Idaho & The Conference Day 1

The flight was very short but the plane had propellors! Propellors!

I have spent most of the day inside my hotel room watching television. I was okay until the L&O SVU marathon ran out and then I realised I was alone and wanted to go home. But I made myself go to the reception (where everyone talked in very close knit groups) and then I left to get dinner since there was no non-meat food provided.(When I asked the lady about the dinner and lunches provided she told me to pick around the meat and cheese and butter. She was from the Los Alamos lab. I now don't like Los Alamos.)

I ate at Pita Pit USA. It reminded me a little of the falafel places in Israel which was nice. And it was a pretty nice falafel.

Maybe I'd be happier if it wasn't so cold. And Geoff and Belly were here. Belly would be good entertainment.

Packing Disaster

I just realised my flight is tomorrow morning and I have all this food and tea I now need to pack. The tea can squeeze in the big bag along with some cookies from Whole Foods. I'll throw a few snacks in my backpack in case I get hungry on the very long flight (1 hour and 1 minute) but what about the rest? Should these items stay at the hostel for my return, be thrown out, be stuffed in my already full belly or fly with me to Idaho:

1. my honey (much needed for my super secret get better drink)
2. one lemon (also much needed for super secret get better drink)
3. 2 more packs of soy pudding (delicious but has flimsy lid and will be gooey if it leaks)
4. leftover pasta and sauce from last night's dinner
5. vegetable oil
6. half a clove of garlic (useful for cooking and super secret drink)
7. one left over white flour tortilla
8. half a carton of soy milk
9. some juice

I have half a mind to eat most of the above and them use the gym a lot when I get to the conference. Any other suggestions?

Vegfest 2010 Review

It was so awesome!

90% of the stalls were vegan, I ate until I could eat no more and I even snatched up a few free goodies to take home with me. One of the highlights was So Delicious Coconut Milk ice-cream (called Purely Decadent) of which I tasted the Passionate Mango and Cherry Nirvana which were both equally delicious. Another highlight was my first slice of Tofurkey. I will never eat it again (the texture is far too Turkey-like) but it had to be tried. There were also these vegan burgers there and I honestly thought they were meat.

I was a little sad, though, that a city of only 700 00 people (2.7 million in the urban area) could have such a large festival like that with so many people (you could hardly move there were so many people) with such a great range of vegan restaurants when Brisbane has two vegan restaurants and a few vegetarian ones and you tell people you are vegan and they wonder if there is a cure for it. And a lot of the products were local so it's not just about the huge population of the US being able to snap up their share of Tofurkey. I just think Australia is really behind when it comes to changing our lifestyles for someone (or rather somethings) other than ourselves.

There was a stall promoting drinking water (apparently not everyone knew it was good to drink water) and they had free samples of an immune booster drink. I have been a bit flu-ey since I've been here so thought I'd try it. Everyone else trying it was pulling funny faces but not me. I thought it was delicious. Turns out, it's because it's almost exactly like my super secret honey-ginger-garlic-lemon drink. Here's their recipe:

Natural Immune Boosting Drink

2 litres of water

8-10 lemons (juiced)

9-12 cloves of garlic

1 inch of fresh ginger

1/2 cup of honey (try to use non-commercial honey)

1/2 onion (chopped)

1 tsp cayenne pepper

Pour 1/3 of water into blender with juice of lemons. Blend. Add garlic and onions. Blend very well. Add honey and pepper. Blend. Add remaining water. Blend.

More Seattle goodies

I made it to Whole Foods this afternoon (after I woke up). I missed the free breakfast here (by 4 hours) so had to eat somewhere. I bought lentil and vegetable soup with a crusty rosemary bread bun. I also treated myself to a Vegan Thumbprint (which is a Jam Drop, pictured) and a piece of vegan cheesecake. I just ate the Thumbprint (with my super secret garlic-ginger-lemon-honey tea that I drink to get over colds) and it was delicious. I will devour the cheesecake tonight.

I stopped in to MarketSpice on the way to Vital T-Leaf. Lots of tea. I also spotted vegan marzipan chocolates, vegan chocolate covered Oreos (pictured) and vegan chocolate covered pretzels (also pictured) at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. All in good time, my pretties.

I will get very fat before I return home.

Vegfest 2010

YAY!

P.S. I'm sick so I walked down to the Pike Street Market to get some teas to placebo myself into getting better and it snowed. SNOWED! Clearly, Seattle, our definitions of Spring are hemispheres apart.

Seattle: My vegan adventure plan interrupted

I am so jetlagged. I went to sleep at 7pm and woke back up at 12am. Which is equivalent to going to sleep at 12pm in Australia and waking up at 5pm. It makes no sense in either time zone.

To try to combat falling asleep at 5pm I decided to take a rather freezing walk to Whole Foods Westlake. I didn't make it. I made it exactly half a block when I saw a coffee house called Bedlam who advertised that they had Mighty O's vegan donuts inside. So I bought coffee and an orange glazed donut and came back to my room. I drank the coffee by six and fell asleep by seven. The coffee was very good but pointless. There is no such thing as a pointless vegan donut.

 They are doing road works or something nearby and I can hear everything. Luckily I'm awake at midnight. I will have to buy earplugs, though, for the next few nights.

It was 8 degrees C today. And raining. I got Brisbane's weather in my iGoogle and was very jealous of the little cloud and 24 degrees. I'm going to miss the sunshine. But I have donuts so it's all okay.

Seattle: My Vegan Adventure Plan

I'd really like to visit at least some of these places in Seattle while I'm here:

Flying Apron Bakery

Plum Bistro

In The Bowl Vegetarian Noodle Bistro

Pizza Pi

Silent Heart Nest Vegetarian Restaurant

Pan Africa Restaurant & Bar

Remedy Teas

Hillside Quickie

Chaco Canyon Organic Cafe