Thanksgiving can be a rough time, particularly for new vegans that still celebrate with meat-eating family. It’s not easy sometimes to handle the chides that come with eating differently from everyone else at the table. And, especially the first time, it can be hard to resist the comfort food we remember from our childhood. There’s been a lot written about how to do a vegan Thanksgiving, but hey, there can always be a little more, right?

So, here are some ways to help get you through the holiday season stuffed and happy.

Get to cooking!

Whether you’re spending a quiet Thanksgiving at home or braving an evening of stupid questions and taunts from 20 family members, there are some great resources online to help you get cooking and make sure that you not only have something to eat, but something to wow the rest of the family as well.

I got a peek at Nava Atlas’ significantly updated version of A Bountiful Vegan Thanksgiving e-book and it’s mighty impressive. It features 65 recipes in all, including Nava’s own as well as contributions from all your favorite veg cookbook authors and bloggers (among them: Isa Chandra Moskowitz, Dreena Burton, Jill Nussinow, and Bryanna Clark Grogan). The e-book sells for $8.95 and all profits go to “humanitarian charities concerned with hunger, microfinancing for women in developing countries, and the alleviation of human trafficking.”

Then, over at Vegan.com, there’s a guest post from Robin Robertson (author of many cookbooks, including the new and massive 1,000 Vegan Recipes). A full Thanksgiving menu is presented. The Triple Cranberry Relish and Ginger-Dusted Pumpkin Cheezecake sound mighty good. (Last year’s guest post is also still available.)

Go to a real Thanksgiving…

And by that, I mean a celebration that doesn’t involve killing turkeys. Why not hang out with some turkeys instead? Sanctuaries around the country have vegan Thanksgiving get-togethers. The one at Poplar Spring is my favorite event of the year — imagine a vegan potluck with 300 people bringing dishes. Hot damn.

Below is a sampling of sanctuaries and their Thanksgiving events.

• Colorado – Peaceful Prairie’s Living at Thanksgiving (sold out)
• Maryland – Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary’s Thanksgiving for the Turkeys (November 21)
• Maryland – Thanksgiving Vigil for Turkeys (November 20, leafleting event)
• Montana – New Dawn Montana monthly potluck (every second Saturday)
• New York/California – Thanksgiving Celebration FOR the Turkeys (November 21)
• New York – Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary ThanksLiving 2009 (passed – catch it next year!)
• New York – Safe Haven Farm Sanctuary’s Celebration for the Turkeys (November 22)
• New York City – Thanksgiving Celebration FOR the Turkeys (November 22)
• Oregon – Lighthouse Farm Sacntuary’s Gentle Thanksgiving (November 21)
• Utah – Ching Farm Vegan Thanksgiving Dinner (passed – catch it next year!)

Vegetarian and Vegan organizations also tend to do Thanksgiving meals on or around Thanksgiving, so check in with your local groups to see if there’s any thing to get involved in.

Read Things

This is a good time of year to dig into More than a Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality by UPC’s Karen Davis (here’s a Google Books version). The level of detail is impressive — you’ll learn something. Trust me.

Feel free to share your favorite vegan Thanksgiving events, recipes, or books.

A little over a month ago, Rasine (who’s three now) and Huyen were at a birthday party. Rasine was offered a snack or a piece of cake by her friend’s mother and, before accepting, asked the hostess, “Is this vegan?”

Huyen was surprised and I was equally taken aback by it when she told me about it afterwards. This was the first time that Rasine had it taken upon herself to ask about food, showing an understanding about her food that we, honestly, didn’t think she had quite yet. To top it off, when she found out it wasn’t vegan, she didn’t cry or complain. She just said, “OK!” and moved on.

And, amazingly, it’s continued like that.

I underestimated where Rasine was at with regards to understanding about why we eat the way we do. Turns out, she’s able to clearly and concisely state that we don’t eat animals because we like them and don’t want to hurt them. And if there’s a food she wants that isn’t vegan, she’s fine with it.

