Vegan at the Sustainable Living Fair

As many of you know, Mike and I have a little vegan company called Cruelty-Free World. We set up at festivals, farmer's markets, holiday gift markets and fair-trade shows and sell our vegan goods and cookbooks. Then we donate the profit to animal rights and human rights groups. We always try to carry the coolest vegan bags, purses and wallets as well as our favorite vegan cookbooks.

The Sustainable Living Fair in Fort Collins, Colorado is always one of our best times. This year we came up on Friday to set up early and meet other vendors. We are so grateful to have our dear friends Christa and Dave in Fort Collins, who open their home to us.

We began our Saturday with several wonderful folks from the local vegan group, Fort Vegan, who loved our array of bags and left with several cookbooks. We met April who we had connected with on Twitter (and added her blog, Epicurean Vegan to our resources list) and she brought us vegan cookies! What a great group of people. We especially love selling vegan cookbooks (as opposed to passing our veg starter kits which we do) as when someone buys a cookbook they make an investment and they will most likely use it at least once.

Throughout the weekend we have a lot of conversations around veganism and animal rights, and are able to help people who have never cooked vegan in their lives (on purpose) pick out a cookbook that is best for them. The vegan community is alive and well in Fort Collins, and they were so wonderful to us. On Sunday we even got a plate filled with vegan coffee cake that didn't last long!

We also spend a lot of time with the usual anti-vegan banter. That's where our love shines through. Especially with the guy who told me they were the opposite of where we were as they are chicken farmers. I told him that we all have more in common than not and him and his wife actually hung out for a few minutes. And Mike's great conversation with a cattle rancher, who left with a veg starter kit. My hope is that the way they think about vegans and animal rights people changed for the better and perhaps one day they'll take a good look at their chickens and cows. It is so easy to quickly slam people, yet as a voice for the voiceless I don't like that way.

The vendor food at the Fair this year was better than last year. Several vegan options including vegan sweets! vegan doughnuts on Sunday. On our way to the Fair Sunday morning we dropped by Mugs and they made us AMAZING vegan breakfast burritos with vegan sausage. The people who run this Fair have always been so kind and welcoming to Mike and I, and we have always loved being here.

The best meal we had over the weekend was at Nyala Ethipian Cuisine! WOW! I was blown away by all of the flavors and the owner came out and offered some of what she had made herself for her lunch which was a tasty tofu dish. This is a not-to-miss place whenever in Fort Collins! http://www.nyalafc.com

Local fairs and festivals are great places to promote veganism. More to come on that. We'll see you next year at the 13th Annual Sustainable Living Fair in Fort Collins!

Thanks for reading!

Want to try veganism?

As many of you know, Mike and I own a business called Cruelty-Free World. It's a very small business. We find awesome vegan products and the best vegan cookbooks and sell them at local festivals. Then we donate 100% of the profit to animal and human rights groups. We love it and are in our fifth season.

Next week we travel to Fort Collins for one of our favorite shows, the annual Sustainable Living Fair. We love this show. And we love Fort Collins.

One of the newest books we'll be selling is Colleen Patrick Goudreau's newest, "The 30-Day Vegan Challenge". What a great book. Colleen wrote it to be supportive to those jumping into veganism (my words, not hers!). With this blog we have promoted Meatless Mondays and have let y'all know why we are vegan. Now we want to invite people to try veganism. By this I mean we want to invite you to take a vegan pledge. One week? One month?

Are we crazy? Some of you might be thinking this. And we do realize that some of our readers are already vegan. You can pass this invite to friends of yours who are not vegan. And if you don't know anyone who is not vegan, then it's time to increase your social circles!

Veganism rocks! I love being vegan. And you too can participate in this amazing lifestyle!

If you're going to be at the Sustainable Living Fair, come check us out and sign up to give veganism a try. You have nothing to lose, and, in my opinion, so much to gain. If you want more info, you can order a vegan starter kit from the main page of our blog. You can also check out the many links we have listed on our blog. We have some excellent folks linked from the resource section, you should definitely check them out. What I have found is that there is no shortage in support for people wanting to check out veganism.

Thanks for reading. And thanks for thinking about veganism and/or promoting veganism.

A day in the life

I decided to share some random thoughts and experiences from this past weekend. What exactly are The Gay Vegans up to? Here you go!

I love vegan pancakes. And waffles. Sunday we went to Edgewater Coffee House to work on this blog and when we went home I made pancakes. They were delish! I used the Kamut Pancake and Waffle Mix from Arrowhead Mills. We use it a lot for camping as it's a mix and easy to make. You just add oil, soy milk (or rice or almond or hemp milk) and you're all set. Sometimes I add blueberries for even more of a treat!

I am worried about the anti-gay opinions of some of the Republican candidates for President. I was thinking about this on Sunday with all of the news coming in from Iowa and the Republican straw poll. As a gay man married to a man I take some of the anti-gay rhetoric seriously. This is one of the reasons I wish more gay people and more vegans would become politically active, or at least vote. I know, it can be tough. Sometimes horribly anti-gay politicians can be supportive of animal welfare issues. Yet the more of us who come out to our politicians, whether it's coming out about who we are married to or that we are vegan (and why we are vegan), can make a difference. (I know, this could become a whole series of blog posts!)

I am excited about us being at the Sustainable Living Fair in Fort Collins September 17-18. This have always been one of our favorite shows for Cruelty-Free World (our vegan market business) and we always have a blast. We are going to highlight some new vegan cookbooks and have a ton of vegan wallets. We are also going to have some of the newest vegan fashions from Queen Bee Creations in Portland, OR. If you have time that weekend and live in Colorado, come and say hi!

http://www.sustainablelivingassociation.org/sustainable-living-fair/

Finally, we are continuing to promote Meatless Mondays. Yesterday was huge success with 389 people commit to going meatless. And remember, we only count those who are not already veg or vegan. This is amazing! We can't get to this many people without your support. Thanks! And now we are thinking of a one-week veg pledge. We might invite people to do that at the Sustainable Living Fair.

On a personal note, I am incredibly grateful for all of the support of this blog and all of the feedback, emails, connections, tweets, re tweets, Facebook postings, etc, that all of you have put out there in support of us! Thank you!

Until next time.