Vegan: (noun) a person who does not eat or use animal products.

OK folks, bear with me. This post isn’t about turning you vegan (although if you have any questions feel free to hit me up!). Instead I just wanted to share with you all a fun gathering I recently hosted at our home in University Place.

Tired of just chatting with local vegans via Facebook, I decided I wanted to meet them. You know, put faces to names and things like that.  I’ve been living the vegan lifestyle for the past five and a half years now. Craig isn’t vegan so although he is very supportive I often feel alone with my beliefs. Alone in my food choices and alone in my vegan rants. (It happens.) So I invited people from the Tacoma Vegans Facebook group over to our house to share some yummy cruel-free food.

And can I tell you, that the food was amazing! Here are some photos of the dishes:

I chose not to share any photos with peoples faces because I didn’t tell anyone I was going to blog about this. Next time I will remember!

The food was great. I made this corn salad (I cut the oil amount in half) and had a bowl of cherries and water to go around. Others brought vegan cheese (the Chao brand is amazing), giant salads, quinoa dishes, potato salad, cakes, cookies, fresh fruit, vegetable samosas, homemade hummus, pita bread and even a vegan chili. Craig actually tried the chili and said it was good! Craig is not a risk taker when it comes to food. He sticks with what he knows so to see him actually try something new was really cool for me.

While eating our meals we sat in a circle and got to know each other. It’s so wonderful how we are all so different and yet have so much in common. There were ethical vegans, health vegans (plant based) and even just the veg curious. I had such a good time I’m already trying to figure out when we’ll host another one.

– Peace

Veronica Sandate Craker