VeganMania 2014!

            I’m sorry for the delay in an update.  We finally went on our vacation to both Ecuador and Peru in September and it was a blast!  I enjoyed myself a lot more than I was expecting despite a few bumps in the road along the way.  I shall be updating about the food and sights in another entry but I’m still in the process of editing my nearly 4,000 photos that I took while there.  A bit overboard?  Perhaps, but when everything I saw was amazing it’s hard not to take a photograph.

Just a few of the vendors

            Today, I figured I’d update about this year’s 6^th annual VeganMania that was held on the 11^th.  It was our 4^th time going to the event and the 3^rd time since they moved the event to the Broadway Armory.  I always look forward to the event for a number of reasons.

I quite enjoy the speakers that they have each year.  There’s always a broad spectrum of speakers – someone for everyone to listen to.  My wife knows more about the ‘famous’ vegans in the community and even though she tells me about them, without a face or direct exposure to the people she’s talking about, I have the same blank face your dog has when you say anything more complex than “sit” or “treat” to him/her.  It never fails that each year there’s some speaker she knows about and I respond with, “Who was that?” This is followed by a confused look on her part but that’s because she doesn’t understand why I couldn’t automatically recall some name she mentioned six months ago. (I have the memory of a goldfish…)  However, after sitting through the talks, I always come away with new people in the community to appreciate.

In the past I’ve enjoyed talks given by – but not limited to – Jenny Brown (from Woodstock Farm Sanctuary), Dr. Oppenlander (author of the fantastic book, Comfortably Unaware), Erin Red (host of Red Radio), Kristin Lajeunesse (of the Will Travel For Vegan Food blog), and Ellen Jaffe Jones (speaker, author, & athlete; wrote Eat Vegan on $4 a Day).

David Robinson Simon

This year was no exception.  The 1^st speaker we caught was David Robinson Simon, lawyer and author of Meatonomics.  My wife has the book but I haven’t been able to read it just yet – an issue I plan to correct very soon.  Surprisingly, I did remember my wife telling me about the book and the author before we showed up.  See?  A broken watch can be right, after all!  Mr. Simon touched upon a few points that he expands on in the book.  For example, he talked about how the meat and dairy industries work with the government in a myriad of ways including their effective lobbies in Washington.  He also discussed the true cost to taxpayers for that hamburger you buy at that golden arches burger joint.  The talk was fascinating and despite vaguely knowing the issues addressed in the talk, it is alarming to hear cold, hard facts coming from someone who obviously put a lot of work into the research and cares about the topic.  I’ll talk about the book in-depth once I read it.  Stay tuned!  Needless to say I highly suggest checking out his book!  It will blow your mind.

Left to right: Mariann Sullivan and Jasmin Singer

            The next speakers were the hosts of Our Hen House, Mariann Sullivan and Jasmin Singer.  Again, I knew of them thanks to my wife listening to their podcast.  Other than recognizing the name of their podcast I didn’t really know what to expect.  They gave a talk on what struggles a newbie might have in the world of veganism.  It wasn’t necessarily a topic that concerned me since it’s been awhile since I’ve been a newbie vegan, but it was quite funny and you could totally feel the enthusiasm the two had talking to the audience and for sharing their experiences with veganism.  After the talk I told my wife that there was yet another podcast I would have to start following.  Check it out!

Another reason I love VeganMania is the food, d’uh.  Every year I stuff myself with as much food as I can when I’m there.  There are around a dozen or so different restaurants and other vendors who have dishes for you to try in the food court.  And everything looks and smells so good!  I try to vary my selection when we get there but sometimes there are a few favorites we just have to visit.  I’ll sometimes try something from the Chicago Diner or Native Foods Café since I love their food but then I try to get something from one or two other vendors (at least).  This year, I tried some soft serve ice cream from Temptation, a gyro-like plate with BBQ seitan bits from another vendor, a salad from Native Foods Café, a raspberry chocolate cupcake from Chicago Diner, and a few bites from food my wife had, too.  Besides the main food court there were a few businesses set-up through the main room that were giving away samples of their products.  My stomach was quite happy by the end of the day.

My seitan gyro

My wife's kale burger - so good!

My salad from Native Foods Cafe.

Tofurkey samples, which were so good!

Yet another reason I go is to refuel my vegan batteries.  I’ve said it before but it’s cool to be around others like you when you’re in a relatively small minority of the larger population.  Everyone seems to be in a good mood when they’re there and the vibes are infectious, which, given the current state of the world, I should probably avoid catching to be on the safe side.  It’s very cool to see vegans, vegetarians, and the veg-curious all come together in one place.

