Vegan picnic coming to Shaw Millennium Park

By Giselle Wedemire

If you’ve ever sighed wistfully while reading/hearing about the awesome vegan festivals held in hip cities like Portland, LA, Vancouver, and Toronto, fret not. FOMO will soon be a thing of the past for us Calgarians with next year’s VegFest Calgary.

 

Event logo screenshot via Facebook

The event, which is still in the planning stages, is set to take place sometime in May or June next year, with details still being ironed out by the dedicated team of volunteers and organizers.

Since the date is still a bit in the future, a welcome picnic in the park will be held at Shaw Millennium Park on Saturday, August 13 at 11:30 a.m to celebrate and build anticipation for this landmark event.  The picnic itself is free, and attendees are asked to register online, and to bring along their own picnic essentials (like a blanket and an optional vegan picnic food item).

While there, attendees will be able to dig in to some tasty food samples from Vegan Eats YYC, while learning about the ways in which they can help out and volunteer their time to make next year's festival a success.

For more information, check out the VegFest Calgary Facebook page and the Welcome Picnic's EventBrite page.

A DIY solution to the cancelled CNF Stampede breakfast

By Giselle Wedemire

I love this city, but I have a hard time getting jazzed about Stampede. I mean, I’ve had some great fun at some of their concerts on the Coca Cola Stage (including seeing Rooney, The Dudes, k-os, and a chance sighting of Drake at the 2006 Nelly Furtado show), but other than that, Stampede really doesn’t matter to me.

But Stampede breakfasts? Now, that’s something I can get behind. Since going vegan five years ago, my favourite part of Stampede has been hitting up Community Natural Foods’ annual Stampede breakfast. Sure, I had to get up at the crack of dawn and be a complete zombie for the rest of the day, but there were free pancakes involved, so it was worth it!

This year, however, CNF has decided against putting on its annual breakfast. While this is definitely sad news, you can’t really blame ‘em, thanks to this not-so-hot economy of ours.

Screen shot via Community Natural Foods' Facebook

Summery iced teas to help you keep your cool

By Giselle Wedemire

Summer is here which, for some, means it's time for SPF, vacations, and sandy beaches. Or, if you're like me, you soak up the summer heat by donning your favourite/only oversized floppy sun hat, fixing yourself a cold drink,  and parking yourself on your porch for a bit of outdoor reading.

While some may reach for iced tea on hot days, I'm really more of an iced coffee kind of girl. (I like to mix my iced coffees with a splash of soy milk, a squeeze of agave nectar, and a handful of ice cubes, and then BAM, I've got myself a kickass porch-reading, sun-tanning drink!)

Shout-out to Brian K. Vaughan for the amazing-ness that is volume 1 of Paper Girls.
Not only is it super badass, it's also perfect for outdoor summer reading,
as pictured above with my amazing ice coffee and my hella cute pedicure.

But if you're of the iced tea persuasion, there a few new vegan options at DavidsTea you might want to scope out. At the time of writing, DavidsTea has two summery tea collections on offer: their Summer Collection and the Boardwalk Collection.