All Snakes Day (March 17)

I read an interesting tidbit somewhere (wish I remembered where) about "St. Patrick's Day" being reclaimed by some Pagans as "All Snakes Day." The idea is along the lines of celebrating snakes and pagans rather than carrying on the covert or overt themes that suggest St. Patrick driving snakes out of Ireland is a metaphor for Christianity driving the old faith out. I like the idea of celebrating it as "All snakes day." So enjoy, and hug a snake today. I'll include a picture of my coauthor, Gwen, doing just that at a Salem Witches' Ball.

Snakes are often associated with transition and sensuality, and connection to the earth. Snakes and other reptiles are also often associated with the element of fire. Many ancient traditions associate snakes with knowledge...especially spiritual or magical knowledge.



In celebration of All Snakes Day, I did a veganized version of a traditional St. Patrick's day type dinner (as I remember growing up). I made soda bread from Veganomicon (Isa Chandra) and boiled dinner from Betty Goes Vegan. Here are some photos to show that we can have yummy, traditional and cultural foods without any animal products!

raw vegan birthday

Hi, happy birthday to me! Here's to getting another year older, LOL. But at least I did it with style by making my own raw, vegan birthday cake. I used the recipe for "coconut snow cake" from Ani Phyo's book, "Ani's Raw Food Kitchen."

It was good but I think I put too much banana in the cake, making the texture a little too hard. I had pre-chipped bananas so I had trouble estimating what “five dehydrated bananas” was. But one of my mom’s coworkers asked so many questions about the cake that I sent her a piece and Mom said she liked it. She actually ate the whole piece right there, when she had said she would just try a bite.

And on my bday I went to lunch with Mom and her coworker at our fave Thai place, that makes me vegan food to order. They gave me a $20 gift certificate too!

Then it was a regular rest of the week until Saturday, when Mom, Gwen and I went out. We went to see “The Monuments Men” and then went to dinner at Miguel’s, a Mexican place in Bangor that we love. The movie was good, by the way. Just  a little sad, of course, but very educational too.

Miguel’s has a niche at serving as much local organic as possible and catering to people with dietary needs like gluten free or vegan. They have a regular looking menu for a Mexican place, except there is vegan meat, cheese, and sour cream available to use in virtually every entrée. Most of the vegans I know, including myself, love that we can go there with omnivores and everyone can order off the regular menu with no fuss. Plus it’s just really good food.

I got my usual of veggie fajitas with spiced tofu, vegan cheese (daiya) and sour cream (probably follow your heart). And as usual I had to take half of  it home. The next morning I fried up a little more seasoned tofu and then made a fajita scramble out of it. It was gooood.

  
So here's to another year of being even more healthy and happy than ever!