My swag!  Too much?

Lastly, probably my favorite reason for going is all the vegan merchandise.  My wife and I are suckers for funny and/or in-your-face bumper stickers.  I never thought I would be one of “those” people when I was younger but I can’t deny that I am.  I love watching people in my rearview mirror as they read the stickers and either shake their head or laugh or take pictures of their favorite ones.  I picked up just two this year but I think they make good additions.  The “eat humans” sticker is from Action for Animals and the “humane meat” one is from Herbivore.  I also like my vegan message shirts that I sometimes get.  I’d go broke if I bought everything I wanted to get while there.  I picked up a t-shirt from Compassion featuring an elephant breaking out of chains with the caption, “Animals Are Not Property”.  It’s pretty b.a.

All in all, a very fun time!  I can’t wait for the next one.

Sorry for the lack of decent pictures.  I was using my phone’s camera this year and the quality kind of shows.  I’ll step up my game with the next entry!  Until then, keep calm and vegan on!

You can not only find Compassion HERE but on Twitter at: @compassionco

You can not only find Herbivore HERE but on Twitter at: @herbivorecc

You can not only find Action for Animals HERE but on Twitter at: @action4animals

You can find David Robinson Simon a number of ways online like HERE.  Follow him on Twitter at: @meatonomics

You can also find Mariann and Jasmin from Our Hen House a number of ways online like HERE.  Follow Our Hen House on Twitter at: @ourhenhouse

For the skinny on VeganMania, go HERE.

I’ve mentioned a few others here before but:

You can find Erin Red on Twitter at: @erinred

You can find Ellen Jaffe Jones on Twitter at: @EllenJaffeJones

Listen Up, Publishers!

            Wow, has it been almost a month to the date since my last entry?  The time has just really flown by for me.  That’s mostly due to obsessively going over plans for our upcoming trip to Ecuador and Peru.  There’s a lot one has to do when you have 2 countries to traverse over 20 days and you have no idea on the reliability and timing of public transportation.  Sadly, a lot of time was wasted making myself paranoid with reading other travelers’ reviews.  (Note to self: never ever read people’s reviews.  Especially not from anyone who isn’t accustomed to roughing it in the slightest.)

This would've been useful this last month.

            It’s our first time visiting the two countries but we love to travel.  Life’s too short not to explore the world.  My wife’s more of the traveling gypsy spirit than I am, but I’m getting a lot better since we’ve been married.  Before I met her, I had only been to a few states here in the U.S.  Since we’ve been married, we’ve been to Europe, Puerto Rico, and Costa Rica.  This will be our first time in South America.

            Since becoming vegetarian, however, we’ve only been to Costa Rica, England, and Germany.  I honestly thought being vegan in Costa Rica would be rough but it was quite easy.  You would think that for a place surrounded by water there wouldn’t be much in the way of vegan food but that turned out not to be true.  I’m hoping for more of the same in Ecuador and Peru (come on, HappyCow!).

            The most frustrating thing in the planning stage before any of our trips as vegans, at least for me, is reading non-vegetarian/vegan travel books.  There are probably 3-4 vegetarian places listed in each travel book that we’ve checked out for everywhere we’ve been to and that’s a generous number.  I love the phrases in the travel books that describe the vegetarian restaurants, too.  “Hearty enough even for meat-eaters!” or “You won’t believe how filling it is even without meat!”

            Uuuuh, no d’uh.  How about animal-based restaurant reviews done by vegetarians?  “Odors from burning flesh that aren’t as noxious to stomach as you’d think!” or “Token salads that give you more than two cherry tomatoes!”  Or, if you’re at some rustic, outdoorsy BBQ joint, “As long as you can ignore the stuffed animal heads on the walls, your French fries and corn on the cob will be quite enjoyable!”  (Come to think of it, that’d be pretty amusing.  Why am I giving these ideas out for free?)

            This is even ignoring all the reviews of special events that you can see when you go to towns they list in the books or attractions you can see or places to stay.  It’s amazing how many animal-centric things you can pick out while reading something as innocuous as a travel book.  That’s not to say that I have to flip through pages of obnoxiously omnivore-based language.  It’s just interesting to see it from an “outsider’s” perspective.

            My main reason for this is that we need an actual vegetarian/vegan travel book for us worldly wanderers.  Now, there are a few decent to great sites and blogs and vlogs out there for us on the topic of vegan food abroad.  For example, Kristin Lajeunesse has been killing it with amazing pictures and stories based on her travels around the world.  Seriously, if you’re vegan and you love travel and different foods, check her site out HERE (how cool is her site’s name: Will Travel For Vegan Food?).  My wife and I were able to listen to her at a recent VeganMania event here in Chicago.

