Introducing Kim Sujovolsky
In today’s episode, we’ll be talking to Kim Sujovolsky who is the co-founder of the platform Brownble. Kim is originally from Venezuela but now lives in Spain with her husband and pups. Kim has been vegan for more than 10 years and she is always trying to support anyone who is looking to go vegan or make vegan choices and she does that in many different ways (don’t worry we talk about that in the intro of the podcast). Kim is a natural educator, like me, she recently stopped teaching to focus on her vegan business and I want to encourage you to head on over to The Brownble Podcast and check out some of her episodes. I was lucky enough to be interviewed on her podcast recently so if you like you can start there or any of the other 200-plus episodes that she recorded for you.
Brownble’s cooking platform has over 450 videos teaching you how to cook so it is not a surprise that she is talking to us today about something that I know concerns a lot of you, and that is how to navigate travel with nonvegans specifically if you are self-catering in an Airbnb. I know I can sometimes feel a little anxious when traveling with non-vegans and how to navigate sticking to my values but making sure that no one feels judged or that I am crossing the line (even though it can be hard to know where that line is). Kim is going to share her tips and tricks for navigating these situations.
Timestamps
- 5:56 Overview of today’s episode by Brighde
- 9:56 What Kim does in the vegan space?
- 15:14 How do people like to travel when they are vacationing in a self-catering accommodation with non-vegan family and friends?
- 26:39 Tips to make food inclusive for everybody without causing conflicts
- 34:49 What are some of Kim’s favorite recipes to make when some people are vegan and some are not?
- 37:59 How are the ingredients transported to the vacation spot?
- 42:09 How to keep your food frozen on longer trips?
- 44:39 How to take all the condiments with you, when you go on a trip?
- 46:54 Any tips for specific drinks?
- 49:35 What are Kim’s plans for this summer vacations?
- 51:53 How people can connect with Kim?
Learn more about what we talk about
- Brownble: Online Vegan Cooking Classes & Courses
- Vacation Homes & Condo Rentals – Airbnb – Airbnb
- Castile–La Mancha | region, Spain – Encyclopedia Britannica
- The Best Spanish Tinto de Verano Recipe
Connect with Kim Sujovolsky
Transcript
Brighde: Hello, Kim. Thank you so much for joining us on The World Vegan Travel Podcast.
Kim: Oh, Brighde thank you, the honor is all mine. I am a huge fan of your podcast. We recommend it to all of our listeners and all of our students at Brownble. And it’s a treat to be here.
Brighde: Oh, thank you. So tell us a little bit about what you do in the vegan space, because I’ve been following your work for quite some time. I know a lot about it, but maybe there are some people out there that are not so familiar because you honestly do so many things, I look at what you do and I’m like telling myself, how does Kim create so much content? How does she do it anyway, tell us all of the things that you create and what you do to help move veganism forward.
Kim: Great. I get that comment a lot. Like how do you do it? And I don’t know. I just think we’ve been very passionate about it from the beginning and it just one thing falls into the next and we don’t even realize it, but yeah. So Brownble is. Platform, an online platform where we are basically supporting people on their journey to being vegan.
And we do this in many different ways. We have a membership program where people have, at this point, it’s over 450 videos with cooking classes and support videos on your journey. We guide you to nutritional resources all of the details and important things you need to know when you’re making this transition.
We also have vegan courses, both free and paid. We teach you how to make delicious vegan cheese. We teach you, we have a course on how to go vegan and that includes like everything surrounding the lifestyle. And we have a podcast, a YouTube channel, social media, all of that good stuff, all to help people just get a little bit more familiar with the beauty and the fun and the joy that is vegan food and this amazing movement that is so special to our hearts.
And when I say our hearts, I have to specify because my other half my partner, my life partner, my husband, and also my business partner in this whole endeavor is my husband Carlos he is a medical doctor. And I’m a cook and together, we created this baby. It’s our baby. And that’s what we do in a nutshell.
