Huge Ass Vida Vegan Con 2015 Recap

Oh Vida Vegan Con, what a whirlwind of wonderful you were. I literally could not have been more excited when the VVC crew announced that the con was moving from Portland to one of my favourite cities in the world, Austin, TX. Hell yeah! Any excuse to come back right?! The SE Asia - USA - Europe route around the world has to be one of the more ridiculous ones ever but it has been beyond worth it to be able to take part not only in VVC but also in the warm hug that is Austin's vegan community. I love it here and right now it feels more like home than, well, home. (Note: Jeeze, I knew that I wouldn't be able to write this post without crying!)

Unoficially Vida Vegan Con began on Thursday night with a meet and greet at Buzzmill Coffee. Sweet Ritual were in attendance, Golden Spike Railcart were cranking out tacos and egg rolls and the sun was shining - it was fun and kinda overwhelming and I enjoyed hanging out by the name tag station meeting (and greeting!) everyone as they arrived.

The official conference fun kicked off with the Vida Vegan Con Bazaar at the Marchesa Hall and Theatre which was the most perfect venue ever. Everything fitted in so perfectly; there was ample parking, space for not just one but four food trucks including Arlo's, The Vegan Nom and Cool Beans, a huge theatre for talks and demos and plenty of room for all of the fantastic vendors and all of that with space to breathe!

After diving into the exclusive attendee only Miyoko's Kitchen Cheese Hour (I think all events should start with an exclusive vegan cheese hour btw) I hopped behind the speaker table with crackers in one hand and cheese in the other to sell some copies of my zine, European Vegan. That didn't last for long though because there was just so much to do (and eat!) and staying rooted to one spot was impossible!

I attended the parenting panel with Sayward Rebhal of Bonzai Aphrodite, The Sexy Vegan aka Brian Patton, Monique Koch of Brown Vegan and moderator Joanna Vaught because despite having no intentions of becoming a parent I am endlessly fascinated by people and what great people these are. It was really interesting and I think I definitely learnt some useful stuff even as a non-parent, hearing about people's life experiences is always interesting! Also, Joanna is endlessly hilarious and awesome so of course she was brilliant. The next panel that even the lure of tacos couldn't keep me away from was the How We Made Austin Awesome panel starring the man behind some of my favourite tacos, Chris Rios, Kristen Davenport of Capital City Bakery, Rabbit Food Grocery's Jessica Morris, Molly Frisinger of Lone Star Plate / Texas Veg Fest Fame and moderator Stefanie Bogdanich aka Lazy Smurf.

They started out wonderfully with this ridiculously catchy song (that apparently now makes me quite emotional!) and it just continued to be awesome from there on in.

The next morning it was time for registration and swag bag collection and I was immediately drawn to this section of the coffee stand where some genius decided that mini-marshmallows are now an appropriate breakfast item. They were meant for topping off your coffee but as a non coffee drinker I just threw a handful of Dandies mallows into a mug and went on my way!

The swag bag is an important part of VVC and despite being part of team swag bag (we spent hours stuffing these things!) I was still excited to have one of my very own. So excited in fact that I only managed to snap this Instagram ready snapshot that I was then too excited to post! Ridiculous!

My excitement levels weren't set to drop anytime soon because what came next was breakfast and woah what a breakfast it was! There were two buffets to choose from, a breakfast taco buffet, it is Austin y'all, and an artisan toast buffet. I'd been eating my way through Austin's tacos for a couple of weeks by this point and the toast options looked too good to pass up so I dived right in. I had toast with cheese spread, toast with avocado and coconut bacon, toast topped with tofu scramble, toast with Chao on the side. Toast toast toast toast toast. I love toast!

After breakfast, and a quick break to pop the Swag Bag of Wonder in the car, it was time for some learnin' and I headed straight for Jackie Sobon from Vegan Yack Attack's class on Blogging Etiquette and Social Media Essentials where I learnt about how to expand the reach of my blog and the tools I can use to make that easier. It was a really helpful class and now I just need to find the time to read my notes and action all of the the things I learnt!

Vida Vegan Con's speaker line up this year was stellar and making decisions about where to go and what to see was hard. I felt like I had tough decisions to make for every class which is why I was overjoyed at the amount of people that chose to come to the Feminism and Veganism panel I was speaking on with Anika Lehde, Nicole J. Georges and our wonderful moderator Julia DeNoto.

