A PEACEful Feast

On Saturday night John and I got a head start on expanding the capacity of our stomachs for Thanksgiving day. We attended a Vegan Thanksgiving Feast, hosted by the Society of PEACE (People for the Earth, Animals, Compassion, and Enlightenment) at a local vegan-friendly restaurant, Field of Greens. Greeting us at our seats was literature on having a compassionate Thanksgiving, Tofurky coupons, a 2008 calendar, and S.O.P. Go Vegan! pens (I love using these in business meetings). A literature table was also set up and stocked with vegan starter kits, recipe booklets, and postcards. Over 75 places were set... in Houston! And what's even more impressive was that over 100 people had responded, but the venue didn't have enough room. was such fun to be sharing a meal with that many like-minded folks.

Dinner began with a simple garden salad with cucumber, carrots, tomatoes, and sprouts. We were lucky we all ate the same super garlicky dressing, I can still taste in on my breath today! To warm us up (from the air conditioner that is), we sipped on carrot ginger soup. Sorry in advance for the poor quality pictures, I didn't bring my new lighting toys with me :-)
The main course totally exceeded my expectations... I almost asked for seconds after that huge plate of food! There was a cornbread stuffing, roasted potatoes and eggplant, green beans, kale, wheat roast, faux turkey, and a mushroom gravy. John was so excited about the faux turkey and is determined to find out what it is and how we can get it. My favorite was the cornbread stuffing and green beans.
For dessert, as if I had room for it, was a slice of pumpkin pie and a piece of fudge. Mmmmm, pumpkin pie! Oh how I love fall flavors!

After the meal there was a door prize drawing, and John actually won! He got some faux cheese coupons, a TryVeg.com bumper sticker (which I think I'll steal for my car), some veg recipe booklets, and Howard Lyman's book Mad Cowboy (which I plan on reading as well).

Professor Alan Clune (from Sam Houston State University) then gave a presentation about the various philosophies of animal ethics. I have never had any sort of philosophy course, so it was very interesting to learn about the different views and the reasonings behind them. Makes me want to pick up a book and learn more....

Kristen, the S.O.P. president, did an amazing job setting up this event. Seeing how passionate and dedicated she is about veganism makes me want to do more. As Tamara mentioned on her blog the other week, sometimes vegan activism is a focus in our lives and sometimes it is just in the background. This event has inspired me though to be more active in promoting veganism in my everyday life. Tomorrow I'm going to post some of the gentle Thanksgiving literature I picked up from the event on my office door. And I'm going to bring in some treats I made (I'll post those tomorrow). It's a start.... to hopefully a more PEACEful world.