Local food and local books

As well as reading the novel, each person was asked to bring something local, and preferably vegan. Matthew, Fil and Martha came up with such delicious recipes (most from scratch!) that I had to include them here to download (you can download our menu on the right). Our menu included sweet potato soup with chick pea patties and maple pecan pesto, root vegetable curry and apple cake for dessert. As an added bonus, the apple cake was made with local AND organic vegetables! Even if you are not vegan, these dishes are worth trying as they all passed the “hardcore skeptic test” as Martha put it. As a vegan baker, she tests her recipes on the hardest vegan critics, and if they like them, she knows she’s got a great recipe.

Our next book club will be in December upon Fil’s suggestion to concentrate on Canadian Authors, which he thought would enhance our green guidelines even further. He suggested the author M.J. Vassanji who is in Toronto, but was raised in Kenya and Tanzania. Fil’s eyes shone when I asked him why he chose this author and his book “Assassin’s Song”, “Normally I stick to inspirational type novels, like Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach, or stuff by Paul Coehlo, but I thought this book club would be a wonderful avenue to explore the Canadian immigrant experience. It’s a great opportunity to jump out of my comfort zone (what he likes to call the f-i-l zone!) and find inspiration in new experiences!”

Hopefully I’ll have enough time to finish this book, because I learned last weekend that I can’t start and finish a book in just one night!