A funny moment came when we were helping to clean up after Poplar Spring’s open house last month. One of the other volunteers was cutting a cake from Sticky Fingers and offered Rasine a piece. Rasine dutifully asked, “Is that vegan?” Robin, the volunteer, almost fell over from shock.

The topper came, though, when we visited my sister’s house a few weeks ago. They’d fixed bacon for breakfast and Rasine asked if she could have some. I took her aside and quietly told her, “We’re not going to eat that because it’s not vegan.” She said, “OK,” and we got our food ready.

A few minutes later when everyone sat down for breakfast, as everyone else took a bite of bacon, Rasine decided it was good time to announce, “We don’t eat that because it’s not vegan and it hurts animals.” My sister was a gracious host and didn’t throw us out, instead responding, “Yes, dear… we know…” We all had a good laugh at our vocal little activist speaking her mind.

We’ve been told by her teachers that she’s been doing some vegangelizing at school, too, telling everyone about veganism and how she likes animals.

I write about all this not to say, “Aww… look how cute my daughter is!” (well, OK, maybe it’s a little bit of that, too), but to show that it’s really easy to underestimate kids’ understanding of what they’re eating. We think they need to be shielded from the reality and told cute stories about how chickens happily give their eggs for us to eat. This just isn’t the case. Now, I’m not suggesting you break out Earthlings at your kid’s fourth birthday party, but there are ways we can be gently honest about the food that people eat and why we, as vegans, don’t choose to eat the same foods. We also need to stress that just because some family members eat meat, that doesn’t make them bad people. There may be a few of those awkward moments where your child blurts something out that might shock a family member or friend, but hey — everyone does it at some point.

It’s also easy to fall into that trap of thinking raising your kids vegan is somehow depriving them of the “experience” of eating meat or having a piece of birthday cake with eggs in it. But it’s not. Just like most of us probably don’t feel deprived for not being able to strangle a hobo, kids who grow up vegan aren’t going necessarily feel like they’re missing out. As parents, we have to make sure we focus on what we do eat and why and to always offer alternatives. That might mean coming prepared with cupcakes to a birthday party or offering a trade of her favorite vegan candy for non-vegan candy she collected during Halloween.

I fully expect that at some point, Rasine will rebel and want something that’s not vegan. I’m under no illusions that it’s always going to be this easy with her. But, for now, her inquisitive nature and her enthusiasm about veganism remind me that we’re not depriving her. We’re nurturing her natural compassion and she’s teaching us that kids shouldn’t be underestimated.

At this point in her cookbook writing career, I think Isa could put out a book titled 137 Ways to Cook Brussels Sprouts and it would not only be a best seller, but a favorite on vegan messageboards everywhere (Really. Her roasted brussels sprouts recipe is great.). After the success of Vegan with a Vengeance, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, and Veganomicon, it’s little surprise that Vegan Brunch got such hype (and then lived up to it).

Isa’s Basic Scrambled Tofu recipe is quite good. I’d gotten so used to my own hodgepodge of spices, nootch, and turmeric that it was refreshing to try someone else’s recipe. Our first attempt came out a bit salty, but we cut back the second time around and it was nearly perfect. We also enjoyed the swiss chard frittata quite a bit.

The Perfect Pancakes lived up to their name. The secret ingredient here is maple syrup; having it in the pancakes as well as on top of them makes a big difference. We made it with half all-purpose flour and half spelt flour with very good results.

Other big-time winners (and recipients of the rare “double plus” rating in our notes): Chesapeake Tempeh Cakes (which do a surprisingly good job of capturing the flavor and spirit of crab cakes considering Isa had never actually eaten one before — do yourself a favor, though, and double the sauce… it’s really tasty), Whole Wheat Crepes (super quick and super tasty), and Red Flannel Hash (a great way to use those beets from the CSA that you don’t know what to do with).

The two recipes that I’ve enjoyed the most so far are the ones I was most anticipating. First: New York-style bagels, made from scratch. Sure, I had to get up at 7am to start making them in order to have them ready by 10, but it was totally worth it. That first morning they’re crispy outside and chewy inside and just perfect. I had no idea that making bagels at home was possible, let alone with such good results. The second show stopper: Cherry Sage Sausages. Using a nifty cooking tip from fellow vegan chef Julie Hasson, Isa pairs chopped dried cherries with a surprisingly easy to make steamed seitan sausage. Fry these babies up and you will be 100% satisfied.

