Friday, November 23, 2012

Thanksgiving Thoughts and This Year's Feasts

Happy (belated) Thanksgiving, boils and ghouls!

I have to be honest, I have very conflicting emotions on Thanksgiving. I love getting together with family, cooking up a big vegan feast and giving thanks for all I have (though I try to be thankful every day of my life). However, Thanksgiving also sends me on an emotional turmoil since I think it is a BS holiday (the first Thanksgiving story is a lie) and I get so frustrated by the whole traditional "let's give thanks by slaughtering a sentient being and devouring its dead flesh" crap.


My Thanksgiving is usually a weird mix of bitterness and happiness, but luckily my happiness usually wins out at the end of the day. This usually happens after I am stuffed with delicious vegan food and after connecting with other vegans.

Thanksgiving Feast #1

This year it was just Mister Spooky and I celebrating together, so I cooked up two yummy feasts for us. The first one I cooked on Thanksgiving Eve and consisted of Field Roast Celebration Roast, smashed sweet potatoes, stuffing, Tofurky gravy and mixed veggies. We even had leftovers to eat for lunch on Thanksgiving day.

Thanksgiving Feast #2

We had the second feast for dinner, and I cooked up a Tofurky Roast, acorn squash filled with walnut-apple stuffing, brussel sprouts, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce. YUM! We both soon slipped into a food coma and spent the rest of the evening digesting our food while re-watching American Horror Story season one (tip: it is on Netflix Instant now!).

I had a cuddle buddy on the couch

Of course, I am never too full for pie, so I finished off the evening with a delicious slice of vegan pumpkin pie (it wasn't from scratch...I was too lazy this year). 

Vegan pumpkin pie YUM!

All in all, it was a pleasant Thanksgiving with tons of delicious food! It made me realize how thankful I am for other vegans and how lucky I am to be able to connect with them online (sadly, I don't have any vegan friends in real life). I don't know what I would do without their support. 

I hope you enjoyed a compassionate Thanksgiving (if not, you can always start now!) and I hope you are participating in the worldwide Fur Free Friday (and everyday) as well!

5 comments:

  1. heck yeah! My parents hosted and they had a turkey and a TOFURKEY - the stuffed kind, yay mom n dad!

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    1. Yay for awesome & understanding families! Hope they had some Tofurky and realize how delish it is so next year they can get rid of the bird carcass!

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  2. Don't be too upset. No matter the historical BS of the holiday, it really is all about being with family and friends.

    As for the turkey, unless you are enjoying an exclusively fruitarian feast, there are going to be more than a few lives on the dinner table. It's part of life on this planet, unfortunately. Turkeys are animals, they understand this better than humans do. It's good to keep a kind of zen attitude about it.

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    1. I agree w/ it being about family, but get upset about the historical inaccuracies being taught to kids (though that is w/ pretty much anything in history, sadly).

      However, I vehemently disagree w/ being "zen" about lives being pointlessly snuffed out for "tradition". There is nothing zen about senseless murder and the appalling conditions turkeys (and other animals) suffer in factory farms while awaiting slaughter. I refuse to just accept this and will never be silent on it.

      Regarding the "fruitarian" comment - I gotta clarify that being vegan isn't about perfection or personal purity. I understand that bugs and other animals may unintentionally end up in the food I eat, and I am ok with that since personal purity isn't my end-game. I am vegan because I don't think we need to use animals for food, products, etc. By being vegan my goal is to take a stand against exploitation of animals and do my small part to take a stand against suffering (both of the animals and of humans, considering the horrible effects factory-farming and meat-centered diets have on the planet and its inhabitants).

      Whew, I didn't mean to turn this into a rant, but I do get passionate about veganism! :P

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    2. Yeah, I tend to be a little more forgiving about the historical inaccuracies, because I actually went to school in the very progressive bay area, where we didn't get any of that stuff about pilgrims in history class. We were reading Howard Zinn, ha ha!

      I guess my point about fruitarianism, is that I think it's kind of dubious to value animal life over vegetable life, much in the same way that it is anthrocentric to value human life over animal life. I am much more upset about an old growth forest being logged than I am about turkey ranching. At least the turkeys get a nice domestic lifestyle on the ranch. I guess I like trees better than animals, but that is a subjective value.

      I agree about factory farming, and the damage that it does though. Monoculture is bad for everything.

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