Vegan Feast

Compassionate Action for Animals hosted their Annual Banquet tonight, celebrating fifteen years of advocating for animals. This was our first time attending the event which was widely regarded as a vegan feast of epic proportions and lived up to the hype. The food was accented with great company and a year in review speech by my fiance :)

The proof is in the photos. Check out this amazing plant-based, vegan spread:

Drool worthy hors d'oeuvres (starting at 9 on the dinner plate): plantain hush puppy, potato knish turnover, "Camembert" and pear crostini, rice and lentil idli, brown rice veggie sushi roll, and cucumber radish finger sandwich with herbed "cream cheese".

Vegans at the table were excited they didn't have to ask about the bread's ingredients and got "butter".

Simple salad with highly sought after cherry tomatoes (see story below)

Mushroom barley soup

Gardein Chick'n Scallopini done 2 ways: cacciatore sauce and lemon tarragon; herbed scalloped potatoes, veggie fried rice and lo mein and ginger carrots. 

Strawberry shortcake with a whipped cream made from coconut 

Chocolate "cheesecake" with rasberry coulis and candied almonds

Dessert table featured lemon tart, strawberry short cake, chocolate "cheesecake", and carrot cake. Yum!

In what can only be described as an episode of overwhelming adorable-ness, a young boy came around to our table during desserts and asked politely if he could have some of our table's leftover salad. What? There is sugary goodness in the forms of cakes and tarts and you want our salad? Yes, tomatoes are my favorite. And so he proceeded to fill up his salad plate picking and choosing to get as many tomatoes as he could with the salad tongs. The adults at the table exchanged looks and shrugged it off. A few minutes later the boy was back and asked again if he could have more salad. We asked him more about his love of tomatoes. Cherry tomatoes were his favorite and there was a gold mine to be had in the dozen salad bowls in the room. He planned to not stop until he ate every last one. We wished him well and watched him happily saunter away with another plate of salad loaded with his favorite tomatoes. A few minutes later we saw him confused at the missing salad bowls at the tables he hadn't yet reached, and pointed to the volunteer who was carrying the bowls back to the kitchen. He was off in a sprint to recapture his treasure trove.

Stuffed, but committed, I hopped on my bike and fulfilled my 30 days of biking pledge with a quick ride.