Catching up a bit

Well, I survived my little craft show. It was fairly busy on Friday but totally dead today, which sucked. Still, it was fun to hang out with my fellow crafter friends and have girl talk and cookies. Here's a picture of my booth setup; the house where we had the show is so cute... everything looked really nice.


I have been thinking a lot about the role veganism plays in my life and how I can better integrate it into the other aspects of my personality, my family, social networks, etc., so I decided to try a few things at the craft show. First, I made a ton of yummy vegan cookies to serve to our customers, and printed out the recipes (clearly marked 'vegan' - gasp!) to set out next to the plates of cookies. And second, I put out a couple of stacks of 'Try Vegetarian' brochures with my jewelry, like so:


The results were fantastic! Without being pushy about it (I hope), I was able to help spread the word about the benefits of a vegan diet, and hopefully made the word VEGAN itself, and the concept, a little less foreign and scary to at least a few dozen people. I saw a lot of people take the recipe cards, and many thanked me for them and complimented me on how tasty the cookies were. And better yet, a fair number of people took a brochure, and a couple of them even struck up conversations with me about veganism.

My cookies and brochures (as well as the fact that I brought 'Slaughterhouse' to read during the slow times) even sparked some lively conversation with my friends who were doing the show with me. They may never decide to go vegan themselves, but it was cool to at least talk to them more about it than I probably ever have before, and to introduce some facts and ideas that they clearly hadn't considered in the past. Hopefully I didn't overwhelm them with my, um, enthusiasm for the subject matter.

Oh, and I probably should post about Thanksgiving! Carlos and I had a lovely vegan meal with my dear friend Kristina and my mom and step dad (Matt had to work). I neglected to photograph dessert (such a shame), which was chocolate peanut butter pie and pumpkin cream cheese pie (all vegan, of course). I'll try to remember to find links or post those recipes soon.

My dinner plate - clockwise from top: mashed potatoes with gravy, homemade white whole wheat rolls, neat loaf from 'The Peaceful Palate', yams with apples, cider, and ginger cookie crumbles, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and green bean casserole (center). And to think some people out there still think of veganism as deprivation!

A tragically blurry picture of Carlos chowing down on a roll...

...then working off said roll...

...then relaxing with a good book and a belly laugh with Grandpa Joe.