Thanks-Go-Vegan 2006 was a hit! On Thursday afternoon, five of us crammed ourselves into Alicia's tiny one-bedroom apartment kitchen in East Oakland, bags of farmer's market produce and local market dry goods crowding the floors and counters, ready to cook up a storm. Alicia had decorated her apartment with dried pomegranates, tiny white tea lights floating amongst cranberries in her kitchen bowls, and dried leaves and dried strips of butternut squash. Early Thursday morning I'd driven around doing some 'urban foraging.' I'd gotten some beautiful pink berries that looked almost like mistletoe that we hung in Alicia's window; I'd snipped some delicate whispy plants of brown and tan that had flowers that looked like velour; and I'd foraged some rosemary (it's growing everywhere out here!) and also some beautifully vibrant pink flower petals that had fallen to the ground.

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We (Alicia, Andy, Catherine, Matt and I) started cooking around noon and sauteed garlic and onions and leeks, drank wine, fried veggie sausage, mashed potatoes, drank hard cider, stuffed Acorn Squash with Israeli Couscous, whisked cornbread batter from blue corn meal and pastry flour, drank cider mixed with wine, stewed mushroom gravy, whipped cream, and boiled brussels sprouts furiously for five hours before we began to eat (and countinued to drink) ourselves into Thanks-Go-Vegan heaven. Everyone agreed that we didn't miss the turkey (or the Tofurkey for that matter), and that this was the most **beautiful ** autumn feast we'd ever been a part of putting together.

The Menu:

Celery and Onion Stuffing with Homemade Bread Crumbs
Acorn Squash stuffed with a Cranberries, Couscous and Nuts
Andy's Famous Mashed Yellow Finns with Garlic and Veggie Sausage
Homemade Graventstein-Fuji Applesauce
Homemade Cranberry Sauce
Tofu-Leek Tart with a Pine Nut Crust
Brussels Sprouts with Garlic and Bread Crumbs
Far West Fungi Red Wine Mushroom Gravy
Blue Corn Muffins

For dessert, I'd made Mini Applesauce Cakes and a Vegan Pumpkin Pie with a Graham Cracker Crust, both which came out simply divine. We ate and ate until we could eat no more, and then settled down for some conversation and a movie...it was a great day with great people...thank you to you all.