As you can see feminists are humourless fun ruiners. NOT! We talked about the patriarchy, why Peta are awful and why calling your new food product skinny anything is a horrible idea. We discussed how food and food advertising are gendered and why that's uncool and of course we addressed the fact that we were an all cis white able-bodied panel and how we felt that a lot needs to change in the AR movement to welcome people of colour. We discussed intersectionality and Sistah Vegan and the Food Empowerment Project and why appropriating the #blacklivesmatter tag for your animal rights message is both appropriative and totally inappropriate. It was pretty damned wonderful to be up there with these amazing & inspirational lady people getting this anger making shit off of my chest! 

After the break I went to see Sayward Rebhal talking about Facing Failing Health as a Vegan and as someone who's had recent experience of this I was very interested in hearing what she had to say. It was great to hear someone else's story. After lunch I headed to Room 301 to hear The Vegan RD, Ginny Messina, talking about how to prevent ex-vegans by discussing strategies to help people maximise their success as vegans. I love her no-nonsense, science based attitude to veganism and health and I think that a lot of the blogging world could benefit from concentrating on the realistic benefits and ethics of veganism rather than throwing overblown health claims out there in the hope that they'll lure people towards veganism. 

I rounded out the day with Touring Your Book or Project with fellow veganism and feminism panelist Nicole J Georges and I found her advice both timely and invaluable. As well as inspiring everyone with her stories of taking her show on the road she also spoke about how it doesn't really matter whether you're feeling nervous about public speaking! She said that people don't really want to hear that, they've come to see you perform, in a way, and so telling everyone how nervous you feel doesn't fill your audience with confidence. They've chosen to spend their time seeing you speak so give it your all, whatever that takes. 

Given that my talk (that I was in fact feeling super nervous about) was the very next day this advice couldn't have been more timely. I took her advice and ran with it, every time I had a negative thought about whether I could do it I shut it down with a positive thought (this is something I've been doing when working on body positivity for years) and then I took her advice to get into the zone with your favourite tunes and went right out there as a more confident version of myself. Thanks Nicole! 

Sunday soon rolled around and after another epic breakfast the first talk of the day starred my friend and fellow blogger Randi with her hilarious and informative talk Stop Breaking the Law A$&h#* where we learnt about copyright law, libel and how to run competitions online legally and fairly. Top tip : most of you are doing it wrong and you should definitely read Erika's write up of the class here for a more in depth look at why.

My second stop of the day was the talk From Vegan Blogger to Internet Entrepreneur with Jill Pyle of Vegan Cuts / Vegan Backpacker fame. Now I don't see myself building a business anytime soon but I enjoyed hearing about her journey anyway, it's always fun to hear about other people who are following their dreams even when those dreams differ from yours. Before lunch I popped into Brian Patton's talk Tweet Like You Give a Damn which was funny because Brian's a pretty funny guy! I learnt that I'm mainly doing social media right (in Brian's opinion!) which was nice.

Lunch was soon upon us and it was taco buffet time! They had mac & cheese! Genius!

It turns out that Chef Brad whips up a mac & cheese that is tastier than the sum of it's parts and he was happy to share the recipe with the VVC crew. You can access it right here. Food aside another amazing thing about the shared meals and breaks at VVC is that you're surrounded by amazing people the whole time! People like Amey and Joanna. Love!

I managed to squeeze in my friend Josh's talk about apps and a little of Whitney Lauritsen's YouTube workshop before high tailing it outa there to prepare for my own talk, Adventures in Vegan Travel Blogging. 

Photo Credit Lazy Smurf

Erika from Sews Before Bros wrote a fantastic round up of the talk here so check that out if you're interested in my adventures and tips on travel blogging. Personally I thought the talk went fantastically and I've had some incredibly lovely feedback from some of the attendees. It was the first time I've ever felt comfortable speaking to a room full of people which proves that the fake it 'til ya make it approach will get you there in the end! 

The closing party at queer friendly downtown patio bar Cheer Up Charlie's was a whole lotta fun and it was great to relax and wind down with a cocktail and a whole lotta food after such a hectic weekend. Arlo's, the food truck with the best burgers in town, is parked outside Cheer Up Charlie's so of course I needed to eat one, Thai Fresh were also there with a delicious spread of desserts including ice creams and croissants. A basket of vegan croissants has to be one of the most beautiful things in the world right?

