Good times in Portland

We have a new member joining our email circle, Pam in Grafton, Wisconsin. Welcome, Pam!

I am newly energized from spending the weekend at Veg Fest with hundreds of enthusiastic people listening to inspiring speakers--- the hard part was choosing which ones. I heard Dr. Michael Klaper--- I learned so much! ---- Colleen Patrick-Goudreau --- so funny and perceptive about us "excuse-itarians" ---- and Miyoko Schinner --- who had such a good time doing cooking demos, she spun around in a dance and burst into song! I ended up buying her new book, The Homemade Vegan Pantry. I also sampled her cheeses and plan to send them to relatives for Christmas, they are so good. She told us lots of good news about the growing popularity of vegan food and a remarkable new fact: the former CEO of McDonald's now works for Beyond Meat. I had to look that up --- here it is: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-beyond-meat-thompson-20151105-stor...

Our Mindful Cooking group had a big potluck here in Portland a week earlier. Donna generously hosted 18 of us, our biggest group yet! Six people were new so I explained what our project is about: helping each other explore the possibilities of plant-based cooking. Everything on our plates convinced us of the bounty and variety of this food, and when Donna tasted the blueberry cheesecake, she declared "this cheesecake can change the world!"

We followed our tradition of going around the circle, hearing from everyone. Beth suggested that spending time with the animals at the Wildwood Farm Sanctuary would cure anyone of wanting to eat them; Cathy came to the same conclusion after seeing factory farms up close on the back roads of Pennsylvania. Several people told of dramatic improvements in health on a plant-based diet. Linda and John had written their first letter to an editor, pointing out that animal agriculture is worse for the climate than all transportation. Benita brought greetings from Betsy in California and told us that Betsy and Gunter's tempeh maker will be available soon. We heard about the Fuhrman "nutritarian" conference --- the addictive nature of dairy cheese ---- Denis' experience making sauerkraut ---- cooking classes Donna is doing for friends ---- Tom and Cathy's eleven vegan cats (!) ----Steven's presentation for the Vegan Spirituality group ---- Bob's experience living with a feeding tube. The bounty and variety of viewpoints led me to imagine a pond in the center of our circle, with each of us dropping in a pebble, the ripples spreading and overlapping, bringing all of us new perspectives and inspiration for pursuing this path.

At our potlucks we always look at the world map and remember all of you out beyond Portland who are with us in this project. I'll be sharing the food we had with you over the coming weeks (though you will need to cook it yourself ;-) Here is the first recipe from our potluck, Brooks' delicious Chunky Sweet Potato Stew: Chunky Sweet Potato Stew

Jana's gift of the Plum Village Cookbook a couple of weeks ago drew several warm responses:
Thank you, I have been looking for this book for a long time. It is not possible to buy it from Pv anymore
Anne Marie in Ireland

Hi Eve, just a thought with all appreciation for sharing: shouldn't we ask the Sangha at Plumvillage first, before we send out for free any book they have published ? The monastic Sangha relies on the financial support given by us lay practitioners. I appreciate all efforts of everyone involved in reviving the Plumvillage cookbook and do not want to harm by words, thoughts etc. or make someone unhappy. My suggestion is that everyone who is downloading the Plumvillage cookbook should consider making a donation to Plumvillage. Christel in Germany

Dear Eve and Dear Jana,
Thank you so very much! I am so glad about this. This is such a beautiful work. I'm just not sure what to do with the recipes that contain animal products. It seems to me that circulating those might be confusing to people. I may simply copy the vegan ones to share. I'll have another read and see. Warm greetings from Montreal, Marion

Eve, thank you! This is wonderful! Just downloaded the book and will peruse it to find some suitable recipes for me. Happy day! Sigrid in Portland

Dear Eve,
Wow!! I feel like I just got an early Christmas present :). You are so kind for sharing the Plum Village Cookbook. I am just so excited because this is so hard to come by. Thank you for making my day. I can't wait to try the recipes.
Have a wonderful evening! Regards, Jannette Diep in Texas

I'll end with a couple of links from Donna, the first about a vegan supermarket chain called Veganz that started in Germany and is spreading to cities in several other countries ---- and Portland is one of them!
http://www.trueactivist.com/vegan-supermarket-chain-coming-to-united-sta...

And this is about a free online summit featuring notable vegan speakers. It just started (sorry I didn't get this out sooner) but you can still get most of it:
http://www.rupavadodaria.com/vegan-way-of-living-summit/

This would be a good time to send in your favorite holiday recipes----

Happy cooking,
Eve