Come on, the party’s already started. Miami got a taste of the 4th annual Seed Food and Wine Festival at last week’s preview BBQ throwdown, with top local eateries vying for meatless mastery. The festival officially opens Wednesday, bigger and better than ever, with more vegan influencers, artisans, presenters, products and plants.
Event co-founders Alison Burgos and Michelle Gaber launched Seed Food and Wine in 2013 as plantastic party, but the two, named this year’s community leaders by Johnson & Wales University, keep adding new components to the festival. They want to open everyone up to plant-based possibilities, like Friday night’s first-ever conscious fashion show, with cruelty-free hot looks from international brands.
Thursday and Friday, Seed Summit feeds your brain and brand, with pros like vegan cheese queen Miyoko Schinner and VegNews editor Colleen Holland sharing tips about vegan messaging, product launch and brand-building.
Thursday night, the festival’s beloved plant-based burger battle returns with 14 local and national plant butchers and vegan chefs competing for best burger. Miami’s own Love Life Wellness Cafe bested them all last year. Can they hold their own against national brands like Field Roast? Come, taste and find out. There’ll be komchuka and brewskies but no beef.
Saturday, festival day, join celebs including Badass Vegan and Rich Roll for Seed’s 5K fun run, followed by yoga and meditation. Then meet vegan superstars at the tasting village, where 180 vegan vendors tempt you with plant-based treats to sample and a fully-loaded market offers must-have plant-based goodness.
Vegan chefs plate up the plant power with dinners Friday and Saturday nights and at Sunday’s NamaSeed yoga brunch. It all adds up to five don’t-miss days and nights of conscious, compassionate living and eating with a hedonistic flavor. Tickets at www.seedfoodandwine.com. Enter special cuz-we-love-ya promo code JOINME20 for discount tickets.
Seed Food and Wine started as a plant party. Now it’s more, it’s a movement. It’s helped Miami earn its place as one of America’s top 10 vegan cities. It invites the mainstream market to the vegan party, brings together the global vegan community and supports all the plant-based initiatives and eateries Don’t miss it.
Seed Cake
The splendor of seeds comes together in this quick and easy bread. Recipe from my award-winning book Feeding the Hungry Ghost: Life, Faith and What to Eat for Dinner, copyright Ellen Kanner, 2013, used with permission from New World Library.
1 cup unsweetened soy or hemp milk
2 tablespoons ground flax seeds (also known as flax meal)
2 tablespoons ground chia seeds
2 teaspoons whole anise seeds
1-½ cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
¾ cup evaporated cane sugar
⅓ cup grapeseed or other neutral oil
½ cup applesauce
⅓ cup raisins
zest and juice of 1 lemon
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Lightly oil an 8” round cake pan or a 9”x5” loaf pan.
In a small bowl, combine soy milk with flax, chia and anise seeds. Stir lightly to combine and let sit while you assemble the other ingredients.
In a large bowl sift together whole wheat flour, baking soda and baking powder. Grate in lemon zest. In another bowl, mix together evaporated cane sugar, hemp or canola oil , apple sauce and lemon juice. Add to dry mixture, along with the soy milk, which, thanks to the seeds, will have thickened madly. Stir together, then fold in the raisins.
Pour into prepared baking pan and bake for 45 minutes or until the cake is golden, puffed and a tester inserted in the center comes away crumb-free and clean. You can also give it a gentle poke with a finger. It springs back perfectly when baked through.
Remove from oven and let cool. Wrapped well and refrigerated, it keeps for several days.
More at soulfulvegan.com