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Archive for February, 2011

Posted on February 28, 2011 by Jill — 10 Comments

Vegan Tips & Trips: February 2011

Welcome to the February edition of Tips & Trips, a roundup of vegan travel tips and blog posts by vegans who have recently traveled and documented their food finds. If you have some tips or want to submit a link, please contact us.

Vegan Travel Tips

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Posted on February 26, 2011 by Jill — 9 Comments

Vegan on a Business Trip: Victoria, BC

Vega Shake and Go at the Airport

Airport Smoothie

Last week, I had a chance to visit Victoria, British Columbia, a beautiful city on the west coast of Canada. I traveled there for work but found some time to dine out and sample the local vegan options. I left Ottawa early on Wednesday morning, heading to the airport before having any breakfast. Before hopping on the plane, I tore open a vanilla Vega Shake & Go Smoothie packet, mixed the powder with some water, gave it a shake, and voila…I had a protein drink to get my day of travel started. This is really the only way to go when you can’t bring liquids through security. There’s a Booster Juice at the Ottawa airport but I try to avoid soy milk when I can.

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Posted on February 24, 2011 by Spencer - The Road Less Traveled — 16 Comments

On the Hunt for Vegan Food in Nassau, Bahamas

Nassau, Bahamas

Nassau, Bahamas

This guest post was written by Spencer Hope Davis from the Observations from the Road Less Traveled blog.

When I headed off on an extended vacation to Nassau, the capital city and largest city in the Bahamas, I searched the web for places that might be vegan friendly and frankly, I didn’t find a lot of possibilities. Happy Cow didn’t help. No restaurants were listed when I Googled “Nassau vegan.”  In fact, the few blog posts on the matter specifically said Nassau had no vegan friendly spots. I was concerned, but not deterred. After all, my blog is about observing the road less traveled, so I was stubbornly certain that I would find what I was looking for by looking hard enough—even in the land of conch (sea snail) fritters.

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Posted on February 22, 2011 by Jill — 12 Comments

At Home: B-day, V-day, Winter Eats & Weekend Faves

Vegan Cupcakes from Thimble Cakes

Vegan Cupcakes from Thimble Cakes in Ottawa, ON

There’s been a lot of celebrating going on here at the Vegan Backpacker household and no shortage of excuses to eat special things like cupcakes, for example. My birthday just passed, as did Valentine’s day, and friends and family came to visit us from Toronto and Halifax. That’s three great reasons to enjoy a cupcake. These cupcakes we’ve been indulging in, there from Thimble Cakes, a new cupcakery in Ottawa, Ontario. They’re a nut-free bakery with a great selection of vegan offerings. Our friends Calina and Dan, the same couple we traveled around South America with, came up for a weekend and surprised us with this trio, which included a banana split, espresso and double chocolate cupcake.

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Posted on February 14, 2011 by Jill — 12 Comments

The Vegan Food Scene in Cairo, Egypt

Vegan Baked Goods from Sugar and Spice in Cairo, Egypt

Vegan Baked Goods from Sugar and Spice in Cairo, Egypt

I’m very thankful that we were able to visit Egypt during a more peaceful time, while locals were in ramadan and fasting for the sunlight hours. We ate a lot of homemade Egyptian food, but also ventured out into the streets of Cairo to find some vegan baked goods, ful sandwiches, kushari and Indian food. There aren’t a lot of places for vegans to eat in Cario; you really have to know where to look. We were fortunate that our hosts, Joey and Manar, were able to introduce us  to places like Sugar and Spice, where we bought this box of vegan baked goods. At this little bakery and cafe in Zamalek (an island that is known to some as the Manhattan of Cairo), we picked up a mini chocolate bundt cake, rice crispy square and two mini carrot cake loafs.

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Posted on February 10, 2011 by Claude - Abrams Family World Travel — 10 Comments

Trinidad & Tobago: A Vegan Paradise

Doubles (Trini-Bajan Style) on flickr by coreycam

Doubles (Trini-Bajan Style) on flickr by coreycam

This guest post was written by Claude from the Abrams Family World Travel Blog. Claude and his wife have been traveling around the world with their four year old son and are now expecting their second child. If they can travel the world as a family of vegans, so can you!

Who’d have thought that the Carribean islands of Trinidad and Tobago would be such a vegan paradise? We travelled to both islands last October for the first time and the food was as much a highlight as the weather and beaches. While the cuisine choice is grand, there are some catches – and the key is timing.

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Posted on February 6, 2011 by Jill — 14 Comments

At Home: Cookbook Overload & Vegan Coupons

Vegan Cookbooks from the Ottawa Library

Vegan Cookbooks from the Library

Now that I’m back home, I’m rediscovering all of my old hobbies. I’d completely forgotten how awesome the library is. The Ottawa Library has every vegan and raw food cookbook you could ever want. New and old. And not just one copy at each branch; they’ve got something like 20 copies of the more popular titles. I went through the list of vegan cookbooks that were added to the catalogue during 2010 and submitted online requests for almost all of them. A lot of the books had long waiting lists, so I figured they’d come trickling in one at a time. Nope. I suddenly found my inbox full of emails with notifications that my requested books were ready for pickup. So many came in at the same time, I couldn’t fit them all in my book bag. Now I’ve got a whole stack and almost no time to read them (the lending period is three weeks but I’ve been super buys). From this stack I managed to make one recipe, African Yam Stew from Vegan Yum Yum (I’ll share a picture in an upcoming At Home post). And after skimming the recipe index, I decided to buy a copy of Vegan Brunch. If you know any good recipes from the cookbooks pictured above, please let me know right away…I think they’re due back on Tuesday.

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Posted on February 2, 2011 by Jill — 12 Comments

Traditional Egyptian Food Made Vegan

VGML Egypt Air Rome to Cairo on August 30, 2010

VGML on Flight from Rome to Cairo

Are you ready for Egypt!? We certainly weren’t. Going from Italy to Egypt was one hell of a culture shock. After just a few hours in the sky, we landed in a country where everything was totally different, especially the food and people.

We flew with Egypt Air from Rome to Cairo. We ordered special vegan meals (VGML) when we made our online booking and called two days before to make sure they had received our request. When the meals were passed around, the staff knew to give us the veggie option. Our meals came with the little VGML cards but I’m not very confident that everything on the tray was actually vegan. There was no problem with the fruit salad, corn salad, rye bread or box of dates. The potential intruder was the ravioli, which had a mystery stuffing that none of the staff could identify. It could have been potato, tofu or cheese. And who knows what the pasta was made of. I’m dorky enough that I tried emailing Egypt Air customer service. The email address bounced back, saying the address was invalid. Ironically, their email for customer questions is wecare@egyptair.com. I also tried contacting them through Twitter. My question was ignored. Oh well, I guess we’ll never know.

Let’s not dwell on that though. Today I want to share some pictures of the homemade meals we enjoyed while in Cairo.

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