12:00 – 1:00 pm
Crystal Hallwood is a local private vegan chef and caterer who embraced a vegan diet in 2012. As a culinary graduate and foodie, she enjoys veganizing recipes and creating new ones. Crystal works with Vegan Michiana to do food demos promoting easy and delicious vegan foods, and she has shared recipes with Edible Michiana. Crystal is the mother of two amazing girls and an avid distance runner. Find her @WildTines on Instagram.
2:30 – 3:30 pm
Fueled by her passion for food people and food, Jasmine began looking for ways to eat and live healthier. Inspired by health documentaries, she uncovered that a change in food could aid in preventing health disparities that she’d seen plague so many people that she cared about.
Jasmine took matters into her own hands – and began to shift the way she looked at food, seeing food as the source of healing. She began to consume plant-based options and took some of her favorite dishes and made them into vegan dishes without sacrificing taste, surprising everyone she shared her dishes with!
Thus the creation of Vegan Bites by Jas!
At Vegan bites by Jas, we work hard to empower and educate our customers to live the long, healthy, and fulfilled life that they desire. We exist to make comfort food healthy & delicious! Everyday we are striving to impact peoples lives, by changing what they eat!
Let’s do this health Journey together!
At VegFest, Jasmine will prepare Grandma’s Lasagna
1:15 – 2:15 pm
Laura Crotty, an award-winning culinary writer, works in plant-based product development. She received her chef certification at the Institute for Culinary Education under the instruction of the late Annemarie Colbin, PhD, an early pioneer of the health-food movement. Her work has appeared in such outlets as NPR, Motherwell, the Huffington Post, Seattle Magazine, MSN, Vegan Food and Living and Taste for Life magazine. Her interview subjects have included such luminaries as Chef Thomas Keller, the first and only American-born chef to hold multiple three-star ratings from the prestigious Michelin Guide; Alice Waters, owner of Chez Panisse and a pioneer of the farm to table movement in America; and Tom Douglas, restaurateur and multiple James Beard award recipient. The Little Vegan Dessert Cookbook, her first book, is a Next Generation Indie Book Award recipient.
3:45 – 4:45 pm
Chef AJ will demonstrate recipes from her latest book The 10th Anniversary Edition of Unprocessed, making recipes with the fruit, the whole fruit and nothing but the fruit. She will make Caramel Blondies, Cherry Cobbler, Date and Guilt-Free Frappuccino. She will also show a nice cream but won’t be able to tell you what flavor until that day.
Chef AJ has been devoted to a plant-exclusive diet for nearly 45 years. She was the host of the television series Healthy Living with CHEF AJ which aired on Foody TV. A chef, culinary instructor and professional speaker, she is the author of three bestselling books, The Secrets to Ultimate Weight Loss: A Revolutionary Approach to Conquer Cravings, Overcome Food Addiction and Lose Weight Without Going Hungry, Own Your Health and the 10th Anniversary Edition of Unprocessed, all of which have received glowing endorsement by many luminaries in the plant-based movement.
Chef AJ was the Executive Pastry Chef at Santé Restaurant in Los Angeles where she was famous for her sugar, oil, salt and gluten-free desserts which use the fruit, the whole fruit and nothing but the whole fruit. She broadcasts CHEF AJ LIVE! on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter daily. She is the creator of the Ultimate Weight Loss Program, which has helped hundreds of people achieve the health and the body that they deserve, and is proud to say that her IQ is higher than her cholesterol. In 2018 she was inducted into the Vegetarian Hall of Fame.