Cowgirl Cookies were in order:

The stickers on the back were contributed by Casey.

I’ve been reading Food Revolution by John Robbins. With the exception of this blog, I don’t go didactic about veganism with the people I interact with. I simply do my best in my daily life to eat, shop, and live sustainably and cruelty-free. But this book makes me want to liberate livestock from factory farms, chain myself to old growth trees in endangered-soon-to-be-clearcut rainforests, and pelt the headquarters of U.S. agribusiness giants with their own toxic genetically modified frankenfoods. Which is funny, since Robbins isn’t a rabble-rouser. His writing is quiet, factual, and behind every word is a deeply felt sadness for the state of our planet. Yes, he’s preaching to the choir when vegans read his book (although there’s plenty for vegans to learn to reinforce their commitment to the lifestyle), but everyone has so much to learn from Food Revolution. If I had just one wish, I’d use it to get everyone in the world to read this book and take its lessons to heart.

My Vegan Mofo challenge this month is to feed my family three square meals a day. I’ve been wanting to create a monthly menu and shopping list for ages, since I believe doing so would simplify things around here at mealtime, not to mention save us a lot of money and time in the process. (Pssst – Ultimately, I want to get so organized that I can do a weekend of Cook For the Month, and have a deep freeze full of vegan goodness to heat up and serve. This month of blogging will be a test run of recipes for this unrealized and heady dream).

The rest of this challenge for me is making food for my vegan toddler, who will be loving pea soup one day and flinging it against the walls the next. If she had it her way, she’d subsist on dried cranberries and breastmilk until kindergarten.

Luckily, I have help! Isa Chandra, Jennifer, and Cathe will be joining me in the kitchen (in spirit), not to mention my vast archive of Vegetarian Times magazines. And there will even be a little Iron Chef-type action, since the veggies are delivered weekly from New Roots Organics. So not only will I be cooking, baking, steaming and blanching daily, but I’ll be planning meals with new-to-us vegetables. (I recently met parsnips through New Roots Organics and we are very much in love).

Is it 3:30pm already? Time to figure out some dinner while my baby is napping. I’m thinking:

Mini Veggie Burgers (Vegan Lunch Box Around the World) with Oven Fries (The Vegetarian Mother’s Cookbook). And I gotta do something with all the green beans and fingerling potatoes that came in this week’s bin, maybe a Green Bean and Fingerling Potato Salad with Mustard Vinaigrette? And what are we having for breakfast, lunch and dinner tomorrow?

Gotta go raid the fridge. And pantry. And get cooking. Vegan Mofo 2009 is on!

I’m pretty excited about this. No, I’m SUPER excited about this! October is Vegan Mofo 2009 (Vegan Month of Food), where vegans and non-vegans alike will be writing about vegan food in all its animal-free glory. I’ll be waxing daily about … well, you’ll just have to tune in October 1 to get the goods. It’s going to be balls-to-the-wall fun, so bring your … balls. And check out the master list of 2009 Mofos here for more writing, videos, and blogs.