I was also super pleased to see Bistro Vonish making an appearance especially because they had mac & cheese kolaches! Kolaches! Filled with mac & cheese. It was like all of my dreams became a delicious reality! 

As if this evening couldn't get better the winners of the Red Hot Vegans Scavenger Hunt were announced and I won!! And my pal Amey came second! Hell yeah! We were both incredibly overexcited that our commitment to taking ridiculous photos all weekend and collaborating with each other and even going off together to take some of the more challenging pictures (two stepping to a live band anyone?!) had paid off. The excellent prizes (and maybe just a little smidgen of competitiveness) were what drove me to complete every single task thrown our way and I was ecstatic when Amey suggested the very thing that I was already thinking - splitting the prizes - so that we both took away $100 to spend at Rabbit Food Grocery and $50 to spend at Lugusta's Luscious. Yum!

I made a fun video of our Rabbit Food Grocery shopping spree which you can check out right here on my new You Tube channel.

Food and classes aside one of the most amazing things about Vida Vegan Con is the people, we make so many great connections online these days but it's often challenging to turn those online friendships into real life ones especially when those people, like Susan, live on the other side of the world!

I loved being surrounded by so many fun, inspiring and compassionate people and I can't wait to see you all again - I'll have you regretting inviting me to stay "whenever" pretty soon I'm sure! 

I'm not ashamed to admit that I've cried my eyes out on more than one occasion when I've been reminded that this was that last EVER Vida Vegan Con. It seems to me like VVC was flourishing and growing and becoming even more amazing and whilst I totally understand why Jess, Janessa and Michelle need a break from the sheer amount of work needed to put the conference together I can't help but feel that I (somewhat selfishly) wish it could go on. You really can't beat spending a weekend immersed in a supportive and enlivening vegan bubble surrounded by your friends from all over the world and I can't wait to see what pops up to replace it. Heck, maybe I'll come up with something, but for now I'm going to continue to immerse myself in my notes and let my brain process all of it's new knowledge!

VeganMoFo's Heading Our Way Fast!

Vegan MoFo is always one of the highlights of my year. I love being a part of the online vegan community so bloggers getting together to flood the internet with pictures of amazing vegan food, inventive new recipes and stories of their every day lives for a whole month is right up my street. I also love the challenge of blogging every day becuase it forces me to come up with more creative ideas and it's also the only time I ever show you what I cook and eat at home which is super fun. I also love seeing what other people come up with, their themes, the glimpse into people's day to day lives, the challenges people choose to embark upon. It's like everything I love about blogging but amped up a notch. For the last few years I've been part of the official VeganMoFo team, I help with round ups and organise giveaways and I love it. If you're still on the fence about signing up what are you waiting for? You only have until tomorrow evening so get on it, the sign up form is here.

This year rather than doing daily or weekly themes I'm doing one all encompassing theme for the first time ever. I even drew a swanky (haha) logo. Don't laugh!

That's right, for the whole month of September I'll be focussing on two of my favourite things, cheese and chocolate. These were also two of the things I thought I'd find difficult to give up before I went vegan years ago. How wrong was I?! We have so many amazing options now that being vegan's a cinch. I'll be incorporating one of my favourite weekly themes, Mac & Cheese Monday into the month and the reason it's international? I'm heading back to Austin on Thursday! I can't wait to hang out with friends, re-visit Sweet Ritual, Capital City Bakery and Bouldin Creek Cafe and you bet I'll be spending plenty of time cooling off in the water at Barton Springs. You can expect to see amazing cheeseburgers, pizzas and reviews of American cheese and chocolate on the blog during MoFo as well as reviews of my favourite European goodies.

You know what else is exciting about Austin? It's the location for Vida Vegan Con III! I'm so excited that they chose my favourite American city to host their wonderful conference because it gives me an excuse to go back there again next year. I also recently found out that I was accepted to speak at the conference and I could not be more excited. I literally squeaked and jumped up and down when I got the acceptance e-mail!

It's a total dream come true and it feels amazing to have been chosen from what was blatantly a super strong group of applicants. I can't wait to see who else is speaking and I hope that I can hang out with some of you there. If you haven't bought your ticket yet maybe my blog post about 2013's conference will be the thing to convince you? It was such an amazing whirlwind of a weekend. I came home so inspired and I'm really looking forward to getting to work on the session I'll be running. More info on that later in the year!