            There’s also a pretty cool site called Vegan Backpacker that is run by two Canadian vegans, John and Jill.  I’ve only recently stumbled upon it but they do seem to have a lot of cool tips for traveling as vegans abroad.  I even saw an entry about Peru, which I’ll be looking into before we leave.

            However, there is still no full-fledged Lonely Planet styled travel book.  Sure, there probably won’t be much money in it for the publishers but a vegan can dream, right?  There’s got to be a big enough niche market out there where this would be popular.  I find it hard to believe that even a small travel book couldn’t be published on the cheap and distributed to major markets or made available for purchase online.  After all, how annoying is it for vegans to have to either write down every important piece of information they see online or to have to carry an iPad around because there’s no book they can take with them?  I mean, to be quite honest, I never bring electronics with me anyway when I’m on vacation.  I have enough of electronics when I’m home and having a book with me is easier.  I’m not constantly worrying somebody is going to steal a book or I’m going to lose a book like I would if I had to bring along a laptop or a tablet or a smart phone.

            Am I missing a resource that’s out there that somebody can recommend?  Because if not, I guess I’ll just have to roll up my sleeves and write one myself (or go halvesies with another vegan writer… hint hint, internets!).

            Until that day comes, however, keep calm and vegan on!

You can find Kristin Lajeunesse online a number of ways – including Facebook – but one way is to follow her on Twitter at @KristinLaj

You can also find Vegan Backpacker on Twitter at @veganbackpacker

Restaurant Review: The Chicago Diner: Part Deux

            I know I have reviewed The Chicago Diner before (check out the entry and feast your eyes upon the pictures of delicious foods!) but I’ve never been to their second location in Logan Square.  We’ve always loved the original location but today time was a bit more pressing to us than preference so we went to their newer location.  Even though it was the same company, I had this weird feeling like we were cheating on the Halsted Street location.  I know that I’m odd, thanks.

            While the Halsted location had a 1950s café vibe to it, the Milwaukee Avenue location in Logan Square felt a bit more upscale.  There were longer booths in the middle of the restaurant and a bar directly to the right as you entered.  Along the far wall was a big “Meat Free Since ’83” sign hanging from a wall.  We were seated at a smaller two-seat table along the wall and began scouring over the menu.  Let me tell you that that was no easy task.  Every time we go in there I find it nearly impossible to narrow my choice down to one dish.

My mocha shake (on left) and my wife's Lucky Leprechaun Mint shake (on right)

            I ordered my regular mocha shake, since nobody should ever leave The Chicago Diner without trying one of their shakes, and somehow resisted ordering the larger size.  This turned out to be a wise decision since I stuffed myself on the food.

            For appetizers – yes, plural – we ordered the Thai Chili Wingz and the poutine.  We seem to get the poutine whenever we go there but how can you pass up fries covered in vegan sour cream, ‘bacon’, Teese vegan cheese, jalapenos, green onions, and gravy?  You can’t, is the right answer if you know what’s good for you.  However, I think the most amazing appetizer I’ve had there are the Thai Chili Wingz.  HOT. DAMN.  They were amazing!  These seitan ‘wings’ could probably fool many omnivores if they didn’t know it was vegan.  They came with a chili lime marinade and served with Sriracha Ranch dipping sauce.  I was seriously considering the notion of getting an order to go.

            For my main dish I ordered the Caribbean risotto.  I was having a very tough choice deciding because the avocado tostados, scrambled tofu deluxe, and pierogi quesadillas (!!) all sounded so good.  This was a bit of a gamble for me, however, because I’m still hit-or-miss on eating beans.  My wife was pretty surprised I even ordered this.  I figured that it would be tolerable since it was in a risotto and I love risotto.  I could eat risotto every day.  Grilled veggies and plantains surrounded the risotto.  Despite my love-hate relationship with beans, this dish was really good!  The rice, beans, and plantains reminded me of our vacation to Costa Rica and it got me in the mood for our upcoming trip to Ecuador and Peru.

            So, definitely check out their second location in Logan Square if you’re in Chicago.  It’s a cool place with the same fantastic food.  I already want to go back.  I think my insatiable appetite is partly why I’m the broke vegan.

            Until next time, keep calm and vegan on!

The Chicago Diner in Logan Square is located at 2333 N. Milwaukee Avenue.  Check out my previous TCD review for the link.