Twice Thankful

For the SLBT (Sustainable Living Bike Tour), Thanksgiving Day 2010 was a demonstration in adaptability and unconventionalism. For many of us, it was our first time not eating traditional foods, in copious amounts on Thanksgiving Day. We confirmed a hypothesis- a good way to make a holiday memorable is to do something different.
A significant highlight of previous bike trips has been Thanksgiving Day- a day where we reunite and catch up with former island friends, cook, reminisce, and feast together. Being secluded out on Santa Cruz Island, we missed celebrating the fall, food, and family with the broader CELP community. So after returning to mainland town, we rode into Santa Barbara and began to gather supplies for a holiday soirée. And in SLBT fashion, we made a commitment to be as green as possible. A goal was set to make a Thanksgiving Dinner with all local (grown within 100 miles), organic, preservative-free foods.
Thanks to local conscious food growers and the Santa Barbara Famers market, we did pretty darn good. We acquired all the fruits and vegetables needed from local certified organic vendors, and even found some pies for dessert that fit our standards. We hit up a bakery in town as they were closing up and were gifted bread galore-saving dozens of fresh loaves and baguettes from being tossed into the trash. Then it was off to the health food store for the rest. This is where things got tricky. We had to start weighing our commitment to Mother Earth with our palate and our budget. When feeding twenty-some people, sometimes the local and organic option is out of price range. In those instances, instead of compromising our moral values, we rethought our menu and our recipes and allowed our meal to be dictated by what was in-season, organic and grown and made locally.
We cooked up a storm, with new friends and old, and feasted on delicious foods like apple n’ herb stuffing, mushroom gravy, green bean casserole, yam delight, organic herbed turkey, sautéed Kale, and garlic mashed potatoes. And a good time was had by all.

A big thank you to the farmers at the farmers market, Grandma Sudman Laurie Henry, Nate Larson, Susan Boorujy, Ashley Bowen, Paula Glosserman, The Carey family, The Horner family and everyone in the CIC/ TSC office!