James McAvoy is Fine, but Cyrano is Bloated & Exhaustingby Randi / February 10, 2022I think we all need something wonderful to look forward to! With impeccable timing comes the 2nd Annual Vegan Family Reunion, the brainchild of host Rooted Vegan Cuisine of San Antonio, Texas. This special occasion is THIS WEEKEND, Sunday March 6, and promises to be an epic day of food, fun, festivities, and community building. Featuring more than 30 Black-Owned small businesses and artists, the event will benefit local nonprofits and support local charities, including the Black Birth Fund.
San Antonio’s Rooted Vegan Cuisine, once a pop-up vegan restaurant and now a maker of incredible frozen vegan foods, hosts the Vegan Family Reunion for the second year. From 12-5pm on Sunday, the pop-up market and party at the San Antonio Food Bank will convene more than 30 Black-owned and vegan small businesses, artists, entertainers, and more to celebrate “food, fun, and Black excellence!”
The event celebrates the intersection of Black equality and veganism, raising funds that will pour back into the local Black community through small businesses, artists, and charities. It will do all this while highlighting the importance and benefits of veganism and its direct impact on the Black community.
WHAT YOU’LL FIND
- VEGAN FOOD
- PRO CHEF DEMOS
- MUSIC
- LIVE DJ
- VEGAN RAPPER GREY
- DANCING
- PONIESSSSS (from Ponycycle)
- HAYRIDES
- LIVE ART PRESENTATIONS
- PET ADOPTIONS!!!
- BOUNCY HOUSES (YESSSS)
- NUTRITION SEMINAR
- VEGAN BEAUTY & HAIR DEMOS
- MINI SKATEBOARD PARK
Did I mention it’s free to attend? It’s free to attend! But please RSVP in advance so they can anticipate the crowd size. Book your space here and register either for your free space, or with a donation (omg you’re so awesome!), or as a VIC (Very Important Charity). More ways to contribute – including from afar! – are listed further down.
I must take this time, before I forget, to tell you that there will be two bounce houses – one for kids and one just for adults. LITERALLY THE DREAM.
The strength of a local community is so important, and that’s clearer now more than ever. So many different businesses, organizations, and various community members are coming together to make this happen. Host Naomi of Rooted Vegan Cuisine said the list of participants and supporters is “incredible and humbling”.
She also said she’s bringing to-go containers to make sure she doesn’t miss any of the amazing food…so…follow her lead!
Some of the food vendors expected to blow your minds on Sunday include: Wheatsville (I know, one of our faves!), Vegan Sushi Spot, Alamo City Cakes, The Vegancy, Chef Cidney, and Bake Love. Non-food amazingness includes Art by Sheri, Gardopia Gardens, Tracy J Jewelry, and Ionic Soul Spa. I MEAN. COME ON!
There’s a whole packed schedule for the day too, with kitchen demos, nutrition and fertility seminars, and musical entertainment. It promises to be an incredible day!
We’re all aware of how exponentially veganism has increased in recent years, and a large part of that is due to Black activists, who have been promoting veganism even back to the Civil Rights Movement of the ’60s. And African-Americans compose the fastest-growing vegan demographic. This event aims to respect and acknowledge these facts while cementing the connection between veganism and Black activism, especially on the community level.
Proceeds from the event will benefit the Black Birth Fund, created by the San Antonio Nurse Midwife Birth & Wellness center. The team said they learned of this organization through one of the Vegan Family Reunion committee members, who was herself a recipient of assistance from the Fund when she gave birth. This chance to give back to the fund that helped their teammate so greatly makes this event all the more special, they said.
Vegan Family Reunion has also teamed up with Black Restaurant Week San Antonio to raise money for the San Antonio Food Bank via donations and other funds raised. Attending the event is free, but guests are encouraged to buy t-shirts, buy raffle tickets (see below), and donate whatever they want to raise funds for these worthy organizations.
They are going even further this year in making the space accessible and inviting for so many types of attendees: There will be maternity lounges with doulas for expecting and new parents. There will will a special needs sensory retreat, with trained assistants, for people who need a break from the hubbub. There will be a sign language interpreter, and a toddler soft play area. The level of care is off the charts here. And there will also be a Zero Waste initiative, with the team measuring how much waste is saved from going into landfills.
