Thanksgiving works a little differently for us vegans and vegetarians. We also love to celebrate and give thanks with those closest to us. We also love to share a grand meal and reflect on the past year. We also love pie.

What we do differently is not just swap out the meat with a squash or a store-bought substitute. We also make sure to think about the hundreds of millions of birds who are slaughtered each year during this time and give thanks to the individuals at sanctuaries around the country who take in the more fortunate. We thank the restaurants who cater to our lifestyle of compassion. And we thank the animals who make our lives richer, funnier, eye-opening, and loving.

Below is a list of events happening in the area to celebrate Thanksgiving AND the turkeys, plus options on places to order a vegan meal and desserts:

1. November 12: Join Harvest Home Animal Sanctuary for Toast for the Turkeys in honor of the rescued turkeys at the sanctuary.

   
   Two of the residents at Harvest Home Animal Sanctuary, Bill and Sierra. Bill was found wandering the streets of Berkeley before being pickup by Animal Control. He is a gentle giant with the manners of a perfect gentleman. He spends his days gracing the green pasture with his buddy, Sierra. Photo Credit: Christine Morrissey

   The event, sponsored by such Bay Area establishments as Cinnaholic, Vegansaurus, D.O.V.E. Distributors, and Rainbow Grocery will also feature a “Humane Harvest” vegetarian food drive, to benefit the Emergency Food Bank of Stockton/San Joaquin.

Check out this video from last year's Toast to the Turkeys:

2. November 19: Take part in Farm Sanctuary’s annual Celebration FOR the Turkeys which features a vegan feast, musical performance, guest presentations, and the most adored of all – the Feeding of the Turkeys celebration, where the turkeys are the center of attention and dine on squash, pumpkin pie, and cranberries (on silver platters of course!).

   
   Me bonding with a turkey at the 2009 Feeding of the Turkeys. They are incredibly friendly animals and love to socialize and be petted!

   This year’s guests will include vegan writer and chef Colleen Patrick-Goudreau and Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter and the new Biz & Livia Stone Foundation, who became vegan after visiting Farm Sanctuary. You will also be able to tour the farm and visit with all the other animals. I was taken to the Celebration FOR the Turkeys for my 30th birthday, and it was the best birthday I ever had (good job, husband!).

   
   Two turkeys enjoying their feast of pumpkin and veggies. At factory farms, turkeys' beaks and toes are clipped (without anesthesia), so these guys have a little trouble eating without getting messy. But they definitely still enjoy the feast that so many turkeys don't get to experience.

   Farm Sanctuary (who recently took in 25 baby turkeys from a factory farm that were dumped on their doorstep) truly changes your perspective on farm animals as you spend time with them, experience their different personalities, and watch them thrive in a free and loving environment. [If you can’t make it, consider sponsoring a turkey!]

3. November 24: Join Café Gratitude (who recently opened a location in LA!) for their annual vegan Free Thanksgiving Meal, where this super compassionate establishment gives back with a feast served by volunteers from the community.

   
   Cafe Gratitude's Annual Free Thanksgiving Meal. Photo Credit: Cary Mosier
   
   If you prefer to stay in, you can still experience some Gratitude on your table by ordering a pie to go. Their desserts are seriously delicious (and probably the most healthy you’ll ever eat). It's sure to please vegans and omnis alike.

4. Order your vegan holiday meal from Souley Vegan, everyone’s favorite vegan soul food restaurant! This year the offerings include Southern fried tofu, roasted garlic mashed potato with gravy, and cornbread dressing, among other delicious options. You can also order pies and cheesecakes.

   
   Photo Credit: Souley Vegan

   Check out their homepage for a link to the menu and ordering instructions (order must be received by November 21).

5. Cinnaholic is promising some exciting holiday flavors this year, including pumpkin spice and egg nog frostings, and toppings like gingersnaps, candy cane pieces, and peppermint “Oreos.”

   
   Photo Credit: Michael Lang/Cinnaholic

   They’ve also teamed up with the aforementioned Harvest Home Sanctuary to celebrate the Toast to the Turkeys by donating, for the entire month of November, 50% of all Baby Bun sales to help out with feeding, housing, and general care for the animals.

