The Food

And now for the post you've been waiting for-the food.

Let me start by saying, for most of the day on Saturday, I had no idea where the food was. I had to ask someone. I'm sure it was in my handout book, but I didn't read it. Our first meal was supposed to be breakfast. I slept through that. We missed lunch because we were off campus. I was not about to miss dinner since it was the "Farewell Dinner". In the materials I was sent, they indicated that a lot of people usually dress up for this dinner. I would say the vast majority do not. But wearing a sundress is always ok and Brian just wore a golf shirt and khakis, so its not like we were that overdressed. 

I was very confused by the dinner service-I thought it was to be in the Cafe, but there was a room in the middle of the book and merchandise sale with chafing dishes set up and tables. So we handed over our tickets and loaded up our plates. In retrospect, I wonder if that room was set up for the speakers. Well, whatever. There were regular attendees in there also. I know this because the lady at the next table talked quite loudly so I heard her whole life story.

My first plate-from top right bowl.

The soup was yellow pea curry. It was ok, but the peas were kind of hard.

That's quinoa made with water, then spinach walnut pesto. I mixed the two together to give the quinoa flavor.

Next, sweet potato mash with cinnamon I believe. This was really good.

Top left corner is almond crusted tofu with exotic mushroom gravy. That whole thing was quite bland and the mushrooms were rubbery.

Brian's first plate. He got the pizza, but couldn't get past the texture. I liked it a lot, but after a while, the 'faux cheese' started to be too much for me. He pretty much choked down the rest of the food on his plate, but went back for fruit. As I said before, we discussed that my meals from vegan month were way more flavorful than any of the dishes we had there.

I went for seconds-salad and red potatoes. I thought the potatoes were hot-they were not, they were cold and had no seasoning. I can only assume it was so you could season them yourself. I just used salt.

I made a salad with peppers, cukes & nutritional yeast, which I love. I dressed it in virgin olive oil & balsamic.

I also had a plate of fruit. I stuffed myself-I knew I wouldn't be eating again for awhile.

But Brian would. We decided to skip the movie presentation of Peaceable Kingdom and go find something to do. We started here:

Well, not this Five Guys but you get the idea. Brian got a burger while I waited in the car.

We ended here:

I'm sorry, I just wanted a cocktail. Is that so wrong? I was dressed up and wanted to have a little fun. But it wasn't. The whole time we were there people kept looking at us funny. Apparently we were glaringly out of place. We left after one drink. We went back to campus where they had a DJ and dancing. I don't dance without liquid courage, so we did not participate. I know, lame. There was an early class I wanted to make, so we went to bed.

The next morning, I slept through breakfast again! I knew it would happen, I'm just not a morning person. And if I have to choose between food & sleep-sleep wins every single time. Anyway, I got up for the 8:30 class. Brian brought me a Starbucks (they didn't serve coffee at the conference) and I off I went. After my class I came back to the room & got ready for lunch. Brian was occupying himself on his computer the whole time.

I had high hopes for lunch. This is a black bean & sweet potato enchilada with a side of brown rice. Now I'm no expert chef, but I do believe that enchiladas have enchilada sauce. The filling was good, but it was all a bit dry. Still it was the most flavorful thing I had all weekend. How can you go wrong with Mexican, its SO flavorful? Well, I guess you can.

The cup is potato dill soup. I wasn't sure why it was brown. I'm still not. It was just ok.

The plate has a savory tofu salad. It was pretty good, but much like the 'faux cheese' after a bit, it just became too much.

They also had a raw foods selection. The dessert on the left is something with strawberries and oats. The liked the 'crust' but the top, not so much. It was kind of frozen and icy & not very flavorful.

I also tried the 'chocolate' tofu pudding with fresh strawberries. It was delicious. How can you go wrong with Mexican, its SO flavorful? Well, I guess you can.

Brian had 'ice cream'. It was ok, it would have been awesome with the chocolate strawberry pudding over it. But it wasn't mine, so I refrained.

Meals were included in the cost of the conference, but I saw someone buying a single meal ticket for lunch for $40.00. I'm sorry, that lunch was not worth $40.00. Twenty would be a stretch for me. Frankly, if vegans are to convince carnivores to give up their meat, the meals are going to have to taste a lot better than they did. I was excited to learn a chef was in charge of all of the meals. I thought, wow, if a chef is in charge, Brian will surely realize that vegan food  is delicious! Now, I don't know if anyone else felt the same, but I was really disappointed. Where were the beans & legumes? Is hummus too predictable? Potatoes, veggies, kale? Peanut butter, smoothies? All the staples in one's vegan diet? The list is LONG! I just do not get it. I really think there was a huge opportunity missed.
Vegan food should not be synonymous with bland & boring.


To wrap it up, I will share this story from Brian. Since we were eating in a college cafeteria, some of the serving tools were left out obviously. There was a big dispenser that said 'MILK'. Poor Brian, he's so cute, he kept trying to get milk out of it and he said multiple people looked at him and said rather incredulously 'there's no milk here' and pointed him in the direction of the rice mylk. He politely passed. 
Obviously the trip to Five Guys says it all for Brian's opinion, no?