Hippie Vegan Bull$#!*

This morning finds me sitting at Austin Bergstrom having one last taco before I get on a plane to New York. I’m tired! I’m not sure if I spelled Bergstrom right and I’m so tired that I’m not even willing to double check so laugh at me if you must. If I wasn’t going out of town I would definitely be up for some hippie vegan bullshit and you should all check it out, Jake Rich clued us in on the details:

Hippie Vegan Bull$#!* is a free, family-friendly event on Saturday, May 25 from 12pm-7pm, celebrating everything peaceful, organic, and weird in Austin. From food vendors and artists to yoga classes and drum spheres, the Empire Control Room & Garage will give Austinites young and old something to vibe out to.
The Empire parking lot will be home to a local vegan marketplace featuring food trucks by Roaming Hunger, a farmers market, and vendors selling miscellaneous hippie bull$#!* including custom t-shirt screen printing and professional tie-dying. The garage will serve as our bicycle & skateboard valet as well as the home of our massive group finger painting mural.

The patio will host a yoga class by Wanderlust with musical accompaniment by Jeff Liffman, drum sphere by Xandali, slack line demos by Keep Austin Slacklining, hackeysack and frisbee. The Control Room will transform into the Crash Pad where music-lovers can enjoy positive music & vibes courtesy of DJ Edica + and participate in an improvised jam on-stage (so bring your instruments!) Those who want to chill can enjoy the show from the comfort of bean bag chairs, all while surrounded by 300 degrees of trippy, psychedelic projections.

Here’s the facebook event – http://hippieveganbs.com

Another One Bites the Dust: This is the last week for the Longhorn Food Court

You know what I think would be awesome? What if we tore down every single thing that makes living in Austin great and replaced it with condos and hotels. That way we could have even more people and more traffic, we are only 4th on the list of worse traffic in the US, we can make this happen people!!!

I understand that trailers are by their nature somewhat mobile and that trailer parks are owned by developers just waiting to turn their land into something more profitable because this is America goddammit. I sighed when I read a couple weeks ago that the landmark south congress trailers are this time really really closing. But I was beyond PISSED when I heard the vegetarian friendly trailer park that is five blocks from my office is closing to make room for condos. I’m the freaking mayor for godsakes. There aren’t that many walkable happy places to eat in this hood. I can get tacos at a place called Bacon. I can get a nine dollar smoothie at a gym. I can get a shitty bagel from a corporate behemoth or I can brave the crowds and mobs of babies at Whole Foods if I want to go somewhere for lunch without hopping in my car to the Wheatsville promise land. The Longhorn food court was like a dream come true.

I can clearly remember the first time I went to conscious cravings and soon after got my whole office hooked on the spicy chickpea wrap and the chimmichurri seitan. My coworkers even all ask for the vegan cheese! It fills my vegan heart with glee. We all make bad jokes about how we are consciously craving it.

And then when Capital City Bakery opened up I was able to turn everyone on to the wonder that can be vegan baked goods from the best in the biz. I think I also gained 10 pounds but it was all worth it! Whatever, I’m going to be glad I have it when the collapse of civilization comes and you all are regretting those juice cleanses.

And Moses Falafel is the only place I know of in the world that will substitute FRENCH FRIES in your falafel if you don’t like lettuce. And they even have falafel tacos. It’s so good.

The people that “own” the land, the people that these trailers pay money to every month, didn’t even bother to give the trailer owners 30 days notice. They were told they had to get out in a week. When I went yesterday none of the trailers knew what to do yet. They guy at Moses told me that hearing the news and having his credit card machine break down on the same day made it the worst day of his life. He said he is going to have to close for a while and reassess.  Cap City and Conscious Cravings are both looking for new spots. Probably east. URGH. I’m so depressed. I vowed to eat there all week. Some vegans are even getting together for a last Hurrah this Friday. And meanwhile Republicans are out there trying to get rid of the weekend. What a world.

UPDATE: Conscious Cravings will be moving north to 5715 Burnet Rd (right next to the Mister Car Wash)

You can help Lucky the Elephant!

Sometimes it feels like I read nothing but bad news.  I read all week (month? year? my whole lifetime?) about the republicans attempts to deregulate everything and help ruin all life on earth. Today I read they are working hard on destroying  the rest of the manatee in Florida. I also learned that “conservatives” are less likely to buy the same lightbulbs if you tell them it will help the environment.

Instead of wallowing in depression I’m going to try and raise some awareness for Lucky the elephant. Lucky was a wild elephant who was captured in Thailand and brought to the San Antonio zoo. Over the years she has watched as her companions have all died and now she is the last of her kind. Female elephants aren’t supposed to ever be alone. In the wild they always travel in packs. When they pass a spot where one of their number died, they stop and take a moment to mourn. Here is a video where you can watch them. Even many years later they will stop at the same spot. Elephants are giant animals and they also need a lot of space. In the jungle they actually make the paths that all the other animals follow on their never ending quests for food.

