Charleston Sol-Food Veg Fest

I was so excited to go to the Charleston Sol-Food Veg Fest this weekend! We drove there early in the morning from Greenville, all we had to do was fill up our reusable mugs with coffee, grab Terrence and get on the road! I went with such great intentions to "fast" before Veg-Fest so I could eat all the foods, but I broke down and grabbed a cliff bar at a gas station halfway through! This was my first ever Veg-Fest so i had no idea what to expect!

By the time we got to the Veg-Fest we were practically starving so we bee-lined to the food stand that stood out to us the most! We grabbed a massive container of vegan soul-food from Lamb's Bread Vegan Cafe! I am not from the south but we got your traditional Meat and Three combo - BUT VEGANIZED! Vegan Barbeque "Chicken" Wings, Collard Greens, Mac n' Cheese, and Rice and Beans. This girl was in heaven. This was the first time I ever tried anything even remotely shaped this similar to chicken, it was even put on a wooden stick so you could eat it like a chicken wing! I'll be honest, biting into it was a little bit disconcerting considering I haven't eaten meat i​​n almost 10 years. I am not a huge fan of "mock meats" so the sides were my jam (although I ate all the chicken so not bad not bad). It was so much fun to spread out a blanket and dig into our food at the veg-fest! The weather was wonderful and once I finished my mind wandered to what I was going to eat next.

My good friends from over at The Hippie Biscuit and Follow the Seeds stopped by afterwards and we walked around for a bit reveling in the all-vegan glory that is a veg-fest! Since it was so hot out we decided to stop for a refreshing drink and honestly nothing looked or tasted better than these huge coconuts! Coconut water is so good for you, full of electrolytes so it was the perfect drink to stay hydrated on such a sunny day! The last time I drank out of a coconut was on my honeymoon, and it was admittedly filled with a bit of coconut rum (I mean who wouldn't?) so this was my first time drinking straight up coconut juice! It was spectacular. SIDE NOTE - So after having such a lovely experience with the coconut my husband and I saw coconuts at the grocery store and decided to go for it and buy one since we loved the coconut at veg-fest! Plus I have been on an Ellen Fisher binge watch and she makes coconuts look so LUSCIOUS! We take our hammer and expertly hammer around the coconut until it breaks in half and I.KID.YOU.NOT a plume of green smoke erupts from the coconut and the entire inside is dark green, moldy, dry and just toxic inside. Seriously straight from that scene in Moana where all the coconuts were going bad (is my town cursed because of MAUI????) My heart broke and I realized South Carolina just ain't the same as Hawaii. ANYWAYS BACK TO THE VEG FEST...

Having properly hydrated with non-toxic curse-free coconuts we worked up a hunger for some vegan gelato from Revolution Gelato. We got the Mocha flavor in a waffle cone (heaven) which was amazing of course!! But we made the biggest rookie mistake!! I am used to Penn State Ice Cream (sadly not vegan) where you are not allowed to mix flavors. Seriously I think the President of the United States came and asked for two flavors and maybe he was allowed??? So I am not used to being able to get two flavors of ice cream in one cone so we just got the mocha flavor! Our friends waltzed up and got two or three flavors each. In hind sight, I would have definitely gotten more flavors, but lucky for me I have generous friends and I got to try all the flavors anyways! Their cardamom flavor was out of this world! They need to open up a shop in Greenville so i can live off of their gelato!

By this time I realized I had not trained my stomach nearly hard enough to be able to eat all of the delicious offerings this veg-fest had in store for me. I sampled a black bean brownie (meh) and gazed longingly at some vegan chocolate chip cookies that my body rightly rejected because I had more sugar flowing through my veins than any normal human should have. A little bit more sunshine and some time jamming with Osei Chandler and we were ready to hit the road.

We had such an amazing time at the veg-fest and can't wait to see what they'll have in store for next year! This was their very first year hosting and I thought the turn out was great! I hope next year they have more speakers and guests, that was the one aspect I found a little bit disappointing - but I am sure its hard to lure people in for a first time veg fest! The outdoor venue was great - but I think if they became more speaker oriented it might be easier to control sound at an indoor venue. Overall a fantastic time!