Stephen B. Thomas wrote:BRK #130

Pre-Holiday Edition...!

First off: thanks to Fred and Daniel for their willingness to learn and play a brand-new game I picked up: Community Garden! It seems like a heavier-weight game than what our crew is used to, but has an adorable gardening theme and interesting mechanics where players end up benefiting from other players' actions. I still hope it hits the table a lot. I think this might be worth a Permies tabletop game review, if such a thing might exist...



This evening, the Fisher Price House was abuzz with holiday preparedness. I made my first vegan pie crust, and as the Magic 8-Ball would indicate: "Outlook is good."



Adding Fred's vegan pecan pie filling and decorations all but guarantees tomorrow's delectable vegan dessert!



Thanks for reading, and enjoy your day...! :-D

Stephen B. Thomas wrote:BRK #131

Thanksgiving 2022 Edition...!

[Paul, if you need the hi-res versions of these photos, just let me know.]

So much food. I can't remember the last time I filled myself quite like this. Excellent vegan dishes courtesy of the whole team, though mostly Fred and Samantha. Many, many thanks. :)

Here's the turkey for the occasion:



Caleb prepares polydough frybreads. These were like extra-large hush puppies. There was some whole wheat flour in this batch, so the end result was chewy, firm, and had a nice flavour of its own. His apple pie was an admirable deep-dish, as well. Had to sacrifice my vegan cred to eat a crust with dairy butter in it, but it was totally worth it.



A nice spread of side dishes for us vegan folks.



Everyone tucks in. Clockwise, from lower-left: Jeff, Caleb, Julia, Fred (the only one who noticed), Daniel, Grey, Paul, and Cedar. Not pictured: Samantha.



Plate number 1, below:



Plate number 2 was mostly frybreads and some stuffing with mushroom gravy. That was a mistake... A tasty, tasty mistake. The pies still had some time to bake, so we played a six-player session of Castle Panic, a kind of tower-defense board game. "Bring on the Giant Boulders!!!" We survived the ordeal, and decided to celebrate by eating several different types of pie.

Here, Fred's pecan pie is tested for its structural integrity. This was another delectable pie dish.



More pies:



Last picture of pies, I promise (also includes Cedar's Caramel Tarts, lower left):



Meanwhile... Wood Box Day is tomorrow and I hope to have plenty of pictures of our finished products then.

Thanks for reading, and enjoy your day...! :-D

Jocelyn wrote:Kai and Ben made a HUGE vegan, gluten-free pumpkin pie for our Thanksgiving feast yesterday. It was a lively time!

The pumpkins came from Sean's ant village hugelkultur gardens, the apples used to sweeten it were foraged by Fred and Kai from nearby.

Steve made his family's favorite cranberry relish, Janet made lovely garlic mashed potatoes, Fred brought cashew cheese and mustards he'd made from mustard seeds he harvested and ground, plus Fred made a vegan Lebanese soup, we had two other natural/lacto fermented cranberry sauces from cranberries harvested by Josh (one with lab honey!), plus turkey, stuffing, gravy, and green beans with onions and chantrelle mushrooms.

After dinner, we sampled some organic flathead cherry wine and a rose liquor (liqueur? ).

I was too busy enjoying myself to take more pics.