Friday morning, Ethan and I loaded the dogs into the car and drove up to Albany, NY to attend Albany VegFest 2013. We are fortunate that Ethan’s Bubby lives in Albany and we were able to spend the night at her house.
Ethan and his Bubby, with Miss Phoebe.
Added bonus: she loves our dogs and is thrilled to have them visit. We made her a fantastic dinner featuring the Gardein Holiday Roast with homemade mushroom gravy, roasted cauliflower and cheesy beer bread. She loves when we cook for her, and it is always a pleasure to do it. And, it’s one more meal that did not involve the suffering of any animals. Win-win.
Saturday morning we got up early, took care of the dogs, got ourselves ready and drove over to the festival.
With our bow ties all knotted, we’re ready to hit the VegFest!
Albany VegFest was held at the Polish Community Center. We wanted to be there when the doors opened at 10AM, so that we could receive the gift bag that would be available to the first 100 attendees. When we arrived at 9:45AM, the line was already well formed. Once the doors opened, we paid our $5.00 each suggested donation to get in and found out we were numbers 90 and 91 to get inside (I counted the number of bags left). $5.00 is very inexpensive for a festival. Or maybe we are just used to New York City pricing.
The gift bag was filled with coupons for products like Gardein and Upton’s Naturals Seitan, lots of informational brochures for vegan and vegetarian resources in the Capitol area, a bumper sticker from Will Travel for Vegan Food, a pouch from Lois’ Vegan Eats, and muffin cookies from Alternative Baking Company.
Once we entered the main festival room, we were thrilled to see more than 70 vendors and informational tables set up. We did a quick trip down the center aisle as we made our way over the food area. They had a great selection of food vendors to pick from. Our first stop was the Vegan Treats table.
Seriously, all I needed was a fork!
The table was lined with an amazing array of vegan goodness including cannoli, caramel apple cheesecake tarts, Boston cream donuts, chocolate peanut butter mousse bombs, sticky buns, cinnamon buns, tiramisu cakes, pumpkin cheesecakes on stick, and so much more. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to talk to Danielle as her dog Mini got hurt the night before the festival, so she went home to be with her. (Mini is doing great now). Of course, we bought a selection of goodies to eat later.
X’s to O’s Vanilla Canoe, their version of a Twinkie
We next perused the selections offered by other restaurants including Loving Café, Café Nola (not vegan or vegetarian restaurant, but they had vegan offerings), Aba’s Falafel, X’s to O’s Vegan Bakery, Little Anthony’s Pizza (which has plenty of vegan options on its menu), and Tree Line Cheese. We picked up more baked goods from X’s to O’s, and some cheese from Tree Line. The “canoe boat”, the X’s and O’s version of a twinkie I bought, may not have actually made it more than 2 feet from the table before it was gone. Yeah, it was that good!
I ran out to our car to put our purchases away so we wouldn’t have to carry them around, and also to keep me from eating everything at once. As I was coming back in I ran into our friend, Nathan Runkle, founder and executive director of Mercy For Animals.
From left; Michael Suchman, Nathan Runkle and Ethan Ciment
Ethan and I spent some time catching up with Nathan as we all walked around the vendor area before heading off to listen to some of the speakers. Nathan is a remarkable person and Mercy For Animals does great work exposing the horrors of factory farming and encouraging people to “choose veg.” Nathan had to take off to get ready for his talk so Ethan and I continued exploring on our own for a little bit.
There was a great selection of products available for purchase as well as informational booths. We picked up a few t-shirts from Motive Company, and talked with Kristin Lajeunese from Will Travel for Vegan Food and Lois from Lois’ Vegan Eats. It was nearing 11:00 and as the first speaker we wanted to hear was starting at 11:15, we decided to grab an early lunch before heading to the talks.
