What Kate Ate

If you are on the fence about veganism, take heed, ye nonbeliever! There is one reason, and one reason only, to go vegan. It is not about abstaining from thousands of acts of murder over your lifetime. Nor is it about arming yourself against cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. These are just the fringe benefits, folks! Truly, if there is one reason to go vegan, it is for the sweet, sweet loving that may be delivered to your door by your friendly neighborhood postman for the low, low price of kindness and compassion!*

In February, I organized a care package exchange with my fabulous veg*n friends. Care package exchanges are just like the secret Santa’s you did in elementary school (religiously motivated celebrations of materialistic wealth in the public school system! Don’t you love it?) but without the blatantly gender-specific toys that someone else’s mother picked out from the dollar store . As organizer-in-chief of this event, I gathered up all of our addresses, tossed them into my secret Santa hat, and matched them into random pairs.** Then we each assembled a treasure box of goodies based on the likes and dislikes of our partners. We even have a name for our exchange–BBV’s: benevolent baking vegefactors–so named because baking tends to be central to the care package experience, though it is not required.

Now, we know from previous posts that my two favorite things are pineapple and coconut. But my three favorite things are pineapple, coconut, and sending people letters and gifts. So, assembling a care package is absolute bliss for me. I had the pleasure of making a package for lovely Miss Laura, who writes the Vegan University column at tastebetter.com. As happenstance would have it, Laura and I have remarkably similar interests. In fact, I am not yet convinced that I didn’t accidentally match myself up with myself. Specifically, we both like tea, scones, and Anne of Green Gables. This actually complicated matters quite a bit; while the package was a breeze to assemble, I secretly wanted to keep it for myself and pretend like it was lost in the mail. It was a trial, but I persevered.

The package looked like this:

Clockwise from the left, we have Really Good Vegan Raisin Scones, Kiss-Ass Molasses Cookies, a mug with an assortment of teas, a recipe box, a crocheted cupcake, coasters, and mini cookie cutters. Sadly, I hadn’t the foresight or the willpower to take pictures of the package I received from Kelsi, my own BBV, but let me tell you, it was chock full o’ coconutty goodness.

A thoughtful package can make a person’s day. In an earlier exchange this past December, I received my package on what felt like the longest day of my college life: a five-hour Teach for America interview followed by several hours of studying for a final that same evening. But when I arrived home, I found a package from “Cali,” my oh-so-benevolent benefactress. Inside was an assortment of goodies of the knitting, tea-drinking, and baking variety, including these handmade stitchmarkers:

The package changed my day entirely.

In conclusion, a reassessment of my favorite things in life is in order:

1. pineapple coconut

2. pineapple

3. snail mail

4. Anne of Green Gables tea

5. tea Anne of Green Gables

6. Colin Firth/knitting/running/red wine (about equal on any given day)

7. spreading happiness to the people I love with simple words and actions

8. cupcakes/Lost (again, about equal).

*Shipping and handling not included. Some restrictions may apply. Offer not valid with any other offers, discounts, or promotions. Valid within the continental United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and Guam.

**Bold-faced lie. I created an Excel spreadsheet, assigned each participant a number, then used a random number generator to produce a second sequence of numbers. I then juxtaposed these lists to generate a set of pairings.