Boston Vegetarian Food Festival 2008 - part 1

Boston Veg Fest was amazing!
Just look at those smiling VegWebers! There were four green shirts in attendance Saturday. Unfortunately I did not make some for JW501 or CeltKat. They need one though! Plus I messed up the order and put VegWeb on the back instead of the front. These things happen.



But enough shameless VW'ing. Onto the tofu of the matter!

GreenT, her fiancée M and I left my house at the horrifically early hour of 6:45 AM and headed for Boston. Our drive was super fast and we were at the Reggie Lewis Athletic Center by 9:15, so we drove past in search of camera batteries. Once back we found a great parking place and enjoyed the warm fall air on the way to the center. The crowd was pretty impressive compared to last year's trickle of people.

Once inside the swell of people grew, so much so that the whole entrance area to the exhibitors was filled up before the doors opened at 10. Soon though the door opened and people swarmed into the space, scooping up samples and chatting with fellow like minded people.

Personally, I was kind of disappointed to see that yet again some exhibitors were still in the process of setting up or not even in attendance yet, but I guess that is how these things go. Once inside the doors I hit Cafe Indigo on the right for a perfect mouthful of carrot cake and to buy one of their seitan loaves. The cake was extraordinary and I was happy the loaf was frozen. From there, after pilfering another bite of cake, I wandered down checking out the tables. I wanted to subscribe to VegNews but their table was packed to I walked on. Hannah Kaminsky was free of people so far so I slid up and shamelessly asked for her autograph on my cookbook that I had dragged with me. She was very gracious and did not seem as nervous as she claims to be! Plus those cute felt foods were darn adorable!

Moving on I tried out some Primal Strips. The mesquite lime was tasty but something about the texture just weirds me out slightly so I never buy them. I guess I am old school and still have a deep love for the insanely chewy and almost tough Tofurky Jerky. The crowds were pretty thick and I avoided the really busy tables, knowing I wanted to see the first speaker at 10:45. So when I saw Mah Wah's table was relatively sparsely populated I scrambled over. Their veggie meats are so amazing, check them out at vegieworld.com. I picked up almost $20 worth of faux meats from them, including a ham, spicy gong bao chicken, sweet & sour citrus spare ribs and more!

After this meat glut, I moved onto the Teese booth. Not only did they have adorable one pound cheezes for sale, they had nachos. Let me say that again.. NACHOS. Oh my goodness. I purchased one each of the cheddar and nacho flavor and my very own paper tray of chips to slather cheeze onto. I must say, Teese is absolutely amazing. I have enjoyed the Moz flavor at home several times, but the nacho was beyond great in my opinion. I will be ordering more of it soon!

From there I tried out some Bombay Potatoes from Tasty Bite. They were fantastic! The next booth I fought for space with was Soya Too. They had cartons of their Soy Whip as give aways. Oh my goodness! How awesome is that? I grabbed one for me and one for greenT and snatched up the coupon they had out. I cannot wait to whip up some creamy goodness. I am thinking of using it as cake frosting in a berry and chocolate layer cake.

Next I waited for the Galaxy foods guy to make a quesadillia with the vegan slices. It was good. I just wish my grocery store carried it! Onward I went to a booth selling plates of food. I bought bits of fried goodness and staggered under the weight of my backpack up to the speakers hall. Nibbling on my food I awaited the beginning of the talks. Luckily I finished up my wantons, dumplings, spring roll and drumstick before Sarah Kramer came on. Mainly because I wanted to video the whole thing. And I did. The two segments will hopefully be added or linked here soon!

As you can tell it was a jam packed day, and the time was only 10:45 am! This day went on till 11pm when we left Boston for home. But the rest of the event and post event fun is another post! Stay tuned for more.