Only two times so far have we come up a bit disappointed. The Chive Spelt Mini-Biscuits sounded promising but came out funny tasting — I’m betting that it was due to bad baking soda or flour, though (which means I probably shouldn’t be mentioning the recipe in a negative way, but I promise I’ll correct this review if they come out better the second time around). We were also not as happy with the Banana Rabanada as we expected. Again, I’ll give it a second chance because it just sounds so promising.

With sections dedicated to savory, sweet, sides, breads, toppings, and drinks, Isa takes you from the familiar to the exotic. The food photography is beautiful and as with her previous books, Isa’s commentary is fun, useful, and eminently readable. She’s got another winner here.

Now bring on the cookie book.

CDD. So many people have it. In fact, we all do to some degree, but as vegans, we tend to bump up against it in almost any conversation with have with someone about the way we live our lives.

CDD is Cognitive Dissonance Disorder, a completely made-up malady that serves as a good introduction to two encounters that my wife and I had with people this weekend.

The Monkey Torturer

My wife took our daughter to a birthday party in our neighborhood recently and chatted a bit with the girl’s parents while the kids were playing. She comes to find out that the husband does “research” on monkeys. What kind of research, you ask? Something amazing and potentially life-changing for the entire world, because that’s what medical research is all about?

No. Of course not.

The project he’s working on involves “testing the mother-child bond.” One group of monkeys have their children taken away from them right after giving birth. The second group of monkeys have their children taken away a week later. And, of course, all are kept in cages and, according to him, “don’t mind it.”

I don’t need to tell you this is torture. I don’t need to tell you this is stupid. And I don’t need to tell you that we would never even consider doing this to humans, but for some reason, it’s OK to some because it’s being done to monkeys. What is the possible justification for this type of research? I have no idea.

I wasn’t at this party, and it’s probably a good thing. I don’t think I could have held a civil conversation when justified monkey torture was the topic.

(Oh, and for added fun, the research lab is just minutes away in the same town as Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary.)

The Baffling Rescuer

Last weekend in our town there was a “Dog Days” event where a couple of blocks downtown were closed off and people were encouraged to bring their dogs down for a pet-friendly fair. It was a nice event overall and there were a number of interesting vendors and groups in attendance.

One was a greyhound rescue group. After looking through their literature, I asked one of the representatives whether they did any work lobbying against racing. She told me that the organization is officially “racing neutral.” She said that if they wanted to be able to continue getting the dogs from the tracks, they needed to remain neutral. That made sense to me.

As we continued our conversation, I proceeded with the assumption that even though the organization was racing neutral that the woman herself would be against racing. I mean, obviously, right?

She told me that she’d read that greyhound racing would likely be non-existent by 2015 because it was becoming less and less profitable each year. I said, “Well, that’s good.” She replied, “It would be a shame because we’d be losing a great, great breed…”

Those who know me know that I’m not a confrontational person. To a fault, actually. But at this point, we kind of got into it.

I explained that it’s not right to bring animals into existence just to treat them badly (at this point I didn’t even get into the “or for our use” thing, because, again I assumed she was against racing). She then asked me, “Have you ever actually been to a track and seen how they’re treated?” I told her I had not (and really wanted to use my favorite “and I don’t need to be hit in the face with a lead pipe to know it hurts” line, too, but I didn’t). She then assured me that most racers treated their dogs wonderfully.

Wait a second. Most racers treat their dogs wonderfully, but they’re discarded at a mere 3-4 years old? And if it wasn’t for your own organization, these dogs would die? I told her that, to me the treatment of an animal that you’re using for your own purposes is incidental. The use of an animal at all, I told her, is the problem. She acted like this was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard.

