A member Elaine Wiggins wrote us:
I really think you should know that several years ago I donated your book “Vegan in Volume: Vegan Quantity Recipes for Every Occasion” to the director of Nutrition Services at a local medical complex where I work. I received this phone call back (a long time later). He said that he had not forgotten my donation and that all along he had been working on a budget to incorporate some items from the book into their menu. He said he was really excited to do this and appreciated the suggestions in the book. Below my letter, please read the response I also received via email from one of his employees with details about the first menu items they rolled out this year.
Since that time I have eaten in their main cafeteria a few times and I am thrilled that it is becoming slowly more vegan friendly all the time. They now also serve soy milk, hummus and vegan friendly bagels, vegan energy bars, and other grab and go items in addition to salads, fruits, oatmeal, and main menu items. I am really excited that a medical organization is taking vegan interests into consideration!
Thank you so much for providing this book! I think it is a great resource for institutions and I love that the menu items are simple and easy to incorporate, and not so far out that people are turned off by them. At some point, I would like to do the same thing with the other local hospital/clinic system in my city. I think that it is very important for patients, family, and visitors to be able to maintain nutrition and ethical food preferences while visiting a medical health system. Thanks again for such an awesome book!
FROM THE FOOD SERVICE: I wanted to personally thank you for the wonderful vegan cookbook that you donated to Nutrition Services as well as to let you know that we are going to be implementing a couple of the recipes from your cookbook in the café in the next few weeks. We will have a vegan orange and wild rice salad in our salad bar which we will be having every Monday and Tuesday for at least a month. On our café menu, that will be on the 6th, we will have a vegan grilled stuffed portabella mushroom stuffed with cous cous and tomato compote that was inspired by your cookbook as well. I look forward to adding more vegan recipes, from this cookbook, to our menus in the future.
The Vegetarian Resource Group would like to thank all our health professionals, members, volunteer, activists, and donors, who are helping us to create a more vegan and humane world.
For more information on Vegan in Volume and food service ideas, see
http://www.vrg.org/bookstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=10
http://www.vrg.org/fsupdate/index.htm