See you Monday for the start of MoFo!

Vida Vegan Con 2013

Hey y'all! I'm back in Brighton! I had an amazing time travelling around the Pacific Northwest, I was away for almost a month and whilst I was there I was lucky enough to attend Vida Vegan Con in Portland! I know! So exciting! I'd been dreaming of going to this vegan bloggers conference since I first heard about it's inception back in 2011 and it was everything I'd imagined and more.

The weekend kicked off with an Unofficial Meet & Greet at local vegan friendly bar White Owl Social Club. It was fun but kinda overwhelming to meet so many bloggers in one go hence the lack of photos, I was far to busy talking to everyone and cramming the mac 'n cheese burger into ma mouth!

Yup, the mac 'n cheese IS the burger. This carb on carb meal with a side of carbs was one of my Portland fave's but I would perhaps suggest that eating it three times in one week like I did could be a bit much. If you can eat it four times in a week I'll hand over my Carb Queen crown!

The next morning everyone was up bright and early to grab their Swag Bags...I was too excited to photograph the whole thing but it was epic, like, almost the same size as my suitcase epic! My first class of the day was Food Styling with Hannah Kaminsky where she showed us amongst other things how to turn this messy looking Whole Foods takeout Pad Thai into a beautifully plated meal. This was amazing to watch and I'll certainly be trying this next time I grab some takeout from Street Diner or Iydea.

Continuing the photography theme one of my favourite classes of the weekend was Isa's iPhone photography class. Isa is totally hilarious and the class was was super practical (we could follow along using the app's on our phones) and helpful, there were tips on everything from taking the photos to styling (swatches!) and editing.

I don't actually own a camera, I take all of my photos with an iPhone so this was the perfect class for me.

Erika from Sews Before Bros wrote some really in depth write ups of the classes she attended so follow the class name links below for the full scoop on some of my favourite classes.

One of the most enjoyable classes I attended was the Vegan MoFo Workshop with Amey, Kittee and Mo, these gals are super funny and it's no secret that MoFo is one of my favourite times of year. There were some great tips for both MoFo veterans and for newbies to the crazy month long blogging event.

I started looking forward to Restaurant Reviews with Authority with Grant Butler as soon as the agenda was announced. Grant writes restaurant reviews for both The Oregonian and MIX magazine and as a blogger who mainly writes restaurant reviews I was excited to learn some new things and to see where I'd been going right or wrong. Thankfully I haven't been making any massive faux pas and his class gave me some great tools to deal with how to write about places I don't love immediately.

The Making of a Zine: From Concept to Distribution with Amey, Joanna and Kittee was one of the most inspiring workshops for me.  I love zines and I have a pretty decent collection including zines written by all of the members of the panel. I've wanted to write a zine of my own for ages and this really gave me practical tips about how to get started. Amey even has a great DIY zine making how-to on her blog.

I also really loved listening to Jasmin Singer and Mariann Sullivan from Our Hen House discussing how to expand your message to include animal rights and the Body Image Acceptance and Veganism panel actually made me cry. I loved everyones honesty and bravery in the face of such a tough topic.

The Portland Breakfast Showcase had to be the foodie highlight of the weekend for me. There were so many amazing options and I did my best to try them all! It was served on a first come first served basis so I made sure I was first in line for Sizzle Pie's brunch pizza. I went for the Drugs Benedict which is topped with a white bean & shallot spread, cheesy tofu scramble, bacon bits, hashbrowns & green onions.

I definitely made the right choice here and I even got a bonus slice for being first in line! I fully believe that pizza is the breakfast of champions (I even have a badge to prove it!) and this one even had ranch for dipping.

Obviously I couldn't only try one option at a breakfast showcase, I also tried all of these. Clockwise from the top left, the Meatloaf Benedict from A.N.D Cafe, Tempeh Bacon Quiche from Back to Eden (I have more to write about Back to Eden - it might be one of my favourite places ever), Chocolate and Lemon Doughnut halves from Cinnamon PDX, and Summer Vegetable Panissa from Portobello.

Alongside the meet & greet, the classes, and the breakfast showcase the Galarama was one of my favourite parts of the weekend. I put on a dress and make up and made a beeline for the food!

The first thing I headed towards was the So Delicious ice cream bar. I'm pretty into ice cream, especially if it's chocolate, but my main reason was that I'd heard there were brownies from Capital City Bakery in Austin - these are my favourite brownies in the whole wide world and this little sundae was perfect.

