World Fest

This past Sunday was World Fest. I am untimely with this post because I worked two 12 hour days of teaching right after World Fest and I didn't get a chance to update. So here is my belated World Fest report.
Having never been to World Fest before, I was pretty impressed. I hadn't been to a festival before where I could pretty much eat anything, so that was a major plus. It also gave me an opportunity to talk to vendors about my wedding cake.
I talked to the Luscious Organic Desserts people, who have very reasonable prices and I may be having a cake consultation with them in the near future, which will be shared on this blog...I also shared a bag of two cookie dough bonbons with Mike. Alas, I forgot to take a picture. Let me assure you, they were everything you could want in a bonbon and more. That it is why there is no picture; they just sort of fell into my mouth.
There were a lot of food booths that looked really delicious. Lots of Indian food, The Vegan Joint, my dear friends at One World Veggie, two Italian places (one was called Vegan Heights. They had samples of lasagna that were amazing), and a couple supplements. One was Hail Merry Raw Foods and I sample two macaroon cookies, chocolate and coconut. Both were pretty good, but a little dry.
There were also lots of booths there. Some were what you'd expect: a lot of nice PETA people, Arm the Animals, Compassion Over Killing, Herbivore (!), various rescue association (I felt bad I have no room for more kitties) etc. There were also ones I didn't expect, like the Christian Vegetarian Association, of which I am now a member. There were also a lot of clothing booths, and people selling, for lack of a better word, hippie stuff. I sat through seven minutes of "healing light" as part of a demonstration of how light can heal. I felt lightheaded afterwards but I'm not sure if it healed me. They were very nice, however, and gave us free canteloupe and cucumber seeds.
Back to food. Mikey waited in the longest line there for the Vegan Barbecue. Specifically, he wanted the fried shrimp. While he did this, I wandered over to Rawsheed's. The Pasadena locale is closed, but Rawsheed said he's opening a new one in Sherman Oaks. I had the chicken salad, made from jackfruit:

It was decent. A little bland. There was a lot of vegenaise or something like it involved, but it was good. I'm still getting used to jackfruit. Since it mimics the texture and look of shredded meat so well, it sets off the warning system in my head for meat, which has developed over many years of restaurants "accidentally" getting a piece of meat in there.
Mike was still in line, so I went to Follow Your Heart's booth and got tempeh tacos:

These tacos were amazing. Whatever they use in their tempeh is really good and flavorful. I usually don't care for FYH cheese either, but it went really well with this taco. Maybe it's fresher than in the stores and that had something to do with it. The beans and rice were also good. The blac beans weren't bland they way other restaurants (nameless) cook them.
Next to them is Cas Cal fermented juice. We got two bottles free at the door. It tasted like beer, and I think beer is gross, so Mikey had both. If you like beer, this is the apple juice for you.
Meanwhile, Mike was still in line. Eventually, he got to order. The Vegan Barbecue is based in San Diego, with no restaurant location. Mike got the fried shrimp. They were out of fries, so he got macaroni instead:

I found both items to be disgusting. The shrimp was the VEGE shrimp brand, covered in tapioca based batter. It was really gross. The consistency was weird and it had a horrible aftertaste. The macaroni was noodles with some shredded Daiya thrown over them. It was really lazy macaroni. Totally not worth the wait. I thought maybe I didn't like the shrimp because I've never had shrimp, but Mike, who used to love shrimp, assured me that it was gross. I have since promised to come up with my own fried shrimp for him.
Next was dessert. I got two scoop of So Delicious mint chocolate chip, with chocolate sauce:

Delicious, as always.
Mike got a Peanut Butter and Jelly cupcake from JAM Vegan Bakery, who we are also in talks with for wedding treats:

It was just like eating a PB&J but more yummy. I have no idea how they got the jelly on the inside, but it was there! Very good. I'm going to track them down again and try more.
And that was World Fest. I can't wait until next year!

Allison's Gourmet

Hello! For those of you who didn't know, I won Allison's Gourmet Easter Scavenger Hunt! right after I complained about how I never win anything! It's like the universe said "in your face, Jennifer!" in a good way. Anyway, I thought I'd review it, seeing as how I've never had any product from Allison's before.

As you can see, the fudge came in a lovely box...I kind of didn't want to ruin it, but there was FUDGE inside!

Here is what the inside looked like:


I cut and shared the fudge with everyone in my family. Everyone agreed it was delicious. It was the Java Crunch Flavor, and it was basic chocolate fudge with coffee powder sprinkled on top. I personally am not a fan of coffee at all, and even I liked it (although I liked the bits without the coffee better). The texture was smooth, creamy and the right kind of soft. I only had two bites because I'm doing P90X and I have a wedding to look good for. I think my mom and sister had one or two as well. My fiance, who is a choco fiend, had four. My father is the King of the Choco Fiends and he had the entire box, minus our pieces. He recently went vegan, so I was happy to make the concession to him.
In the future, when I am too lazy to make my own fudge, I will definitely be buying from Allison's. Since Father's Day is coming up, I think I may have to order some more chocolate products!