HELP NEEDED with vegan menu planning for event

[Guest guest]

Hi folks,

 

I am the coordinator of an organization called Autism Network

International, which runs an annual four-day retreat called Autreat.

(See www.autreat.com/autreat.html) This is a retreat for autistic

people and our friends and supporters, not something specifically for

vegans.

 

However, I am the coordinator, and I am therefore the person

responsible for negotiating with the venue for all services (including

meals), and signing contracts for all services (including meals), and

writing checks for all services (including meals). And I am not

willing to be the purchasing agent for transactions involving animal

products. Therefore, in order for me to remain willing to serve in

this role, the Autreat menu has to be vegan. And thus far, nobody else

has been crazy enough to offer to replace me as coordinator of this

event. So we have a vegan menu.

 

Unfortunately, we have had serious and ongoing problems, at each of

the four venues we've used, with getting satisfactory menus. Their

meal planners' general approach has been to take " typical " meat-based

menus--burgers, chicken, etc.--and just replace the meat (or cheese,

in some cases) with vegan analogs.

 

This is a very big problem, because if people come to an event with a

vegan menu, and they don't like the food, or worse, they get sick from

the food (either from too much soy or from not enough protein), they

come away with a very negative opinion about vegan food!

 

I have provided our current venue with extensive feedback about past

years' menus, as well as copious amounts of printed materials and URLs

for information about vegan recipes and vegan meal planning. But the

menu draft that was submitted to us for the 2010 event still reflects

the same problems we've been trying to get addressed.

 

I'm thinking the best way to solve this problem may be simply to

design a vegan menu and send it to them and say " Can you produce

this? " instead of relying on them to do it.

 

I am asking for help with this. I've created a blog at

http://autreatmenu.wordpress.com/ where I described the parameters of

the menu requirements. I am asking people to submit suggestions for

either individual dishes or for entire meals. I'll post recipes that

people submit, and then ask readers to try the recipes at home and

comment on them.

 

So far only one recipe has been submitted there by an Autreat participant.

 

I am now appealing to veg*n mailing list members: PLEASE help us to

create a vegan menu that will introduce participants to the pleasures

of eating nutritious, filling, tasty vegan meals!

 

Jim Sinclair jisincla

Coordinator, Autism Network International

www.ani.ac