There were also two food trucks at the galarama, Tandem Treats and Taco Pedaler as well as trays of cheese made by Miyoko Schinner from Artisan Vegan Life. It was a tough decision but I couldn't resist a Tandem Treats dawg topped with sauerkraut, onions and a classic mustard / ketchup combo.

I did actually manage to take some pictures of people at this event, not many but I tried.

L-R Mandee AKA Cupcake Kitteh, Randi, Me.

L-R Paul, A Chimp, Lisa AKA PandaWithCookie.

L-R Stephanie AKA Lazy Smurf, Me.

Sunday's non-class highlight had to be the Vegan Battle Royale and Ice Cream Social. I kept score for one of the teams in the Battle Royale and I certainly made the most of the ice cream social! These almond milk based Mocha Almond Fudge mini bars from So Delicious were the best ice cream bars I've ever eaten. I really, really wish we could get them in the UK. Sort it out So Delicious!

As you can probably tell I really, really loved Vida Vegan Con. I learnt so much and I met and hung out with so many positive, inspiring and all-round awesome people, there are far too many of you to name - you know who you are! Thank you for making VVC so rad!

Whilst I was having all of the fun at Vida Vegan Con I was also thinking about my blog readers who couldn't attend. I really, really wish that everyone from the vegan blogging community could have been there! In an attempt to spread the VVC love I started collecting things for a giveaway because, let's be honest, the pictures of the Swag Bags all over Instagram and Twitter were probably making you pretty jealous! It's also my birthday really soon (less than a week, so excited!) so I bought you some presents and threw them in there too!

All you need to do to win this Peanut Butter & Co tote stuffed full of all of the goodies pictured below is to leave me a comment telling me which class on the VVC agenda you'd have been most excited to attend.

This goodie bag contains a jar of Booda Butter Organic Moisturiser, a Booda Butter lip balm, a Hurraw  almond lip balm, Amey's Unofficial VVC Cookbooklet, a Vegan Dish keychain, a Field Roast t-shirt, stickers, a bag the new of Earth Balance Pops, two Peanut Butter Cookie Luna bars, a Go Max Go Thumbs Up bar, an Eli's Earth Dream Big Bar, a Chocolove Almonds & Sea Salt bar, Tofurky jerky, sample size packs of Nacheez, Dandies, Simply Hemp Milk, Surf Sweets and a whole lotta PB sachets from PB & Co, Artisana and Earth Balance. 

The competition is open to anyone living in Europe who didn't attend Vida Vegan Con. The competition closes on Monday June 17th. Don't forget to leave me some kind of contact details and good luck!

The competition is now closed. The winner, who I picked at random, is SarahByng! Congrat's Sarah! I'll be getting in touch with ya soon.

I also wanted to mention that I'm currently up for the Best Blogger award in the UK's Veg Fest Awards! If you haven't voted yet I'd love it if you'd consider voting for me, here's a link so that you can check it out if you want to.

Portlanding.

It's almost Vida Vegan Con time and I'm in Portland already. I've been having a rad time so far, here are some of the things I already love about Portland...

Food Carts! 

Goats - this was very much a right place right time kinda deal! 

This was just about the best thing that's ever happened! 

 Eating ice cream that one day the sun came out!

Chocolate Soft Serve with Salted Caramel Sauce from Back to Eden.

Bars that serve s'mores and awesome PPKers to share them with!

Obviously I will be blogging about all of this in waaay more detail soon but right now there are more PPKers to meet, fun times to be had and, obviously, I need to eat some more. See ya'll soon!

Back in Brighton

Since I last blogged I've been on two seriously amazing trips, in May me & Nick flew to New York City, spent a few days there and then road tripped to Chicago via a whole load of other cool places. I was desperate to talk about this on the blog and on Twitter before we went but because of Nicks (now diminishing!) fear of flying we had to keep it on the DL incase my excitement freaked him out! In June we went to Millencolin Fest in Örebro, Sweden to see one of my favourite bands and then we spent a few days in Stockholm eating & sightseeing. Both trips were amazing and they are also the only times I've seen sun this summer! England is failing pretty epically at summer this year and we've pretty much just had constant rain, flooding, and more rain.

I have done some cool stuff since I've been back though including trying to eat all of Redwood Foods new products! They brought out frozen pizzas...

