Y'all, I met Tabitha Brown!!

On Sunday, I met Vegan Queen Tabitha Brown!!!

Tab was in town as the special guest for Memphis Vegan Brunch, an event organized by local vegan restaurant Plant-Based Heat. Organizer Ralph Johnson got together a team of local vegan chefs (including Chef Derek of Da Guilty Vegan and Chef Daishu of Shroomlicious) to create massive brunch buffet! There was no way I would miss this.

My friends Melissa and Nicole also bought tickets. We arrived around 12:30 p.m. to find a pretty long line waiting to get into the event. So we waited! 

When we finally got in the door, there was another big line for food, so we waited some more. All in all, we stood in line for over two hours, and while some people might get impatient, we didn't mind too much. We made a run to the bar and grabbed mimosas to enjoy while we waited. 

I was just glad to see SO MANY people packed into a vegan event. There had to have been 500 or more people in line. At one point, Ralph asked the audience for a show of hands from the non-vegans, and the majority of the room raised their hands. So that means a ton of non-vegans paid good money to stand in line for a chance to meet Tab and eat vegan brunch. And that's awesome.

We were very excited when we finally made it to the plates!

Once we did, we got a little taste of everything. This plate was mostly brunch items with Just Egg scramble, hash browns, pancakes, mushroom bacon (so good!), mushroom "shrimp" and grits, fried rice, and a mini mushroom taco. Oh, and two mini cupcakes (one lemon and one carrot cake).

I ended up getting two plates because I don't like too many foods piled atop one another. This plate was mostly soul food with blackeyed peas, greens, a mushroom "crab" cake, fried mushroom "chicken," a vegan potato deviled "egg," roasted tomatoes, a yam quesadilla, and BBQ jackfruit nachos.

Right after we sat down to eat, Tabitha came by our table! She went to every person in the room for selfies. She's just amazing. In fact, I was so starstruck thatI didn't know what to say to her, so all I could say was "You're amazing." Haha. My friend Melissa grabbed this photo of me taking a selfie with her.

The event also featured a fashion show curated by local influencer David Quarles and a musical performance by singer David Michael Wyatt. At the end, Tab took the stage and offered some words of encouragement, and then she tried her hand at jookin' (a style of Memphis hip-hop dance). What a fun event!