Our lunch decision was Aba’s Falafel. Aba’s does not have a store front, but rather sells at Farmer’s Markets. They make great Israeli falafel – lots of parsley and very little cumin. (Confession time: I cannot stand cumin). The falafel was crispy and delicious. Stuffed into a pita with onions, Israeli salad and lettuce, and topped with tahina was a great choice. We took our pitas and made our way to the inside speaker’s room to hear Kathy Stevens of Catskill Animal Sanctuary and Jenny Brown of Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary. We entered the room and pretty much ran right into Colleen Patrick Goudreau. Meeting Colleen was definitely one of our hopes for the day. After reading her books, listening to her podcasts and trying her recipes, we needed to meet her in person. She is every bit as kind and generous as we could have hoped for. I got to thank her for saving my chocolate chip cookies (After Ethan went vegan I stopped making them because of the eggs and butter. I was able to replace the butter with vegan butter, but the eggs were the stumbling block. Colleen solved that for me in The Joy of Vegan Baking.) Unfortunately we both had onion breath after our lunch, so we hope we didn’t offend her. Meeting Colleen was truly a highlight of the day.
We chatted with Jenny for a bit before her talk began and let her know we would be slipping out early to listen to Nathan. We’ve known Jenny for a while and didn’t want her to think we were being rude or anything. After listening the start of Kathy and Jenny’s talk, Ethan and I headed outside to the tent to listen to Nathan’s talk. Nathan is an eloquent, persuasive and seasoned public speaker. He was not fazed by the cell phone that started ringing in the audience during his talk and worked it in to his comments. Part of Nathan’s talk included a 4 minute video on factory farming, which was an edited version of Mercy For Animals’ famed exposed, From Farm to Fridge. It was hard to watch and really upsetting, but it is the truth about how innocent farmed animals become food. If you haven’t seen this film, I strongly urge you to watch it. If you can’t bring yourself to watch it, perhaps you shouldn’t eat the “food” that derives from this violence and horror.
Following Nathan’s talk we ran inside to grab a drink before Colleen’s talk. By the time we came out 10 minutes later the tent was packed- standing room only. We joined Jenny and Colleen outside the tent and talked for a bit. Cute story; one of the event volunteers asked us if we wanted chairs to bring in as the tent was so full. Colleen smiled and graciously declined, saying she didn’t need a chair. Colleen’s talk was fantastic. She talked about her journey to being a compassionate eater and how to handle it when asked about you are vegan. Colleen is a great speaker and after listening to so many podcasts, to hear her in person was incredible.
From left; Ethan Ciment, Jenny Brown, Michael Suchman and Colleen Patrick-Goudreau
After Colleen’s talk ended, we talked with Jenny some more. She asked Ethan if he would be able to help come up with a viable prosthetic leg for Albie the goat. Naturally, Ethan agreed to see what he might be able to do to help our buddy Albie.
We then grabbed a slice of pizza before we had to run back to Bubby’s house to let the dogs out and put our food purchases in the fridge. Once the dogs were walked, it was back to the festival. When we got back we went over the book signing area to get a copy of The Joy of Vegan Baking signed by Colleen. We left our copy at home, so we picked up a new one there. Thankfully the crowd for books had waned so we got to spend more time talking with Colleen. Even though we had only talked for a few minutes earlier in the day, Colleen remembered our names and our blog. Talk about being made to feel special! She asked all about our blog and what we were doing with it. We discussed Thanksgiving dining and told about our series of Thanksgiving recipes. We agreed that the next time she is in the New York area or we are in the Bay area we will get together for dinner. Love her!
With our signed book, we headed back to the tent to hear our friends Jasmin and Mariann of Our Hen House deliver their talk, Fed Up.
The ladies of Our Hen House Jasmin Singer (left) and Mariann Sullivan in their presentation “Fed Up”
During their talk, they pointed out the absurdities of animal agriculture using a mock interview with an extra terrestrial being who comes to Earth and points out that raising animals for food uses more resources than it produces, raises the temperature of the planet and doesn’t do anything to lessen hunger on the planet. Jasmin and Mariann are very powerful speakers and it is always a treat to hear them.
We stayed at the festival for a little longer after Our Hen House finished speaking to talk to a few more people. As it was getting late and many of the vendors had packed up and left, we decided it was time to go. Overall, it was a great festival. Lots of vendors, plenty of food options, two speakers areas and a kids area meant there was something for everyone attending. I highly encourage anyone in the New York Capitol area, or anyone within a reasonable driving distance, to attend it next year. Reviews of the foods we tried will be coming following our Thanksgiving recipe collection.
