chocolate and lettuce

i forgot how much i loved timtam slams in the morning. i haven't had a timtam since i went fully vegan over a year ago. i don't even think i've had any of the vegan versions of them since i went vegan (before i went vegan zac would bring them home but usually he just used the "too good for share" line and made me get me own non-vegan timtams). zac brought home a packet of Choculence cookies the other day. best vegan "timtam" ever! the past 3 days i've had a much needed chocolate cookie with my coffee in the morning. soooo good.
that chocolate helped me thru the conference i was at all day yesterday. i had to fight the special dietary requirements "soup nazi" lady all day for my food (it was the same woman last year and she is pretty much the soup nazi of special dietary requirement meals-- like anyone who could eat the other food would choose the big salad or gluten free cookies). for some reason, the catering people decided vegans didn't need a special morning tea even though the pastries on the table were definitely not vegan. only gluten free people had special cookies labeled with their names. i managed to get the last spare plate of gluten free cookies after i got the soup nazi to go back and confirm that they were also egg and dairy free (she kept trying to hand them to me saying "gluten free, gluten free" even though i'm on her list as "vegan"). i kept repeating i can eat gluten. i can't have egg and dairy. eventually, she went in the back with the plate and came back a minute later saying "no egg or dairy" (so hopefully she was telling the truth and not just trying to make me go away). for lunch we had a large bowl of salad and that was it. no protein, no carbs just lettuce, tomato, onion, artichoke and beetroot. it tasted ok but if i hadn't had my bag of nuts and dried fruit i would have been very hungry. Why do catering companies think all that vegans eat is salad (and there were at least 5 or 6 names on the list that had vegan next to them)???? my coworker who is vegan and gluten intolerant was smart and brought her own sandwich to go with her large salad. i do put on the conference evaluation form every time this happens that the food was poor and vegans need food other than salad but i'm sure that info rarely gets passed on to caterers. i think it was more disappointing at the last conference which was a sustainability conference that was completely catered with vegetarian food but still, all the vegans got for lunch was salad while everyone else had wraps that were vegan other than the cheese. could they not have made some cheese-free wraps for the vegans??? at least then we would have had some carbs to help fill us up. maybe i just need to get more organized and just pack my own meals and snacks when i go to these things.