Brighde: Yes. I can’t remember how I stumbled across your work. It must have been about five or six, maybe six years ago, and the quality of the video production that you do. And you’re just so articulate and the way you just really explain things is just so easy to understand, and you are always so kind and supportive of people, of your students, of people that are learning from you. And yeah, you put some really lovely content in the world. Thank you so much.
Kim: Oh, that is just so sweet of you to say. And, we have a lot of people who are getting started on this journey, but we have a lot of students who are not quite there yet. They are trying to take more steps in the vegan direction, but they don’t feel quite ready. They maybe have a non-supportive family member at home or a partner that isn’t a hundred percent on board and they’re navigating that tough terrain that can sometimes happen in the beginning.
And I think that has taught me so much about how really each person has to take their time with this. And there’s no forcing it. There’s no rushing it, the, I don’t know, there’s the more inspiration and help and support you have it, it really does get easier. And that’s what I’m all about.
Brighde: I’m not surprised that people come and interact with you and your content, because you just are so attentive and supportive and sweet and this so kind of relationship between, new vegans and possibly non vegan friends and family is what we are gonna be talking about today because I know a lot of people who come on like our Vegan Travel Summit and they ask questions as well about how to travel with a non vegan family member or a friend, because there can be a little bit of conflict there for number of things, and you are gonna be sharing with us today, how people might like travel. In a, a self-catering environment when you are with non vegan family and friends, right.
Kim: yes. Yes. This whole way of traveling happened by accident. But it has taught me so much about the dynamics that happen when you’re traveling with family members that don’t eat in the same way that you do, but where you’re actually trying to use this opportunity, this trip, this vacation to, in a way, soften the waters that will also help you in other areas of life.
When you’re, in normal situations, in your normal day to day life with. And I have to go a little bit back in time to tell you, I don’t know, maybe where this started. I was born and raised in Venezuela. I don’t know if you know that and my childhood, I had a very rocky childhood, but the best parts of my childhood happened in this tiny little beach house that my mom just gathered all of our savings and put it into buying this space. And it was in a very small community. There wasn’t really a lot to do there just beach. We had our little house, but it was in an area in Venezuela, very unexplored with a lot of beautiful natural places and forests and reservoirs and rivers.
And, I spent the best parts of my childhood going to this little house and we would cook and eat in this house. We would pack lunches. We would take them on day trips to the different places where we were, exploring or hiking or doing any of these things. And I just grew to love that feeling of being at home.
While at the same time feeling the awe that nature brings, which is similar to the awe that traveling brings. It’s that feeling of really being addicted to travel is it’s about that experience of awe, which is very important for us as human beings. And I think that is how I have this sort of muscle memory of this place growing up.
And when we moved to Spain, which is where we live now, we went on this trip to a house we rented and this house was in just in the most incredible place. We had a mountain full of snow prairies with like wild flowers. We had waterfall and rivers and it was just the most beautiful place to explore, but the most special moments and we went to this house with our family. So in our family, that lives here in Madrid, we are the only vegans are my husband and I. There’s one pescatarian and there’s a hardcore carnivore and two, very flexible people that aren’t vegan by any means. But, they the values that are behind it and such.
And so we went to this place with them. And what I started to realize as the weekend progressed is that, the best moments were happening around the food and the cooking together and the sharing time inside this house and eating outside and planning the sandwiches we were gonna take on hikes and things like that.
And it’s become a of family tradition. We go at least twice a year, one time in the summer, and then one time in, during the winter. And of course choose very specific houses for both cozy cabins, with a fireplace or a really nice place with a pool or rivers nearby or something like that in the summer.
And it has taught me just so much about sharing your life with someone who eats in a different way and how that can be structured. And that’s part of what we teach our students. But a lot of that has just been really personal lessons on it. And I have to say, it’s also great opportunity to talk about veganism and why we eat this way.
And a lot of conversation happens and with time it’s just been the best thing for our family.
