Over the past weekend we went to Buffalo to buy food items and were pleasantly surprised to see that Sunwarrior was selling for $44 at Feel Rite. This is amazing because the best price I’ve ever seen it in Canada is $56 and most stores sell it for close to $70. Regardless, this just means that we stocked up on a lot of it! For anyone like me who has a gluten intolerance, we’ve come to accept that gluten free items are just out there to cost you a lot of money, hence the need to shop around and try to find better deals wherever we can find them. Wegmans always has a lot of options and much better prices too. I’m not going to list everything we bought but check it out!

In the past half year so many things have changed in our lives. We’ve met amazing people and we’re fully focusing on our upcoming Vegan Bloggers Conference (@VeganBlogsUnite) which will be taking place in Toronto in October 2013. The venue is still being worked on but should be finalized in September, 2012.

One of the most interesting people we met was Laurie Sadowski (author of a series of Gluten Free/Vegan baking books) whom we met at the Niagara VegFest back in June. I highly recommend you buy her book even if you’re not gluten free as the recipes are designed to not have that typical Gluten Free texture/flavour. You can visit her book’s website at The Allergy Free Cook.

And of course to end off the post I will post a video of one my favourite performances of Radiohead’s “Everything In It’s Right Place

Now the rice turns out perfect every time and it’s as if we were at a restaurant. It sounds funny to say but it has totally changed the way we prepare food because now we actually want to have rice every night and choose vegetables accordingly every day. Changing things up can get tricky, but it makes it a bit more like a game to prepare dinner now.

Here’s a picture of the rice cooker we chose:

So if you’re in the market for a new rice cooker, I definitely recommend investing in one of these bad boys. You won’t regret it!

A few pictures of my dinner tonight:

The main reason I haven’t taken the time to blog for myself is that Lidia and I have been busy working on our own business for the past 8 months or so. What really kicked it off was our hatred of working in corporate settings. Us both being vegan made us really want to do something in the vegan community, which is where our idea of social marketing for vegan and ethical businesses was born.

No matter how difficult it can be at first, the number of amazing people we’ve met in the process has been totally worth it.

If you or anyone you know could use our services feel free to contact us! Our website is: http://conceptbranding.co.

Now yes I do realize that there are some evangelical vegans out there who never miss any opportunity to preach their message and harass anyone around them. That being said, not everyone in the “community” is like that and just like we don’t judge all omnivores it would be very much appreciated if the same respect would be paid back.

I just don’t get how someone’s dietary/lifestyle choices can affect someone so much as to them not wanting to even talk to someone.

Of course as previously mentioned this targets both parties, a vegan honestly can’t expect an omnivore to respect their choices if they don’t accept that omnivores also make their own choices.

So please everyone love each other!

We’re open to any ideas as we want this to be a group where everyone’s involved.

We look forward to hearing from you all!

All in all I had a wonderful summer and am feeling great! It’s funny how I used to be shy about being veg, but now I love living our vegan lifestyle. I love knowing that I am making a difference even if it’s a tiny one. Everything helps right?

I hope this will give me a bit more inspiration to write more often from now on!

A quick run through of random events such as recycled art in Montreal’s Eaton Centre:

Raw zucchini spaghetti from Nzyme:

Raw tacos at Live Food Bar:

Playing with my parents dog Coco:

And finally the Toronto Vegetarian Food Festival where we met lots of amazing people and had lots of great food!

Brickworks has stunning scenery and a huge covered area where the stands are. There’s also an arts & crafts building and a lot of walking trails surrounding it so you can easily spend an afternoon there.

Leslieville Farmers Market on the other hand is much more cosy. The stands are set up around a “field” (open park) but it was much easier to get around and the vendors were extremely friendly.

I highly recommend both and if you ever see us there say hi! We’ll be at both almost every weekend!

Crowd near the food trucks

Regardless of the frustrations we still had a great day. We walked around and viewed the shops, ran into some friends and Twitter folk and enjoyed the sun!

We’re definitely going back next year!

Not everyone is for marriage, but let me tell you, when you meet the right person it just seems to make sense. At least that’s what happened to me. Lidia is such a joy to be around, always a smile on her face and abundant laughter.

We’re not ones for birthday plans and events so this blog post will be surprising to her! Last year I bought her an iPad for her birthday and nothing will ever top it, she loves it so much.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Lidi! You’re my everything and you make my life a happy place!

What I love about living in midtown is that there are so many different parks and biking trails in ravines and wooded areas. Just last weekend we discovered a new biking trail behind a Loblaws at Millwood and Redway. They’re shared bike and pedestrian tails, but it sure beats riding on the roads alongside cars. I prefer being outside in the peacefulness. There is also Sunnybrook park which is a short distance away from where I live.

I hope everyone is out there enjoying some sort of outdoor activity!