Tea and Sympatico

Wow, what a week!!! I've had no time to mourn the end of Vegan Mofo . As soon as we finished work on Thursday it was straight into action with We Shall Overcome weekend. Matt played at 7 different events over 4 days and it was an amazing experience seeing the whole idea come together with events all around the country happening at the same time and for the same reasons. My friends who happen to be vegans too put on fantastic events. Here's Lynnmarie who runs Manchester Vegan Society and her partner Martin the Mod who runs Mod's Veggie Vegan Cafe . They put on a brilliant day in Manchester City Centre at the Thirsty Scholar Pub with bands, poets and speakers and off course Lynnmarie's wonderful vegan cakes for sale. This was a picture just outside the Thirsty Scholar and too good an opportunity to miss. The woman with pink hair is our friend Morag Rose who runs psychogeographic group, the Loiterers Resistance Movement . Morag curated and led a fascinating walk ...

I've been lucky to have not one but three amazing Christmas dinners this year. The first one was the week before Christmas at Topaz Cafe in Ashton. I've blogged about Topaz before as it's a favourite lunch spot of mine and Matt's but they don't usually open in the evenings so this was a special festive one off. To start with Matt went for a lovely velvety smooth leek, chestnut and sage soup whereas I opted for Asian Tofu. I have to say that this was some of the most amazing tofu I've ever tasted. The texture was perfectly crispy on the outside yet soft on the inside. It was really infused with flavour and there was a very tasty coleslaw on the side. Our main was a cranberry and cashew nut filo with all the trimmings and a fantastic gravy. Dessert was a sticky toffee pudding with icecream and the meal was rounded off with coffee and truffles. Christmas dinner number two was organised by Manchester Vegan Society and was hosted by Martin the Mod ...