Worcester's Veg-Friendly StART On The Street: Spring 2011

Worcester's own stART On The Street art festival is one of the best events in Massachusetts hands-down. The festival occurs several times throughout the year: Fall (stART On The Street) being the largest, Winter (stART At The Station), and Spring (stART On The Street: Spring Edition.) With so many talented local artists, musicians, and DIY-ers in one spot, its hard to go wrong. Its great that they have a non-profit area for local groups as well. 

This past weekend I set up at the Spring Edition for a few hours reppin' for VegWorcester, selling homemade vegan baked goods made by Erin, Aurora and yours truly. It was great to hear the huge response to VegFest and also to hear what a splash we made with the vegan bake-sale shutdown and subsequent reversal to make our "cupcake parties" legal! Lots of people who came to the table had interesting stories this weekend... One man told me that he had witnessed first-hand factory-farm cruelty (20 years ago?) while doing some carpentry at a local Worcester-County farm that prompted him to go vegetarian. I also heard from a man who said he was struggling with health issues such as high cholesterol and pre-diabetes and was considering cutting down on his meat intake. 

The stART festival featured several vegan vendors besides VegWorcester. Like No Udder was serving up their delicious vegan soft serve, Loving Hut had the usual tasty asian food and the hot dog truck had veggie dogs w/ avocado & tomatoes. Its comforting to go to a street fair and not be stuck with only sausage & fried dough carts for a change. 

Thank you stART On The Street for being AWESOME.

VegFest Is Almost Here!

So, for the past few months I've been helping plan the 2011 Worcester VegFest, and its almost here! Check out my Countdown To Worcester Vegfest posted on VegWorcester. With just 6 of us regularly meeting to plan an event for 3,000 people.. we've been busy. All the last minute preparations are taking place now though.. shipment of free samples, books, exhibitor confirmations, laying out of the space, and so on. We're measuring ceilings, counting chairs needed, cutting raffle tickets... you name it.

 

EcoVegan mock meat samples have arrived, and its difficult not to eat them haha! I received 2 sample boxes as well and was able to try cooking them up to see what might be the best method for VegFest sampling, and oh man.. they were sooo delicious. These aren't hippy nut burgers by -any- means, and will surely satisfy veggies and carnivores alike. I can't wait to eat more of these at VegFest.

Oh, and check out the freeeee books I won through a WorldWide Vegan Bake Sale promotion - My Sweet Vegan by Hannah Kaminsky! There are tons of vegan dessert recipes with awesome photos too. I'll be donating most of them to VegWorcester to sell at VegFest, but plan to make some recipes out of them to post here this summer.

If you haven't already RSVP'd to our Facebook event, do it now! 

With all the crappy hassle over food vendor permits and only a small handful of us kick ass peeps on the planning committee its been a little stressful the past few weeks, but it looks as though things are coming together.

VegFest is going to be freekin AWESOME and everyone better come out and eat tons of veg food or I will hunt you down and slap the shit out of you.      (back-dated)