First Annual Boston Vegan Super Bowl Party!

My partner, Woody and I hosted our first ever Super Bowl Party this past Sunday.  We had the party at our house and made it exclusively vegan food only!  The Patriots were playing the Giants and since we live in Boston it was of utmost importance to watch the game!  We opened the party to any of our friends so long as only vegan food was brought.  It was a a total success. We had over 22 people there from 6pm-11pm!  Most people stayed till the very end.  Everyone that showed up was vegan ranging from new vegans to folks who had been vegan for over 15 years.  We even had a few amazing local animal rights heroes who work or who have worked for great groups like The Humane League, Farm Sanctuary, and Humane Society of the United States.  Some people were more interested in the company while others were die-hard football fans.  Either way though, in the end the food was the night's winner.

Great group of people and great food!  Check out the group shot below with everyone crammed into our living room.  I think that's the most people we've ever had in one room at once!  A few faces are missing as some folks were in the dining room still grazing.

 Left side

Right side

Now check out the food pictures:

 Baked ziti with seitan and chocolate pate!

 Fresh veggies, chocolate peanut butter desserts, and pigs in a blanket!

 Potato salad, fresh veggies with hummus, chips y salsa, beet burgers!

 Raw foods!  Gazpacho soup with tomatoes and watermelon, chili releanos, and chocolate avocado pudding 

Spinach dip

 Baked ziti, dehydrated onion rings, Teese Mozz sticks, and Oreos

 All about the presentation!  Pudding shooters and soup bowls

 Get in my belly!

 Pigs in a blanket.  Just get veggie hot dogs and chop them into 9 pieces per dog then take Crescent Roll dough and wrap it around and bake for about 10 minutes! Serve with ketchup, mustard, and bbq sauce.

 Spinach dip in a bread bowl with low-fat Wheat Thins.  Get the Knorr dry veggie mix pack and follow directions. Use vegan sour cream and mayo.  For extra thickness add a can of artichoke hearts and some red onion.  Shaw's bread bowls are vegan.

 Baked ziti with seitan!

 Potato salad:  red potatoes boiled for about 10 mins, cooled, then add vegan mayo and sour cream,raw red onions, raw celery, salt pepper, garlic powder, mustard, and some paprika for presentation.

Nacho Station!

 Chips, olives, jalapenos, melted Daiya, chili, lettuce, tomatoes, guacamole, and salsa

 Two crockpots:  one for chili and one for melted Pepperjack Daiya vegan cheese. It helps to add veggie broth to Daiya to liquify it a bit and to keep it from burning

Eat up!

Missing from the pictures:  cupcakes, brownies, kale salad, pretzels, other types of chips, Twizzlers, cookies, and cous cous salad.

Thanks to Stephanie, Alexa, and Kelly for contributing pictures!

Happy Birthday Mom

Tomorrow, Feb, 3rd is my mother's 61st birthday so I thought I'd write this blog about her.  My mother was a great influence on me - she taught me a lot about community involvement, being true to yourself, activism, the love for animals, and good cooking!  My mom was in the Peace Corps in Zaire in the early 70s when she met my dad. They traveled around Africa together going to places that no white person had ever gone before.  She got to meet lots of tribes and learned Swahili.  They came back to Virginia and she got a Masters in Education at UVA.  She was a teacher for while and then she and my dad opened up a stereo store.  She took care of the accounting and advertising.  She was also a great artist (oil and water color paintings, pastels, batik, drawing, etc.).  She also played clarinet in the local orchestra.  When she and my dad divorced she became a school teacher again.  Eventually she taught students at home who could not go to school (pregnant teenage girls, sick/disabled youth, behavioral issues, etc.)

Though she worked a lot and also raised my sister and me, she also gave a lot of her time to the community.  She volunteered at the soup kitchen, was a docent at the Baylee Art Museum (now UVA Art Museum), also was the African Art Coordinator at the Baylee Art Museum, a docent at Montpelier, etc.  She also was active in the Junior League when I was little.  Later in life she collected backpacks full of school supplies for children in Mexico.  I remember when I was little going to the Baylee Art Museum with my sister and having to clean the mold off African art statues that had been in storage for a longtime.  She was also adamant about going to the gym! In fact if she missed a workout or run she'd be very upset!  She also liked to horseback ride, travel, and lay out in the sun.  She had a great laugh and smile.  She was one of the prettiest moms out there.  Just like she did with the Vietnam War, she protested the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, she voted for Nader in 2000, and she was a pescaterian.

Certainly one of the biggest reasons I am such an animal lover, human rights activist, and environmentalist is because of her.  She taught me to stay true to your beliefs.  I remember as a little kid going to the recycling center with her before there was curbside pickup.  We would smash the bottles in the large bins and have fun with it. It was a great way to get out stress. She taught me how environmentalism can also be fun.  We also always adopted our cats from the shelter and her two cats that we had when I was in highschool are still alive today!

Sadly though, my mother passed away almost six years ago on June 8, 2006 to an illness she had been battling for years.  She had a heart of gold and loved her community.  Though our relationship was strained because of her illness, I think about her all the time.  She was very supportive of my activism, veganism, leftist politics, and being a rabble rouser.  She would make me amazing vegan meals when I visited. I remember having vegetable paella one Christmas dinner - oh how I miss home-cooked meals from my parents.  In 2004 we both met up in DC for the March for Women's lives.  It was so cool to protest with her carrying pro-choice signs standing up for reproductive choice!  I know up in heaven she's looking down proud of her four daughters (Ashley, Erin, Blair, and I) for who we are today: the strong opinated women she helped us become.

Here are some pictures of us together.  Unfortunately I didn't have a digital camera until after she died and I didn't work on scanning many pictures in.

Feeding the ducks at Boars Head (1982)

Ashley's college Graduation, May 2006 (one of the last pictures ever taken of us together)

Hanging out at the beach like we did almost every year of my life in the Outer Banks, NC (1986?)

Mom and my Papa Hiemenz dancing (1979?)

Mom, Nana Hiemenz, and my Uncle Cope at my Nana's House (1990?)

Mom and I at the Grand Canyon (1982)

Dad and Mom about to go out to a fancy party (1987?)

Mom and my step dad Ed eating dinner (1997?)

Mom, my high school best friend Jenna, my sister Ashley, and I at our annual Virginia Beach girls weekend (1998)

Mom, Ashley, and I in Atlanta, GA (1999)

Mom, Uncle Steve, and Aunt Harriet at Avary Place in Atlanta, GA (2004)

Mom and I at my friend Kara's wedding in Charlottesville, VA (2005)

Mom's casket and I after her funeral.  Notice the leopard print blanket! (2006)