Back in Business
{I wrote much of this post in my head while on an hour run this morning. Some day there will be an app to allow the content to go from brain straight to blogging platform. I considered transcription but I talk to myself enough as it is.}
I got the “Vegan Christmas” thing from an article that Lisa Pitman wrote for the Toronto Vegetarian Association newsletter.
The Vegetarian Food Festival is no doubt my favourite food festival of the year.
I detest people labels. I’ve been using the phrase “Labels are for products, not people” since before I heard the quote “Labels are for cans”, attributed to actor Anthony Rapp (widely known for his portrayal of Mark Cohen in the stage and film versions of Rent, though I still remember his Dazed and Confused role). Rapp stole my line. That’s okay though, because he’s famous so people listen to him. I believe in people’s right to eat what they want, be attracted to/fuck who they want, believe or not believe in whatever deity they want without labels, pigeonholing or judgement. “Vegetarian” and “vegan” are words for a movement and adequate descriptors for food.
I proclaim that I am a food enthusiast and occasional meat eater and the Vegetarian Food Fair is my vegan Christmas. I sort of celebrate Christmas as a Jew, so why not? It’s food, people! Of course the organizers and participants persuade visitors to give up animal products with lots of information, a Veggie Challenge and a lot more but never do I feel forced, preached at, slighted or left out. Instead, I feel like I’m part of this wonderful event that I attend on multiple days each year. The quality of exhibitors and speakers is outstanding.
On Saturday I ended up missing all of the speakers and demo that I was interested in because there was so much going on outside. People to see. A 2 year old (my nephew) to chase. Part of my connection to the Festival is that each year I spend part of it with my family.
Yesterday, however, I arrived in time to see Terry Hope Romero make mock cheesecake, no soy in sight. It was entertaining. So what if she doesn’t know what a butter tart is (at Sunday’s talk she mentioned being “schooled” on them during Saturday’s demo, which my friend saw), doesn’t know what to properly call a Vitamix or doesn’t know how to use one? Butter tarts are a Canadian thing, and the next time I need to buy a high powered blender, I’m going Blendtec too. The Vitamix purchase was based on brand name recognition.
I hadn’t brought my copy of Veganomicon to be signed. It’s a hefty book (hardcover), worth its weight. The subtitle is “The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook”, and it is. Instead I purchased a copy of her vegan cookie cookbook. I’ve been eying it for a couple of years and once baked the Mexican Hot Chocolate Snickerdoodles from co-author Isa Moskowitz’s website. I’d wanted to see Terry’s talk about vegan blogging on Friday but couldn’t make it. She assured me yesterday that if I’m already blogging, I probably didn’t need to hear it. She’s possibly my new girl crush. I keep crushing on vegans and nutritionist-types. One of the first things she did was record video of the audience with her iPad for her blog. I like nerdy people.
Later in the day I saw Lisa and Nicole Axworthy demonstrate raw ice cream treats. They were tasty! I tried the cookie dough “blizzard”, made with an oatmeal cookie that could be made to be gluten free.
Before I tell you about the final highlight of the weekend, how about the food?
The cupcake trend, which I don’t understand, was alive and wide-spread at the Vegetarian Food Festival. Vegan cupcakes, some gluten-free were all over. I don’t recall if I saw any cake pops (another puzzling food trend) but they may have been there.
On Saturday I had THE BEST butter tart I’d had in the last couple of weeks, and it was my third in 2 weeks. Two Sundays ago I bought a standard butter tart from Bobbette & Belle in Leslieville. It was one of the best btarts I’d ever eaten, and the delicate flaky crust possibly contained pig fat. I followed that this past Thursday with another very non vegan [description redacted] btart from The Sweet Escape. On Saturday they called to me once again: A vegan btart from Bloomer’s Bakery (they also specialize in gluten free, but this wasn’t). They don’t have a store. They also weren’t the bakery at the Festival selling vegan butter tarts. They were the first I saw, though.
Runny filling, just the way I like it.
On Sunday I considered buying butter tarts from one or two other bakeries to “compare” – and no doubt there was a gluten free version somewhere – but by the time I got to it everyone was sold out. But what wasn’t sold out? The “mile high” brownie from Kind Food, a cafe in Burlington. All of their baked goods are gluten-free, peanut-free, refined sugar-free, soy-free, vegan, organic and kosher. Far from taste-free, this über brownie is a brownie topped with chocolate frosting, “whipped cream” (sugary and white), another small brownie and a drizzle of hardened chocolate. It’s epic. They bakery bakes cupcakes and doughnuts too.
Mile High Brownie
It wasn’t all sugar at the Festival. There were products all of sorts and this year I though I saw fewer meat analogues (fake meat) than previous years. In my event wrap ups in the past I criticized the number of meat analogues while acknowledging that they make vegetarianism for accessible to some people who are just starting out with a plant-based diet. Exhibitors included Mary’s Crackers, ShaSha Bread Company, Peanut Butter & Co,. Food for Life and many more. There were clothing companies, nonprofit organizations, nutritionists, wellness centres and more. I “spun the wheel” at the ethicalDeal booth and won a coupon for $10 off any purchase.
I went to Chef Doug’s presentation not knowing what to expect. He’d mentioned a game. I didn’t realize that it was an Iron Chef-type competition, or that I’d be selected from the audience to compete.
The way it worked was this: Two teams of three were chosen. Teams had to answer trivia questions for ingredients (the ingredient name was the answer), plus there were pantry staple items available. My team got tofu, kale, nutritional yeast and sweet potatoes. One of the items that we missed out on was rice. The question seemed so simple and yet it eluded us and we fumbled. We roasted potatoes, did a kale pesto, and nutritional yeast encrusted tofu.
As the competition got under way I asked my friend in the front row to grab my camera and get some pictures or video (I didn’t need the entire thing on camera). I don’t know what settings the camera was on, but the end result was sepia video taken by Gabriel and then Lisa. So, it has an old-timey feel and that’s okay. Thanks, Gabriel and Lisa!! Also, the group shot photo that was supposed to be taken on my camera wasn’t, because it was set to video, so I have a nice little sepia snapshot of that as well.
But wait! There’s no video here!
-They’re taking a long time to upload and I may or may not get there up in this post.-
Things you’d see in the video include me hamming it up for the camera – especially when I found out we won – and me giving Doug a shoulder massage while he was trying to determine a winner. Not that I didn’t have confidence in the food, but I thought he’d need it. (And I was going for laughs.)
Go Team Koala!
I did get a group photo with my iPhone!
Both teams and vegan chef Doug McNish
Old timey version!
Our prize: Rume bag, NourishTea, glass straw from Strawsome and a $20 gift certificate to Raw Aura. I now own 3 Strawsome straws and one Glass Dharma straw. People with ceramic tile kitchen floors shouldn’t own those.
Prizes
Check out the photo gallery below. I’ve recently learned to NOT delete photos from my hard drive if I want to keep them in Flickr indefinitely. Flickr syncs with iPhoto. Photos get deleted from iPhoto, they get deleted from Flickr. I have a bunch of Flickr albums to recreate and a bigger hard drive to buy.
Eat well, be well.
P.S. After I left the Festival on Sunday I walked past the Ritz Carlton hotel and by Roy Thompson Hall. I saw a paparazzo on stilts, literally getting a leg up on other photographers for photos.
From my blog:
…Other people’s posts to be added as I find them.
I’m so glad you had a fun vegan christmas. For me it has all the best parts of a great holiday, food, friends and free stuff.
Gabriel just told me to push record – so I did. I think you should make it into a classic silent film – speed up the images, add music and text frames. Hilarious.