A potluck of plant-based projects

Fourteen of us gathered in Portland recently for our Spring Potluck, hosted by Cathy and Tom, who provided a magnificent view of Mount Hood from their living room window. We had a splendid meal while getting up to date on everyone's food discoveries and activities.

We heard about a TED talk on "Gangsta Gardens", a project that's turning vacant lots in Los Angeles into veggie gardens --- a French school where lunch is a class and children learn to value food, understand where it comes from, and appreciate the social experience of meal time --- Melanie Joy and the concept of carnism --- the practice of toxicity testing on animals and Neal Barnard's work to stop it ---- the "dynamic tension" of planning a vegan meal for Earth Day in a church whose members hold different views on food --- Cathy's vegan mentoring program -- Daniel's nutrition course --- and Tom's happy discovery of a new vegan ice cream at Ben & Jerry's.

Linda is involved with Plant Pure Nation's local Portland "Pod". Maybe this excerpt from a Plant Pure newsletter will give you a sense of what this very active, very practical movement is doing:

For everyone new to PlantPure, the Jumpstart program provides participants with 10 days of frozen, plant-based meals, supplementary nonfood items, and education. Many of you know that Lee Memorial Health System in Fort Myers, Florida, is now offering the 10-day Jumpstarts as part of its comprehensive program to treat chronic disease. This is truly groundbreaking, and now we are seeing expansion into other hospital systems and clinics around the country.

But let's get back to the potluck: here is the first of our new potluck recipes, Cathy's delicious eggplant and potato moussaka: Eggplant-Potato Moussaka with Pine Nut Cream

We are lucky to have our own Christel in Germany representing us at the VegMed 2016 Conference in Berlin, which describes itself this way:

VegMed is a unique European international scientific conference on medicine and vegetarian nutrition.

Christel sent a quick message with a photo of Dr. Greger, a very knowledgeable, very funny expert known to many of us here. I'll attach the photo --- what a pleasure to be sending those big smiles to all of us around the world! Dr. Greger is the fellow on the right.

Dear Eve, the wonderful Dr.Greger here today with us in Germany, receiving a bottle of probably German beer...he is such a charming one and his smiles are infectious and his public talks too.
With gladness
Christel

I learned later that Christel also heard Dr. Neal Barnard --- and that the beer was actually Austrian ;-)

Hearing about all these positive developments gives me so much hope for the future. I'll close by borrowing a line from an email Donna sent me after our potluck. I'm directing the thanks to all of you for what you are doing, wherever you are:

Thank you for one more amazing time of connection and inspiration….and delicious eats!! donna

Happy cooking,

Eve