very stilted conversation with the restaurant and settled on stir-fried green beans and spicy tofu with vegetables for Devon and I to share. This food was also really lousy. “Not inedible”, was perhaps the kindest description that could be applied.

At this point Devon pointed out that she would have a far easier time finding food-like-substances, not being vegan, and insisted I finish her leftover half a white bean and pesto wrap she’d saved from our lunch earlier at Blossoming Lotus. We’d also picked up some hummus while picking up things for a party, but the wrap was pretty filling and tasty. I was really grateful for it too after having unenthusiastically eaten some of the tofu and green beans.

I was so surrounded by a lack of good vegan options, unusual for being in the middle of Portland, that it was a good reminder of how much concerned I am about what I eat now. After a day of this I have found it interesting to observe how differently I approach food now. Starting first from the compassionate choice of vegan food, then moving on to delicious food, and quite often healthy food as well. This relationship with food has made a profound impact to my life.