Monday, January 14, 2013, 6:30 – 8:30 p.m.

Mid-Manhattan Library (Map and directions)

Check it out!

@pere_hardouin steal this PDF!

— Evan and Alex (@HotKnivez) January 5, 2013

So I took a look. And you know what? This is a very, very nice looking book. And who wants to cook from a PDF? If you don’t have an iPad in the kitchen, maybe this is the perfect enticement to just buy the real book.

Great photography, great writing, and a healthy respect for whole foods, all from guys who wear plaid shirts and say “Should we try frying the capers?” “Oh fuck yes.”

Too bad it’s not matched by a healthy respect for animals. While it’s all vegetarian (except for maybe rennet?) there’s a lot of non-vegan stuff in here. I’d heard so much Hot Knives buzz from vegans that I’d foolishly assumed their stuff was all-vegan. Nope. Oh well. Steal their PDF anyway!

Top to bottom: Renée French, Hazel Newlevant, Ben Snakepit, Liz Prince, and Sam Henderson, a few of the 55 contributors. Buy Digestate here and use code SUPERVEGAN12 for expedited shipping.

If you’re looking for a great holiday gift, or your books-of-the-year list is a little thin, or if you just like thinking about food and you like to read (which probably covers anyone seeing this blog post!) then Digestate: A Food & Eating Themed Anthology is for you.

While Digestate is available in some comic book shops, it’s not sold through the big online book stores like Amazon. The best place to buy it is directly from Birdcage Bottom Books. Usually they ship media mail only, but between now and December 25, use the coupon code SUPERVEGAN12 to get it shipped first class for the same price! (I promoted Digestate‘s Kickstarter campaign here back in June; I got my copy for supporting that.)

Digestate is an anthology featuring 55 comics authors and illustrators. At nearly 300 pages, this is a big book, but quality doesn’t suffer on account of quantity. While the range is wide (fiction and nonfiction, comedy and tragedy; some stories are personal, some more documentary, and some outright surreal), the storytelling and illustration are excellent throughout. Clearly the contributors were genuinely inspired and excited by the concept here. And clearly editor J.T. Yost chose his contributors well!

If you don’t like a huge portion of what’s in here, you’re probably one of those idiotic ingrates who doesn’t deserve books at all. Or food.

Yost is a vegan himself, and while there are several other vegan contributors, plenty more are not. Some of the pieces are even defences of eating animal products. But don’t let that put you off, vegan reader. The honesty of the authors (even when they’re ethically misguided) coupled with the high level of the work, gives this book signifiant intellectual and emotional weight which would be missing from a compilation of vegan propaganda and cheerleading. Digestate‘s diversity of perspectives is it’s biggest strength. This book doesn’t try to convert anyone, nor does it preach to the choir—because of its bredth and inclusiveness, it can’t.

Also, by not having a unified pro-vegan message, this book is going to appeal to a lot more people. Anyone reading it will be forced to think about where our (and other peoples’) food comes from, and that’s never a bad thing. The focus is overwhelmingly on the emotional and ethical aspects of food, how it makes us feel in the mind and soul, and who else is impacted by our food choices.

In a clever touch, Digestate‘s index indicates the dietary preference of each author: “vegan”, “vegetarian”, “omnivore”, “carnivore”, and some more specific: Ayun Halliday is a “lapsed aquariumatarian, current omnivore”, Dan Piraro is an “ethical vegan (as opposed to ‘health vegan’)”, John Kerschbaum is a “pretzel-enthusiast, etc.”, Lisa Rosalie Eisenberg is an “omnivore who loves soy jerky”.

A lot of my favorite pieces in here are endorsements of non-vegan eating. And I suppose that’s how it should be: we share the world with non-vegans, and some of them are great storytellers. James Kochalka and K. Thor Jensen and (“omnivore”s alike) both contribute excellent and rather sweet stories about why they eat meat even though they know it’s wrong. “Successful Slaughter!” by Marek Bennet (“temperate woodland omnivore”) was just great storytelling and great comics; you’d have to hate reading to dislike it. And “How to Eat Chicken” by Sophia Weideman (“om-nom-nom-nivore”) is the least vegan thing in the world, but its themes of family, memory, responsibility, care, and love still make it totally affecting.

