The Holiday for the Rest of Us!

Those of you who are Seinfeld fiends will probably already be familiar with Festivus, and if you're not you can quickly get caught up with this video. 


Festivus has become a bit of a hipster holiday lately, I think, with the publication of a book by a former Seinfeld-writer, whose father actually invented Festivus in 1966.  There is even a website now where you can buy dedicated Festivus Poles, but I think that goes against the spirit of the holiday, which is a reaction to the commercialisation of most religious holidays (and, $40 for a pole?).

Anyways, fake holidays are, in my opinion, a perfect excuse to eat lots of food and hang out with people, so Andy and I hosted a vegan festivus feast to 'celebrate' with some friends.  I always, always intend to take photos during potlucks/group dinners, but I always, always forget.  So I have some photos from before people arrived, and some photos of the leftovers, but unfortunately missed out on most of the mains!

To start off with, though, I laid the table with vegan candy canes (from Coles, which I discovered thanks to K's post).

Our Festivus pole did not cost $40, and in fact was free.  I taped together some toilet rolls and then covered with aluminium foil.  Easy!

We spent nearly an hour snacking before we actually began the meal, enjoying some sourdough bread from the new Three Loaves Bakery in Idalia along with Pepper Crusted Cashew Cheese, and Brandied Tempeh Pate, a tester recipe for Carla's One Dish Wonders cookbook.

And some cracker biscuits with Roasted Garlic Cannellini Bean Dip.  All the entrees were pretty good, if I do say so myself.  That cashew cheese is a revelation!  I highly recommend that you go make it now!

For mains, Andy and I threw together some satay skewers, using Mark-style seitan, and topped with Spicy Peanut Sauce, another (delicious) tester recipe from One Dish Wonders.  Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of that, as there were no leftovers.  Likewise, there is no photographic evidence of the really yummy Potato Salad that Mel brought, with perfectly tender potatoes, green beans, and carrot.  The only leftovers we had from the mains was the creamy cucumber & bean salad I made, with a dressing of cream cheese, cider vinegar, and celery seeds.

A small main left room for the ample desserts that came our way.  I had a feeling that both Matt & Mel would both bring desserts, so I only made a tiny snack of Dark Chocolate Covered Brandied Cherries.

Mel made the most delicious Caramel Cream Pie, which was beautiful when she brought it, but which melted a bit before making it back into the fridge.  The leftovers might look a bit funny but they were every bit as delicious as the original pie.

And Matt & Emma brought along a tray heaped with sweets.  I wish I'd gotten a photo of the tray, which really was mountainous.  But here are some of the leftovers.  There were: White Chocolate and Cranberry Balls; Rum Balls; Cherry Ripe Balls; Toffee with Nuts; Bacardi and Apricot Cake; and underneath the toffees are some White Choc Crackles.  All so good!

We were left with a bit of a sugar hangover, but it was totally worth it to celebrate Festivus in style.