19th August 2018
I love that day. The 19th August is my husband and I's wedding day, back in 2014.
I am so grateful that he wanted to go with me to this vegan event on our special day. He is not exactly vegan, so him joining me for this event was kinda special.
So it's official name is Vegan Summer Fest, presented by BE vegan.
It's the first time I've attended a vegan festival. I was actually pleasantly surprised. There was many stalls, NGO's, food trucks and basically everything you could think of. Vegan make up, skin care, bakeries, shoes, bags, clothes, cheese, ice cream.. I could go on and on.
So the event was in Ghent, Belgium, at Flanders Expo, which is a huge hall for events. The tram went straight there, so it was easy to get there even though it was a bit out of town. We live in Ghent and have done so since 2014, so going to this event was a must for me! And so we did.
The event started at 11 am, and lasted until 8 pm. We went there kinda late, around 3 pm. We stayed up a bit late the day before, had a drink, husband and wife, enjoying our wedding anniversary at midnight.
That night I was discussing with Neil whether or not I should do some kind of promotion for the website at the Vegan Summer Festival. And so we started, in the middle of the night, making a flyer to be printed. No time to get a proper fancy flyer or anything.
We do have a printer and just plain white paper.
So be it.
I guess it is more environmentally friendly than the pricey thick glossy flyer you see for anything everywhere. Okay, I guess it's a bit hipster to make a plain white flyer in just black and white.. okay, they might like it.
- print - print - print, cut cut cut.
Go to bed and wake up and go to the festival. Good plan.
So we arrived at the Vegan Summer Fest somewhere in the afternoon.
Was surprised to see a queue at the entrance, but I kinda already knew it was gonna be a bigger event. When we got in it was pretty full of people.
Some thousands maybe?
You arrive inside at first, where theres a big hall with tons of stalls.
So we walked around for a bit and located the bar. I suppose it was all vegan beer. Great. So we got some chetons and a beer each.
One Beer 13 and one Gruut Blond. Local Belgian beers. Tasty and quite flavourful.
We moved outside in the sun and finished our drink. Then started to look for some food.
Neil spotted a cool looking 'chicken' on a stick with some sauce on it, while queuing at the bar, so we scoured around for that specific stall.
Found it and figured out that it was made of mushrooms. I suppose it had some sort of tahini or peanut dressing on top, very very tasty, but very chewy in texture as well.
Neil gave up on the sticks and wanted something else. I ate the rest of the sticks. Loved the flavour, but just too chewy.
Then there was these huge amazing letters, obviosly so people could pose in front of them.
- Okay.
- We can do that.
I only feel slightly weird and awkard doing that. Standing there, waiting for people to move to get the best shot.. haha
What a blogger wont do for that good shot, you know.
Went outside to get a Vegan Burrito at The Vexican stall. Pretty good burrito with crushed nachos inside, guacamole, fresh greens and beans.
- Yummy !
First time I've ever seen it with nachos, might do a recipe inspired by that in the near future !
By the time we finished eating, I finally got the courage to hand out some of my flyers.
I felt it was too pushy to put them at the stalls, since they didn’t have to much space themselves and they were there to promote themselves, so i avoided that.
But, luckily there was so many corners with long tables where people could sit and eat together, with food from all the different stalls.
Shared tables. Win !
First I just put a couple of flyers on the table, smiling and just heading off to the next table. After a while I realized that people didn’t really pay attention to them.
- Okay.
- Need a new strategy.
So we got another beer, I was too nervous to directly talk to people and hand out flyers, so that extra drink definitely helped with the slight social anxiety.
So then I started going from one table to the other, introducing myself, saying that I’d just started a brand new Vegan Food Blog, and if they were interested they could check out my website, with tons of free vegan recipes, cooked from scratch.
People seemed very nice, kind and genuinely interested. I handed out a couple hundred flyers at many tables, and then we took another break, walking around the place.
We decided to walk through the area of the stalls containing the NGO’s and items other than food.
I got some Hurraw lip balms. I’d run out of them a long time ago, and they were cheaper than buying in the health food stores, so I got three.
Personal favourites?
Almond, Moon and Cherry.
There was also some cool shirts and bags too, and cool high heels, but honestly it’s not something I’d wear, me in high heels? I think not.
And for the clothes? I'm mostly just wearing black and grey, all these shirts were so colourful. Hippies....
All jokes aside, I think some of it was pretty cool though, specially the Hail Seitan shirts.
So we took some shots of many of the food stalls and other stalls, and when we got home I realized that this ‘automatic’ setting on our DSLR is pretty great, but you gotta remember to put auto focus on as well.
What a bust.
Anyways, here’s some of the photos that turned out alright.
We got back to the food stall area inside and decided to get something sweet, now that we’ve gotten our savoury fix.
Went to an amazing cupcake place. The woman in the stall said she has the oldest vegan bakery in The Netherlands.
So we tried one of her Red Velvet Cupcakes.
Oh MY !
It was sooo moist and soft and the frosting was SO creamy, I have never had a frosting that was so delicious !
Neil even liked it too, his comment were:
“I can’t believe that it’s vegan !”
Then we went to the Ben & Jerry’s truck.
I have seen these advertisings of their new vegan line, and I’ve wanted to try this ice cream for a very long time, but just hadn’t found it anywhere up until now.
Three choices, Chocolate Brownie, Chunky Monkey and another one I don’t remember the name of.
I opted for the Chunky Monkey.
Honestly I haven’t had Ben & Jerry’s for years, but as I remember the taste of Chunky Monkey, it was actually exactly the same!
You know this artificial banana flavour you get in those banana shaped marshmallows covered in chocolate, you got as a kid? Exactly that taste.
Oh, those childhood snacks !
After the dessert we handed out some more flyers both inside and outside, and then sat outside in the sun.
It was pretty hot and I kinda regretted wearing jeans and closed shoes.
After some sun worshipping we went inside, felt we had seen it all and decided to go home, and enjoy the rest of our anniversary at home, with some good food and a drink.
All in all the festival was a super great experience. I was so pleasently surprised to see that many people attenting.
I suppose not everyone at the event was vegan, but at least they had some sort of interest in it, since being there.
I think that is sooo important and sooo positive ! People coming together in an event like this. Sharing knowlegde.
Every single person we talked to and met was kind and sweet, and everyone was enthusiastic telling about their products, the impotance of vegan food and how you can make vegan food be more interesting.
What an amazing day!