And if you are simply looking for a way to complete your holiday table with something sweet, here are a few other places to check out for ordering Thanksgiving desserts:

Wholesome Bakery: Try their Sweet Potato Pecan Baby Pies
Rainbow Grocery: They always have an assortment of vegan treats from various local bakeries.
Mission Pie: They're offering a Vegan Apple-Cranberry crumb-top pie this year for Thanksgiving.
Fat Bottom Bakery: You can special order some Pumpkin Cupcakes with vegan cream cheese frosting.
Idle Hands Baking Company: Try their Spice Cake (gluten-free option available) or Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cake.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Chef Jennifer Biesty. Photo credit: Cris Molina

Chef Jennifer Biesty rocketed to national fame when she was a cheftestant on Season 4 of Top Chef and a Star Chefs Rising Star in 2007. She is currently the Executive Chef of Scala's Bistro and the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco. Biesty’s Bay Area culinary career developed under Loretta Keller, the Chef/Owner of the now shuttered Bizou Restaurant and current COCO500. Biesty cooked with Keller at benefit dinner events for The James Beard House, The Master’s of Food & Wine and Taste of the Nation. She also worked at Jardinière, with Chef Traci des Jardins. Biesty trained at the CIA Hyde Park at the young age of eighteen, and worked at NYC’s Aquavit and March restaurants, respectively. She worked in London at the River Café, alongside uber-talent chefs Ruth Rodgers, Rose Gray and Jamie Oliver. The Brooklyn native (“where the food is all about the ingredients”) lives in San Francisco with her girlfriend, Sara Delman. Biesty and Delman met at COCO500. Bay Area Bites caught up with Biesty to talk about her favorite food and drink spots.

Where do you live?
We live in the Potrero foothills, which is a nice way of saying “on the wrong side of the mission tracks.” Sara and I have been together for more than three years and love living in the Mission. There are so many great restaurants and shops. And it’s such a colorful neighborhood!

Where do you like to shop for food?
Rainbow Grocery: The produce there far surpasses any other market, and to stay eco-friendly, you can refill oil, vinegar, soap, lotions, honey, sugar, pasta, you name it. It’s great.

But Rainbow doesn’t offer meat, so for that I go to Avedano’s meats in Bernal Heights. It’s a beloved neighborhood butcher shop that has great tacos and Ryan Farr’s hot dogs! I like that is more Euro-style and you create a relationship with your shopkeepers and merchants.

The New May Wah market on Clement! In the heart of a little Chinatown, it’s just too fun to go there. They offer things like bone-in pork belly, whole fish, frogs, bulk spices, all the Asian sauces you could ask for and Asian beer, wine and sake. And when you need a bit of agar agar or basil seeds they have it all too.

Alemany Farmers’ Market: It feels like community. It is cheap and has great variety. Fresh flowers that are so affordable.

Where do you go on your nights off?
Bar Agricole. Amazing space and delicious cocktails. I love the Scotch egg there.

Zero Zero is a fun place to go for cocktails and crudo -- I love the yuzu sidecar. Oh, and the pizza and soft–serve there is another one of my guilty pleasures.

Hog and Rocks is another great place -- a big selection of oysters from the east coast, which reminds me of home!

How about your favorite local Mom & Pop joints?
Torta Gorda: on 24th for a good simple sandwich or some Puebla specialties.

Plow: has the best fried egg sandwich, although I wouldn’t call them mom and pop because the couple that own it are so young but it is a great breakfast and lunch place in sunny Potrero Hill.

Haltun Mayan Cuisine: for poc-chuc de puerco. Great food and reasonable. They have a good happy hour deal. I love the Panuchos & salbutos.

Where do you go for date night?
Universal Café: I was the chef there in 2003 and love the feel of that little restaurant. Sara and I like to go there often because they change the menu often but they also have things you can count on, like a delicious flatbread and a nice charred steak.

Ino Sushi. It’s in the Japantown mall. Great fried smelt roll and everything else is good too!

Oh, and Blue Plate is always fantastic for date night.

What is your guiltiest local food pleasure?
I crave poutine, but since luckily you can’t really get it around here I just make it for family meal at my restaurant. I love tacos and taco trucks! I frequent the one on Treat and 23rd -- Gallo Giro. Also, the tempura at Sanruku.

Any news on projects we should know about?
Honestly being the chef of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel is all consuming and is a big enough project for me currently. But I do have plans on the back burner to be reveled at a later date!

We’ll stay tuned.

Author Daniel Handler (who often uses the pen name of Lemony Snicket) and his wife author/illustrator Lisa Brown live with their young son in the same upper Haight neighborhood as Mayor Gavin Newsom. The duo is active in the arts community, and Handler is on the Board of Advisors for LitPAC, which uses noteworthy authors and lit events to support Democratic causes and politicians. Handler is a San Francisco native who has penned the popular Lemony Snicket series of books, as well as Basic Eight, Watch Your Mouth and Adverbs. Brown hails from Connecticut and is the bestselling author and/or illustrator of books including Vampire Boy's Good Night, The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming, Baby Mix Me a Drink and Picture the Dead, an illustrated Civil War ghost story for teens. She sporadically draws the (soon to be syndicated) Three Panel Book Review cartoon for the
 San Francisco Chronicle. The two met as undergrads at Wesleyan and have been married for twelve years. Here are the food favorites of the literary power couple.

