Celebration Roast with Mushroom Sauce, Roasted Rosemary Yukon Gold Potato, Corn

We have some friends who are leaving town tomorrow or shortly thereafter; he just graduated from Duke Law School with a graduate degree and has accepted a job in the San Francisco Bay Area, while she is looking for a job as an architect there. My wife had to eat early and get to class, so she had leftovers on her own, but I prepared a late dinner to suit our friends' schedule - they couldn't make it over till almost 11p (no problem!).

It's been a long time since I've enjoyed a Field Roast handmade stuffed vegan (with apples, squash, and mushrooms) Celebration Roast, and I picked one up (on sale) for tonight. It's easy to make and just needs heating in the oven. I sliced it and served it with Simply Organic brand vegetarian mushroom gravy (all organic vegan ingredients, including rice flour, mushroom, potato starch, yeast extract, carrot, garlic, and onion). I also roasted some Yukon Gold potatoes (cutting each small potato into eights, tossing with some olive oil, salt, and rosemary needles, and roasting in a 400° oven for 30-40 minutes till the potatoes were lightly browned, shaking once) and served corn-off-the-cob, mixed with a little salt, Earth Balance margarine, and lime. I sprinkled some alder smoked salt that I brought back from California last week, along with freshly ground black pepper, on some slices of heirloom tomatoes, as well.

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I've let my blog get behind and have to get caught up. I photographed a vegan wedding in Ohio on Saturday, leaving Friday morning to get to the rehearsal. We had rehearsal dinner at Carrabba's Italian Grill in Westlake, Ohio; they had one pasta without eggs and their pizza could be made vegan, so we had one of each - both were reasonable.

On Sunday, a friend from Pittsburgh, 2 or 2 1/2 hours away, came to Cleveland to spend the evening with my wife and me; we went out to Tommy's in Cleveland Heights for dinner. I used to visit Cleveland periodically years ago and remember enjoying this restaurant. It is mostly vegetarian and serves (as I recall) very good falafel in a variety of forms. I had their tamales topped with salsa and seitan - good!

There is a lot of countryside in the approximately nine-hour drive between Cleveland and my home in Durham (NC), and the best bet to stop for food seemed to be the capital of West Virginia, Charleston. I had found on the internet that there was an Indian restaurant there, Sitar of India. My wife was very disappointed, though I thought the food was passable; we shared a papadum (rather meager serving of a single papadum lentil cracker - my wife found that it tasted stale), salad, bhagan bharta (eggplant) that was probably the least interesting bhagan bharta I've ever had, and two flat breads, neither of which was good (my wife was tempted to ask if she could train the chef in cooking these breads!). We're so lucky to have so many good restaurants where we live!