(no subject)

As part of a hunger awareness week, Gov. Ted Kulongoski of Oregon (and his wife, reportedly) lived on the $21 dollars a week that's the average food stamp allotment in Oregon

Perhaps predictably, it's being derided as a publicity stunt by people who don't really want to think about the systemic causes of hunger and poverty, preferring to blame the poor for just not being good enough people to afford to eat well. However, there's an interesting and telling bit in the second article about a state employee (in the Food Stamps agency) who herself qualifies for and uses food stamps.

Kulongoski is considering challenging Chimpy McFlightsuit and his wife to take the same challenge -- it'll be interesting to see how that goes over.

Yay me!

So tonight I did something I've never done before; cooked a completely vegan meal.

And it was fantastic*. If a little bit later than intended.

We started off with a salad that I first had at Joel's place; romaine lettuce with cashews, bell pepper (originally orange but tonight yellow because of availability) and sweet potato "chips" (slices of sweet potato cooked in the oven ideally with a bit of salt). Since I forgot to get the sesame salad dressing that is intended to accompany it, we made do with the pomegranate vinagrette that I had in the fridge, and everyone seemed quite happy with that.

The main course was Wildly Stuffed Peppers, (red bell peppers stuffed with onions, garlic, wild mushrooms, wild rice, vegetable pasta**, and spices*** with a marinara sauce accompaniment) and Curried Chickpeas and Kale (this one's ingredients are pretty much what one would expect from the title, though I added cardamom to that one, too.****).

For desert, Bess was kind enough to pick up yummy things from Wild Organic Way Cafe over in Guelph and we ate those with dry desert lime tea in my newly clean and set up living room.

In other news, I also enjoyed the event yesterday, though I wasn't there for long. And I saw all of Martin's laurelling, which was a big point of going.

Like that.

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*Which was good, because it helped me get over Friday night's baking disaster.

**The recipe called for "cooked small pasta (such as orzo or ancini)". I used this. Because I'm all about the fun. And because the store I went to didn't have a better alternative.

***according to the recipe just parsley, thyme, salt and pepper but jasch and I agreed that it was tasty but bland. So I added cardamom, coriander, and a bit more salt.

****I have two real principles when I cook -- 1) never follow the recipe exactly and 2) you can never have too much cardamom (a theory, btw, which was put to the test when the spice container acted differently than expected and released more than I'd intended to use - the theory definitely won).