Finale: Vida Vegan Con day 3, and the morning after

We began the last day with the same breakfast choices as day two. Some people were disappointed with the repetition, but not me. I loved the breakfast and would have been happy to eat it every day for weeks. Besides, there were still many items on the long tables I hadn't even tried yet. I had lots of the same things from the day before, but I did try one combo that no one else at my table seemed to appreciate, though I thought it was terrific. Instead of maple syrup on my xgfx pancakes, I poured on the gravy meant for the biscuits. Oh, it was good!

I attended two workshops — The Good, the Bad & the Ugly: The Marketing Panel, and Product Reviews and Ethics. One useful point I took away (and still remember!) was when reviewing food products, we should photograph them both inside the packaging and on a plate, so readers can see what they look like.



Then it was off to a quick lunch — quick because we only had about 1/2 hour before leaving for a food demo at Whole Foods. This was my favorite conference lunch — a taco bar made in heaven.



Every conceivable taco topping from fabulous raw nut meat to Upton’s Naturals chorizo, to the best tasting soy curls I've ever had. There was vegan queso, and a vat of of guacamole as well as chopped raw veggies, olives, grated cheese, and of course, corn tortillas or large lettuce leaves for those who wanted their tacos raw. Etc. Etc. Etc.



There was Spanish rice and cooked peppers and onions.



And there was this. Was it broccoli hummus? I honestly can't remember. Anyone know? I ate my two tacos and hurried to Whole Foods for another cooking demo.



This time the inimitable Hannah Kaminski was presenting a class entitled: Mastering the Art of Vegan Meringue. Vegan meringue? Yes, and easy to make, too. Hannah produced a stiff and fluffy meringue using only four ingredients and an electric mixer.



Then, despite an uncooperative oven and inadequate WF kitchen equipment, she made meringue cookies, Napoleons and a lemon meringue pie filled with lemon curd she had previously prepared. Because of the oven, the cookies were slow to bake, but tasted delicious when they were finally finished, as did the pie and Napoleons, filled with the tart lemon curd.

The slow oven made us late getting back to the hotel for the next session, Specialty Diets, but I'm glad I went. All four panel members were interesting and informative. Kittee Burns, Fran Costigan, Gena Hampshaw and Susan Voisin explained how they arrived at their special vegan diets, and shared ideas for making special diets work. One hint I'd like to pass along to those eating xgfx diets came from Kittee. She highly recommended using superfine brown rice flour from Authentic Foods in a mix of three parts superfine, two parts potato starch and one part tapioca starch for baking sweets. She also said The Allergen-free Bakers Handbook by Cybele Pascal has been invaluable to her.

Sadly, this was the last conference session, and all that remained was the closing address by Isa and Terry.


Fran, Julia, Marika and ... Helen? Is that you?

But we're not done, yet. There were still vegan Portland restaurants to visit, and eating to do. For dinner, we headed to what turned out to be my favorite dining spot of the weekend — Blossoming Lotus.


Pan Tossed Angel Hair Pasta with smoked vegetable marinara, herb pecan pesto and sage balsamic roasted tofu, topped with fresh herbs and a basil oil drizzle.


Live Taco Salad L, GF, SF crisp romaine, chili lime dressing, red onion, avocado, bell pepper, tomato, pecan chorizo, and our famous spicy nacho chips, served with a side of house made cashew sour cream.


Crispy Thai BBQ Salad GF romaine, mixed greens, shredded cabbage, carrot, cucumber, raisins, crispy rice sticks, curried cashews and thai spiced barbecue soy curls, with creamy sweet ginger dressing, fresh herbs & toasted coconut.

I had the crispy Thai BBQ salad and all I can say is OMG. And I don't say that often or lightly.


Helen ordering her breakfast.

On Monday morning, Bethany, Helen, Mr. EV and I went to Sweetpea Baking Company at the vegan mini-mall, for breakfast. I think I was too full from a weekend of overindulgence, and all I could manage was a cup of vanilla rooibus tea — but it was good tea. And I bought a chocolate chip cookie for later, 'cause I was kind of used to eating dessert before and after every meal, and I was afraid I might need that cookie.