She then proceeded to throw goofy statements at me like, “Well, you can’t tell me you don’t get something out of having a dog? Isn’t that ‘using’ her?” (“Of course I get pleasure from having her in the family, but that’s not why she’s with us.”)

We both took a deep breath and paused a moment. I told her I appreciated the work her organization was doing and thanked her for being involved. I moved on, still baffled that someone could voice support for an industry that necessitated her rescue organization’s very existence.

When I got home, I tweeted about it and asked Mary Martin if this type of stance was common among greyhound rescuers and rescue organizations:

thevegblog: Got into it with a woman from a greyhound rescue organization today. She was defending greyhound racing. @mary_martin, is that normal?

mary_martin: They often say that their 501c3 status prevents them from having an opinion, but that’s BS. They get $ from the track & the $ they get makes them beholden to the industry. It’s a tough spot IF you want $ from the track.

thevegblog: The woman said the org was “racing neutral” in order to keep getting the animals, but she herself defended racing. Seems crazy.

mary_martin: Yeah, that’s a typical response. & from the adopter side, deciding 2 adopt from someone like that is difficult.

After a weekend of such encounters, I’m looking forward to working the farm this Saturday and going to a potluck with other vegan families on Sunday.

“I don’t eat no meat, no dairy, no sweets
only ripe vegetables, fresh fruit and whole wheat
I’m from the old school, my household smell like soul food, bro
curried falafel, barbecued tofu…”

- “Be Healthy,” Dead Prez

(Note: anytime I can quote “Be Healthy,” I do.)

Bryant Terry’s Vegan Soul Kitchen fills a niche that’s been long left empty: good, healthy vegan food rooted in traditional African-American cuisine. It’s one of many excellent cookbooks released this year and is definitely one that belongs on your shelf if you’re looking to get more veggies into your diet.

Our two favorite dishes from Vegan Soul Kitchen come from the “salads, slaws, and dressing” chapter and both are great for dinner or potlucks. The first is Roasted Red Potato Salad with Parsley-Pine Nut Pesto. It takes a little while to prepare, but is a really flavorful alternative to the mayo-heavy potato salad that usually finds its way onto summer picnic tables. A few pages later comes the recipe we’ve made more than any other in the book, Wild Style Salad (Rock the Bells Remix). Sure, I was predisposed to liking it given that it’s named after one of the greatest movies of all time (and the “remix” refers to one of old school hip-hop’s best tracks), but I suspect even if you’re completely unfamiliar with Fab 5 Freddy’s fine acting and L.L.’s brash teenage braggadocio, you’ll dig this salad. Its base is wild rice, four different colored bell peppers, and some raisins and cashews. The dressing is a mixture of apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, Dijon, agave, and some salt, pepper, and oil. The end result is a bright, vibrant, filling salad that’s packed with protein, minerals, and B vitamins. Love it, love it, love it.

Since we’re smack in the middle of autumn here, we’ve also tried out two of the recipes from the “root vegetables and winter squashes” section of the “So Fresh and So Green Green” chapter. We enjoyed both the smooth and sweet Roasted Sweet Potato Puree with Coconut Milk as a dip/spread and the Cumin-Cayenne Mashed Potatoes with Carmelized Onions, which provides just enough of a kick without being overpowering.

Other dishes we’ve tried: Citrus Collards with Raisins Redux (a great way to get your greens – also try his Collard Confetti, made with the leftover stems, with some sugar and balsamic), Sweet Sweetback’s Salad with Roasted Beet Vinaigrette (not for everyone’s tastes, but very bold if you dig arugula, beets, and candied walnuts), and the Carrot-Cranberry-Walnut Salad with Creamy Walnut Vinaigrette (the one recipe we’ve tried that was underwhelming).

In addition to being filled with great recipes organized in unique ways (there’s a whole chapter just for watermelon!), Vegan Soul Kitchen is a really entertaining read. The stories behind some of the food are longer than the recipes themselves and each dish is given a suggested music soundtrack ranging from MF Doom to Ann Peebles to Grant Green to DJ Spooky remixes of Charlie Parker. A fan even compiled two imixes on iTunes of 170 of the songs referenced in the book.

