Post-Thanksgiving musings

Thanksgiving dinner's sad and thankless
Christmas dinner's dark and blue
When you stop and try to see it
From the turkey's point of view.
~Shel Silverstein


I'm going to admit something. I used to be somewhat of a Thanksgiving Scrooge. But the more I read and experience, the less alone I feel and the more I'm warming up to this holiday. Thanksgiving is a strange holiday for a vegan. Every other day of the year, the vegan buys and eats their cruelty-free groceries while the rest of the world goes on eating meat. But on Thanksgiving, it is quite difficult to avoid the incessant imagery of a dead animal carcass as centerpiece to the family feast. It is disheartening to many to have to sit down with friends and family and watch them ooh and awe over a dead bird.


Somehow, this became the American tradition. A holiday guised to be about thankfulness, often just becomes a gluttonous bird-eating fest. I remember my first Thanksgiving as a vegetarian. I was fully unprepared and was subject to mocking, and a dinner plate that consisted of a white dinner roll and some fruit salad. My stomach growled as the rest of the family feasted, but I would not give in. After that first year, there was a very gradual shift toward meals that I could enjoy, while I, along with family members learned of ways to prepare dishes that everyone - even vegetarians could enjoy. And after a few years of that, I finally got into cooking and even offered to contribute to family meals by preparing dishes I knew I could eat - and that everyone else could also enjoy.


This year, George and I were separated from our families by our move to Oregon. This was not my first year away from family on this holiday, but I truly missed them. But as much as I missed spending time with family, I actually got excited at the prospect of preparing an entire Thanksgiving feast all by myself! Crazy? probably. But I do miss certain family culinary traditions, and have been acutely aware of Dad's chef-genes kicking in lately.


Dad was, and still is, clearly master of the kitchen. Mom always was an excellent cook as well, but when Dad's a professional chef, apparently you don't mess with him. I attempted to take him on a few years back, thinking I was doing him a favor by offering to cook an entire Thanksgiving dinner and give him the night off. Even with my offer to do everything for one night, he was not willing to relinquish control of the kitchen and instead put me on potato duty. I briefly entertained the idea of turning him down in favor of an all-or-nothing approach, but decided to take what I could get in Dad's kitchen and prepare my famous garlic roasted potatoes.


On a side note, everyone always asks me for the 'recipe' for the garlic roasted potatoes, and to tell the truth: there isn't one. This is a trait I'm sure comes from my chef-father, but I hate recipes, as well as measuring. I love to cook, but to me it's all a nuanced, experimental art. For anyone still seeking the recipe, this is as close as you're going to get: Dice potatoes of choice, spread on as many cookie sheets as necessary, and coat GENEROUSLY with olive oil. Sprinkle plenty of garlic salt and parsley on top and roast in the oven, somewhere between 350 and 450 for, I don't know, several hours? When they're done, you'll know it. The first time I made these, it was for a family gathering and I chopped an entire 10 lb. bag of potatoes to much chastisement and derision. Trust me, I said... and the entire 10 lbs. was gone.


Back to my story. Ever since volunteering to cook the entire family meal - and to have everyone enjoy a vegetarian dinner, I've been absolutely itching to do just that. So, when George and I resolved that we'd be staying home alone for the holiday, my meal-planning genes went into overdrive. Dad's ability to perfectly prepare an entire meal, combined with Grandma Ev's inclination to set a perfect table days in advance of an event  suddenly clicked and I spent weeks planning the perfect vegan meal, poring over magazine recipes, grocery shopping, and yes - actually drawing diagrams of the placement of dishes on the table.


My first inclination was to make something truly out of the ordinary, but since we were far away from family, I wanted to have a meal that was grounded in tradition and comfort. And when speaking of tradition in my family, Thanksgiving begins at breakfast. With the Macy's parade on in the background, we would prepare "breakfast turkeys" - hollowed out oranges, filled with fruit salad, and bedecked with froot-loop 'feathers' and a grape for a head. This was always served alongside Mom's special cheesy-scrambled-eggs, something I would indulge in once a year as a vegetarian, as missed as a vegan. Last year, in my old apartment, I prepared the fruit turkeys for George and myself, indulging my inner child. This year, I skipped the elaborate fruit dish in the mess that would be our dinner, but decided to give the scrambled eggs a make-over. Combining a few recipes, I apparently struck gold with my new cheesy tofu scramble.  A block of firm tofu, mashed, with olive oil, and a hint of spice (garlic, salt, pepper, paprika) sauteed with my new favorite discovery that deserves its own posting, nutritional yeast, or "nootch" as it's familiarly called in several vegan blogs. This nondescript, unassuming brown powder is completely vegan, a complete protein full of B vitamins, and when sprinkled into food, creates an amazing 'cheese-sauce' taste and texture that you have to try to believe. Consider it my new miracle food. My scramble was served alongside oven-roasted tomatoes to provide the sweet, tangy counterpart to the creaminess of the 'cheesy' tofu. This dish would appease even the most discerning omnivore.


For dinner, I made the tofurky our centerpiece, with my special orange-soy sauce baste, surrounded by potatoes, carrots, and apples. I updated tired mashed potatoes with a yukon potato, carrot, and white bean mash - perfectly creamy without the dairy! Roasted acorn squash was stuffed with quinoa-pistachio stuffing and, garnished with fresh parsley, made a beautiful presentation. Green beans with a dash of lemon juice rounded out the dinner. For a tart-sweet counterpart, I made an earl grey tea spiced cranberry sauce. The meal was completed with pinot noir and a vegan pumpkin pie - my first foray into pie-making! I probably spent the most time on that dish, combining several different recipes to arrive at the right combination of pumpkin, soymilk, spices, and an easy graham cracker crust. Meanwhile, Isa enjoyed a special plate of fresh parsley, with a garnish of apple and carrot slices.


While I truly miss heartily laughing along with family to National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, I adopted George's tradition of after-dinner entertainment, in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles which had a far more endearing ending than I had remembered. I added my own mix to the traditions by playing all of the epic Thanksgiving episodes of FRIENDS while I was busy in the kitchen.


The whole day was a mixture of several family traditions, as well as new rituals that I'm sure will make their way into our lexicon of tradition. Much as we both missed our families, I cannot express how thrilled I was to be in charge of a whole holiday meal, and how much it meant to me to be able to share a table full of traditional, yet veganized foods, with not a dead animal in sight. In truth, it was a dream come true. I cherish being able to share the experience with the one I love, and I hope to be able to one day prepare a larger feast to share with our families as well!


And so, for the first time in a very long time, I was able to truly enjoy Thanksgiving dinner without giving any thought to where the food had come from, to not be the subject of any teasing or ridicule about my culinary choices. In a way, it was refreshing. Looking ahead on the calendar, we will likely be doing the same for Christmas, and my gears are already spinning, planning an amazing Christmas dinner.