Halloween 2016 at Cost Plus World Market

The gang is all here!

I popped into Cost Plus World Market over the weekend to see if they had their Halloween items out yet, and luckily they had just started stocking them! I spent some time browsing around, admiring their Dia de los Muertos decorations, checking for vegan Halloween foodstuffs, and ogling all their Halloweenie decor. Check out some snaps I took of their selection below:

Recap: Eat Drink Vegan Festival 2016 (formerly LA Vegan Beer + Food Fest)

Eat Drink Vegan!

This past Saturday saw record temperatures in the high 90s and low 100s, but that certainly didn't stop folks from heading out in droves to Eat Drink Vegan, or the festival formerly known as the Los Angeles Vegan Beer and Food Fest! In spite of the heat, it was an incredible event filled with tons of vegan food, beverages, products, and lots of good cheer from those attending! I had a blast, and wanted to share a recap of the fest with you!

10 Must-Try Eats at the LA Vegan Beer + Food Fest

The Los Angeles Vegan Beer and Food Festival is almost here and I cannot wait! This Saturday, June 18th hordes of vegan and veg-curious folks will descend upon the Rose Bowl in Pasadena to eat and drink all the vegan things! I have been drooling over all the photos from last weekend's Portland Vegan Beer and Food Fest (I MUST go next year), and I am so, so excited for this weekend to get here! I've been stalking a lot of the restaurants that will be serving up delicious food in just a few days, and a few have really popped out at me as being "must-try" eats! FYI - I'm in it for the food rather than the booze, so I don't have any beverage recommendations for you (though I am looking forward to kombucha and cold brew!).

14 Perfect Gifts for Your Spooky Vegan Valentine

It's almost Valentine's Day again, and though I'm not the biggest fan of the holiday, I couldn't resist putting together a gift guide full of goodies for your Valentine, which kinda doubles as my own personal wishlist as many of the items are gothy and dark, along with being cruelty-free and vegan! These are the kinds of things I would loooooove to receive for Valentine's Day (or any ol' day)! Even though I don't believe you need to give gifts of monetary value to express your love, the items below are quite handy as tokens of affection!

Vegan Faire 2015 Report

Vegan Faire 2015!

This past Saturday I attended the second annual Orange County Vegan Faire, hosted by Healthy Junk and held on Anaheim's Center Street Promenade. It was my first year attending, and I braved the 90 degree temps for vegan food, vegan friends, and vegan vendors! I was so stoked to have a vegan festival just 20 minutes from my house in Orange County - I'm so happy OC has a veg fest so I don't have to drive all the way up to LA. Even better, a lot of vegan friends came out to the event so I was able to get my grub on with some rad vegan peeps! 

Top 10 Vegan Products at Natural Products Expo West 2015

This past weekend I attended the Natural Products Expo West at the Anaheim Convention Center to scope out all the new vegan goodies coming out this year! I attended last year (check out my report!), but this year was even bigger and better, and I was ecstatic to see so many vegan or vegan-friendly companies rolling out exciting new vegan products!

Over the few days at Expo West, I got to try oodles of vegan food, beauty/health products, drinks, and got to visit with some of my favorite vegan companies as well as discovering new ones! It was a blast, and I already can't wait until next year!

There were SO MANY awesome products launching, so it was really tough to narrow it down to my top 10 favorites. I finally did, sorta, and below you will find my top 10 favorite products from the Expo, plus some honorable mentions. Not all of these are available in stores or available in the US, yet, but most should either be coming soon or already in some stores.

31 Days of Halloween: Vegan Oktoberfest 2014 Report

This past Saturday I attended the first ever Vegan Oktoberfest, held right on the beach in Santa Monica, California. Oktoberfest is such a quintessential October celebration, I was so, so excited that we finally had an all-vegan option for this celebration of drink and food! I had grabbed early-bird VIP tickets (cost: $50 each, though after the early bird sale they went up to $65 each) pretty much the day they announced the event many months back, so I had been eagerly anticipating attending this vegan event.

31 Days of Halloween: Vegan Autumn Beers

It seems fitting that since today is the Vegan Oktoberfest in Santa Monica, CA that I share some vegan autumn beers with you! First, I'll explain what makes a beer vegan, then I'll get to sharing my "wish list" of vegan autumn beers!