So, a big thumbs up for Vegan Soul Kitchen. If you don’t know, now you know…

Last night, my family’s cat Sammy died. I still remember back in 1992 when Sammy came to us as a kitten for my sister’s birthday. Sammy was an independent cat early on who, though he interacted with people, was known to turn on a dime while you were petting him. In his later years, after my sister and I moved out, he changed quite a bit. Perhaps it was the addition of another cat to the household or the deaths of our dogs Bosco and Lady, but he became very affectionate towards people and significantly less grouchy.

He had some strange habits. He enjoyed “relations” with a stuffed dog and looked guilty when he was caught because of making too much noise. He also enjoyed vegetables — broccoli and even corn on the cob. I’m not an expert on cat behavior, but from what I understand, this is somewhat unique.

But for all his youthful attitude and strange habits, he was a really nice cat and I always looked forward to seeing him on trips home to visit the family. It’s hard to believe he was around for what’s half of my life, but he was and was happy and healthy up until a few months before his death.

We’ll miss you, Sam.

Five years ago today, I came home from work and sat at my computer. I’d been vegetarian for four years and in recent months had been really transitioning away from dairy and eggs. I was consuming very little and writing even less about it (readers of the Veg Blog thought I was vegan long before I actually was), but I hadn’t made the firm commitment to completely forgo all animal products. This night, something wasn’t sitting well with me as I thought about it. It was the eve of my 29th birthday and I wasn’t quite sure what was holding me back.

For some reason, I watched Meet Your Meat. I may or may not have watched it before and I’d surely seen similar footage a dozen times since I went vegetarian. But something about this viewing on this night was different. I finished the short video and declared to myself (my wife hadn’t returned home from work yet), “I’m done. No more messing around. I’m vegan now.” And I never looked back.

I’ve been vegan now for longer than I was vegetarian. That feels significant. I think it’s because the only regret I have is that I didn’t go vegan sooner, that I messed around for so long, avoiding the commitment.

Over those five years, my outlook on things has changed significantly. I’ve become much more aware of how connected our exploitation of animals is to our exploitation and mistreatment of humans and the environment. My views on the role of animal welfare activism have changed. Most certainly, my tastes have changed and I’m eating and enjoying foods I wouldn’t have touched ten years ago. My relationship with animals (of all species) has changed. I’ve made some of the most incredible friends and acquaintances in “the movement,” people that inspire me with their words and actions every single day. I have an amazing family, including a daughter we’ve raised vegan from birth. And though I still have days where I feel cynical and hopeless about the way things are, most of the time I’m filled with hope, knowing that even if we don’t completely eliminate the use of animals in my lifetime, there are a lot of good people out there and things are changing.

Five years isn’t long in the grand scheme of things, I realize, but I know I’ll never go back. There’s lots to be done and five years is just a start.

As the Roots Radics said: forwards ever, backwards never.

(Also, happy 5-year veganversary to Lindsay at Vegan Chai, who remembers every year that we went vegan on the same day. This year, it’s my turn to remember!)

“What is the essence of pig?” Virginia farmer Joel Salatin asked an audience of about 200 University students and Charlottesville residents last Thursday.

Dubbed “high priest of the pasture” by The New York Times, Salatin said life for his pigs is a “Hog Heaven.” His 550-acre farm, Polyface, Inc., is like an animal sanctuary, he said…

Sounds pretty nice, right?

Until you read the second paragraph of “Holy cow!” from The Cavalier Daily (VA) in full:

Dubbed “high priest of the pasture” by The New York Times, Salatin said life for his pigs is a “Hog Heaven.” His 550-acre farm, Polyface, Inc., is like an animal sanctuary, he said, created to produce high-quality pork, beef and poultry that his consumers can trust.

Wash my mouth out with vegan soap, but: what the fuck?

It gets worse:

As he describes in his latest book, “Holy Cows and Hog Heaven,” Salatin believes that the journey “from farm to fork” is a sacred one. Beginning the lecture with a quote from the Book of Genesis, he said the road to success in the agricultural world is rooted in Christianity. The reflection of Christian values onto the land and the happiness of the animals is one of the main focuses of Polyface, Inc., Salatin said.

