Last weekend was that fabulous annual occurrence, the Portland VegFest. Northwest VEG, our local vegetarian organization, put on another successful event. About 6,000 people came to the Portland Convention Center to hear leading veg speakers, see cooking demos and chow down on samples of fake meats and high-end chocolates. If I tried to include all the good things about VegFest 2012, this post would be a mile long. So I’ll just hit a few highlights.

I got to meet Ruth Heidrich and hear her speak twice. Dr. Heidrich is a 77 year-old marathon runner who lives in Hawaii. A while ago I picked up her book Senior Fitness at the library, expecting easy exercises I could do when I was subbing a senior class at the gym. But no. Turned out she’s a super hardcore vegan who thinks seniors should run and swim and bike. She is pretty darn inspiring. She claims that her clean raw diet and tons of weight-bearing exercise have helped her avoid any age-related loss of height.

I also met David Gabbe, whose name I’ve heard around town for years. David teaches vegan, low-fat, gluten-free cooking classes at ten different places in Portland. He told me he arrived at his career accidentally. When his first vegetarian book came out more than 20 years ago, a community college contacted him and asked him to teach. Although he considered himself a writer, not a teacher, he agreed. He immediately discovered that he loved teaching. Soon his lecture classes morphed into cooking classes. He summed it up as the ideal situation: “They would listen and I would feed them.”

The raw, vegan cheesecakes made by Divine Pie were excellent, especially the key lime pie flavor. Alissa Martucci, owner of Divine Pie, also concocted Oregonberry, passionfruit and chocolate hazelnut varieties. You can get them at New Seasons or the co-ops around Portland. “It’s like the healthiest dessert on the planet,” said Damien Anthony, who gave me a sample of the chocolate hazelnut. I forgot to ask him his position with Divine Pie because I was too busy trying to send him a psychic message to bust open one of the chocolate hazelnut pies.

The cute couple who operate Vegancuts.com came down from Canada to showcase their online vegan shop. They specialize in snacks, body care products and vegan fashion, such as purses and shoes. Especially tantalizing is their $19/month surprise goody box.

Donna Benjamin and Al Chase were up from Ashland, where they run five- and 20-day vegan cooking programs. Go for five days and you can learn gluten-free baking or appetizers/soups/sauces/desserts. Go for 20 days, and Donna says she’ll teach you everything. She described her approach as “safety first with creativity and fun right behind.”

The Flesh is for Zombies dress-up and photo booth livened up the festival. You never knew when you’d innocently be chewing on a piece of veggie sausage and suddenly come face to face with a zombie.

 

Registered dietitian Alison Ozgur and fitness expert Derrick deLay teamed up to write Go Beyond Good: The Trail to a Lifetime of Health and Vitality. I am excited to read the book. Spoiler alert: I suspect the trail involves a vegan diet and lots of exercise.

Blue Lotus Chai out of Eugene makes some good drinks. They introduced their new flavors – mint masala and rooibos masala – at VegFest. I tried the mint, which was delicious. Blue Lotus Chai is available at local co-ops in Portland, including Food Front, People’s and the one on Alberta Street.

 

Several animal advocacy groups had tables at VegFest. Fences for Fido volunteer Jesse Tishkoff talked to me about their mission. As you may already know, or guessed from the name, they build fences so dogs can spend time safely outside without being chained. Jesse said she saw a pamphlet for the organization while she was volunteering at a shelter. “Dogs are my passion,” she said. “And to learn the skills is cool, too.” So far she’s participated in four fence builds.

I spent part of an afternoon shift at the Lotus Elephant Sanctuary table. I met the founder, Kate Woolf, online while writing Vegetarian Asia Travel Guide. She couldn’t make it to VegFest because she’s in Laos, where she’s securing the land for her elephant sanctuary. So she put the word out asking for Portland volunteers. She’s planning a rehab facility to help elephants in the timber industry who have been given drugs so they’ll work harder and longer. Very sad. I think we had the only booth where we could say, “Thanks. Your donation will help get an elephant off meth.”

The Lotus Sanctuary booth was horrifically overshadowed by its neighbor, the hugely popular vegan dessert Luna and Larry’s Coconut Bliss. We sold a few T-shirts, but the woman scooping out the Coconut Bliss samples was on the verge of getting carpal tunnel syndrome. She estimated she’d scooped somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 samples the day before. Recognizing my treat-lust, she gave me a very generous sample of vanilla.

If you like to plan ahead, VegFest 2013 will be on September 21 and 22 next year.