VEGFEST, SEATTLE, Part II

VegFest! The day's finally here! An entire convention hall devoted to vegetarian food, product samples (i.e. lots of yummy vegetarian foods to taste or even buy) speakers, chefs, nutritionists, etc...

We met up with friends (see post below) and got a bite to eat first, then headed over...









As we walked over to the Convention Center, I happened to see the Purely Decadent truck parked on a side street and had to run do a happy dance in the street... (Scoops of ice cream bigger than my head... I'm in heaven...).

Once inside the Festival, we wandered up and down aisle after aisle, sampling all sorts of interesting and tasty items. Talk about sensory overload. Wow.

With so much, it was hard to pick a "favorite" but we definitely LOVED the Field Roast booth. Have you tried Field Roast? They call themselves a 'Grain Meat' - basically a really well-done fake meat product. Even if you don't like some of the faux-meats out there, try this!! I know it's not available everywhere, which is too bad. Oh my gosh...

They had generous samples, helpful information and were SO friendly! We jut stood there chatting and trying ALL their yummy items. I am always raving about the stuff to people and getting soy-skeptical omni friends to try it - one time I randomly started talking about it to someone in the grocery store... I should do their PR, I swear! (They're a small artisan company based right here in Seattle, so it's even LOCAL!) it was fun to try everything! If you have access to them in your area, DEFINITELY check it out - the sausages especially? Amazing. My friend's husband, a devout omni :) even gave them his seal of approval!
So of course we had to ham it up (can vegans do that?) a little in front of their sign.

Oh, and one of the staff even recognised me - which was sorta cool; "Hey, you're the Blog Lady" she said. Funny. Yeah, they have a nice little blog here that I'd posted a comment in a while back. My friends called me "The Celebrity Blog Lady" for the rest of the day - :rolling eyes: great!

Other interesting items; samples of Purely Decadent "brand new" flavors they're introducing this summer; Pomegranate-Chip which was just OK, a Coconut Crunch sorta-thing which was too coconutty for me, Strawberry-something which I can't remember the name but we all really liked, and Orange-Creamsicle and Lemon Creamsicle which we agreed were heavenly!

SOOO many other things to try too! Besides the usual - soymilk, granola, energy bars, and so forth, there were about twenty flavors of hummus (we didn't feel a need to sample all of those) lots of salsas, faux meats, rice milk, hemp milk (which I'd never had, really good stuff!) "caviar" made from seaweed which was...um.. interesting...

Speakers included nutritionists, chefs and dietitians. The featured presenter while we were there, was doing a presentation on ways to use nuts. She had good ideas, some of which I already use and others I hadn't thought of, but unfortunately was very soft spoken and it was hard to hear.

There were pretty long lines for some of the more popular samples and sales pitches, so it took us a while to make the rounds, but all-in-all, a really fun and interesting afternoon.

On the hike back to the parking garage we passed the Purely Decadent truck again... and even with tired feet - more happy dances in the pouring (Seattle) rain... yeah, we're weird. Great ending to a great day!
But wait, there's more!

LOOT:

After returning home, I dumped my bag out and took a picture of all the great take-home samples we returned with as well... I had no idea there was so much until I put it all together - and we didn't even hit every booth! I feel like I hit the veggie-sample jackpot all over again.

And last but not least, my 'Sprout', ever the Animal Rights Activist, made several trips past the PETA, Pigs Peace and Northwest Animal Rights Network (NARN) booths to stock up on stickers... she immediately covered one of her school binders when we got home and took this picture for me to share ...