They make vegan shoes now?!

Featured Presenter – Colleen Patrick-Goudreau

Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, author of The 30-Day Vegan Challenge, The Joy of Vegan Baking, The Vegan Table and Color me Vegan is an exhilarating speaker, powerful writer and talented chef. She is a persuasive advocate whose success can be measured by the thousands of people who lives have been changed by her compassionate message. Patrick Goudreau fosters change whether she is writing, speaking to live audiences, hosting her podcast or producing videos.

Colleen stopped eating land animals after reading Diet for a New America in 1989/1990, but once she read Slaughterhouse by Gail Eisnitz several years later, she had a visceral reaction and immediately “woke up”- immediately “became vegan.” She knew the least she could do was not  contribute to what was so difficult to read about. Every fiber in her body was repulsed by the violence committed against animals by desensitized people. She is not someone who lives in despair, so she started figuring out how she could be part of the solution and becoming vegan was really the first step. Becoming vegan was effortless for her in that being vegan was just a full and outward manifestation of the compassionate person she already was. But, she wanted to do more and so she talked to whomever would listen (including her husband, who became vegan not long after me), and she started leafleting, tabling, and showing slaughterhouse footage on a TV screen in the middle of Berkeley on Friday nights.  She knew that as important as it was to tell people the truth about what was happening to the animals, it was equally important to give them the resources they needed to make the changes they genuinely wanted to make! So, that’s how she started teaching cooking classes and workshops, which led to her cooking DVD, which led to her podcast, which led to her videos, which led to her books,

With so much already on her plate, she tries to spend time with her husband, where they spend their free time travelling, reading, hiking and watching films. She is a huge film junkie and she is very grateful she got David, her husband hooked, too. They have the same taste watch everything from American film noir, Westerns and Italian neorealism to British ‘kitchen sink dramas’ and Japanese samurai films. Hence, why she is so thrilled the Toronto Food Festival coincides with the Toronto Film Festival. David comes with her and they see as many films as they can when she is not at the Veg Food Fest.

If you listen to Colleen’s podcast, you know that she reveals a lot about herself but she does try to keep some mystery. However, the safest thing she could say that was a something many don’t know about her is that she swears like a sailor when she doesn’t wear her professional/public hat. She loves words and some profane words are just delightfully emphatic. But of course, she’d never let a word slip that she didn’t want to slip.

Her first talk, “From Excuse-itarian to Vegan: Addressing the Blocks and Excuses that Keep Us from Making Changes” will be at 1:30 pm on September 8^th at the Studio Theatre. Her second talk, “Being a Joyful Vegan: Experiencing the Benefits of Living Compassionately and Healthfully” will be taking place at 3:00pm on September 9^thin the Studio Theatre.

Featured Exhibitor – Nice Shoes 

Nice shoes is a vegan owned independent business. They carry 100% vegan products as well as a selection of eco-friendly brands. Besides shoes, they sell purses, bags belts, wallets, vegan cookbooks and more!

For Joanne and Glenn, owner of Nice shoes, being vegan for almost 2 decades, they had seen a lot of changes in terms of food availability for vegans. 20 years ago, it was difficult to find simple vegan food products, but now everything is readily available. However, shoes remain one of those things that is just not so easy to obtain. So they decided they would like vegan shoes to be affordably accessible to Canadians and have a retail location in Vancouver as well as offer shipping across Canada for orders over $100.

In their limited spare time, they enjoy spending their evenings with our rescued cats, rabbits and their foster chinchillas!

At the festival, they are excited to meet all vegans, vegetarian and veg-curious people! You can expect to see many sample shoes for the show. They will have accessories like wallets, t-shirts, lip balm & socks for sale. Also, do not forget to stop by the booth to pick up 15% discount cards for veg fest attendees only!

Find Nice Shoes at the festival all weekend long in the Community Marketplace. 