We visited Herbivore Clothing Company where Mr. EV and I purchased sets of bamboo traveling eating utensils, and Food Fight!



After that, we wandered around the corner to Red and Black Café where we purchased lunch for the train ride back to Seattle. (Except for Helen who had scored a live salad from Blossoming Lotus at Food Fight.)

Then we headed to the train station, Helen on her bike, and the rest of us in a cab, where we caught the 12:15 back to Seattle ...





... and my sweet girl, Buffy.

I'd like to thank Wellsphere.com for sponsoring my ticket.

Vida Vegan Con day 2

Why are these people smiling? They just made their way through the stunning breakfast buffet at Vida Vegan Con, that's why. I didn't even know I was hungry until I'd hit up the over-burdened tables of fab vegan food.



First came bowls of chia pudding, cut-up, fresh fruit (my favorite), and cartons of So Delicious coconut milk yogurt, including Greek-style yogurt.



Then roasted potatoes (my favorite — uh, wait, did I already pick a favorite?), bagels, tofu scramble, biscuits and perfect white bean gravy, gluten free pancakes with a vat of maple syrup. And of course there was peach crisp. Why wouldn't there be? I'm probably leaving things out, but how can I possibly remember so many choices?

After breakfast and a welcome address by the VVC organizers, I attended a vegan travel panel, then hopped on the free Portland trolley to Whole Foods.



At Whole Foods, Fran Costigan, the queen of vegan desserts, did a presentation called Dark Chocolate Bliss. She made chocolate cake with chocolate ganache, gold-dusted bittersweet and ginger truffles, and demonstrated how to work with chocolate transfer sheets. Of course it was all informative and luscious. Note that Fran doesn't normally work with such a large whisk, but when in someone else's kitchen, making do with a smile is sometimes required!
(Find my review of Fran's dessert book here: http://bit.ly/hpAadu)



This being VVC, after inhaling chocolate cake and truffles, it was time to scuttle back to the conference center for lunch. By now, I was getting used to eating dessert both before and after a meal (see day 1), so no problem. Once again, the meal was planned to be inclusive of everyone's needs; raw, cooked, glutenous, gluten-free — it was on the table. Fresh, raw veggies, massaged kale salad, purple cauliflower hummus, roasted veggies, and another round of peach cobbler.



And just behold the magnificent golden beet salad.



Here's my plate piled with pesto potato salad, BBQ tempeh, kale salad, roasted veggies, and golden beets. Fab.



For some (you know who you are), the lure of Portland's food carts proved greater than the conference food, and above you see a box of batter-fried oreo cookies from Home Grown Smoker. It came with chocolate dipping sauce. I didn't taste it but others were moaning with pleasure at every bite.



In the afternoon, I attended an inspiring talk by Colleen Patrick Goudreau called, Planting the Seeds of Compassion: Communication as Activism. She spoke about how important our word choices are when communicating about veganism. She cautioned us against using words like "fake," "faux," and "mock" when naming foods since what we are eating is real, not fake, food. For example, we eat nut meat or wheat meat, not fake meat. She urged us to speak to people about compassion, not factory farming, so as to not lose their interest. I'm over-simplifying here, but I suggest looking at Colleen's writing, and especially her new book, The 30 Day Vegan Challenge, for inspiration on sharing and spreading vegan compassion.



By now you're probably wishing the day would end, and frankly, so am I. It's almost as exhausting to write about it as it was to live it. (It was exhausting but exhilarating to live it.) Saturday evening, we attended the Vida Vegan Galarama and silent auction for Woodstock Animal Sanctuary. It was a fancy dress affair for those who chose to get their fancy on, or come as you are for those for whom fancy dress is jeans and tees. The little black dress was everywhere, but some, like Vegan Backpacker Jill (also from Vegan Cuts) looked gorgeous in a smashing red dress. I wish I had a photo to share.



