Third Birthday Dinner and Founding Farmers

I don't have any pictures from my third birthday dinner last weekend, because it was at my boyfriend's parents' house and I always feel odd taking pictures of food when it's a nice family gathering like that.  So you will have to settle for description ...  Dinner was a tasty vegan bean soup with warm bread - the perfect fall meal!  For dessert, Josh's mom made a beautiful looking apple tart, but unfortunately she used butter in the crust ... which lead to a horrible awkward discussion about my tendency to allow for "exceptions" to my vegan eating.  I realized I make too many allowances, which just leads to confusion for people, and I need to stop. 

 

First, I made an exception for blackberry ice cream.  Which lead to a second exception when blackberry ice cream was made twice in one summer.  Then Josh's mom made an apple pie a while back and said she couldn't get shortening to work for the crust, so she used butter instead.  I said it was fine and I would eat the pie anyway.  So through no fault of hers, Josh's mom assumed butter crust would always be an okay exception for me.  I probably didn't handle things very well, because in hind sight I should probably have made just one more exception for my birthday dinner and eaten the tart.  Especially because when I didn't Josh's mom brought out some cookies that she had checked the ingredients on and was "sure" they were vegan.  I knew they weren't.  But because I already felt horrible and awkward at that point I ate them anyway.  So I still ended up with a non-vegan dessert, but not the one Josh's mom had worked so hard on.  Not the best end to the dinner, or my birthday weekend.  But I guess two out of three great birthday dinners isn't bad. 

 

Monday night for dinner Josh and I met friends for dinner at Founding Farmers, which ended up being our second dinner there in less than a week.  We'd met a friend for dinner there the previous week, but didn't come out of that with a photo of my delicious veggie meatloaf and mashed potatoes.  FF doesn't have a lot in the way of vegan options - in fact, their regular menu has exactly one vegan item: an appetizer of mixed nuts - but they do have vegan specials, which are helpfully labeled as vegan so you don't have to worry about hidden ingredients. 

 

For Monday's dinner I ordered the veggie bacon burger, which came with a side of beet salad.  It wasn't a stellar burger - average burger patty that wouldn't hold its shape and relatively tasteless fake bacon - but the salad was actually really good.  Fortunately a good time with friends always outweighs average food.