What's the best remedy to a hard day?... Surf Sweets!

This has been a very challenging week for me in my personal life. A year ago, I left Colorado completely heartbroken to move back to Seattle. One $400 speeding ticket and a few thousand miles later - I had to rebuild my life. I did. I did it really well. And a year later, it sort of fell apart again. Such is life?

As a professional musician, my first to-do was to obtain a new band. I managed to put together a killer band and the last year has been a whirlwind of some of the largest crowds I've ever played to. We've played bunches of shows outside and inside of Seattle, recorded, and got fairly close to each other.

As of two nights ago, we're down to two players. Ahead of me are two of the biggest shows I've ever had the opportunity to play (one of which, I'll be headlining). I'm sad that my bandmates had to part ways and I'm scared that I'm not going to be able to pull it off in time. This isn't the only challenging thing going on, it was just the last straw. In my right mind, I know it's all going to work out...but damn...

Just as the day was coming to an end and I was ready to crawl in my lady-cave and hibernate until things were looking up again , I came home to find a package waiting for me from non-other than Surf Sweets! (With that kind of timing, it's as if they knew it was my #1 comfort food...)

Surf Sweets has a line of organic and naturally sweetened vegan gummies. Instead of gelatin, they use pectin and tapioca syrup. I'm not going to lie, these were the most delicious gummy candies I've ever had. They sent me a few different kinds to try out, including their Organic Fruit Bears, their Sour Berry Bears, Peach Rings, Sour Worms, and their fruit chews.

Don't judge me but I  ate most of these while bawling me yes out last night. At least I didn't have to cry about overeating animal hooves or really bad junk food.

All the ingredients in these candies, you can really feel good about. If I had kids, I'd have no problem sending them to school with these and then collecting them after school when their sugar rush has ended.

My personal favorites were the Sour Berry Bears and the Sour Worms (but I'm partial to sour). The runner up's were the fruit chews and the Fruit Bears. A few of my girlfriends came over today and we snacked on the peach rings and fruit chews.

The sour candies were not overly sour. Some other gummy candies are so sour that the roof of your mouth hurts and parts of your tongue kind of feel like they melted off. These were just sour enough to be considered sour but not really as intense as a warhead.

The Fruity Bears were really interesting! They had a grapefruit flavored bear in their that was a surprise to me and now I kind of wish they had a bag with only that flavor (not that the other flavors weren't great too. But grapefruit?!?!)

As far as peach rings are concerned...Usually, I don't like peach flavored candies because artificial peach flavoring tastes a lot less like peaches and a lot more like a headache but these Peach Rings tasted just like peaches! The other girls really seemed to like them. In fact, they finished off the bag as soon as turned around.

Another thing I liked about them is they didn't seem to stick to your teeth like other gummy candies. But when you cry yourself to sleep with candy by your side, this is bound to happen...

So if you're just making the transition to veganism or you're just looking for a healthier candy, you have the Brand Nugan mark of approval for a solid, cruelty free gelatin replacement. Thanks for saving the day, Surf Sweets! <3

(P.S. I have The BIGGEST crush on Kat Dennings.)

Moving Tiny Mountains

Being a regular at a coffee shop in Seattle has it's benefits. Your baristas know your name, sometimes they know what to make you before you walk in the door, and when you go vegan...they take note!

I used to order a soft boiled egg and toast every morning when I came to this cafe. Occasionally I get a killer craving for eggs (that could have been a terrible pun). Anyway - my new regular breakfast is toast with kalamata olive tapenade. Not a bad replacement!

And today, they made **lentil soup and made special note that it was vegan.

Please excuse my shitty phone camera.

If you're a regular anywhere and you've made the transition to veganism, let them know! They might be really helpful with your transition. I found that the more people that you tell, the less likely you are to slip-up. More than most of the time, people want to help you/be respectful of your lifestyle. 

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I feel really fortunate to live in Seattle because of the abundance of vegan options around me. The closest vegan restaurant is a short 8 blocks from my apartment (Highline, for all of you Seattleites). All of the cafe's carry some sort of milk alternative and most people don't look at you like you're an alien when you tell them that you don't eat meat. 

