IndyVegans.com

Indy Vegans Working Hard!

This Saturday was the 11th Annual Indy Veg Fest hosted by Indianapolis Vegetarian Society. It was held at the Harrison Center for the Arts on Delaware and 16th. It was a wonderful venue; food vendors set up in the gymnasium, tables were set up outside for people to eat and chat with one another while a cute couple played music. Also outside were some informational tables. Indy Vegans was one of them!

We lured people in with our smiling faces and some oatmeal raisin cookies that I made. We gave out as many stickers, buttons, and flyers that we could.  In exchange we met a lot of new faces and those talks renewed our spirit on crafting a vegan community in Indianapolis.  The main thing that we were emphasized to folks was ThanksVegan, which we posted about yesterday.  It was so great to meet so many people at this event! Luckily, the weather was gorgeous too. It was really sunny and surprisingly, by the end of the day, we noticed that we had developed some sunburn.

Nathaniel and Matt manning our table

Now to Nathaniel’s favorite part of the event: the food. Since we were so excited to taste all the scrumptious food, we forgot to take pictures or notes of the offerings, so I’m going to go into my taste-bud memory to try to sort out who and what all was there.

Upon entering the gymnasium, the vendors were all lined up along the outskirts of the gym. It was so exciting! The first vendor in line was Chipotle.  It looked like they had enough food to feed a small army!  There were amazing vegan tacos and chips with two kinds of salsa. Lucky for me, while we were packing up I managed to grab a few tacos to take with me!

Next in line was Pogues Run Grocer and I snatched up some super tasty vegan sloppy joes topped with coleslaw.  I don’t normally enjoy coleslaw but this was tasty – makes me want to get out to Pogues more often.

Broadripple Brewpub followed and they had some falafel that was great! I always tend to cook my falafel a little dry but this was spot on.  Like some weird pre-planned cook-off they also had sloppy joes that were yummy! Indy Vegans supports all vegan food and refuses to take a stance on who won that cook-off.

WB’s pizza brought the pizza party!  If you know anything about Indy Vegans, you will know that we love this place!  They had two different styles of vegan pizza and a lot of olive loaf with ‘Butter sauce’ on the side.  Both pizzas were awesome (like always)! Personally, I really liked the roasted red pepper and mushroom one, but Matt loves the “Indy Vegans Pizza” – named after what the core IV group gets when we go to WBs – which was the one topped with Teese, pineapple, and green peppers. For some reason, I had never had the olive loaf at the restaurant before and it was delicious!!

At that point, I was only halfway through and my plate was already piled with food! I wasn’t sure whether I’d be able to fit anything else – but, I managed.  Next in line were some mini-cupcakes from Peace Love Vegan.  I always try to be healthy and not eat too many desserts, but I had to go back for seconds.  They were so good, and so cute!

Chef Megan brought out some fajitas and chocolate cake.  There was a huge mound of chocolate cake and the fajita peppers and such were lovely! I left it up to Gnat and Matt to get those since my plate was so full.

Next in line was the man that I have heard a lot of buzz about from my friends. That is to say the Killer Tofu gang with Ian Philips. After I smelled the food I knew the hype said was justified.  I got some gumbo and it was pretty tasty and it prompted a debate among us of when does something go from gumbo to chili and vice versa.  Next he had some seitan wings.  Another thing to know about Indy Vegans is we love seitan wings!  These were Nathaniel’s favorite thing of the day. His official stance is: “Everything was pretty tasty but I love wings and spicy food, while I wouldn’t call them spicy they still were the spiciest at the event!  Ian let me in on some of his secrets to cooking wings and it looks like im going to have to change up my recipe a bunch. They were great!”

Last but not least was the Chefs Academy, which brought a few different vegan things to the table.  The first thing that caught my eye was their homemade mint carob almond ice cream. They also made seaweed pasta and falafel sandwiches. Very fancy cuisine!

As we scarfed down our food and sat outside we met a lot of new people and finally met people who we’d seen only on Facebook and other social networking sites.  We’re unsure about the final number of people that attended but I would guess anywhere around 150-200 in attendance.  We were stoked that Indianapolis had such an awesome event like this. Now we’re looking forward to ThanksVegan for more incredible food and the community that accompanies it.

Thanks to Indianapolis Vegetarian Society for hosting the event (and inviting us)! Also thanks to all the other group tables that were represented; we look forward to collaborating and seeing more of one another in the future. Kudos to all the amazing food vendors that came out and provided such wonderful goods! & Lastly, a huge thank you so everyone who came to the event to support a veg*n community in Indy. It was fabulous to meet so many swell people. We look forward to seeing you again at meetups, ThanksVegan, and the interwebs!

Written by Nathaniel and Bridget