Halloween 2014 at Cost Plus World Market

Cost Plus World Market had a 25% off sale on their Halloween decor this past Monday, so I knew I had to scoot over there after work to check out their Halloween offerings and take advantage of their one-day Halloween sale!

They had lots of creepy cool items this year, including a great Dia de los Muertos section, awesome kitchen accessories, bloody candles, vintage-inspired decorations, mummies, skeletons, and lots of Halloween-inspired wine! I even found some vegan Halloween pasta, which is probably my favorite fiendish fine at World Market since vegan Halloween pasta is hard to come by as they usually use squid ink to color the pasta black! This brand just uses carrots for the ink, though, hurrah!

Here is what I found:

 So much Frankenstein stuff! Frankenstein's Monster

and The Bride are plastered on serving trays, plates, and

napkins! They also had two elongated rectangular serving

trays that were really cool! 

Restaurant Review: PizzaRev in Santa Ana, CA

PizzaRev in Santa Ana

Written by Sarah E. Jahier

A fellow Orange County vegan clued me in on PizzaRev, a new pizza place that opened up near South Coast Plaza in Orange County. PizzaRev has other restaurants in SoCal (and are planning on expanding to other parts of the nation), but this is the first one I had ever heard of! They have a build-your-own pizza system, with a counter set-up much like Chipotle’s, where you tell your server what kind of crust, sauce, and toppings you want for your pizza. They are not a vegan restaurant, but they do offer vegan options!

Vegan Oktoberfest Tickets Now On Sale!

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Written by Sarah E. Jahier

The coolest news was announced a few weeks ago - a Vegan Oktoberfest is coming to SoCal on Saturday, October 4th, 2014! All the beer, all the German food, ALL VEGAN!

Over the last few weeks, Vegan Oktoberfest's Instagram, Facebook, and website have announced lots of exciting news, like participating breweries (so far they have Drake’s, Angel City, Golden Road, Anderson Valley, Saint Archer, Bravery, Karl Strauss, Lagunitas, Oskar Blues, Bison Organic Beer, Modern Times, Epic Brewing and more to come) and food vendors (so far it's Sage Bistro, Southern Fried Vegan [who is hosting the event], plus Urban Pie [German pizzas!], Dogtown Dogs, Kind Creme, Divine Dips Ice Cream, Pop ‘n Mamas Kettle Corn and Funnel Cake, Life Is Sweet Bakeshop and more to be announced)!

My Day at the Los Angeles Vegan Beer and Food Festival 2014

Written by Sarah E. Jahier

I attended my very first LA Vegan Beer and Food Festival this past weekend! I was so happy I was finally able to go and so excited to eat and drink my way through a Saturday afternoon. This was the event's 5th year, and it just keeps growing! This year the fest sold out in record time and hosted about 2,500+ people. The event attracts vegans and the veg-curious from near and far, and with good reason - vegan beer and food, all day long! I had a really great time, as did all who attended, but I wanted to walk you through my day there, let you know some of few annoyances I encountered, and offer tips and tricks to maximize your time at the fest should you attend next year (which I hope you do!).

Halloween Spirits at BevMo!

Mister Spooky and I were browsing BevMo this weekend for some luscious libations when I came upon a display for several different of fall-inspired suds! There was the tried and true (Sam Adams Octoberfest), but also a few pumpkin-inspired brews I was itching to try, like the Shipyard Signature Smashed Pumpkin!

We didn't pick anything up on this trip (truthfully, I'm not a big drinker, beer or otherwise), but I did snap a few photos of the super-cute bottles for your enjoyment! And I was just so stoked to see so many seasonal brews available! I hope to at least pick up a few different kinds for our Halloween party...even if they taste bad the bottles will make nice decorations!

I love the vintage-inspired artwork of the packaging!

Besides alcoholic beverages, I snapped a few pics of other drinks they had, including these two cool-lookin' sodas:

I'm curious to try this Curiosity Cola

Hehehe...

If you'd like to check if your local BevMo has any of these products in stock, just check out BevMo.com!