Naturally, there was food. My plate contained gf pizza from Sizzle Pie, Gardein strips and a yummy fresh spring roll. For dessert? A mile-long Coconut Bliss sundae bar. And I just realized I failed to use my coupon for a beer, cocktail, mocktail or wine. Darn.



I'll leave you with a video of vegan body builder Robert Cheek hoofing it on the dance
floor.

I'd like to thank Wellsphere.com for sponsoring my ticket.

Vida Vegan Con, day 1

Where do I begin? Intense, delicious, exciting, invigorating, wonderful — Vida Vegan Con was all of this and more; so many kind vegans, so much great food, no explaining why I choose to eat only plants, no asking what was in the food, wonderful attendees, interesting food demos and panel discussions. And the swag! Did I mention the mountain of swag we received? Holy queso — everything from the aforementioned Queso, to pepper grinders. I arrived with a manageable half-empty suitcase, and left with an overstuffed one — and the suitcase wasn't the only thing that was overstuffed. At Sweetpea Bakery on Monday morning, I couldn't even bring myself to consume more than a cup of tea, though I did buy a gf chocolate chip cookie for later — you know, just in case.

Each day felt more like a week, but I'll attempt to summarize the activities/festivities, with a possibly slanted emphasis towards food. We were, after all, in Portlandia, vegan food capital of the world.



We took the train from Seattle, and arrived at our lovely hotel in Portland about 4 p.m. Friday afternoon. The first VVC event was an early evening champagne and cupcake reception in the convention center ballroom.



I didn't really want to fill up on cupcakes before dinner, but I couldn't exactly sip champagne on an empty stomach, especially since I get lightheaded just looking at champagne. So I enjoyed a 'small' chocolate cupcake with my flute of champagne.



Along with the cupcakes, there were platters of very delicious nut cheese cubes from Heidi Ho Organics. I ate quite a few of those.



One of the most amazing parts of the conference (if not the most amazing) was recognizing bloggers whom I had only met on the Internet. I spotted Mo from Mo Betta Vegan, and immediately went in for a hug. Cool. I'll never be able to remember everyone I met the first night, but it was so much fun. I got to meet Dynise from Urban Vegan, for whose upcoming book I tested recipes, and lots of wonderful local, Seattle bloggers, like Samantha from Novel Eats, and Helen from vegtastic.net. I was also excited to meet Julia, the snarky vegan, Marika from madcap cupcake, and P and T from vegangelical.



After the reception, at 8 p.m., we went to dinner at Portobello, a well-loved Portland vegan institution. Bethany, organizer extraordinaire and writer of spotted devil cat and his vegan assistant, made (and constantly updated) reservations, and served as transportation navigator. In the photo, from left to right are: snarky vegan, the vegangelicals, madcap cupcake, spotted devil cat and his vegan assistant, moi, and Mr. easy vegan.



I think this is a photo of my Ginger Rawgers, a non-alcoholic (unless you are a government agent and count kombucha as alcohol) cocktail, which was sublime.



After cocktails, ahem, we had a little tatt show where P and T showed off the gorgeous new tattoos they'd gotten at the vegan mini mall.



The left arm belongs to P and the right arm belongs to T. Pretty spectacular, right?



The food was quite wonderful, as you'll see, but unfortunately won't be able to taste. Above you see Bethany's tomato soup.



A beetburger.

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Several diners ordered the gnocchi, and all were swooning.



Last but not least, my stuffed portobello on top of polenta, entrée, which was delicious.




There were also desserts consumed, salted caramel ice cream and tiramisu are pictured above. I've never had the non-vegan versions of either of these two delicacies, as I may have become vegan before they became so popular. And I've never been big on desserts anyway. However, my forkful taste of the tiramisu was amazing. I don't think I could have eaten the whole thing, but I sure enjoyed my taste to the max. As for the salted caramel, it wasn't a favorite of the people who tried it. It was too coconut-y and not very caramel-y, and I didn't detect the salty accent I was expecting. But it was still good, just not what we expected. Overall, our experience at Portobello was elegant and amazing.

All this was just one evening's worth of VVC. More to come.

I'd like to thank Wellsphere.com for sponsoring my ticket.