Brighde: It must be working for you because you keep on going back year after year with families. So it must be a very pleasant and nice experience. So I’m really looking forward to you sharing what your tips are and how we can make the food inclusive for everybody lessening any possible conflict that could arise.
Kim: Yeah. Yes, absolutely. So first tip very important when you choose your house. And I don’t think that you need to choose the house or the place you’re visiting to based on the kitchen and what equipment is there, choose it because it’s a place you want to explore the. That’s the most important thing, choose a house that feels inviting a cabin that looks cozy, choose it because that’s where you’re gonna be spending this time. That’s the most important, but once you do what you can do and is very important is to plan the meals that you’re gonna have together. According to the house you’ve already chosen. And this is important because especially in the countryside and in rural areas in Spain, which is where we travel in this way.
And of course you can take all of these tips and use them through anywhere in the world where you are. A couple of things have happened to us during these trips. One time we had the tiniest refrigerator. It was less than a mini bar in a hotel. And we had come with this massive amount of food to the house and that can be problematic.
So that’s something that you can easily check in the description of the house that you are renting or booking and just it’s important, especially if you’re a large group of people. We are six adults and we eat a lot. We love to eat and cook, so that was a problem. There was another time when we saw the kitchen, it had never happened to us.
So we hadn’t thought to ask, there was no oven and we had planned to make delicious pizzas. And we had all of this pizza dough that we were taking and it. Just, we eventually we were able to do it eventually on a grill, but it was messy to say the least other things that you can think of asking or figuring out before you plan the meals that you’re gonna have together.
Is there an outdoor grill? Grilling is a big part of our family tradition and grilling is a sticky territory because I know some vegans feel a little bit weird about, having animal products and plant-based products cooked in the same grill. And I totally respect and understand that if that’s the case for you.
And there are things you can do to navigate that. But if that’s not a problem for you or you wanna be flexible and try to see how it goes, Just making sure if it’s the summertime that grilling outside is allowed, we’ve had very serious wildfires in Spain, especially this year. We’ve had just record breaking heat waves and it’s been bad and many places are opting to, just put the grill off of, outta service, even if it’s there in the house. So that’s something that you can ask. It doesn’t mean you can’t stay in that house. It just means there won’t be grilling so you can plan it a different meal. So those are some things that I think you have to keep in mind when you’re choosing the place that you’re going to go to and you can plan your meals accordingly.
Now, when I say plan your meals. You have so many ways to go about this and I’m sure it’s gonna depend on people’s personality. How much of a planner they are, how much of the, I wanna have all the delicious goodies and make sure I’m not missing anything and keep in mind that at least in our case, we are going to very rural areas.
These are areas that don’t even have a hotel. And you’re gonna have maybe a small store, definitely gonna be able to find fruits and vegetables. That’s the beauty of Spain, one of the wonderful things about Spain, but some other things like soy milk or another non-dairy milk, things like that. We’ve rarely had trouble, you wanna keep that in mind.
And so you can decide to plan some meals. I’m gonna give you lots of ideas of course and take all of those groceries with you to cook there, you can take part of the groceries and decide to buy some of the shelf, stable staples there, or some of the fruits and vegetables fresh there. And you can also cook things in advance and take the ready made dishes.
Now, I have found that it’s in the cooking process together that a lot of that sort of wonderful sharing of time and of the way we eat and the experience of eating vegan foods for non vegans, that’s where it happens. So that’s what we do. We take lots of groceries, haul them to these houses and there we have a, just the best time cooking.
Brighde: There are some great tips there because yeah. Very often when we are going to a cabin, and the nearest store is half an hour away. Like in, in North America, that’s a very common thing to do. And if you are not organized, you can find yourself having to go to the store every single day. And this is annoying.
