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Ginkgo held another of its vegetarian banquets tonight, and a group of seven of us went along. It was very scrum, with lots of interesting things to try. Here’s the menu:

Every year I host a Pizza Feast to celebrate the anniversary on September 4th of my decision to become a vegetarian. This year’s feast was billed as “20-20-20″, as it was to be held on the 20th of September, it was to celebrate my 20th anniversary, and that we were going to try and get through 20 pizzas. It all went really well, about 30 people showed up, and we got through the 20 pizzas without too much effort.

Anne took some great photos, two of which are included here. The rest are available in the gallery.

It has become traditional for the first pizza out of the oven to be a “kiddies’ pizza”, with a topping of a tinned spaghetti and a little onion. Before the event I wondered how long the tradition of the kiddies’ pizza would last, given that the kids are growing up. But in the end demand was greater than ever, and I think I made a total of four of them during the afternoon.

When the first two kids arrived, I asked them what they wanted on their pizzas. “Bacon!” cried one. “Sandwich!” cried the other. So my first order was for that cornerstone of vegetarian fare, the bacon sandwich pizza.

I made all the usual favourites, such as broc-and-blue, olives and feta, artichoke hearts and onion, and mushrooms and more mushrooms. I also tried, once again, to make a pizza so hot that we couldn’t eat it. Once again, I failed. I was sure that the pizza with chili paste instead of tomato paste on the base, and with a topping of chopped chilies, chopped jalapenos, and lashings of Kaitaia Fire pepper sauce would do the trick. But no. Next year I’m going to try mace.

After the pizzas we had desert. Yalini had brought a wonderful lemon meringue pie, and Tony had made a delicious almond-flour chocolate cake. And then it turned out that Clare and Emily had had a chocolate and raspberry cake made to mark the occasion.

I cut the cake while the gathered multitudes sang a ragged chorus of that well-known ditty: “Happy vegetarian anniversary day to you.”

After getting through 20 pizzas, I thought no-one would have any room for the cakes, but by the time the last person left there was only a small corner of one cake remaining. And so the moral of the story is: there’s always room for cake.

One of my favourite restaurants, Ginkgo, happened by a great stroke of luck to be having a vegetarian banquet night on the day of my 42nd birthday, so a group of us went along. It was a set menu, which was great because it meant we got to try all sorts of curious dishes that we might otherwise have not been brave enough to order. My favourites were the lotus heart salad and the Sechuan tofu.

Sueann, Ginkgo’s delightful proprietor, decorates the restaurants with various items she brings back from China. Just as we were leaving I happened to mention to her that it was my birthday, and so she grabbed one of the items off a shelf and gave it to me as a present! How cool is that?

So that’s just what I’ll do.

In my never-ending quest for good footware fit for a vegetarian, I have recently discovered to my delight that SAFE run a cruelty-free shop in Auckland with a web order form. I ordered some shoes from them, and they arrived today:

The uppers are made of hemp. So why did I order this particular style? Well, because it was either this style or the other one .

The crowd who make the shoes, Blackspot, are serious about their activism. They are not actually a vegetarian outfit, but an anti-Big Business organization. With the shoes came a numbered certificate naming me a shareholder in their anti-corporation. Among other things, the certificate says:

“The anti-logo, hand drawn on the side of your blackspots, is a symbol of resistance against multinational hyper-branders like Nike that, over the past few years, have come to dominate so much of our lives. The red tip, hand painted on the nose of your sneaker, is for kicking mega-corporate ass and transforming the sneaker industry, and indeed capitalism itself, into more diverse, grassroots affairs.”

They foresee the anti-corporation movement eventually (and somewhat paradoxically) becoming a big player:

“Imagine: an independent blackspot music label that cuts into Big Music’s share. Or a chain of blackspot restaurants that takes business away from McDonald’s by serving only locally-produced food.”

Interesting stuff.

I went to the vegetarian expo today, expecting there to be very few people. Imagine my surprise to find that I had to queue to get in! While waiting to get in we were amused to notice that they were having a good-ol’ Kiwi sausage sizzle. Apparently this had caused some confusion, as they had felt the need to put up a sign saying, “Vegetarian Sausages ONLY”!

About a third of the main hall was basically a vegetarian food court. I was unable to partake due to a spectacularly bad bit of time management: I had only just come from a large lunch.

The rest of the main hall had an eclectic variety of stalls. Present were places like Trade Aid and Piko Wholefoods, but there were also people selling chutney and jewellery and even small statues, and one guy selling solar water heating units. There were also stalls promoting health remedies of varying degrees of wackiness. (I didn’t take up the offer of a free CranioSacral (sic) treatment.)

In a nice touch, mood music was provided by a string quartet.

Up on the walls were banners supporting various groups. My favourite was “Gay/Lesbian Vegetarians”. Boy I bet they feel marginalized squared.

Off to one side was a room where they were holding cookery demonstrations (tofu cheesecake while I was there), and another where they showed short movies, including the two I had seen at the Fitzsimons talk last week.

One woman was wearing a tee-shirt that said, “If you crave fresh meat, lick a vegetarian.”

It was nice to see so many people there – perhaps there are more of us than I thought!