Featured Cooking Demonstrator – Taymer Mason

Taymer Mason grew up in a family of cooks who taught her to make—and love!—traditional Caribbean cuisine. She went vegan in 2006 while an undergraduate at the University of the West Indies and discovered that, far from being limiting, it was an exciting new way to cook her old favorites. Now she writes the popular cooking blog Vegan in the Sun. She lives with her husband and their cat in the French West Indies, but she appreciates the unique culture and cuisine of all the islands—and especially of her birthplace, Barbados.

Outside of cooking, Taymer enjoys painting and writing poetry in her free time. This will be time going to a vegetarian festival she is excited to see all of the manufactures of vegan products, vendors for vegan clothing and shoes in one place.

At the festival, she will showing people what to do with Carribbean root vegetables outside of boiling them and learn some fundaments of West Indian cuisine and the historical aspect of food in that region. Samples of variety modern and traditional recipes like guava bread pudding, cassava pone and homemade pastas.

Join Taymer Mason’s cooking demo, “Caribbean Vegan”, at 2:00 pm in the Lakeside Terrace.

Featured Exhibitor – Di Martino Organic Imports 

Di Martano Organic Imports is an importer/retailer of healthy, certified organic, vegan and vegetarian foods and cosmetics from Italy. The Di Martano’s became vegan as a family almost 6 years ago. They decided to open a vegan business because as new vegans they went on a trip to Italy and were concerned about what they would eat in a country where meat and dairy was the norm. To their surprise, they came to learn that more than 12% of Italians are vegetarian (almost 7,000,000 people and growing). They experienced the most incredibly fantastic, innovative and healthy vegan food of the highest quality and knew then and there they had to share these wonderful products with the Canadian public and that is how Di Martino Organic Imports was born.

This year, at the festival, Di Martino Organic Imports are looking forward to launching new Italian vegan products. They will be highlighting their new Certified Organic, vegan sprouted brown rice mozzerlla and ricotta from Italy, unlike any other vegan cheese on the market of the highest quality and taste. They will also be introducing their new line of Certified Organic vegan spelt and Kamut ravioli, agnolotti and tagliatelle pastas. Moreover, their line of certified organic vegan drinks made from grains such as spelt, quinoa, kamut, oates, barley etc and line of vegan cooking creams and puddings.

They love to meet vegans/vegetarians and people that are looking to make a change to vegetarianism or veganism. They also love the look on the people’s faces when they try their products and are astounded by the fact that they are vegan/vegetarian. They are very excited about this year’s festival!

Find DiMartino Organic Imports at the festival all weekend long in International Marketplace. 

Featured Exhibitor – Apiecalypse Now! 

Apiecalypse Now! is a small bakery-operation run by Jennifer, in Leslieville, located in the East End of Toronto. Jennifer, owner and head baker is a Toronto native and dessert enthusiast. A graduate with a Master’s in Environmental Studies, her research focus was on food-based social movements and came to the conclusion that people like things that taste and even better if they make them feel good..so those are things she makes.

At the festival, Jennifer loves buying a massive plate of faux meat from the King’s Café booth. It is always her first stop every year. Besides that, she loves to see everyone all in one place. Being a previous volunteer with the Toronto Vegetarian Association, she looks forward to meeting Luke, Barbi and David, a bunch of other green shirted people around and making new friends. Additionally, her mother and step-dad made the decision to go vegan at the festival last year and at 50+ years of age! She is looking forward to them being at the festival for the weekend and celebrating their one-year veganversary in style!

“This year, Apiecalypse is bringing back a lot of old favourites (like the oh-so popular S’mores pie made from their home-made vegan marshmallows!) and will have a few new items. Additionally the booth will have a lot of info about the various ways people can get more involved with local animal rights campaigns, as well as take away cards about veganism, organic an fair trade food, plus postcards and stickers for the Toronto Aquarium Resistance Alliance. And she recently have tweeted, that a few of my tour-mates from the now infamous Open The Cages Tour will be behind the booth, so feel free to come by and talk shop with all of them. They have stories to share and high fives to give out!

Apiecalpyse Now! will be at the festival all weekend long in the International Marketplace.