A self-described “Christian-libertarian-environmentalist-lunatic-beyond-organic farmer,” Salatin promotes six principles he believes every farmer should follow: order, forgiveness, peace, relationships, honesty, humility and healing. These principles develop a peaceful, beautiful environment and a food system consumers can appreciate.

So, apparently the ideas of “peace” and “healing” involve slaughtering animals based on something in scripture and then selling it as happy meat.

“I’m in the healing industry,” Salatin said. In his opinion, healing is one of the most important and enjoyable aspects of farming, meant to nurture the land and livestock with the utmost care and respect. His ultimate goal is not to increase productivity and efficiency, but to “make an animal sanctuary.”

Dude, if you want to build an animal sanctuary, build a place where animals, you know, have sanctuary.

If he was just promoting happy meat, that probably wouldn’t even be worth mentioning here. But Salatin’s assertion that what he provides for animals is “sanctuary” is offensive to the truly compassionate people that run actual animal sanctuaries, the people that do what they do for the animals and not for the financial benefit that comes from their death.

I think I’ll close with this quote from Salatin, a question he should ask himself a little more carefully:

“There is a respectful, righteous way and an evil way to produce — which one are we feeding?” Salatin asked.

I thought it had been a few weeks since my last post, and I chalked it up to a summer vacation from the blog. Then I looked and realized my last post was at the end of July. Yikes.

I have a bunch of longer posts lined up to get things back into gear, but let me just start you with an amusing dream I had the other night.

I was hanging out at Food Fight chatting with some folks there about how I was thinking about moving to Portland (in real life, I’m not, but if I were moving to the west coast, it would be my first choice). Then all of a sudden, Chad comes over and drops an almost cartoonishly large ham hock in my lap. I almost jump out of my seat, but then realize that, of course, it was a giant vegan ham hock. A mock hock, if you will.

Hey, they carry vegan haggis, so it could happen!

(I had hoped to break this news for you, but held off until it was officially announced and thus got scooped by a couple of others.)

As I mentioned back in January, pizza chain zpizza was trying out several new vegan cheese options to replace their non-vegan soy cheese. Well, the decision has been made and starting now, some zpizza stores are offering the new and well-received Daiya vegan cheese on their pizzas. By the end of the summer, every zpizza in the country (which is almost 100 stores in 16 states!) will have completely replaced their non-vegan soy cheese with the new vegan option. Note that Daiya’s cheese, in addition to being vegan, is also soy, corn, rice, and gluten free. Impressive.

This is a huge deal for vegans looking to get a good vegan cheese pizza. While zpizza doesn’t have the presence of a Domino’s or Pizza hut, they are spreading quickly and their pizzas are so much better. Just a few years ago, Northern Virginia was celebrating their first zpizza and now there are more than a dozen.

I have yet to try the new vegan cheese pizza option (not sure if it’s available at my local one yet) and I haven’t even tried Daiya cheese yet, but rest assured, I’m looking forward to being able to finally order a cheese pizza with good toppings whenever I feel like it.

Here’s an updated list of zpizza’s vegan options:

Pizzas (all of these request Vegan Cheese to replace mozzarella):

• Provence
• Napoli (no parmesan)
• Greek (no feta)
• California
• Tuscan (no feta)
• Berkeley Soy Cheese Veggie (replace basil pesto)
• Moroccan Rustica (replace basil pesto)
• Mediterranean Rustica (no feta)

Salads:

• California
• Arugula (no cheese)
• Greek (no cheese)
• Pear and Gorgonzola (no cheese)

If you’d like to build your own pizza or order a salad, below are acceptable vegan ingredients:

• Pizza dough
• Vegan cheese by Daiya
• Veggie crumbles
• Tomato sauce
• Marinara sauce
• Chipotle pesto
• Mexican salsa
• Roasted garlic sauce
• White Balsamic dressing
• Caramelized onions
• Roasted eggplant
• All fresh vegetables