Kim: It also takes away part of your enjoyment time, right? It’s not the number one thing you wanna do when you’re traveling, going grocery shopping. So that’s one of the advantages of taking things with you, if you can if you’re going by car and it’s easy for you, of course, if you’re going by plane, it’s a totally different matter and you’re gonna have to do your shopping there.
That’s where Happy Cow comes in. You can search for nearby towns where there might be some vegan stores or just go to the regular supermarket because as most vegans will tell you, most of our meals are bought there, with the delicious produce and fruits and veggies and all of the wonderful plant-based foods that are in that everybody eats. One thing that helps in terms of the shopping, what we do, we the things that each person is going to take because we’re three families in total. That’s hugely helpful. So instead of all, going together to the supermarket, which I hardly ever recommend.
That can
Brighde: I hate it.
Kim: be that can just be messy in a waste of time. But what we do is we divide that. We make a list of the meals that we’re excited to have during the trip. And we divide the grocery list and here the vegans in the family, my husband and I we’re gonna buy any vegan goodies that we are going to take. And anybody who’s going to be cooking animal products they’re in charge of taking that. And that also helps just keep a little bit of a division of that, because I know that it can be, first of all, I’ve been vegan for almost a decade, so I wouldn’t even know what to get for them, but it wouldn’t be the most comfortable thing for me. So that’s how we do it. And that’s a way to keep the peace that helps.
Brighde: Yeah, I definitely agree. And yeah, I much prefer to do the shopping ahead of time than all going to the supermarket together, cuz people just throw things into the supermarket trolley. There’s no sort of structure. And very often you can end up from the, from your time in the cabin with all of this leftover food. And it’s maybe not such a big deal. If you are coming back home, you got there by car, but if you flying to a different place, then, you can end up wasting a lot of food. Like we were in Tuscany with friends just recently and it wasn’t too bad, but we weren’t very structured in our meals.
Won’t say semi-structure and maybe that was what led us to the fact that we didn’t have a lot of food left over and the caretaker of the accommodation of the Tuscan Villa there, she was quite happy to take the leftover bits and pieces. But yeah, if you can just plan meals ahead of time, I think it just saves a ton of hassle and, negotiating on the fly, which is not so fun.
Kim: I a hundred percent agree with you and we’ve found something interesting has happened. We’ve been doing this type of traveling with our family for a few years now. And every time we go, our family members who aren’t vegan start getting familiar with a new dish that we decided to make and they start seeing I realize that the more trips we make, the less animal products they’re taking, because they try our version, which as you’ll hear now, when I give some examples of dishes and meals and things like that are absolutely delicious and things that non vegans eat. That’s the thing that is so important to remember that people who are not vegan can eat everything right. And , it’s I’ve noticed that when we’ve decided to have a taco night and we’ve created a, just the vegan options for those tacos. They’ve enjoyed it so much that the next time around, they say we’re not gonna bother to like, take something else because then we have to like, no, like we’re, we’ll have the vegan version too.
And that’s been amazing because we haven’t been pushing it on them. We haven’t been pressuring them. Everybody has access, we do this in in the like Notes app of the phone and we share it. So everyone adds the goodies that they would like to add snacks and things that they enjoy, that we didn’t think to take.
And there’s absolute total freedom for meat eaters to take whatever they want on these trips. And I’ve noticed that the animal products keep getting, smaller and lower. And I, yeah, I think it’s a testament to being exposed to what Vegan food really is. And it is normal food.
And that’s made a huge difference. And so every time we go now it’s easier and easier to plan this because yeah, everybody has embraced it and it’s lovely. And if it can happen with some of the hardcore carnivores in my family, it can happen in yours.
Brighde: So what are some of the dishes that you love to prepare in this kind of context, in this situation?
