Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Vegfest at Riverside Park: Piglets, Goats, Puppies, Plants and Veggie Feasting


I missed my neighborhood's annual Vegfest vegan food festival last year while I was in Puerto Rico visiting family, so I was super excited to get my grub on this year and dragged my mom along for the ride. I was pleasantly surprised to see more attendees and vendors that when I last attended two years ago. And creatures to pet! Behold the delicious cuteness:


For the indie business dreamers there were a couple of vintage campers converted into portable food and craft selling mobiles. Always inspiring.


And scrumptious locally grown veggies to buy, artfully displayed with fake fall foliage. We have to use the fake ones in Florida where we don't get the real thing!


There were scrumptious vegan samples to try around every corner. We left full and happy but I kind of wish I'd have bought even more home to freeze and munch on for the next few days. I need to make some spinach and mushroom taco recipes. Yum!


For lunch we shared a vegan burrito and a vegan taco with "dragonfruit" and "mexican lime" teas. All very delicious, especially the sweet Jamaican jerk sauce inspired jackfruit tacos!


And then there were critters, so many to behold, photograph, and pet!


There was a hotdog Chihuahua on wheels! Yep!


He was adorable and slightly recalls my mom's long-haired Chihuahua, the excitable "Gizmo".


But the real Chihuahua-ganger was this little guy is could pass as a twin to my mom's dog Pete, both were runts of their litters. Pete's hilarious, he's scared of everything. You can see him running from Yuko in this instagram photo. I don't know how the poor animal hasn't died of heart failure yet.



I have never been closer to adopting a dog that when I met the sweet Foxie here. She's a lab mix and full-grown at about two years hold. I love that's she's a perfect medium-sized dog that looks like a lab puppy, she's a forever-puppy!


And then there was a goat, dried leaves were like chips to her and I enjoyed petting her ears and feeding her some.


And perhaps the cutest thing I've ever seen in my life was this piglet! So cute! He was so soft, I loved petting his snout. I wanted to steal him away. He won't get too big and can be trained just like a puppy.


The permaculture booth reminded me to get my sustainable permaculture garden back underway! I'd love to grow tons of greens to save money. Organic produce costs a small fortune after all, time to grow as much of it as possible!


'Twas a fun and inspiring event, we left with full bellies of loads of ideas for projects to start on.

Do you have any local food festivals and fun to explore? I want to do some more art, animal, and garden volunteer work!
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33 comments:

  1. We go to our vegfest every year here in Tampa. Last year John Salley was a speaker, he played basketball for the Detroit Pistons. Normally I don't give a shit about sports, but because I'm from Detroit, I thought it was kinda cool to see him, and to see this huge sports figure discuss why he is a vegan. We have a phenomenal food truck here called Taco Bus, (they were even featured on Drive-in, Dives and Diners), they have awesome veggie food, but they always have such a long line, which is a bummer, wait in line for 45 minutes to get a taco...but so worth it! (That pig was super cute, btw)

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    1. Aw, that's awesome. I need to explore the veg scene next time I'm in the Tampa area! Bet it's amazing! I'm the same about sports, don't care but always admire an athlete that will "come out" as a vegan, it's seen as so anti-manly anti-performance so they make great examples that it's possible to be buff without eating meat.

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  2. That nice doggie is mostly pit bull terrier. It has many more pit bull characteristics than lab, including the size. The eyes, the ears, the wrinkle in the face. the huge "smile". I understand that rescues find it harder to adopt out dogs labled as pit bulls, but it it's actually a bad plan, long term, to pass off every nice pitbull as a lab mix boxer mix or American bulldog mix and only admit the ones with dog aggression to be pitties. Funny story: I have a pit bull mix and another dog and was walking with my friend and her Chihuahua mix down an urban street. A woman came up to us to warn us about the pit bull tied up in front of the doughnut shop. She said to be careful passing by. I was confused. I decided she didn't realise my dog had pittie genes. We got to the doughnut shop where it was clearly a 100% boxer tied up. She warned the pitbull owner to beware of the pitbull, which wasn't one! Prejudiced ignorant woman!

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    1. Pits are so beautiful, it makes me sad to see the bias against them. They're gorgeous dogs and I've never encountered a mean one. Maybe that's why I was so attracted to Foxie, I've always had a fondness for the "smiling" pitt face.

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  3. That looks like a great festival. All that lovely food, yummy, bet you left really inspired. And all the critters - so cute!!

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    1. Twas much fun, wish they had these every weekend. Mmm...food...

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  4. How cool! It looks like the weather was awesome blossom! Have food trucks became popular there yet? There's like "camps" of them here and I always get the best vegan food at them. I think vegetarian and vegan is getting a little more mainstream, thanks to shows like vegucated. Or it seems like that to me.

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    1. I haven't seen vegucated, will have to check that one out. They are gaining ground here but mostly on the side of town I live in, Riverside/Downtown were the artsy/hipstery people live, probably in the beaches area too. A couple of years ago I was excited when a food truck event was hosted by a local brewery and impulsively fled to it but none had healthy or vegan options, it was all greasy, unhealthy fare. I need to stalk some vegan ones, the festival let us know they're out and about somewhere!

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    2. Sometimes you gotta ask too. I swear its like the secret menu. Kind of fun like playing D&D all the time. Never know when you will encounter the dragon. And watch Vegucated. Go in knowing it will be one of the harder documentaries you watch. Its intense and its real. Watch it!

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    3. Will investigate our food truck scene ASAP. When I saw the Vegucated poster I recalled I did watch that one after all. 'Twas a good one and bought me back to how far I've come in healthy/conscious eating. I may have been in those New Yorker's shoes if I tried to convert to veganism cold turkey in my late teens/early twenties when I was eating at my worst.

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  5. I love all the animal photos. Too cute!

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    1. Every time I look at the piglet photos again I die. It was too painfully cute to deal with that animal in person.

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  6. Don't those stupid people know that they are touching animals butts and then touching food - that is illegal in restaurants - gag!!!! NO ANIMALS AROUND FODD!!!!

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    1. Oops, didn't notice what the post photos implied until your comment. None of the food vendors were touching animals then serving us food, sorry if it looks that way in the post. The even organizers were also thoughtful enough to have hand sanitizer dispensers scattered around for attendees to use, too. Either way, we live in a crazy bacteria laden world and in restaurants eat with the same forks and knives thousands of mouths have touched. In childhood most of us have EATEN animal butts in hot dogs, bologna, etc. ;)

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  7. we don't have anything cool like that where I live. I bet ninety percent of the population here doesn't event know what vegan means...

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    1. I'm lucky to live in a good area for events. :) Most of the city doesn't have them at all.

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