Ultimate Vegan Week: Chicago VeganMania & Milwaukee (part 1 of 2!)

Last week I took a few days off from school and flew to Milwaukee to visit my good friend Kelly Peloza (author of the upcoming Vegan Cookie Connoisseur), see Isa Chandra Moskowitz, and of course go to Chicago VeganMania! I had a great time reacquainting with old vegan friends and meeting new ones, helping bake cookies for Kelly’s demo, and eating lots of amazing food.

Thursday.
I arrived in Milwaukee and we went to UWM to see Isa’s cooking demo, where she made an amazing root veggie and lentil chili. I’ve never cooked with lentils before, but she inspired me to do so because they are ridiculously easy to cook unlike other dry beans which take hours!

We then went to the Milwaukee Art Museum because Kelly had a class there, and admission is free on the first Thursday of every  month. Her friend Corey and I took the audio tour of the new European Design exhibit, then got our picture taken in Egypt with a 3-D camera.

After Kelly’s class it was back to the UWM for Isa’s presentation on Culinary Activism: Becoming a Baketivist and Beyond, in which she pointed out that people are more likely to listen to you if you have a tasty cupcake. She also showed that vegans can multitask to help people as well as animals by holding vegan bake sales to raise money for Haiti or having brunches/dinners to raise money for other charitable causes. This discredits the argument that many people employ saying vegans only care about animals, not people!

The day was so busy we hadn’t had a chance to eat much of anything, so we all went out to Classic Slice for pizza after the presentation.

 

Cheezy breadsticks

 

 

Mediterranean pizza

 

Friday.
Friday was spent baking, baking, baking. We made 150+ cookies for Kelly’s demo at VeganMania: hypnosis cookies, chocolate peppermint creme bars, and my personal go-to cookie: chai. All from Kelly’s upcoming book, which you should buy from her blog!!

 

Hypnosis cookies

 

 

Chocolate peppermint creme bars

 

 

Chai cookies

 

Corey and I made quesadillas for dinner filled with Daiya cheese, Tofurky turkey slices, spinach, and salsa, and topped off with guacamole and more salsa. It was a nice break from all the cookie baking that was going on. Photo from Seitan Beats Your Meat

I’m afraid that’s all the energy I have to write up tonight, I’m still working on catching up on all the sleep I missed because there was so much going on! Stay tuned for Part 2: Vegan Mania (the climax!) and afterwards (the falling action!)

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Philadelphia’s Walk for Farm Animals

As you may already know from my countless posts on Facebook and Twitter begging for donations, I had the pleasure of participating in Philadelphia’s Walk for Farm Animals today to raise money for Farm Sanctuary. After all the rain we had this week I was afraid the weather might not be favorable, but it was perfectly sunny and not too chilly.

We gathered at Rittenhouse Square and received our T-shirts, which I must say get better every year. I really liked the grassroots look of last year’s “Taking Compassion to the Streets” shirt (designed by Herbivore‘s Josh Hooten!), but love the classy blue & white “compassion for all” script on this year’s (by Leanne Hilgart of Vaute Couture!). This is definitely a shirt I will wear other places as well.

From Rittenhouse Square we walked down Walnut Street to Broad and up to City Square, then looped back to Rittenhouse. It was wonderful walking around the city with like-minded people, raising awareness and money for such a great cause. We passed people advocating Save the Children and bonded over the fact that we were all out there working for a good cause–lots of good karma in the City of Brotherly Love. We didn’t encounter any negativity towards the cause (that I noticed). The salesperson when we walked by LUSH tried to sell us all cosmetics, pointing out that they do not test on animals. Awesome marketing skills, but unfortunately we were on a mission!

After the walk, we went to the lobby of the Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre for free vegan refreshments. There was hummus & pita bread, banana cake, carrot cake, berry mango muffins, pasta salad, sandwich cookies, and tea sandwiches (eggless and cucumber) as well as coffee and iced tea. Everything was amazing. There was also a silent auction and a raffle to raise more money for Farm Sanctuary.

This is my first year participating in the walk, but from what I hear we had at least twice as many walkers as we had last year. The totals won’t be out until February, but I personally raised $345, surpassing my goal of $300. Much thanks to everyone who donated money for the walk, participated in it, and most importantly those who organized it!

If you haven’t donated, it’s not too late… Walk donations are open until December 30th. Please visit my FirstGiving page at www.firstgiving.com/louzilla ASAP to do so!

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Bill White writes about Walk for Farm Animals

Bill White, columnist for The Morning Call, is well known for being an animal lover. I’ve followed his countless articles about Almost Heaven Kennels, a puppy mill just down the street from me. So it wasn’t too surprising that he would be the one to write about Farm Sanctuary’s Walk for Farm Animals in the Call. I was very happy to see his article (entitled Hilda the Sheep rose from the dead), and didn’t hesitate to thank him for it (you should too! bill.white@mcall.com)

Except that not only is Bill an animal lover, he also loves to eat. A lot. Including lots of meat. He has a contest at Musikfest called “Eat Your Way through Musikfest.” He eats obscene amounts of food from vendors all over the festival on the first of ten days, and anyone else who eats everything on his card of favorites gets a prize bag full of Morning Call goodies and a Bill White t-shirt.

Let me make it clear that I am not writing to slam this contest. I am a huge fan of eating and have been known to eat obscene amounts of (vegan) food in the past (every time I visit Strong Hearts in Syracuse, NY for example). I just think that it would be a wonderful thing for veganism if Bill could bring his two loves together: eat lots of vegan food. For a week. And then write a column about it for The Morning Call. I think everyone would benefit from it.

On a vaguely related note, the next time the festival rolls around I plan on doing my own version of Eating Through Musikfest: on the first night, I’ll go around to all the vendors and eat every single vegan option available. Unfortunately, I may still be hungry when I’m finished.

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