Behind The Scenes - Green gratitude dinner and dance in chicago, USA - 1

Oh, hi Blake! (Halo.) What・s going on here? Looks exciting! Well, a lot, as you can see Yeah, we・re preparing for Thanksgiving dinner here And in case of our group, it・s going to be raw vegan Thanksgiving Halo from the Windy City of Chicago, USA! Welcome to Vegetarianism: The Noble Way of Living Today, we will take you behind the scenes of this year・s Green Gratitude Dinner and Dance in commemoration of a compassionate vegan Thanksgiving It・s a lot of the local raw food shops coming out and creating a raw meal for everybody And it・s going to be a dinner-dance, have some DJ・s and a big celebration, and some excellent food This will be an event for about 115 people And everything, we・re striving for foods that feel like Thanksgiving foods Guests arriving early to the event were treated to an appetizer buffet of chips with Kabocha Hummus, Spinach Dip, and Creamy Roasted Red Pepper The tantalizing vegan Thanksgiving dinner that was amazingly made entirely raw included Chocolate Bliss Elixir, Winter Squash Soup with Plantain Zip, Rosemary-infused Mushroom Fillets with Orange Marinade, Gratitude ：the best ever； Stuffing, Kale Pomegranate Salad, Pear-Cranberry Relish, Leeky Tator Crisps, Curried Eggplant, Pumpkin Pie, Spice Tea, and Exotic Water Yum! This year we・ve made a big effort to include as much local produce from farmers in this area as we could Green Gratitude・s event organizer, Ariane, invited us on her shopping adventures days prior to the festivities I・m here today at the farmer・s market, the Green City Market in Lincoln Park in Chicago, and we・re getting our vegetables from some local organic growers for the event this Saturday night We・re going to be putting these in a dip that we・re going to make, that・s kind of like a hummus So instead of garbanzo beans we・re going to be using these squashes with sesame seeds oil, lemon, garlic to make a hummus and it・s going to be delicious I・m getting some thyme and oregano, fresh thyme and oregano, and this is going to go in the Butternut Squash Soup and in the stuffing and maybe some in the salad dressing as well for our Kale Salad So now I・m getting some beautiful Lacinato dinosaur kale for the Kale Salad All right, so I have a combination of squashes I・ve got some French exotic squash, the sweet dumpling, kabocha, and two kinds of kabocha, the red kabocha, and then a couple of other heirloom squashes that they said are more delicious than butternut So we・re having a Winter Squash Soup for a combination of these So I・m getting 110 mushroom caps, because there・s going to be one Portobello mushroom per person, and then some crimini mushrooms for our stuffing Beautiful! Look how gorgeous this guy is Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful Are you cooking for an event? Yeah, we・re having a vegetarian Thanksgiving on Saturday night Oh, cool Chefs like Jason from Raw Food Creations came together to volunteer their time and exquisite recipes that made Green Gratitude a huge success The planning was elaborate, with some volunteers doing their own pre-planning and early food preparations We joined Chef Jason in his kitchen as he prepared one of his raw dessert specialties � Pumpkin Pie This was the seventh consecutive year that Chicago・s raw food community collaborated in organizing a compassionate Thanksgiving Celebration With environmental concerns being a hot topic, what better way to promote going green than planning a fantastic vegan holiday event! This year we・re calling it the Green Gratitude Dinner Dance And we started I think about three years ago, really focusing on making this event very green and sustainable and environmentally friendly So we use real plates that we wash and use again And we use some compostable dessert plates and soup bowls The raw food lifestyle is good to help the environment, obviously because we・re vegan so we don・t harm any animals, and we try to eat as local and as seasonal as possible as well So we decided Thanksgiving is sort of, holds one sort of an idea, so we like the word ：gratitude,； so we came up with Green Gratitude Finally, it was the night before the big dinner and dance We stepped into the kitchen to see what the chefs were up to and witnessed the magic of raw culinary art We・re actually making, it・s going to be called Parsley Dust We・re going to take the tops of the parsley, de-stem it, and then we・re going to chop it up really fine And then, I・m told we・re going to do then too, is we・re going to strain it, almost through a bag, squeeze all of the juice out of there, and it will be like a fine dust that we・ll sprinkle as like a garnish on the actual meals themselves So what are you making here? I・m making infused water What it・s going to be, it・s coconut water from young Thai coconuts And I have orange pieces with a clove stuck in them, cinnamon sticks, and lemon slices, and then we・re going to fill it full of filtered water So it just gives a nice kind of a flavored water Okay, we・re with our top chef Blake, he・s going to tell us what main entree is going to be Okay well, the main dish, the main part is Portobello Fillet, and it・s been gilled, we・ve removed the gills And it・s a local Portobello mushroom, organic And then we slice it in half and then we slice the half into two halves, like slivers, so it ends up being like a cutlet kind of like appearance So then it・s marinated in a rosemary, orange, miso, and garlic The next thing we can talk about is the kale salad This is also local, we・ve gone local and organic with our kale And every, all the ingredients that we could manage There・s the white pieces in there is bok choy, there・s carrot that・s local and organic, there・s some pomegranate seeds in there And then the star, the sun carrot is also a purple carrot from a local farm, Henry・s Then we have a relish, cranberry relish with pears that are local organic pears And cranberries are all organic And there・s raisins and I think orange zest and orange in there And then this over here is a cultured eggplant And they・ve been layered with shredded carrot and then cultured as you would do pickles or kimchi or something like that And then, then over here we have a stuffing, and this is probably the trickiest to get the texture right It・s a lot of mushrooms and some soaked seeds, a few nuts, walnuts Then we warm it up and get a crust on it for serving And then served on that is a little dollop of a gravy that we made, which is mushroom based with some almonds These decorative things are crispy leeks that have been dehydrate These are also local from Henry・s farm They・ve been slivered and marinated and then deep dried, so that they become crispy And so those are a really fun part, some people like that the best of all At the dessert table, we found Chef Jason tempting us with the Pumpkin Pie he made earlier This is the pumpkin pie that we are working on here and just finishing accenting it and getting a nice little coconut cream we put on top with some pecans and dusting it with a little bit of cinnamon So it looks delicious doesn・t it?( Oh yes!) Get your dancing shoes ready! When we return after this brief message, we・ll see you at the Green Gratitude Dinner and Dance!