Thanksgiving has never been a big deal for me, so I didn’t mind staying on campus this year. (Missing out on Passover in April was definitely a bigger loss.) I was a bit skeptical at Wellesley Fresh’s promises of a good Thanksgiving meal, but as far as variety and vegan options, they delivered.
To me, Thanksgiving is about eating good food with good people, not celebrating false narratives about European settlers arriving in North America in the 1600s. Wellesley College occupies unceded land of the Massachusett and Pawtucket peoples, which is something to remember every day, not just the third Thursday of November.
Thursday morning, I had breakfast in two dining halls. First up was pumpkin French toast at Lulu (both vegan and egg versions). It’s been a long time since Wellesley had a vegan brunch option other than potatoes and tofu scramble (which we have every Saturday and Sunday), so this was an exciting development. I had two servings and took two to go. My friend Catie and I chatted in the mostly empty dining hall.
Vegan pumpkin French toast
At Tower, I had a bit of their savory sweet potatoes. They were pretty good! Two more friends joined us, and I ended up sitting and talking for over an hour and a half. We talked about what crew is normally like, and whether it’s ok to be the covid police, and the racist roots of so many institutions in the US. I basked in the feeling of having nowhere to be.
Tower sweet potatoes with onion
Soon it was lunchtime. My original plans fell through, which left me in a bit of a crisis, but I met up with another group of friends at Lulu and had a great time. None of the dishes were incredible, but the variety was exciting. We lay down on the floor for a bit, talking about next semester’s course browser and wintersession jobs, until the food had settled in our stomachs.
Lulu lunch: stuffing, pasta with pesto, tofu loaf, sweet potato tots, biscuit
Then we headed over to Tower for round two. I got mashed sweet potatoes, which were great (hard to mess up), and cornbread, which was questionably bricklike. We sat outside under an overhang. It was drizzling. There was no room in our bellies for a third lunch at Bates. When we finally headed back to our dorms, I spent the rest of the afternoon getting some things done in my room, grabbed a small dinner, then sat at my desk until it was an acceptable time to go to bed (9:00).
Tower cornbread and mashed sweet potatoes (and their slightly better attempt at a tofu loaf)