...which come in three flavours, Cheezly & Tomato (my favourite), Ham Style & Pineapple and Meatless Feast (Nicks Favourite). I've been eating my Cheezly & Tomato pizzas with added Yves Bologna, my new favourite American mock meat product. These pizzas are pretty small but I quite like that, it means I can justify eating them more often and they fit in my overstuffed freezer much easier than a huge pizza would! They remind me of the kind of crap supermarket pizzas I lived of as a 17 year old and they make a good, lazy, can't be bothered to cook, meal.

Whilst the pizzas are awesome I think the star of Redwood Foods new product range is their pack of two Gourmet Fish Style Steaks.

Nick cooked these for dinner one night when we were craving fish & chips and they were just perfect. I've never eaten anything veggie that so closely resembles fish before. The light crispy crumb coating is perfect even when the steaks are cooked in the oven and the fish inside is perfectly tender and actually kinda falls apart in flakes. These are melt in your mouth delicious and if you haven't yet you should run, not walk, run, to your nearest health food store and buy at least two packs of these.

Whilst I do love to travel I also love Brighton. I always feel sad towards the end of any trip because I don't want the fun to end but knowing that I get to come back to Brighton makes that feeling go away a little quicker than I think it would if I lived somewhere else. Since I've been back I've enjoyed sitting on the beach at dusk...

...eating Boho Gelato (this is my latest favourite flavour, Hazelnut Coffee)...

...catching a midnight screening of Ghost World, seeing some rad shows (Dan Andriano & Brendan Kelly at The Albert, Lightyear at The Haunt and Less Than Jake at The Concorde) and trying out the awesome new vegan food at the Churchill Square Market.

The Churchill Square Market on a Wednesday is probably the closest thing Brighton has to a Farmers Market and it's recently gotten a whole lot more vegan friendly thanks to the wonderful couple running Yum Tum Sushi.

Josh & Rose, the brains behind Yum Tum, make healthy, homemade sushi with flavours sure to tantalise your tastebuds. You can buy either individual pieces of sushi for 50p - 70p or a sushi lunchbox for £4.50.

Yum Tum Sushi are almost entirely vegan, they currently have one clearly labelled non-vegan item which will shortly be getting veganised as they're planning to replace the egg with a tofu/agar mixture. Yay!

I decided to go for the lunchbox so that I could try a bit of everything.

The lunchbox was a great choice and the guys behind Yum Tum sure aren't wrong when they say that they're offering a whole new sushi experience. I love their wakame seaweed salad with pickled cucumber and miso, it's seriously delicious & I think I could probably just eat a whole box of it for lunch every day quite happily! The beetroot, basil and black pepper maki roll with a cashew crumble was perfect both in taste and texture but my favourite roll was probably their butternut squash, tarragon and orange powder maki. Their wasn't a poorly chosen flavour combo in the whole box but I have to say that however hard I try I'll never be the biggest fan of sweet bean paste!

I'll definitely be grabbing lunch from Yum Tum Sushi in the future and you should too.

I was already pretty happy to have discovered a new vegan option in Brighton so imagine my delight when I spotted this sign in front of the stall next door.

A Taste of Dreams are an organic cake company from Glynde in East Sussex and last Wednesday they had two vegan cakes to choose from. A Toffee Apple slice...

... and an Apple & Maple cake.

I went for the Toffee Apple slice and it was delicious, it was gooey,sticky and sweet with a nice crunch from the nutty topping. I will definitely be checking out the Taste of Dreams stall at the market again, especially at those prices!

In other good Brighton based news, Infinity Foods now have Jokerz bars back in stock alongside the Cleo's!

And in other good Jojo based news I'm going to Vida Vegan Con 2013!!

I am seriously SO freaking happy! I wish it was tomorrow! I've had 'Visit Portland' on my 30 before 30 list since 2009 and as the big 3-0 is coming up next June this seemed like the perfect opportunity. I can't wait to see old friends, to meet the many wonderful bloggers I've 'known' for years but never met and to meet new awesome people. I'm also excited about waffle sandwiches, workshops, Homegrown Smoker and midnight Voodoo Donuts. I think Portland might just be the place my dreams are made of!

Obviously I have a LOT of travel posts to write & get up on the blog soon, from fun times with friends in Barcelona to epic New York City eats and more so I'll be seeing you real soon!