Kim: Sure. So we definitely have our favorites and something I would love to reference is we had in our podcast, we recently had a guest. She was a she is a Registered Dietician, Shannon Costello, and she was talking about sharing her life with her now husband, she’s now married and how he isn’t vegan and she is, and she talked about this concept of meal extenders. And I asked her like, what are meal extenders? And when she described it to me, it is exactly what we do on these trips. So a meal extender would be making, for example, she used the example of making a delicious Bolognese sauce for pasta and adding, using all of the delicious tomatoes and onions and garlic and spices, adding some red lentils to add lots of that plant-based protein, and then for her husband on the side, he would cook meat crumbles or ground meat or whatever he wanted to add to his Bolognese, but the bulk and the main part of the meal, is made out of plants. As many dishes are in the world. And then, that’s a good way to get the meal started like that.
And whoever wants to add something in addition can do and the rest is all vegan and this is something that I always talk about when I’m talking about cooking for the holidays, making the mashed potatoes with non-dairy milk and non-dairy butter. No one can tell the difference whatsoever. And if it can be made like this and everybody can enjoy them, why not? So the sort of meal ideas follow this sort of way of organizing the recipe, let’s say. And so we have days in which we have, we always have a taco night, that’s become a regular, everybody loves it. And so I always make a vegan sour cream with cashews. I make my guacamole and some Pico di Gallo salsa and, some delicious black beans and we take tortillas and you can add any other fixings that you love in your tacos. And that’s a regular, we always have a barbecue, like I mentioned, some vegans feel a little bit uncomfortable about the same space cooking, both types of meals. You can visually cut the barbecue in half mentally cut the barbecue in half, have things stay separate, or if it still makes you uncomfortable, you can cook some of the components inside in, in the stove, in a pan. The biggest part of our barbecues are delicious things like cooking corn on the cob and asparagus and peppers and onions and giant Portobello mushrooms that you marinate and you pop on the grill. We love adding some Beyond Sausages or we have a delicious sausage recipe made from scratch in our YouTube channel. And we take some of those and you notice when you’re looking at this grill, how much of a barbecue is really plants. And that’s a beautiful thing. And you can focus on that. Try to look at this as you are in this process to join forces, not separate, and that kind of helps. We have sometimes we make a delicious pesto sauce and we quickly cook some spaghetti. We take the pesto sauce ready-made. We quickly cook some spaghetti and toss it with that. Or some delicious Pomodoro sauce. Sometimes we take all of the fixings to assemble sandwiches, and this is especially helpful, if during this holiday, you’re gonna go on hikes and you’re gonna go to spend some time at the beach or, just go down trails and you can maybe take lunch with you.
And so you can. Fill your packs with just delicious fruit or fruit salad. You can grab some sandwiches, some chips. You put all of the things in the center of the table and each person assembles their sandwich, like they like it. No judgment. And everyone can share that time.
And there’s less stress that way. I feel what else? Sometimes we make our delicious risotto with vegetables or a huge paella Spanish style. Paella with tons of vegetables. We make really big salads in a recent house we stayed in. There was an entire vegetable garden. That we could eat out of that was just mind blowing.
It brought me back to that, those memories in Venezuela, because that’s what we would spend our days doing. We had huge tamarind trees and lime trees and soursop trees are typical in Venezuela. And we would make our meals from what we got from the garden.
And so we, we were able to do that in a recent house and it was so good, so delicious. And I noticed in that particular house, how our family members who were not vegan were so excited because there’s something really special that happens when you see how vegetables are grown. And you realize wow, there’s a big difference between the industries that are involved in our meat consumption and picking a tomato from a tomato plant. It was very special thing. So we make really big, beautiful salads we have days in which we maybe have burgers on the grill and everybody in our family’s obsessed with the Beyond Burger and or other burgers that we’ve taken. And so they’re more than happy to have that. And lots of delicious fixings, everybody can assemble them as they like. Tapas tapas night. This is an important night.
So tapas are the best way to, first of all, use some of those leftovers that you mentioned. So there are going to be some leftover grilled peppers and grilled onions and some leftover salad.
And there’s gonna be like all sorts of ins and outs, because it’s really hard to exactly calculate how much you’re gonna take. We tend to usually over shop and then have to divide what was left over between the households. Tapas nights means that anything goes, you can have lots of these delicious, small appetizers and plates.
