By Grace Emery
I come from a family of foodies. As a young child, it was customary to enjoy tempeh and artichokes for dinner, and I still remember the first time I ever tried—and for that matter heard of meatloaf at the ripe old age of 16. My sister and I grew up exploring weird and wonderful foods, and we have our enthusiastic foodie parents to thank for our adventurous taste buds.
Perhaps an overdue symptom of empty-nest syndrome, my parents have recently started going on themed culinary kicks for weeks at a time. These adventures typically reflect the cookbook they most recently acquired: “Oh, did you know this is the national dish of Ethiopia!? Well, we’ve been eating all vegan this past week, you know.” I look forward to their Sunday night check-in calls (with an admitted bit of jealousy), destined to be filled with tales of the dietary feats they have accomplished that week.
Enthusiasm for food and flavor runs strong throughout the family, and our holiday celebrations often go above and beyond a typical celebration, including a full out Iron Chef competition that occurs every Christmas Eve. It then should have come as no surprise when I received a call gleefully informing me Thanksgiving would be vegan this year and isn’t that just so exciting!? Even within a family who more often than not has Christmas tamales rather than honey baked ham, this was quite a break from tradition. No turkey, no mashed potatoes, no gravy boat making its way around the table and the inevitable drama that ensues when it spills on the tablecloth? I at least found great comfort in the fact that wine passes as vegan.
These “vegan” meals are often accompanied by a quick disclosure that the meal is entirely vegan, except for just this little bit of cheese. Thanksgiving was no exception tothat rule, as we started off the afternoon with mini-quiche. Much like the gift-card as a last minute Christmas present, I turn to the Whole Foods frozen section in times of need. I’m also going to go ahead and consider this appetizer my personal contribution to the meal—I did put them in the toaster oven after all.
Diner started with pumpkin soup, topped with cumin-flavored roasted pumpkin seeds and parsley, and a salad featuring roasted beets, blue cheese, and pecans. In California, we tend to sing the heralds of summer vegetables that we can grow in our own backyard—but there is something to be said for the comfort factor of roasted fall veggies. We had a heaping pile of oven-roasted brussel sprouts, cauliflower, carrots, and onion, tossed together in olive oil and light seasoning.
The main event—or our turkey stand-in— was a vegetable wellington. After one bite of flakey puff pastry filled with butternut squash, mushrooms and the familiar “just a little bit” of goat cheese, I forgot all about turkey. I oh so generously offered to take a good portion of the leftovers off their hands and returned home with bursting Ziploc bags. While I can’t exactly make a day after Thanksgiving sandwich out of these leftovers, I’d take this version any day.
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