FAVORITE RESTAURANTS
Life's not life without papaya salad, and the best papaya salad we've found is at Marnee Thai, at 9th and Irving. Have one with some Thai iced coffee and then go a few doors down to Le Video and, with the caffeine raging through your system, rent an old monster movie that you would never rent while in your right mind. Enjoy!

Crab season means it's time to head down to Anchor Oyster Bar and have oysters and crab and a bottle of white wine in the middle of the day. Why not? You're self-employed. (Note: only applies to self-employed people.)

Puerto Alegre on Valencia. Don't even ask.

FAVORITE FOOD MARKETS
Andronico's on Funston and Irving is the market we go to for just about everything. Bobby's behind the meat counter. Ask him about Prince, but pay attention while he's answering you or you will go home with three times as much skirt steak as you need.

The cheese section at Rainbow Grocery is an oasis of sophistication and delight. True, you have to push your way through hippies buying bulk foods to put in the Mason jars they brought from home. Life is not perfect.

LET'S DRINK
Alembic has the best cocktails, plus roasted shishito peppers and whatever form of deviled or pickled eggs they're trying out at any given time. We can be found there at a ridiculously early hour. If you see us, pick up the tab.

Tosca Café is another great bar, perfect for buying gimlets, stumbling across the street to City Lights Books to purchase poetry, and then stumbling back for another gimlet while reading poetry purchased at City Lights Books. Repeat and fade.

DATE NIGHT
Okazu Ya on Taraval has a special nigiri called Midnight Express that should not be eaten in the presence of someone with whom you are not sleeping. Halibut, black caviar and a raw quail egg is more erotic than the Castro and North Beach combined.

The Balboa Theater is the easiest movie theater to sneak food into. You should not sneak food into movie theaters. It is against the rules and rude. If you do it with hot and sour soup do not put it in a backpack.

TRAVEL NEEDS
A stovetop espresso maker is a necessary defense against the coffee of New England. We won't say whose coffee we stock it with, because we don't want Ritual, Four Barrel or Blue Bottle mad at us.

GUILTY FOOD PLEASURE?
Food guilt is for wimps and Gentiles.

Are you ready for the rainy season? After that brief, long-delayed idyll of sundress weather, it seems the dark and damp of our wet Mediterranean winter has set in. In his story "A Christmas Memory" Truman Capote called this fruitcake weather--the blustery late-autumn days when the holiday cakes were due to be mixed and baked, anointed with brandy and set on the shelf to mellow and age. If you're a fruitcake maker, or if this is the year when you're finally going to give Laurie Colwin’s infamous Black Cake a go, now's the time to start searching out your dried figs and candied orange peels, your burnt-sugar essence, rum and sweet kosher wine.

But among a certain sector of forage-minded do-it-yourselfers, this is the week to stockpile not nutmeg and sugarplums but onions and horseradish, honey and ginger. It's fire cider time, time to get prepared for winter's onslaught of colds, coughs, and flus, brought on by drafty Victorians, rainy bicycle trips, and sneezers on Muni, not to mention the petri dishes that are small children.

Last year, when all my mom friends were ankle-deep in squashed tissues and empty C-Monster bottles, with sticky glasses ringed with the dregs of tangerine Emergen-C scattered over every nightstand and tabletop, I heard about the wonders of fire cider on (where else?) Facebook.

Given that most of my friends online are a) teachers in constant contact with tiny grubby hands and small, constantly running noses; b) artists with flexible schedules, an enthusiasm for alchemical activities, and, often, day jobs at places like Rainbow Grocery; and c) writer/cooks procrastinating, er, continually browsing for interesting stuff on the Net like hungry giraffes among the treetops, it's only surprising that a recipe for fire cider didn't come my way earlier. But last year, there it was, courtesy of a post by my friend Sara Seinberg, a writer, excellent cook, Rainbow collective member, recent San Francisco marathon runner, and all-around curious and glamorous person. She'd found her recipe on The Urban Field Guide, written by herbalist-blogger Kristen Dilley.

I was instantly charmed by everything about it—its witchy, Harry Potter-ish name, its overload of everything fiery and naturally anti-bacterial, and especially, its supposed, nearly magical ability to fire-breathe the winter blues (and sniffles) back up into the clouds. Until I got to the fine print, the uh-oh last step of the recipe, where you put the jar on a dark shelf (or bury it in the backyard) for 6 to 8 weeks before using. Everyone I knew was sick now, not 8 weeks from now. So I shelved my plans for fire cider that winter; Robitussin and chicken soup would have to do.

But with the first rains beginning, I'm inspired to get started ahead of the colds and coughs this time. You'll need to go to a well-stocked grocery like Rainbow or Berkeley Bowl to find the potent roots you need.