You have lots of different dishes in the center of the table, like at like Spanish tapas or Greek meze, and everybody grabs you have some delicious olives, you can take some plant-based cheese and, people who don’t eat vegan can also take whatever components they want, and it’s all just there on the table.
And you grab, fill up your plate and then focus on the conversation on the time spent together. And this is a, this is an important night. I always also recommend taking something sweet. I usually bake a batch of brownies and take it with me or banana bread, something delicious like that. And by the way, we’ve got plenty of recipes for all of these things in our YouTube channel and in our website, if people are interested, but it’s always nice to have that and have lots of snacks for game nights. Take whatever drinks you love, enjoy wine by the fire. and it has slowly become less about the beautiful surroundings and more about the family time. And that’s what I love about this way of traveling.
Brighde: I really liked what you said about the tapas. We do something different or we did something different when we were just with friends in Tuscany, they were all vegetarian and and of course, Seb and I were vegan and we didn’t do tapas, but my friend, particularly, she does a really great job at platters.
So she just made this big platter of all of the leftover food was the end of the trip. And we just grazed on that with our Aperols and next to the pool, it was just so much fun.
I did have a question for you about the amount of stuff, cuz you mentioned, for example, the pesto and the sour cream. Are these things that you bring and prepare at home ahead of time and how do you transport them to where you are going?
Kim: Great question Brighde yes, so I do take some of those types of staples there. So things that are gonna require a blender or a food processor or something other than a cutting board and a knife and regular set of pots and pans you do wanna take from home because, if there’s a blender, it’s gonna be a very simple blender.
Or you might not find one. So those kinds of things I think it’s helpful to take a long ready-made same thing goes for the brownies. I’m not going to use time of my vacation to bake and measure out and take the flour and take the baking powder and all of those things. So I always recommend you can take things in reusable baggies or containers that are then going to be extremely helpful.
Always take some, either collapsible containers or extra Tupperware or things like that, because you’re gonna need it when there are leftovers for the next day, you’re gonna realize you open the fridge and where do I, where am I gonna put this? So it’s always helpful to travel with just maybe one or two.
When we take these things and anything that is refrigerated, you can take a cooler and some of these very handy refillable freezer containers that then you can refreeze once you get there and come back with any leftovers. And what we’ve recently found is a cooler takes a lot of space in our car, and we have a tiny electric car. And what helps if it’s not a long distance is getting some of these reusable hefty bags that they sell at the store at the supermarket for when you’re taking frozen foods home. And they they’re really good at keeping frozen foods frozen. So if it’s not a long distance, this takes so much less space.
It can go under the car seat. It can go between the, the front seats of the car and the ones in the back. It can go in any sort of corner if you’re taking a lot of things and just small containers. Baggies are hugely helpful and you can reuse these. Yeah.
Brighde: I can’t stop thinking about some extreme meal prepping, I did for a trip that I did a few years ago, we were meeting Colleen and David and we were going to spend Christmas with them. An important meal, important time. I’ve relaxed a little bit these days, but I really wanted to have this nut roast that I know nut roasts get a bit of a bad wrap, but this one is really good.
We’ve been cooking it in our families since the age of 10, it wasn’t vegan, then it was vegetarian. But of course we veganized it. Now. It doesn’t have egg in it, now it has just a flax egg. Anyway, it’s this cashew nut and mushroom layered nut roast.
It’s so good. And then I would make a gravy with it. So that’s basically what we have every year at Christmas, if we happen to be in a place and Colleen and David and Seb and I, we were going to this little place in Southern Germany, in a small town, it’s over Christmas so there’s not a lot of things open, especially in Europe. So I was like I’m gonna bring it. And I actually made this nut roast in Thailand and gravy and I froze it and I brought it all of the way to Germany and all.
Kim: Oh, my goodness. How did you manage to keep it frozen?