There are surprisingly few pieces here dealing directly with nutrition. I didn’t miss it. There are a few about eating disorders, but even those weren’t what I’d have predicted. Tod C. Parkhill (“picky eater”) and Alex Robinson (“omnivore”) contribute almost mirror-image autobiographical stories of men dealing with lifelong food-anxiety problems.

Some pieces are totally upsetting, perhaps none more so than editor J.T. Yost‘s illustrated version of a slaughterhouse worker’s testimony. Plan on at least a few minutes of shaking and trembling after you read that one.

Others are very, very funny. I literally (as in for-real in real life!) laughed out loud at Liz Prince (“vegetarian”)’s autobiographical gag-fest “History of Eating”, Victor Kerlow (“eats anything, preferably in sandwich form”)’s cannibalistic taco, and Ben Snakepit (“eater of tacos”)’s story of punk-commune-feeding-bands gone nauseatingly wrong.

Digestate also managed to throw me a few welcome curveballs. Lulled into readerly complacency by the many stories that pitch their agenda from the first panel, I was not expecting Anuj Shrestha (“omnivore”)’s ‘Foodies’, which begins as a totally pedestrian story of picky eaters at a restaurant, to be the most disgusting thing in the book.

Nor was I was not expecting a story set in a community garden near where I live in Crown Heights, about the chickens and people who look after them in (by Jess Ruliffson, “guilt-laden omnivore”). Something set so literally close to home made me feel a little bad just sitting home with book when I could be out there doing something.

The stories I liked most were the personal memoirs. Those I liked least (just a few) were merely collections of factoids. There are also quite a few jokey gag pages—special mention to the several from Sam Henderson (“vegetarian”) throughout. And there’s a slew of wacky goofs such as the aforementioned taco, Aron Nels Steinke (“vegan”)’s cracked fable “Scrambled Eggs”, Renée French (carnivore)’s animal-fable-without-a-moral, “Hegelbarger”, and Box Brown (“no dietary restrictions, cantaloupe sometims makes my throat itchy”)’s utopian future set “1000 years after meat” in which kids are still total jerks.

I could go on, but then I’d never finish this blog post and you wouldn’t know to go buy this kick-ass book. It’s truly one of the best things I’ve ever encountered (in any medium) concerned with what food means to us and how we experience it, socially, psychologically, and emotionally.

(A quick note to anyone who thinks “comics aren’t for me”: you’re probably thinking of the wrong kind of comics. I’m pretty sure this book is just fine for people who don’t read many comics: several of the stories are more akin to picture book pages than rows of panels. Indeed, some of the entries are just two-page-spread illustrations, including the Danny Hellman (“vegetarian”)’s past-present-and-future of meat-eating, and Kevin Cannon (“carnivore”)’s depiction of humans as maggots in a piece of beef (which somehow doesn’t read at all as gross). And the vast range of drawing styles makes it easy to find a comfortable place to start. Anyone who can read the Sunday newspaper funnies can handle this material fine. Feel safe buying this book for folks whose comics experience doesn’t extend beyond Peanuts or airline saftey manuals.)

Cartoonist Ethan Young

Cartoonist Ethan Young is a superhero vegan. So frankly, it’s about time that we interviewed him here. On top of that, Ethan’s new book, Tails: Book 1, is out in stores as of this week. If you don’t know Ethan, or if you only know him through reading his online comic, Tails, then read on, for your life isn’t quite complete until you learn about the life of one of the most well known vegan cartoonists there is. Hilarious and fearless, Ethan isn’t even afraid to be self-deprecating while advertising his own work.

SuperVegan: For newbie readers, tell us what Tails is about. And I’m talking, is it about you? A part of you you’re afraid to show the world? A part of you that you had to tame down because you know you have a wife watching your comic?

Ethan: Yes, Tails is about my life, give or take. I’ve always referred to it as the story of a vegan hippie with super powers. The comic incorporates comedic semi-autobiographical stories combined with epic fantasy. My cartoon facsimile is a bit of a dick at times, but my wife already knows that about me. More importantly, Tails is about arrested maturity, and the struggles of becoming a real adult. It just happens to have super-heroes and kittens. And then some super-kittens.

SuperVegan: I know you’ve done work a lot more raunchy than Tails. Tell us how you went on your strange journey and how Tails serves as the outlet for your angry superhero vegan side.

