Of green tomatoes, ugly produce and several new books

In my last letter, I asked what to do with green tomatoes, and I bet you are all wondering what I learned. Here's what Donna suggested:
brush with olive oil and garlic, pinch of salt and roast in the oven and then sprinkle with nutritional yeast. I think you might be so pleasantly surprised at taste and texture! Enjoy! donna

It sounds delicious, but I didn't get to try it. To my surprise, all of my green tomatoes ripened beautifully in a bowl in the kitchen before I could get around to cooking them. I didn't know they could do that. They ended up in salads and we savored every bite, knowing we won't taste another homegrown tomato for most of a year.

Last weekend we had our Fall Potluck in Portland. Here is the first of the recipes, Donna's salad with a special, versatile Caesar dressing: Donna's Salad with Caesar Dressing .I also posted the dressing by itself: Vegan Caesar Salad Dressing

We had a stimulating food conversation as always. This time we learned that Dr. Fuhrman has a new book out, "Fast Food Genocide" .... Kaiser Permanente has a new lifestyle class on plant-based eating... Dr. Greger has done a very interesting recent series of videos on arsenic in rice. Steven told us a mixture of 2/3 millet and 1/3 steel-cut oats makes a good rice substitute. Ruth, who has been involved in cancer research, reminded us that diet alone cannot prevent cancer.

Linda told us when the local paper did a series on polar bears and climate change, she wrote a letter to the editor explaining how a plant-based diet makes a difference --- and it was published!

Donna told us how much she likes getting her veggies from Imperfect Produce, a company that delivers custom boxes of "ugly produce" to your door. It's a convenient arrangement and it helps reduce food waste:
https://www.imperfectproduce.com/

We also talked about the future of our Mindful Cooking project. Much as I love our group, the time I have to put into the project is dwindling and I'm looking for new ways to keep it going. We talked about the emails I have been sending every couple of weeks to share new recipes and keep us connected. We have another way to connect now, on the PlantPurePod page https://www.plantpurepods.com/podsdirect/mindful-cooking/ , but while that connection is growing, I think we need to keep the emails too, at least for now. I've been the one writing them, but it would be helpful for me and fun for all of us to have other voices writing some of them. Basically each email offers a new recipe and a summary of whatever messages come to me. I could send you what I have and you could write it up in your own way, adding your own ideas.Then mail it back to me and I'll send it out. It doesn't have to be a literary masterpiece, just a friendly letter to our email circle (now 215 strong.) Is anybody up for taking a turn? Just let me know when you are ready to give it a try.

In other news, Marge in California came back from a vegan cruise to Norway with a glowing report. She got to hear two particularly inspiring speakers onboard, Tobias Leenaert, author of "How to Create a Vegan World", and Melanie Joy, who wrote "Beyond Beliefs, A Guide to Improving Relationships and Communication for Vegans, Vegetarians and Meat Eaters"-- both highly recommended. She was heartened to learn how much is going on all over the world to move us in the plant-based direction.

Do you have Thanksgiving recipes to share with us? Do send them in!

Happy cooking,
Eve