Brighde: It stayed frozen until we get there. But of course, it was thawing over the period of the few days, but I was able to keep it cool enough. We didn’t get sick and basically I would make sure that I would refreeze the bricks every night. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend everyone do that, it was really nice to have this traditional way that I personally would enjoy Christmas lunch and this amazing gravy in this little house in the middle of Southern Germany, it was fun. If I can bring a nut roast from Thailand to Southern Germany .
Kim: Yes, absolutely. And remember, you can also freeze sauces and things like that in ice cube, trays, and plop all of those ice cubes in a baggy, that’s also gonna save space. And of course you have to adapt this to whether or not you have to fly there. If you’re taking your car. If it’s a road trip to get there, it’s so much easier. You can take anything you want with you, and then maybe compliment with things that you’re going to find there. If you don’t wanna carry everything. I love your story. Brighde because Christmas is a big, important meal for me. I we’ve never spent, Christmas day or Christmas Eve at one of these houses, but if we were to do I can only imagine the amount of food we would take to that because we all have usually all have Christmas meal together and everybody has a favorite. So our Christmas dinners are insanity. It’s so many different dishes because of course Christmas means different things to different people and food is such a big part of these celebrations. We have our attachments to those dishes. So everything goes and that’s the beauty of that sort of document. And this could be a Google Doc. It can be notes on your phone that you share between everybody and you can add, people can add what they like. For example, I don’t know. One of our family members loves taking yogurt for snacks.
I would’ve never thought to take that because it’s not in my usual snacks when I’m out and about. And we take it because it’s part of what she likes to take. We just try to accommodate everybody so that everybody feels happy so that everybody knows what’s coming. That’s a big part of the meal planning, people know what to expect. The carnivores know that we’re not gonna force anything on them. They’re gonna have what they like. And it really does help move the needle into neutral territory I feel.
Brighde: When you go on these trips with your family members, do you take all of the condiments as well? Like the Mayo and the ketchup and the mustard for burgers and things like that. So that so that cuz sometimes it’s there or leftover from a previous guest, but sometimes it’s not and you end up having to buy a whole new extra thing and then drag it back.
But how do you manage all of those things or maybe things that you only need a little bit of.
Kim: Great question. So most of the houses we’ve gone to, and even the smallest cabins have basics, like just basic spices, salt, pepper, oils ,vinegars, at least one kind of each and here in Spain, we’re all about the olive oil. You’re always gonna find olive oil in these houses. You go to, we’ve also gone to houses that have everything. Everything from containers you can use to all the different types of serving platters and baskets and goblets and glasses for champagne and wine. And then some that are just very basic, simple things. So those staples we usually don’t take, although there was a period during the pandemic when the local government would forbid leaving open containers of salt, pepper, oils, and vinegars in these houses.
And so they would tell you in advance and you could bring your own. So what we have done for all of the other things is. We go often. So we’re not gonna buy a huge bottle of ketchup to take each and every time. And so we’ve divided some of the usual suspects between the households and it just says, like cabin in marker.
And we know that’s the one we take or we opt for smaller bottles of things, smaller containers of things. and that’s how we do it, but things like vegan mayo, of course you have to take because that’s not gonna be there, but we usually also take mustard and ketchup and anything like that, that we enjoy jam for breakfast love making banana and oat pancakes while we’re there. And so that’s something that’s easy to take. Once you plan out the meals, you’re gonna see what things you’re probably going to need to take or find there. And you can plan accordingly
Brighde: And do you have any tips for specific drinks or is this something that you don’t necessarily have to plan so much?
Kim: There’s one thing that is important and it’s water. So we cannot always assume that the water in the place you’re going to is tap water is drinkable. There’s usually not a big problem in Spain when it comes to, to tap water, unless you are near the coast. And also we had a case of a house.