The San Antonio zoo doesn’t really have enough room for one elephant, much less two. It could be that these substandard arrangements have led to the death of so many of Luck’s companions. They are trying to petition their own trade organization to break it’s rules and keep Lucky by herself from now on.

 One World Conservation says ”According to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) guidelines, elephants should not be kept alone in captivity. It’s emotionally traumatizing. That’s why we’re asking that Lucky be removed from the San Antonio Zoo and sent to a facility that offers social grouping, natural substrates, strictly enforced protected contact management, high-end veterinary care, and the space to better meet the needs of her species.”

If you would like to help the first step is to sign the Change.org petition. There is also a link to call and email the AZA directly because they are going to be making this decision on whether or not to grant the San Antonio Zoo’s request very soon. There is also going to be a demonstration outside the zoo in San Antonio this Saturday, if you can make it they will even have signs and stuff available. You can also invite your friends on facebook to join the cause.

This is an animal that we can help.

 

Austin’s Worldwide Vegan Bake sale was a great success!

Every year our worldwide vegan bake sale gets a little bigger. This time we spread to two locations and raised money for two sanctuaries. I was really worried we wouldn’t have enough baked goods but Capital City Bakery, Red Rabbit Cooperative, Sugar Mama’s, Mr. Natural, and Happy Vegan Baker along with others all pitched in so I knew we’d have quality! We ended up having tons of volunteer made baked goods too. Sinfull Bakery even shipped us some goodies all the way from Houston! I made pretzel dogs and they sold out super fast! I will definitely make them again!

Here’s some shots from the Counter Culture sale, I wish I could have made it to Monkeywrench. 

Thanks to everyone that helped especially Brittany my co-organizer, everyone that helped sell stuff all day, and of course everyone that donated!!!

Here is a post from The Horn about the Monkeywrench sale!

Austin Bakes for West is this weekend so please consider donating to their humanitarian aid for our neighbors as well.

Austin’s Worldwide Vegan Bakesale is coming this weekend and we need your help!

Cherry Bomb from Capital City Bakery

This Sunday, April 28th, the Austin vegan community is holding two simultaneous bake sales and we need your help! We still need lots of people to sign up to bake and we need help running the tables as well. From 11-2 we are going to be set up at Counter Culture Vegan Restaurant and MonkeyWrench Bookstore. Our goal is to raise 2,000 dollars for Sunny Day Farms Animal Sanctuary and SARA Sanctuary but we can’t do that if you don’t sign up!

Sign up to make baked goods: http://tinyurl.com/2013AustinWWVBS

More info about the WWVBS: http://www.veganbakesale.org/

If you are looking for recipe ideas I am hoping that someone out there makes these Butterscotch Cupcakes With Coconut-Bacon from the ppk. Or what about these  Mini Almond Poundcakes or Cherry Chocolate Chunk Mini Loaves? I was thinking about making these Nanaimo Bars from the vegan cookbook aficionado because I became kind of obsessed with these on a trip last summer. Or what about these Balsamic Chipotle Roasted Strawberry Brownies with some Poteet strawberries from Eating Appalachia? They sound amazing. I have had these chocolate dipped candy covered pretzels from What does a vegan eat anyway pinned forever because I think they would be the perfect bakesale item for a non baker. I love pretzels & peanut butter with my chocolate and these Peanut Butter Fudge Pretzel Bars from Bittersweet would be awesome too and just a little more work.  And if you are gluten free please make these Brownies from Cakemaker to the Stars. They look scrumptious.

If you can’t bake for the sale we need lots of eaters and inviters too! So join the event on facebook, invite your friends, share on twitter, and tell your coworkers! Vegan bake sales are great for spreading the word that you don’t need eggs to make a cake and you don’t have to be only about health food if you are going to go vegan. We are going to have doughnuts from Red Rabbit Bakery and all sorts of other goodies from Mr Natural, Happy Vegan Bakery, Unity Vegan Kitchen, Sugar Mama’s, Sinfull Bakery, and Capital City Bakery too so there will be plenty of sweets to wow your most skeptical friends! All the proceeds are going to go to dogs, kittens, sheep, cows, pigs, chickens, and a whole bunch of other animals that need your support so please do what you can!

Texas VegFest 2013: a resounding success

If you look at my tweet cloud of the words I say the most “excited” is by far the number one. I’m usually excited about something. If I’m not, I get completely melancholy about how I have nothing to look forward to. For Texas Vegfest I think I might have just been too excited, I missed it last year because it was my bff’s wedding and thought that was one of the best events of my life, missing vegfest and hearing all about it just built up the anticipation even more for this year’s fest..  The night before I went to ATX Vegan Drinks with my friends from North Austin Vegans and had a fun time playing trivia even though my team abandoned me for the final round. Saturday was a freaking gorgeous day and by the time I finally got to the fest I’d already missed some events and sat down to see Dr. Montgomery talk about cardiology.

He was a great speaker, he talked a lot about how preventable heart disease is just by cutting back meat and that a lot of people know that and just replace beef with chicken. It’s not enough! He was dressed in his surgeons gear just in case any meat eaters showed up. I wanted to pay close attention but I just couldn’t sit still. I really wanted to get a shirt from Herbivore before they sold out. Then I got distracted by tacos.