I've done a fair bit of traveling in the United States in the last few years (Every state in the continental U.S. and 145,000 miles on my toyota worth of traveling). Most of the larger cities seem to be pretty vegan friendly. However, smaller towns are really difficult for vegans. I'll do a post later on about how this works out for me. 

Have I mentioned that I'm a touring musician? (www.sammywitness.com) My band usually goes on 3-4 day stints of smaller town gig playing. So far, finding eats has been pretty challenging. Fortunately, my boyfriend/guitar player is also vegan and usually helps us find ways to cheat the meat system. 

Another transitioning vegan in my life is my mother. She's made a couple attempts at veganism in the past but she was always alone in it. I think having at least one person to make the jump with you is really helpful. She's coming up to visit me here in Seattle, in a week or two, from Florida. Hopefully we can help her find some good alternatives to the foods she's having a hard time parting ways with!

The Things I'll Miss the Most...

There's a few products that I've tried over the past 2 months that are just not cutting it. So, I decided to make a wish list of items that I hope to successfully find alternatives for, sooner than later.

1. Gummy Bears

 My all time favorite candy with one of the all time cruelest ingredients (gelatin, for those of you who didn't know). After some research, I found there are quite a few companies that make cruelty free gummy candies. (HOORAY!) I was up until 4am this morning researching and writing to different companies. Gummy bears are coming to me in the mail, now! BEST NEWS EVER!

2. Eggs

 I'm a bit of a creature of habit when it comes to breakfast. I walk down to my local coffee house almost everyday to work (from my computer) and I order a soft boiled egg and toast. I'm pretty sure that I'll probably never have a soft boiled egg again but as it turns out, I may have yolk again! I found a company that created Vegan egg yolks. Check it out!  THE VEGG!! Vegan french toast? Yes, please!

3. Yogurt

I would hardly call this "yogurt". 

Prior to going to converting veganism, I was madly in love with yogurt. Cream topped yogurt, FroYo, yogurt chips, yogurt muffings, ALL things yogurt. There's a bunch of co-ops and health food stores around me that carry vegan yogurts and all though I haven't tried them all, I haven't tried one that I like just yet. In fact, I've tried about 6 of them that I wanted to give to my landlord's cats. 

4. Boots

-I wear boots everyday. I wear them to weddings. I wear them when I'm gardening. I wear them to court (...I get a healthy mount of traffic tickets). The higher the boot, the better. I was never really impressed with leather but when it comes to shoe shopping, I can't afford to be too picky. I have super skinny calves and if those suckers don't lace up, I look like I'm walking around your dad's boots. I know there's a handful of companies that make vegan boots. Hopefully one of them makes a sweet knee high lace up boot that I can fall in love with. 

5. CHEESE!!! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, CHEESE!!!!

I don't even want to talk about cheese until there is a SOLID solution to this problem.

That being said, I've got some sample products on the way and I'll let you know what's awesome and what's going to be really awesome for your cat!

Calling All Brand New Vegans...

Nugan: (n.) A newly converted vegan.

I was a 8 year omnivore, a 17 year pescatarian and I'm now 2 months vegan. This could be a blog about all the reasons why I went vegan but it won't be. I'll keep it simple and predominantly about what I think is most important when it comes to solving problems, moving on. In a nutshell, I believe that there's many things that our money and actions affect that we don't take any responsibility for. So long as I have the ability to survive with out harming others, I will consciously make that effort. In the future, if my unborn children decide in their adult lives that they can justify eating animal products, at least they will completely understand the consequences.

All that being said, it isn't easy to reverse 25 years of non vegan eating habits. There are plenty of foods that I miss terribly. 

This is my mission to find alternatives that I think will help myself and others transition from unconscious consumption to fully conscious consumption. There's plenty of blogs about why we should be vegan but way more confusion on what we can use to replace the products that we once loved.

Follow along for tips, tricks, brand reviews and slip-ups.

(And by slip-ups, I mean things like unknowingly buying veggie bacon from MorningStar and assuming that it's vegan. ...Because unfortunately, it's not.)