It was a small cottage in the middle of nowhere in the mountain where the water came from a. and the, when I asked the owner if we could drink the tap water, he said locals can drink it, but if you’re not local, you might not be able to handle it. And so that was an important thing to ask. So always ask and take water with you.
Sadly. It’s, something that’s bulky and big, but sometimes you have to do it most of the time, you’ll be able to drink the tap water safely or if you have a small water that sort of has a filter that can also be an option. And when it comes to other drinks we are big beer fans. So we usually those kinds of things we usually buy at the place we’re going to, just to lessen the load.
We love having Tinto de Verano which are this, it’s this very refreshing, traditional drink in Spain, which is made with. Red wine and usually some kind of lemon soda or seltzer. And you can add some people add a slice of lemon or orange. It’s absolutely delicious served over ice. We drink a ton of that. We usually take wine for the evenings, if it is the wintertime, we always take some hot cocoa to make. There we take coffee, there’s usually coffee and coffee makers in all of these places, but you can ask if, and it, you’ll usually see it in the description of these homes as well.
Brighde: All right, Kim, you have shared some amazing tips with people who are looking to get off the beaten track a little bit and self cater with non vegans.
And you are actually, we were talking before we press record you actually just about to go off on a very well deserved summer vacation, exactly. To one of these places that you’ve been telling us about. Where are you going?
Kim: Oh, I’m so excited. In two days we are heading off to a very small town in Castilla la Mancha in Spain. It’s a town called ??? And we’re actually staying in an old mill where they used to mill wheat and just different types of grain and. It is so special because it has the actual mechanism inside the house and they’ve decorated the house and remodeled it with all of the comforts, but with this beautiful piece of history at the central part of it, we’re taking the dogs. We’re gonna explore the area. It’s very hot at the moment. So we might spend a lot of time in the pool and then further along in, in August, towards the end of August. We’re also traveling to the mountain. We’re going to the Sierra de Gredos, which is a mountain range in Spain. That if you’re any listeners ever come to Spain, it is one of the most beautiful and breathtaking spaces places because you have hiking trails that take you to spots that are a hundred percent natural and there’s no human intervention whatsoever. And you’re going to find lakes on top of mountains with snowy mountain ranges on one side and forests on the other side. And you’re gonna see these incredible places. And that’s a beautiful mountain range for people traveling to Spain.
We very often go to that area. There’s something beautiful about the rural areas of Spain. And I think this applies to any country in the world. something about that awe that nature provides seeing wildlife. We in a recent trip, we took all of the hiking trail towards the place.
We were going to swim in a river all of the way there, there were wild black berries lining the road and we were just picking them and eating while we were talking while the dogs were walking, because we of course take our dogs everywhere with us. And it’s those kinds of memories. They stay with you for a lifetime.
Brighde: That sounds really lovely. Yeah. I’ve had a few episodes on Spain with some lovely people over the couple of years that I’ve been doing this podcast and every time I speak to people, they’re always sharing these real, really beautiful areas of Spain, because I think a lot of international visitors don’t visit these areas of Spain, Barcelona, Madrid, the south of Spain, like around Malaga, but really there’s so much more to Spain. It sounds absolutely lovely. Kim, thank you so much for joining me on The World Vegan. Travel Podcast. I’m so grateful. Have a very well deserved holiday. But before you go, let us know how people can connect with you and keep up to date with all of the things that you’re doing.
Kim: Oh, Brighde thank you so much for having me. This was such a treat. It’s such an honor to be on the podcast and people can find us through our website, brownble.com. We are also at Brownble on Instagram, on TikTok on Pinterest. And we have a YouTube channel where we have so much content. In our website we have free courses, paid courses, our membership program. And of course we have our own podcast, the Brownble podcast with lots of extra support there as well.
Brighde: Fantastic. And of course I’ll be linking to all of those things in the show notes, you can just go to the show notes and just join and subscribe to absolutely everything that Brownble is doing. Thank you so much for joining me, Kim.
Kim: Thank you. Brighde
