After stuffing ourselves with Italian food, my group of friends & I headed over to the Vida Vegan Con Galarama!
There was food by the Vegan Caterer, drinks, awesomely-awkward dancing (provided by yours-truly), & an ice cream sundae bar provided by Luna & Larrys!
a great ending to a great Saturday in Portland. :)
After a hard day of eating and socializing, what’s a girl to do besides get dolled up, gather up a group of new and old friends, and head out to Portland’s all-vegan Italian restaurant, Portobello Vegan Trattoria?
Let me start by saying that this is the first time I’ve been to an all-vegan fine dining establishment. I’ve visited other cities that have them (San Fransisco, New York City, Philadelphia), but something seems to have kept me from actually experiencing them (funds, timing, etc). We sat in a special room with a large table, seeing as our group was about 7 people. We decided to order a variety of dishes for the table, and split them:
Unfortunately, I didn’t get to try any dessert because we ran out of time and also due to the fact that we were about to attend an event with a vegan ICE CREAM SUNDAE BAR (yes, you heard me right). Portobello was one of my favorite places we ate at in Portland, and if I had infinite amounts of money, I would probably fly to Portland every weekend and eat Gnocchi forever. Dreams.
Saturday morning started out with breakfast prepared by the hotel catering staff. Tofu scramble, chia pudding, potatoes, coffee, etc- I wasn’t super impressed by breakfast at the convention (literally one of my only complaints about the whole event). I think Austin food has spoiled me? However, I did find it humorous that there was a giant bowl of nutritional yeast available. You just can’t have a vegan conference without a surplus of nooch!
After breakfast, I headed down to the lobby to meet Fran Costigan so we could head over to the Whole Foods Market in the pearl. Fran had asked if I would like to assist her in her chocolate demo she was doing for Vida Vegan Con, and of course I jumped on the opportunity! I haven’t had much formal training on chocolate work at this point in my career, and I figured I had a thing or two to learn. I’ve learned that each Chef has their own way of doing things, which you can observe and learn a lot from, so I was excited to learn from her.
We made a chocolate cake covered in ganache, truffles, and did a demo of transfer sheets! It was tons of fun, and I got to meet a few people I have been following online for years, including Kim Garr! I really wish I had gotten to talk to her more, and I hope our paths cross again soon. Also helping Fran during the demo was Julie Hasson’s daughter, who was really fun to work with!!
Next, I headed back to the hotel to check out some of the vendor booths:
Friday was the first day of the actual conference, but the first official event wasn’t until later in the afternoon. There was an unofficial meet-up at Native Bowl, which is Julie Hasson’s food cart. I had the pleasure of meeting Julie, and she is probably one of the sweetest people ever. One of the MANY amazing people I met this weekend. Native Bowl has five different bowls on their menu, each named after a street in Portland. Since this was the weekend of “Splitting food” in order to taste every possible item that we could, my friend and fellow Austinite Molly got a Mississippi Bowl (BBQ soy curls, ranch dressing, slaw, rice), and I got a Broadway Bowl (garlic tofu, peanut sauce, red cabbage, rice). Being from the south, we both freaked out over the idea of the Mississippi bowl considering it has ranch and BBQ soy curls. I really expected to like this one the most. We tasted, and compared, and in the end… I actually liked the Broadway Bowl the best! It was perfectly made, and a nice contrast to all the fried food I had already eaten in the last 24 hours.
Mississippi Bowl (left) & Broadway Bowl (right).
PPK Friends! <3
After stuffing our faces, JL, Megan, Demetrius of Vegucated, and myself headed back to the conference center to check in and get our swag bags! There was so much awesome stuff in the bag, including food samples, the My Sweet Vegan cookbook, various kitchen tools, and tons of coupons!
Knowing the VegNews Champagne (and sparkling cider for me!) and cupcake reception was quickly approaching, Demetrius, Daniela of VegAustin.com, and I walked down the street to check out Homegrown Smoker! I got to meet Ben, who works inside the trailer- I have been watching him post insane food pictures on the B9 forum’s vegan thread for a while now, so I was super excited to try out the food. I got a macnocheeto wrap, and Demetrius & I split some deep fried oreos (SAY WHAT?)! We sat down outside and ate with a few fellow VVC’ers, Sam and April!
Mac & Cheese in a wrap? Yes, please.
I still dream about these oreos.
Then on to the VegNews cupcake reception!
Daniela & Stephanie, part of the Texas crew!
Sweetpea cupcakes!
A lot of people decided to meet up at The Bye and Bye, which is another one of Portland’s all vegan bars. I was too full to get anything to eat, but the menu looked good!
Tomorrow, the conference sessions start & the food coma continues!
I’m back in Austin and finally recovered from my Portland food coma enough to start writing about my adventures at Vida Vegan Con! I’ve decided to post about each day individually, because there are tons of pictures and things to talk about! What is VVC? None other than the first vegan bloggers conference in Portland, Oregon- Perfect location for this conference (the vegan mecca, no doubt!).
I left on Thursday morning, arriving in Portland very early: I wanted to make sure I could attend all the pre-convention events. I rode the max to the hotel area, which was awesome- Austin is really lacking in the public transportation department, so I always love visiting cities with subways or trains. I walked into the hotel, and I am greeted by three women chatting in the lobby. “You’re here for the conference?”. Those women turned out to be Julia Moran Martz (Snarky Vegan), JL (JL goes Vegan), and Fran Costigan (FranCostigan.com). We quickly became friends, and they invited me out to lunch at Hungry Tiger Too. JL & I quickly bonded over our idea to order three different entrees and share them- What happens in Portland, stays in Portland, right?
The aftermath.
After the first of MANY feasts of the weekend, we headed out to do what any self-respecting vegan nerd would do as soon as they arrive in Portland- visit the vegan mini-mall!
I loaded up on Sweetpea desserts, which I’ll discuss in it’s own post soon. Seeing Food Fight in person was really cool – I’ve been ordering online from them for years!
Next, we headed out to Vendetta to the informal “meet & greet”. I met so many people that I have been following online for years, and many I hadn’t heard of (such as Dan from More than Salad- Nicest guy)!
Most of us walked down the street to attend a screening of Vegucated, which is a documentary about three people who try out veganism and the positives and negatives of their journey. I was excited to see what this movie was all about, because I had seen the title around online for a while. I really enjoyed this film a lot- I felt like it highlighted many aspects of veganism that I find important (Animal rights, Environment, and health in specific). This film also did a good job of making the viewer feel emotionally connected to each person, by showing a lot about their background and thought process. There were some pretty intense factory farm scenes- reality is harsh, and sometimes I can’t handle it (which is why I am vegan). After the film, the three people involved in producing and promoting the film did a question and answer session. I found out that Marisa had worked on the film for about 7 years (if I heard correctly)! That’s crazy! Another person I met this weekend who worked on this film was Demetrius Bagley- I can’t say enough words on how sweet and friendly he is and I truly hope our paths cross again soon! I wish Y’all the best of luck with this film and it’s success.
Late night hangouts were held at Sweet Hereafter which is, of course, an all vegan bar. I was still full from all of the food previously eaten (needless to say, this became a theme of the weekend)… but I had a few bites of friends sandwiches: the chickpea salad sandwich and the buffalo style sandwich. Both were great, but my favorite was the buffalo style sandwich, if you can handle some fire in your mouth. Just sayin’.
That’ll do it for day #1. Day #2 involves conference check in, the VegNews cupcake reception, and yes… more food!