Search out fresh horseradish roots if you can (they look like particularly knobbly, gnarly parsnips, thick and twisted, often still muddy). Because fresh horseradish quickly loses its bite when exposed to air, the jarred stuff usually contains salt, sugar, and other additives. The fumes coming off freshly grated horseradish will be enough to keep your sinuses clear for quite a while.

If you can find fresh turmeric root, peel and grate it like ginger, using about 1/3 to 1/2 cup of grated root. While many people think of turmeric as a cheap saffron substitute for saffron, or the stuff that makes curry powder gold, ayurvedic practitioners have valued it for ages, revering it for its purifying, antiseptic and immune-boosting qualities. Cayenne, horseradish, ginger: all of these are warming down to your toes.

Fire Cider
This is potent stuff. If you have gastric issues, like irritable bowel syndrome or ulcers, or are taking blood thinners, do not take fire cider. Otherwise, you can sip it in shots, 1-2 tablespoons at a time, up to three times a day. Yes, you'll have dragon breath, but that in and of itself may keep you healthy, keeping the coughers and sneezers on the other side of the bus.

Makes: 2 cups

Ingredients:
1 small onion, peeled and chopped
5 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
3/4 cup peeled, grated fresh horseradish
1/2 cup peeled, grated fresh ginger
1 tsp ground turmeric
1 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
½ cup honey, preferably raw and local
Apple cider vinegar to cover, approximately 2 cups

Preparation:
1. Get out a clean quart-sized glass jar. Fill with onion, garlic, ginger, horseradish, turmeric, and cayenne. Drizzle in honey.

2. Add cider vinegar to cover. Top lid with a square of waxed paper, then fasten lid on tightly.

3. Put away into a cool, dark place, and let sit undisturbed for 6 to 8 weeks.

4. Strain cider through cheesecloth, squeezing the solids firmly to get all the liquid out. Decant liquid into a clean jar and store in a cool, dark place. Fire cider will last up to 6 months.

In addition to some personal New Year's resolutions, I have a couple that have to do with lowering my impact on the earth and shrinking my carbon "foodprint."

I am pretty proud of my low-impact ways: I eat locally, I car share, I recycle, and I buy bulk from the co-op. In short, I live a lot of my life taking the environment and my impact on the environment into consideration.

But I've known for a while that I could do more, and have tailored a couple of resolutions to that end.

Resolution #1: Cut my food waste.

We've all heard the statistics: one-third to one-half of all food in the United States goes to waste. Now, there's a lot of that waste that happens way before the food gets to me: it spoiled at the farm or factory, or was thrown away during processing, or was otherwise wasted before it ever reaches the consumer. But what I do have control over is what happens to the food once it gets to me. As a single person who loves to cook and shop, I tend to over cook. I would be quite mortified if any of you saw what I throw away some weeks. I know I'm not alone, but it's still quite shameful. Even if I can compost it, I need to get into the habit of not buying this food, or using it all up when it's purchased.

This Sustainablog article has great pointers for other ways to cut down on food waste, and I'll be using their pointers as I go through the year.

Resolution #2: Meatless Mondays

Nearly all studies show that a meatless diet is better for the environment than an omnivore diet due to the amount of energy it takes to raise our cows and pigs and chickens. A 2007 article from Grist suggests that "If every American had one meat-free day per week, it would reduce emissions as much as taking 8 million cars off the roads." I don't eat meat at every meal, but it is novel for me to intentionally go completely meatless one day a week. I'm going to try to keep it up through 2008.

These resolutions mean that I am going to have to more planning of my meals. I don't think I will ever be someone who plans my meals for the week like I am planning an international trip. If I can even plan on a notecard like you see above and stick to the plan, I will have succeeded in working toward my resolution goals, I believe. I'd love to hear any menu planning tips that have worked for you.

My drink of choice at taquerias has always been a large, refreshing glass of jamaica, the brightest and probably healthiest agua fresca in the glass barrel lineup. The beautifully scarlet infusion of hibiscus flowers is rich in Vitamin C and carries a tartness that I love. The dried flowers can be found in any Latino market, or, if you prefer, organic flowers are sold in bulk at markets like Rainbow Grocery. Brewed in boiling water, sweetened with honey, spritzed with a touch of fresh lime or orange, and then served over ice, it's a delicious and healthful way to banish soda and other bottled drinks.

Abundant in Australia, where it's known as roselle, hibiscus has recently been exchanging its Mexican and health-food togs for an elegant spin in the world of cocktails. A Sydney-based company, Wild Hibiscus, has begun preserving the whole flowers in syrup. A single bud and a spoonful of its sweet, rosy syrup transform a glass of prosecco into one of the prettiest drinks around. It's just as easy to dress up a seasonal bellini or brighten a vodka martini.

For now, you can order online -- a small jar of 11 flowers and a serious party pack of 50 -- but keep an eye out for the jars soon in local markets.