The Northside Vegan

By Abby Meaux Conques

That’s not a sweet little title for this article, that’s her business name, and thought it was perfect. Kimba Azore (otherwise known as The Northside Vegan) is an educator in many facets.

I met with Kimba in the Principal's office of the school where she currently teaches. “You sit in the Principal’s chair! I’ve sat in that chair already,” she said. Kimba served as interim Principal at another small Christian school on the Northside of town. During that time, she was trying to manage her blood pressure while keeping her Type I diabetes in control. She turned to a vegan diet to try to get her gut in on helping her body to regulate itself. “Once I switched to a vegan diet, I felt better overall and even got to taper off of some of my medications," she said.

She cooked vegan meals and bring them for her lunch at the school she oversaw. “The kids would always ask me, ‘What’s that?’ ‘What are you eating?’” she said. “Some of them didn’t know how vegetables grew,” she said. To show the students how she got her vegan food, she started a community garden at the school so they could witness what hard work growing your own vegetables yielded: a sense of accomplishment and healthy food.

Once Kimba’s friends and family learned of her new diet, they began asking her questions and requested samples of her home-cooked vegan meals. “I realized I needed to go a bit bigger to reach more people and participated in a pop-up shop at the Wurst Biergarten last summer,” she explained. That’s how the Northside Vegan concept came to fruition. “I almost went with ‘Fightingville Vegan’, but I wanted to encompass more areas from this side of town; it’s always been about community and health,” she explained.

Kimba was still able to pay homage to different well-known Northside areas. She named each of her vegan burgers after familiar Northside neighborhoods. “You have the most popular burger, the V-zay, (a single seasoned vegan patty, lettuce, tomatoes, onion, "cheese" and special sauce, on a Hawaiian bun) you have the Mccomb which is double the V-zay, the Zip, Truman, The Block,” she explained. “Right now I’m doing a bunch of pop-ups,” she explained. When I asked what her ultimate vision was for the future she said, “A brick and mortar store with a produce section that anyone can afford.”

Recently, the Northside had an uptick of availability of fresh organic and locally grown vegetables with the McComb Veazey Homegrowers Community Farm (think community garden) and the Veggies-on-the-Go pop up market (think farmer’s market) at the McComb-Veazey House at 419 12th Street in Lafayette. “This side of town is considered a food desert with limited or no resources for good-quality fresh food that’s affordable; when we lost Wal-Mart on the Thruway, everyone lost a spot to buy organic produce,” said Azore. These types of farmer’s markets and community gardens bridge that gap, but growing good vegetables can only go so far if you don’t know how to prepare it in a tasty way. That’s where Kimba comes in, doing community demonstrations on how to cook and season the vegetables in a creative way so everyone can use them to their full advantage. She even distributes recipes to food buyers. When I asked about what types of plates can be made with the vegetables bought at the pop-up market, she sputtered off a simple recipe that made me want to try a vegan dish right then and there. “I recently showed patrons how to prepare a stuffed sweet potato. I combined nutritional yeast, hemp seeds and vegetables and stuffed a baked sweet potato with that,” she said.

That’s where Kimba comes in, doing community demonstrations on how to cook and season the vegetables in a creative way so everyone can use them to their full advantage. She even distributes recipes to food buyers. When I asked about what types of plates can be made with the vegetables bought at the pop-up market, she sputtered off a simple recipe that made me want to try a vegan dish right then and there. “I recently showed patrons how to prepare a stuffed sweet potato. I combined nutritional yeast, hemp seeds and vegetables and stuffed a baked sweet potato with that,” she said.

I asked her what she wanted people to know about the food she prepares for pop-ups. She told me, “My biggest thing is to give people options; I want them to discover different ways to eat...I’m not trying to turn anyone vegan,” she said playfully. She continued, “In all seriousness, I would like to get people to at least try vegan meals to give your body a rest in digesting meats. You don’t have to become fully vegan...just try some meals.”

As we ended our conversation, we talked about the side of town that held such a big place in our hearts, she left me with this: “The Northside is a viable spot. It’s so worth investing in. The people are loyal on this side of town and each neighborhood has a rich history that needs to be passed down.”

Before we all experienced the shelter-in-place ordinance, the Northside Vegan had a full calendar with food pop-up events. We look forward to attending them once our new way of life starts to resurface; we implore you to to attend them as well.

Until then, The Northside Vegan is offering meal prep and meal coaching as she works alongside a registered dietician. Check out the Northside Vegan Facebook page for updates and recipes...and go to a pop up when life gets up and running again.