Okay, it has been one week since I headed south to Costa Mesa and spent two awesome days at the 2016 SoCal VegFest.
I would have posted this sooner but, since I’ve been home, there have been a couple of things to contend with – such as having the fam over for Halloween, and then having our second slab leak this year. Ugh! It was the same pipe, so we had to have plumbers come and reroute the whole line so that it now runs through the attic. Up next are the drywall repair folks, and then determining whether we can replace just part of the flooring where the leak happened or if we have to replace all of the flooring in our house. Blah to all of that.
Anyways, that is what has been keeping me busy this week, so I apologize for waiting a week before posting my wrap-up of SoCal VegFest!
I would have posted this sooner but, since I’ve been home, there have been a couple of things to contend with – such as having the fam over for Halloween, and then having our second slab leak this year. Ugh! It was the same pipe, so we had to have plumbers come and reroute the whole line so that it now runs through the attic. Up next are the drywall repair folks, and then determining whether we can replace just part of the flooring where the leak happened or if we have to replace all of the flooring in our house. Blah to all of that.
Anyways, that is what has been keeping me busy this week, so I apologize for waiting a week before posting my wrap-up of SoCal VegFest!
Now on to the good stuff…
First off – thank you so much to all of you who liked and retweeted my live tweets from the event. I hope you found them fun and useful! It was great to meet some Twitter friends at the festival and, as I tweeted during the event – I’m so used to being the only vegan in the room almost everywhere I go that it was truly incredible and amazing to be surrounded by thousands of compassionate vegans, vegetarians and veg-curious folks.
First off – thank you so much to all of you who liked and retweeted my live tweets from the event. I hope you found them fun and useful! It was great to meet some Twitter friends at the festival and, as I tweeted during the event – I’m so used to being the only vegan in the room almost everywhere I go that it was truly incredible and amazing to be surrounded by thousands of compassionate vegans, vegetarians and veg-curious folks.
And I thought I was going to have to skip #juicing today. I should've known #SoCalVegFest would have a juice booth! pic.twitter.com/ouK9EDxHFN
— CheapVeganChick (@CheapVeganChick) October 30, 2016
This green juice was so refreshing once the day got hotter.
I had the chance to have a long chat about vegan makeup and our love of tea with vegan singer/songwriter Annette Conlon, ate A LOT of awesome vegan food, and had the opportunity to meet some of the amazing folks who own or run vegan companies and organizations that I love. I also found out about some new brands I had yet to discover and picked up several products that I will be reviewing on Cheap Vegan Chick in the coming weeks.
Like this luxurious body butter from Veg in OC (above)!
This is just one row of vegan food vendors at SoCal VegFest (above) and the one I chose for my first meal at the festival (below).
|
|
The vegan Italian sandwich form Cafe MoMa was SO good! They also had this Mama's Sweet Bread (pictured below) that I meant to pick up before I left...and I totally forgot! I'm so bummed about this.
But...the important thing that I wanted to mention is that they do not normally make this sweet bread in a vegan version, but they said that they would if they got a good response. So if you have the chance to try it and you love it, please be sure to let them know!
But...the important thing that I wanted to mention is that they do not normally make this sweet bread in a vegan version, but they said that they would if they got a good response. So if you have the chance to try it and you love it, please be sure to let them know!
There were also some awesome speakers -- like Matt Ruscigno, MPH, RD...
And lots of booths giving away vegan coupons!
Here's the Animal Rights Legislation Panel on the main stage (Jane Velez-Mitchell has the mic)...
And here are the purveyors of the best vegan croutons I have ever eaten! (I came home with three bags.)
I tried lots of new things...
|
|
...got Samson and Piper some vegan dog treats from Shaded Trails (which they loved!)...
...and met so many great people doing great things!
I <3 Sean and Queenie from Ahimsa Essentials. If you did not have a chance to stop by and try some of their products, you might just have to drive to Arizona to hit up one of the markets where they regularly sell their wares. Or, of course, you could just visit their website and order some of their oils, soaps, scrubs and more.
I came home with their Om body butter, which I will be reviewing soon!
I also came home with some of these awesome bamboo socks by Bambu Dru (for me and my wife!).
|
|
Oh! And I can't believe that I have missed Miss Jones vegan, organic baking mixes and frostings right in the baking aisle at Vons! If you are like me and just assume there aren't any products for us on that aisle, keep an eye out for Miss Jones!
All in all, SoCal VegFest was awesome!
I'm so glad I was able to attend both days to enjoy the hundreds of booths, thousands of attendees, tons of vegan food and awesome, compassionate vendors.
I can't wait for SoCal VegFest next year -- hope to see you there!
In the meantime, keep an eye out for several vegan product reviews coming soon as I have a chance to try out all of this vegan awesomeness I got at the festival!
I'm so glad I was able to attend both days to enjoy the hundreds of booths, thousands of attendees, tons of vegan food and awesome, compassionate vendors.
I can't wait for SoCal VegFest next year -- hope to see you there!
In the meantime, keep an eye out for several vegan product reviews coming soon as I have a chance to try out all of this vegan awesomeness I got at the festival!
RSS Feed