HOW TO SUPPORT THE EVENT IF YOU AREN’T IN TEXAS
I’m sure many of you are, like me, watching and wishing from afar that we could attend. While we cannot eat its amazing food (or jump in the bouncy house) remotely, we can support it by doing the following:
- Spreading the word – on social media, use the hashtag #veganfamilyreunion and tag @veganfamilyreunion
- Buy raffle tickets – even if we cannot collect or use certain prizes, think of it as a donation, with the money going to truly worthwhile beneficiaries
- Or, Buy tickets to the event as a donation
- Buy the official tee shirt HERE
- Support Rooted Vegan Cuisine – their frozen vegan goodies are available to ship in the USA nationwide (someone please work on getting this to the UK!)
Whatever you can do to support this wonderful event is great, and let’s hope that we can be in San Antonio in person next year!
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Purfit Protein Powder Review, Plus My Favorite Green Smoothie Recipe!
The very generous people over at Purfit gave me a huge container of their chocolate Meal Replacement Shake to try, and I must say I really like it. I have been obsessed with Sunwarrior Raw Chocolate protein powder for a few years now, but Purfit has posed a surprisingly successful contender. I would definitely buy this in the future.
For each serving of 37g (or a ‘scoop’, but my container didn’t include a scoop so I used the Sunwarrior one), you get 140 calories, 5g fat, and 14g protein, plus at least 100% of your daily vitamin A, C, B6, B12, and other vitamins. The chocolate taste is the best I’ve found in any protein powder, from Sunwarrior to Vega to Plantfusion. It’s a little chalky, as they all are, but it tastes the most like chocolate milk and not like chocolate-flavored protein. So that’s good!
For each serving of 37g (or a ‘scoop’, but my container didn’t include a scoop so I used the Sunwarrior one), you get 140 calories, 5g fat, and 14g protein, plus at least 100% of your daily vitamin A, C, B6, B12, and other vitamins. The chocolate taste is the best I’ve found in any protein powder, from Sunwarrior to Vega to Plantfusion. It’s a little chalky, as they all are, but it tastes the most like chocolate milk and not like chocolate-flavored protein. So that’s good!
I tried Purfit in several forms in order to get a complete picture. First, I tried Purfit’s recommended recipe of “Chocolate Twist”, which is the powder mixed with water and a tiny bit of vanilla extract. I just blended the following ingredients in a small blender.
CHOCOLATE TWIST
- 1 serving Purfit
- 1 cup water
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
This simple recipe is what sold me on the product. I never drink protein powder straight with water; I always add it to my morning smoothies. The thought of having other powders plain grosses me out. But this tasted like chocolate milk! I was shocked, and delighted. I’ll definitely be getting Purfit out when I want a chocolate milk fix.
Next, I tried it in my favorite green smoothie recipe instead of my usual Sunwarrior protein. My secret to green smoothies is to freeze all of the components, including the greens. Frozen greens blend and disintegrate more easily. Freezing is made simpler with prewashed and bagged greens, like the ones from Trader Joe’s. This is roughly what I do:
MY FAVORITE GREEN SMOOTHIE
- 2 cups frozen kale (squish it into the blender with your hands and you can fit more)
- 1 cup frozen rainbow chard
- 1 cup frozen spinach
- 1/2 cup frozen collards
- 1 frozen banana
- 1/2 cup frozen mixed berries
- 1/2 cup frozen pineapple
- 1 scoop chocolate protein powder
Fill the blender with water first, about 2 cups. Blend until really really smooth. It makes a ton, so I like to freeze the extras in single-serve Mason jars to take to work on days I have less time.
My favorite smoothie was just as great with Purfit. The chocolate was a bit more pronounced but I like that. The strange thing was, I felt way fuller much later in the day than I normally do. I was barely hungry for dinner after having this for my first meal. I don’t necessarily like that, but for those of you who need help staying full between meals, I recommend giving this a try!
Lastly, I tried to make my standard Vitamix ice cream/water ice with Purfit taking the place of some of the cocoa powder. A high-speed blender is necessary for this recipe, I’m sorry to say!
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CHOCOLATE PEANUT BUTTER ICE CREAM
Ingredients:
Directions:
Normally the consistency of water ice, this recipe turned out much creamier this time, and I have to attribute that to the Purfit. Shocking! I love the idea of sneaking protein powder into ice cream. Since the taste didn’t seem different, there’s really no reason not to add it in if you need more protein. 
The finished product from a bird’s eye view 
YUM! |
All loaded up and ready to go! 
If you have access to this peanut butter, I highly suggest using it for everything you can possible think of, except toothpaste. 
