About

Hummmm. What to say? Out of the kitchen I’m a mom, good friend to a cherished few and a certified yoga addict. I wasn’t always comfortable in the kitchen. In fact, I really only started to learn how to cook when I crossed the quarter century mark. I’ve taken some great cooking classes, spent countless hours experimenting and finally got the hang of it. Then I decided to become a vegetarian, progressed to mostly vegan, and I found myself back at square one again. Good thing I love a challenge.

When I tell people I’m no longer eating animal proteins, the response is always “Why?”. Sometimes the tone is friendly, sometimes not-so-much but the question is always the same.

The answer is simple, because it feels good. I could get into the ethics of eating meat or explore the environmental impact of industrial meat production but so many others have covered this more intelligently and accurately than I could so I’ll leave it to them. I have chosen to eat this way because because it feels good. Really, really good.

I used to love eating meat. In fact, my friends have coined me “Queen of the Brisket”. They hope this is just a phase and that I’ll come to my senses and return to the fold. Unfortunately for them, this unlikely. Never say never and all that, but I’m pretty sure I’m gone for good.

Shall we cover the rest of the big concerns about vegan diets? Oooh, isn’t that really hard?,  Are you getting enough protein? and Aren’t you worried you’ll get sick?. The truth is, none of these well-intentioned questions have the answer you expect to read. No, it’s not hard – at least no harder than “regular” cooking. You just need to get used to a new set of variables. Once you’ve got those licked, you’re laughing. I now eat more and healthier protein than I did in my previous medium-rare ribeye days. And, to everyone’s absolute shock and awe, I’ve not been sick for one day since I made “the change”. I’m sure it’s coming but to my sniffling meat-eating friends this is all a little hard to believe.

To be clear, I’m not a Vegan. Anyone who has seen my shoe collection knows I could never make such a claim but with very few exceptions, the food I eat is. I decided to start chronicling my adventures in vegan alchemy for two reasons: 1) to share my love for cooking with as many people as were interested and 2) to help those who would like to move towards a vegan diet but don’t know where to start.

Most of what I post will look like “regular” food. It will, on occassion, involve an insane amount of fat and use a great deal of “faux” animal products. There are a ton of vegan food blogs dedicated to very health-driven foods free of animal influence and I encourage you to seek them out, your palette and body will be happy you did. With others deftly handling this branch of vegan cuisine, I can concentrate what I’m most interested in, creating vegan dishes sexy enough to convert curious carnivores.

For me, satisfying, soulful food has weight, contains fat and when consumed in moderation provides just as much benefit to you body and the super healthy stuff does. This is what I hope to contribute to the vegan cooking community. There’s a growing movement of professional and home chefs ushering in a new school of vegan cooking based on more traditional french and classical cooking techniques. I intend to apply my traditional training to convert omnivore recipes into new vegan versions and see what happens. I’ll be honest about my attempts. If I fail, I’ll document it as faithfully as my successes because, not everything will work out and often you learn a lot more from unsuccessful dishes than you do from those in the win category.

So that’s it. My motivation, manifesto and mandate. Now let’s get cooking.