Good Karma Kitchen had rolled in from Fort Worth to bring us their delicious tacos and noodle dishes. I got the barbecued Korean tacos with jalapeno cream sauce, sliced vegetables, and ginger pickles and they were amazing, and my favorite thing I ate all day.

I couldn’t believe the line for Arlo’s next door was a million times longer since Arlo’s is usually parked just down the street. They do have my favorite veggie burger in the world and people were waiting over an hour! I went looking for the Herbivore booth after trying some tempeh on a stick and then I ran into friends who wanted something sweet. We headed to Sinfull Bakery, I was stoked to finally try their Kolache after not being able to find one on a recent trip to Houston. I also tried one of their dark chocolate cookies and both were fabulous.

There were 5,000 people there and I saw so many folks that I have met over the years. It was sweet to see so many kids.

Actually, my favorite story of the whole day was hearing about a teacher that brought a group of her school children to volunteer for the day. Apparently she takes them to different places every other weekend to help out in the community and they had never even heard the word vegetarian before. They were really excited to see Omowale talk about boxing and wanted to try some of the food, but the teacher didn’t have the money buy them all expensive festival food and mentioned she would have to take them somewhere cheap like KFC. The Texas Vegfest staff heard about this and pitched in to buy them awesome local food from the vendors and they loved it! Meanwhile I was spending tons and tons of money gorging myself and Dan. I got him a plate from Aster’s Ethiopian because we don’t get up there enough and we love it.

We got to watch a very happy young lady dance for a while before she was joined by others,

But then I remembered I wanted to hear Colleen Patrick-Goudreau speak about how we are all taught to have compassion for animals but then we are taught to eat them too. She such an inspiring speaker. If you are considering trying to go veg I recommend checking out her 30 day program and her cookbooks. Halfway through the talk I remembered that I still hadn’t gotten my Herbivore T-shirt and by that time they had ran out of the one I wanted! Damnit! At least I’ll be in Portland soon enough. I drowned my sorrows in funnel cake.

and I got completely covered in powdered sugar.

The funnel cake completely did me in and I bought more treats for later.

And I missed so many other places I wanted to try. Mostly Unity Vegan Kitchen which I head everyone raving about. And the Happy Vegan Baker’s Mac & Cheese. And Capital City’s Cheesecake. And Counter Culture’s Sweet Potato Salad. And Sweet Ritual’s Salted Carmel ice cream in a Waffle Cone. There was a lot of food. I was so sunburned and exhausted I had to go home. It was all too much. As we were walking out Dan said, “you know the only vegan I didn’t see was Wes” and then there he was, waving to us goodbye Big Tex style.

It was that kind of a day.

Interview with Texas VegFest Vendor Amelia Raley

Texas VegFest is tomorrow April 6 at Fiesta Gardens and people have already started celebrating, I’ve been enjoying watching photos from Herbivore Clothing, Food Fight Grocery, and Vegan Houston as they populate my instagram with Austin’s vegan goodness. Tonight is the Texas VegFest edition of Vegan Drinks and they are even going to have vegan trivia so bet there at Cheer Up Charlies! If you are curious about the festival details check out my interview with board member Molly to learn about the bands, speakers, children’s activities, and more and go to the official website. And join the facebook event. And follow on twitter. Earlier this week I interviewed speaker Christy Morgan and today we are getting the vendor perspective from local ice cream proprietress extraordinaire Amelia.

I’m so excited that Sweet Ritual is going to be one of the vendors at this year’s Texas VegFest, first can you tell us what kind of treats we can expect?

We’ll bringing several flavors of scooped ice cream, including dark chocolate, salted caramel (which is soy free!) and a few other flavors. We’ll have cups, cones, sundaes, caramel by the jar, and t-shirts to sell.

Oh that sounds so good, is this your first vegfest?

We were there last year with Salted Caramel soft serve

What was your favorite part about last year’s event?

As a vendor, I didn’t really get a chance go see the lay of the lend or participate in the fest because we were so busy serving ice cream. When we sold out early, I brought out my hand-cranked phonograph and played music for passerbys.

Serving ice cream kind of sounds like the best job ever but I bet it is actually really difficult. What is the most trying aspect of participating in something like this since you all aren’t usually very mobile.

We have to contend with ice cream melting at outdoor events. We’re bringing an arsenal of waffle cone bowls, so, if it gets too hot, everyone will have delicious ice cream soup!

I love waffle cones. I think I have even dreamed about them. OK last question, if you get the chance to trade ice cream for a snack from any other vendor what would you be most excited to try.

We are super-duper excited about Atkinson Candies from Lufkin, Texas being at the show with our favorite candy – Chick-o-Stick!

Oh, wow, I just looked at that list for the first time in a few months – I can’t believe how many vegan bakeries we have in Austin. That’s so amazing!

It’s going to be a great fest! Thanks so much for answering my questions and I will see you there!