Junk Food

For Halloween, I made pizza using a pre-cooked crust and sauce from Whole Foods, Daiya mozzarella, and Tofurky pepperoni. A friend and I had plans to watch a scary movie and hand out candy to kids in his neighborhood. I was a little late because the road I wanted to take was flooded. I also made Isa's chocolate and vanilla cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, adding orange food coloring to the vanilla cupcakes and half of the frosting. I forgot to take a picture, but I put little jelly pumpkins from Whole Foods on the cupcakes. The chocolate cupcakes got orange frosting and a black pumpkin, whereas the vanilla cupcakes were dyed orange but had white frosting and an orange pumpkin. Cute. I grabbed a container of sour bats from Whole Foods too. I made homemade candy corn again, I think that will be a yearly tradition. Clearly, I like sugar. :)

Halloween 2013

Had to share a picture of my Leeloo (from the Fifth Element) costume! It's my most revealing costume ever and I got a lot of compliments on it. It feels sooo good to be back in my normal body. After the anxiety-induced weight loss of 2010 and the depression-induced weight gain of 2011, I spent part of 2012 losing most of the weight and the first part of 2013 to lose the last few pesky pounds. I'm glad to feel normal again, mentally and physically. :) The dude also got a lot of compliments for his costume.

Vegan Cheese Party/Girls' Night

I met a bunch of new vegan ladies at Texas Go Vegan Week events this year. I decided to organize a girls' night for my friends and these new ladies. I went with a vegan cheese party. I had ordered a couple cheeses from Door 86 Vegan Cheese, but decided to order one 3 oz block of each flavor after inviting so many people. I invited 8 ladies and 7 were able to attend. The last person didn't feel well that night unfortunately. I bought a bunch of crackers (including gluten-free varieties for some of the guests), baguette, and grapes. Other people brought fruit, homemade Artisan Vegan Cheeses, Heidi Ho Veganics cheeses, vegan wines, and Newman's Own PB cookies. Nom nom nom. Everyone had a great time and I was glad that it went so well. I had to borrow a table and some folding chairs from friends, but we managed to fit into my tiny place. :)

Texas Veggie Fair - More Shopping & CAROL ADAMS

This will be my final post on the Texas Veggie Fair! To round out my daily shopping, I picked up another shirt and some books. I really wanted to see Carol Adams speak. I saw her name on the speaker list and knew that she wrote The Sexual Politics of Meat (on Amazon here. It's supposed to a fundamental piece of literature in the movement, so I really wanted to see her. About half-way through her talk, I realized I read one of her books in her college called Beyond Animal Rights: A Feminist Caring Ethics for the Treatment of Animals (on Amazon here). I hope to read some more of her work over the holiday season this year.

Action for Animals booth - awesome shirt!



Books - Vegan for Life (on Amazon here) and Vegan Freak (on Amazon here)



CAROL ADAMS!!!!!!!!!!

Texas Veggie Fair - Herbivore Clothing

I was super excited to see that Herbivore Clothing was coming to the Texas Veggie Fair. They use different t-shirt companies so each company's sizing is slightly different. I like trying on my clothes before buying them. I also called Herbivore in advance and requested a hoodie and a sign. They were planning to bring long-sleeved shirts and tees, but a vegan hoodie would be lovely. That's the best part about interacting with a small company, they really care! After shopping and eating all day, I swung back by the booth for the big tote bag. I was on the fence at the start of the day, but had enough cash left at the end of the day to afford it. :)

Texas Veggie Fair - Food Shopping

I can't resist picking up specialty food items when I travel and the Texas Veggie Fair was no exception. We did not go to the PlantFusion booth, but Christy Morgan looked great selling protein powder to the crowd. When I went by the Vegan Cuts booth, I had hoped to meet the guy that runs Vegan Houston, but he wasn't on shift yet. There was a kombucha booth that seemed very popular, but I generally don't like tea or bitter flavors, so I passed that booth up.

Dandie's - Halloween Tweets! Also mini mallows (see last photo for those)



Denton Vegan Co-op - Cocomels!



Vegan Cuts - $10 surprise bag. I ate the Beanfields Naco chips for lunch one day and didn't photograph them.



Rabbit Food Grocery - Soy Curls & vegan white chocolate chips (on Amazon here)

Texas Veggie Fair - Samples

As usual, there are plenty of food samples available at the Texas Veggie Fair. You could get samples of Teese cheese and Dandie's marshmallows, but I didn't photograph those. We arrived early to make sure we got the free bag at the gate. It had a surprising number of free samples in the bag! We also tried the quesadilla samples at the Whole Foods booth, some Asian entrees from Tasty Bite, and a Cedar's hummus to-go container (which we ate later in the week).

Free bag of goodies!



Whole Foods booth - quesadillas



Tasty Bite - microwaveable Asian entrees



Cedar's Hummus - to-go container with gluten-free corn chips