Super Saturday

Saturdays are wonderful. They're leisurely but goal-oriented at the same time.

Mine today definitely fits that description. Packed but with a very "free-spirited" feel: no time restrictions so it didnt feel jam-packed.

It started out with breakfast with Joely at Cup and Saucer cafe. I have been to the C&S on Hawthorne many times and have always really

enjoyed but we decided to go to the Killingsworth location instead and it was great as well. So quaint and adorable. And the best part is that they are healthy and sustainable... and they compost their discarded food!

I got the garden omelet (which is my standard choice, generally) and it was delicious. Very light tasting -- sometimes when you go out, the food tastes like butter, or some miscellaneous, indeterminable flavor -- and the bread came out toasted but not buttered so we could add our own as desired, which I love! The only thing I was disappointed with was the fact that the menu says it comes with zucchini, broccoli, mushrooms, spinach, red peppers, cauliflower and yellow squash (YUM!) but mine only had spinach, mushrooms and cauliflower :( It still tasted good, but I know it would have been so much better with all the fixin's :)

But we had a great Saturday morning chat :) and then went off our separate ways to continue a productive day: he to get his oil changed and go to the store before going into work for a bit

...and I went to VEGFEST!!

I was pretty excited about this because although Portland is very veg- and vegan-friendly, it is still hard sometimes to find healthy ingredients that arent made with eggs (specifically).

Again, Im not vegetarian or vegan (obviously, from my egg-eating breakfast) but mostly. I don't classify myself that way so that I dont feel restricted; so that I can go out to breakfast with a friend and not feel like I have to eat oatmeal (I make that at home for "free").

Im not opposed, necessarily, to eating tofu or soy products but I dont like to because I feel like I am slightly allergic to it - as many people are because of the mass-genetic-modification of the product - so I prefer not to eat it when possible, or at least not large quantities of it.

Annnnnnnyway. I went to Vegfest at the Convention Center, and like I said, I was pretty excited about it but ended up being a little disappointed...

I think its a great resource for people that arent already committed to a (primarily) vegetarian or vegan lifestyle, but Im past the point of being "recruited" and was REALLY disappointed in the fact that so many of the recipes I encountered rely on agave nectar as a substitute to sugar... are there no recipes or cooks that dont use ANY sugar at all, in any form??? well, that is my new mission: to create delicious recipes that use whole foods and no sugar. No stevia, no agave, no pure maple syrup, no honey. Honey is one that I will try not use at all, but if it reeeeeallly needs a tiny bit of something, I think I would feel ok with adding just a few drops of honey....

There were some great cookbooks there though, and I wanted a couple but didnt want to spend the money... so Ill keep them in the back of my head to look for later.

It was pretty fun, seeing all the different variations of foods....and seeing lots of funny Vegan-power sayings, etc. like this shirt:

and these bags made from recycled movies! Im always amazed at the creativity of people!

I loved this picture, and especially the saying:

But I not necessarily a fan on the product itself, again for the reasons mentioned above.

Here's the ingredient list from the back. Yes, whole foods, but also a lot of sugary products added:

BUT! I got some hempseed protein powder samples that Im excited to try. I saw the Vega table but, again -- I dont mean to sound like a broken record -- they add stevia, even to the "natural" flavor so I bypassed it. Ill let you know what I think of this powder:

However, I stopped by the Farmer's Market (another reason I love Saturdays) and stocked up on LOTS of fruits and veggies! Got an acorn squash, zucchini, broccoli, a green pepper, lots of delicious gala apples (I know they're delicious because I had one on my way home) and peaches and nectarines from the Draper Girls Farm stand, and stocked up on blackberries (YUM!!!) since I know they're almost out of season. I kind of misplaced my brain for a second and put something on top of one of the pints in my reusable bag....and they got pretty liquified on the way to the car. Luckily I have two other pints in tact so I think Ill just put the mushed ones in a smoothie or make some sort of sauce out of it.

Gonna make some dinner with my deliciously fresh new veggies and then am off again to something called "'Stache Bash" to hang out with my dear old roomie, Mikey "VonHeck," who's in town for the weekend ♥

Im not sure what 'Stache Bash entails exactly but I. am. EXCITED!