Vegan Month of Food 2016 - Day 23 "Traditional Holiday Food....Not Quite"

Vegan Month of Food 2016 rolls on with today's prompt of "are there any traditional holiday foods you make."

As usual: zip, zilch, zero, nada, nope, none.

What's a gal to do????

The other happy vegan to the rescue! More specifically, the other happy vegan's Russian grandmother to the rescue!

Today he shared this memory with me. His grandmother's place was where family gathered, not just for holidays, but pretty much for everything. Thanksgiving was generally hosted by her as well. He told me that something she used to do was collect different colored leaves that fell from the 2 giant maple trees on the property as autumn settled in. Then, she would arrange the leaves in ovals and circles, stems in, putting large leaves in the center. She glued them all together like this, enough leaves to make enough placemats for every person who was coming to the meal. Then, she would set the (Russian) harvest table using those leaf mats for everyone. Again, this comes from the mindset that I spoke of yesterday with my own mom.... making something out of nothing.

Today while I was busy cleaning up the kitchen after breakfast service for guests, the other happy vegan was outside collecting sea grape leaves and gluing them together. He made this placemat for me, brought it upstairs and told me the story of his grandmother, so I'd have something "traditional" to share for you today, as he knew I'm running on empty.

Take a peek:

The other happy vegan speaks of his Russian grandmother probably more than anyone else, besides his mom. His Russian grandmother adored and doted on him. He was fortunate enough to have her in  his life long enough to really get to know her as a person -- not just a grandmother -- before she passed on. I know he misses her terribly, and I'm very sorry I never got to meet her. Even after all these years together, I still learn new things about this part of his life, there's many traditions that the family had.

No it's not food, but neither one of us here wants to re live the carcasses of our years as non-vegans. I'm much happier picturing his grandmother collecting leaves for weeks in anticipation of making special place mats for family and friends who were gathering for harvest.

I'm thinking I'll probably keep this mat and use it on our own harvest table tomorrow, only ours will have a beautiful roast Tofurky to set upon it. Woot!

xo