The easiest, fastest ice cream ever |
Thank you so much to the people of Purfit for letting me try your product. I am so excited to say that I honestly enjoyed it and am looking forward to adding it to my regular lineup of protein powders. I hope you readers enjoy my recipes and enjoy Purfit if you decide to buy it!
Final Meal of 2014: Excellent Food & Great Value at Manna, London
Thank goodness for Manna! It is, to be extremely lame and dorky, from heaven. For the most part.
Although England is where veganism was formed, where the Vegan Society was founded, and where like everyone cool wants to live, its biggest city is kind of weak when it comes to vegan food. It’s easy to be vegetarian here — restaurants still think it’s necessary to mark options that are ‘vegetarian’ instead of marking the much more necessary ‘vegan’ (seriously, you can tell from descriptions and names what is vegetarian, without fail). But, while there are many wonderful vegan options at omni restaurants, wonderful all-vegan restaurants are few and far between.
Despite the dearth, the all-vegan Manna, in Primrose Hill, London, would still be the best we have to offer even if tons of vegan restaurants existed here. The food is fantastic, mainly comfort food in large portions. So freaking good. And aside from a few service issues aaaaand a few kitchen hygiene issues (we’ll get there), there’s little else to complain about.
Although England is where veganism was formed, where the Vegan Society was founded, and where like everyone cool wants to live, its biggest city is kind of weak when it comes to vegan food. It’s easy to be vegetarian here — restaurants still think it’s necessary to mark options that are ‘vegetarian’ instead of marking the much more necessary ‘vegan’ (seriously, you can tell from descriptions and names what is vegetarian, without fail). But, while there are many wonderful vegan options at omni restaurants, wonderful all-vegan restaurants are few and far between.
Despite the dearth, the all-vegan Manna, in Primrose Hill, London, would still be the best we have to offer even if tons of vegan restaurants existed here. The food is fantastic, mainly comfort food in large portions. So freaking good. And aside from a few service issues aaaaand a few kitchen hygiene issues (we’ll get there), there’s little else to complain about.
Husband and I ate at Manna on New Years Eve, when they offered a special set menu: 7 courses (5 legit, 2 more like extras), aperitifs, wine, coffee and tea, all for £54. That is a freaking steal under normal circumstances (especially on New Years Eve, when restaurants love to gouge you), and here even more so. The portions were enormous. After the canape and the soup, I was pretty happy. And then all the other courses came and mocked me with their size and deliciousness. It was crazy. Let’s look at it!
First, we were asked to choose a complimentary aperitif from the drinks menu. I asked for tap water, and please keep it coming. And then I figured well it’s included, might as well get our moneys worth and have husband finish mine. On the menu was a Calvados, an apple brandy from Normandy, served with apple juice. On our trip to Normandy a few years back, I actually liked Calvados – at least the more apple and/or pear-flavored kinds – and so I ordered that. It tasted like alcohol. But it was better than other alcohols.
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The first food served, the canape, was a buckwheat blini topped with horseradish sour cream, beluga lentils, and beetroot caviar. I imagine that the taste of this bite is what Russians would be referring to whenever they say “this tastes like home.” It was bright and dilly and reminiscent of borscht with cold sour cream on top. So, yeah, Russian. It was pretty good, considering I always think I hate sour cream and dill kinds of things and I liked this.
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“Like it! I could eat 100 of ’em!” |
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Next up was the delicious soup. As you may know, soup is pretty much my favorite thing, and not just because I am good at it. Manna’s offering was celeriac and fennel bisque (hehe bisque) topped with cream and roasted chestnuts. We didn’t get the whole ‘topped with cream’ thing, and we only found a few chestnut pieces when we reached the bottom of the bowl, but the soup was really delicious. It was perfectly salted and wonderfully simple. And it came with two small bread rolls! Yay bread!
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Soup I love soup. |
Big bowls of thick soup are pretty darn filling, but luckily we waited so. damn. long. until our next course came that we were hungry again. The waitstaff was getting confused between where we were in the meal and where the table next to us were. While we both started at about the same point, we were still at this post-soup point when our neighbors were finishing their main! That’s 3 courses away! So messed up! But like I said we did get hungrier so that’s good. And it wasn’t the food’s fault.
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Finally, our ‘starter’ came, the tempeh cabbage rolls with miso sauce. I expected a cold kind of sushi-roll thing, but surprisingly these were warm, hearty rolls, with grilled cabbage holding tempeh and matchstick veggies that tasted like a standard Chinese stir-fry. They were hard to eat with your hands and harder to cut apart nicely with knife and fork, but I really enjoyed them.
