VeganMoFo Day 8: New Vegan Friends!

Today's MoFo Prompt: "Reach out! Make a new vegan friend & tell us about it."

I love having vegan friends! I feel lucky to have a handful of very special vegan friends here in Santa Cruz. Most of my pals here in town, I actually met first online, over at the PPK forums. How cool is that? Today they are some of my favorite people ever!! That said, I always love meeting new vegan friends, because how you could you ever have too many friends?

Connie & Me

Recently I've made two new vegan friends. A couple of years ago, the esteemed Isa Chandra Moskowitz came to Santa Cruz on her book tour for "Isa Does It." When she was doing her talk at the bookshop, a nice gal in attendance named Connie introduced herself to me and said that she was a fan of my blog. How nice! I was eager to get to know her and got her email address and promised to be in touch. Well, it really took me a while. That was when my dad was very sick, and I remember that my mom and I had someone cover for us at the hospital with my dad, so that she and I could both go hear Isa talk. Later, my dad took a turn for the worse (He is better now!), and the whole experience was long and hard and tiring. Needless to say, I did not send any emails to my potential new friend.

At the start of 2014, I was determined to make contact... So, right before Christmas (ha ha ha), we finally got together. We met up for coffee and it was great! I gave her one of my zines and she brought me some homemade jam. We chatted easily and happily for quite a while. Recently we've had a few more chances to get together, and I am quite a Connie fan. Even though we are still getting to know each other, I was immediately comfortable and happy in her company. She is smart, and kind, and thoughtful, quick to smile, and full of life. I'm really happy to have her as a new friend in my life and I'm looking forward to more fun times together!

Ms. H & Me

Remember the vegan cheese party I blogged about recently? I was at the farmers market, looking at some different apple varieties, trying to pick one to serve at the party. The gal at the farm stand saw me looking befuddled and asked if she could help. I told her I needed apples for a vegan cheese party, and she was super helpful. Then, through chatty chatter, discussion of Miyoko's cheese ensued, and it was revealed that she was also a vegan! OHO! New potential friend alert! We both got all jazzed up!

Ms. H and I just had our first New Friend Date last weekend and it was really wonderful. It was so fun to ask each other questions and start getting to know one another. She is thoughtful and lively and smart and seems like she has all sorts of great friend qualities up her sleeve. I'm really looking forward to getting to know her (and her vegan partner) more!

I've also already made a lot of new vegan friends on blogs and instagram accounts that are new to me through VeganMoFo this year. In real life or online, I think vegan friends are super important. Even though I've been a committed vegan for about 16 years, apparently it's true that less than 1% of the population is vegan... so we are still really in the minority. Having friends who are vegan has helped me feel supported and enthusiastic about life as a vegan - my friends have helped me discover new foods, new recipes, new products, new snappy comebacks to doubters, new reasons to be committed to veganism, and on and on. It wouldn't be the same without my vegan pals, and that definitely includes YOU - my beloved online vegan friends.