The seventh annual Treme Creole Gumbo Festival returns toArmstrong Park on Saturday and Sunday (Nov. 8-9), and for the second year, the festival will featurea Vegan Gumbo Contest. The 2013 winner, Miss Linda "Ya-Ka-Mein Lady" Green, will be on hand to defend her title.

The 10vendors each will offer $3 6-ounce tasting portions of their vegan gumbos, as well as a larger $6 portion and other gumbos and menu items. Festival-goers will vote to name the winning vegan gumbo.

Almost all the vendors will sell other gumbos as well. Caf Carmo's tropical gumbo is described as having blue crab, smoked wahoo, shrimp, okra, black-eyed peas and more. Palmer's Cuisine is bringing a chicken and sausage gumbo with dark meat chicken (as well as homemade sweet potato pie). Praline Connection is preparing file gumbo, and Woody's Fish Tacos will have Meaty Gumbo Z'herbes as well as their vegan version.

To name just a fewother menu items, L'il Dizzy's will sell Trout Baquet; Sweet Lorraine's Jazz Club will have a fried Soft Shell Crab Po-Boy; Dreamy Weenies will have all-beef and vegan hot dogs in traditional and "Satchmo Slider" versions.

Here's the complete listof vendors and their menus.

The festival is all about the brass, organizers say. Soul Rebels, Stooges, Trem, Hot 8, To Be Continued, Pinettes and Brass-A-Holics will be featured, as well as two winners from this year's Class Got Brass competition: St. Augustine High School and Edna Karr High School. The Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra's brass band will perform, as will trumpeter Shamarr Allen & the Underdawgs, Ecrib Mller's Twisted Dixie. Who's when? Here's the complete music schedule.

Every year, the Treme Creole Gumbo Festival has dozens of local artists in an expansive arts market. This year, several vendors as well as local nonprofits will offer new crafts and activities in a ramped-up Kids Area. For the first time, the festival will have private areas to change and nurse babies.

The free festival has free parking, in the lots behind the Mahalia Jackson Theater of the Performing Arts. Enter through Basin Street. No pets, coolers, outside food and drinks, audio or video recording will be allowed.

For more about the festival, visitwww.jazzandheritage.org/treme-gumbo.

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Vegan Gumbo contest returns to the Treme Creole Gumbo Festival this weekend