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Tempeh and miso are like my favorites |
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The salad, up next, was really lovely, despite the fact that I tend to stray from vinegar-y salads (or ‘bowls of lettuce’, as husband tends to call my unadorned…well…bowls of lettuce). Manna’s salad on offer was a complex mixture of an arugula base (which they call rocket in Europe becauseeee NASA?), roasted squash, sundried tomatoes, kalamata olives, and roasted pepitas in a sherry vinaigrette. Despite the vinegariness, I really enjoyed having an interesting and refreshing salad instead of my usual lettuce bowls. It was really good, especially with the warm squash addition. I used to hate olives but now I absolutely love them. It took a trip to Portugal when olives and bread were all I could eat for a few days. Now I’m all yay olives.
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Warm squash should go in every salad. 
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Next we were given glasses of house organic wine. It tasted like alcohol.
hair today, gone tomorrow
The piece de resistance was next. Our main course was a mushroom stout pie with whole grain mustard champ (mashed potatoes with green onion, weird ass name) and braised kale. A lot of braised kale. And a lot of mash. It was quite the plate. The pie was pretty great, with a fantastic sturdy crust and lots of little mushrooms inside. It was all going swimmingly…and then I saw it. The beginnings of a hair coming out from the middle of the pie. I pulled and it was long and dark — my biggest restaurant fear. See, normally I’m the type of person who would report to waitstaff when there’s a hair or a bug or generally anything wrong. But if it’s a long dark hair, I tend to keep quiet out of the ridiculous fear that someone will say ‘WELL MAYBE IT’S YOURS!’ and I can’t deal with that possibility of someone thinking I’m not telling the truth. It happened first at Blossom in NYC. I was about to say GIMME NEW FOOD but then I had a flashing vision of the waiter saying “Maybe it’s yours?” and me peeing myself in frustration and embarrassment. It’s so messed up, I know. But I can’t help it. No feeling is worse than not being believed and I didn’t want to risk it so I just ate around it and omg I didn’t say anything until now. AHHHHHH. (And no, imaginary people in my head, it’s NOT mine, because unlike the people MAKING my food I always tie my hair back when EATING the food.) Anyway.
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Luckily, dessert was up next. The hair incident made me a little nauseous but it was nothing a change of palette wouldn’t fix. They offered two options: a chocolate orange hazelnut delice or a coconut rice pudding brulee. Obviously, with two people, we got one of each, the only way to do things properly. Both were beyond words. Seriously. Probably the best desserts I’ve had in London so far that I didn’t make myself. The chocolate orange one was like a really thick fudge on top of graham-like crumbles that tasted exactly like a certain cereal from my childhood that I cannot recall, but I know I loved it. The vanilla ice cream on top may have been Swedish Glace but it worked so well with the dish. It was wonderful, as was the rice pudding. I normally require chocolate in my desserts but I actually preferred this one. The bruleed caramelly top was ridiculous and it didn’t even need the mulled cherries it came with. So creamy, so comforting, so delightful. I would love to eat this every day.
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Apparently this was supposed to be like a Jaffa cake, but if you can believe it, I still haven’t had one. 
Delicious rice pudding with a hidden foe. |
When we picked up the gooseberry to split with one bite each, we noticed another unwanted villain in our midst. Another hair! This time small and lighter, hanging off the gooseberry. I mean. This means TWO people are to blame for poor kitchen hygiene. I actually think Manna should be investigated by the board of health now. I mean but the food is so good I can’t really say another worse about them. Like I still want to eat there because it’s the best vegan food in London!
Lastly, we were served coffee (for husband) and tea (fresh mint tea, gorgeous, for me) and – the best part – a plateful of cookies and truffles EACH. One plate would have been more than enough but one each was like the coolest thing ever. Even better, they offered to wrap up the extras (the entire second plate) for us to take home. Win! The cookies were a delightful end to a pretty spectacular meal, foodwise, though it left much to be desired in terms of what goes on behind the scenes.
MANNA, LONDON
Water speed: Poor but eventually gets there, which makes it the greatest water speed in London.
Service: See above. Service in England is notoriously bad. Luckily all the staff is super nice.
Bathrooms: Down the most awful set of stairs ever – seriously, it would be closer to normal if they took out every other step. You have to be very careful. But they are surprisingly nice for basement toilets.
Food: Wonderful comforting vegan food. Just watch out for hairs.
Bonus: Such a great value!