Ethan: Ha, I don’t know how much I should actually divulge. Well, my raunchiest art gig was illustrating gay porn. It was fun, to say the least; never a dull moment. I can’t remember any other period in my life where my ability to draw cute girls was utterly useless. Other than that, my professional art career is fairly perfunctory, which is why Tails exists for me to explore some zanier artistic endeavors.

I started self-publishing Tails back in 2006. At the time, I was a disgruntled worker at an animal shelter; being an aspiring cartoonist while fostering a dozen cats is generally a recipe for frustration. Not to mention the usual 20-year-old problems like relationships, family issues, and low self-esteem. I channeled all of it into Tails, and it was fairly well-received. I later reworked Tails as a webcomic and now it’s back in print, courtesy of Hermes Press.

SuperVegan: You got featured in some pretty big press before this release, didn’t you? And what’s new in this release?

Ethan: I was featured on MTV Geek last year and got a blurb over at VegNews. As for Tails: Book 1, it reprints the first nine chapters of the online comic (tailscomic.com) with some additional material that’ll only be seen in this collected volume.

SuperVegan: Give us a sneak peak; what’s new in the collected volume that’ll make us drool and go out and buy it now?

Ethan: Just a good story with good art. I don’t know if that’s drool-inducing, but it’s something.

SuperVegan: So, the tough question. Another vegan artist? How did you decide the world needed one of those? ;)

Ethan: That’s probably the most complicated question here. I basically wanted to attack negative stereotypes about vegans. Most times when the word ‘vegan’ is mentioned in pop culture, it’s shrouded in mockery, whether it’s TV, films, comics, or whatever. I wanted to portray a vegan as just a regular person with regular problems that anyone else would have. In fact, my being vegan isn’t even really essential to the story. Most people enjoy the comic for the story and resonate with the broader themes. I’ve only encountered one reviewer who was offended by what she considered, my “extremist views.” (FYI, that reviewer can go suck a turd) Of course, that means you end up reading stories about my being an asshole boyfriend during my petulant youth. Is that a good or bad thing, to have that associated with vegans?

SuperVegan: Saying that you want kittens to have homes is something only an extremist terrorist would say, as that reviewer understands well. So you’d rather be identified as frustrated asshole first, vegan superhero second?

Ethan: God, I don’t want to be identified as an asshole, period. But I’ll let the reader make that decision.

SuperVegan: You’re actually getting well known now, wouldn’t you say? When do you think you’ve “made it?” What’s your big project when you can do anything you want once Tails puts you on a bigger map?

Ethan: I think I’ve ‘made it’ as a professional, for sure. I’m not rich, but I’m way better off than most, and way better off than most freelance artists. I’ve recently bought a house and I’m still south of 30, I think that’s a pretty neat bragging right. However, I haven’t yet ‘made it’ if we’re talking about fame. In my ideal fantasy world, every stray kitten would have a warm home, and my doodles would sell for millions. That’s my greedy, delusional, narcissistic side talking.

If I had it my way, I’d keep doing more Tails for years and years. And years. And then open a vegan café.

SuperVegan: Vegan cafe? Do tell. Comics themed?

Ethan: Well, Foodswings was kinda like a comic-themed vegan joint when it first opened. My wife and I have just talked about opening up a vegan cafe for a very long time. We’re in Ithaca, NY right now, which is very veg-friendly, but there’s no 100% vegan place. The closest vegan place is Strong Hearts in Syracuse, NY. This is just me thinking out loud, by the way.

SuperVegan: Anything new you’d like to add or shamelessly plug about the release?

Ethan: Yeah, buy my book. Now. Don’t wait for it to go on sale. And after you buy my book, go adopt a cat.

SuperVegan: Which stores can we find your book at? Barnes & Noble?

Ethan: Yes, Barnes & Noble should have copies. The book was released in comic shops last Wednesday, and Amazon will have it available on September 4th (you can still pre-order it right now). You’d have a better shot of finding the book in a comic shop, but it’d be great if people would flock to Barnes & Noble, because they return all the books they don’t sell.

Preorder this book!

Longtime friend-of-SuperVegan J.T. Yost is Kickstarting a sure-to-be excellent comics anthology, Digestate: a food & eating themed comic anthology.

Now, he made the first mistake of Kickstarter, which is meeting the goal too soon. But he still really could use more money. And you could really use a copy of this book, so go pledge and preorder. Or throw in 10 extra bucks to get a couple of minicomics on the side, like I did.

J.T.’s own comic is based on an affidavit from a slaughterhouse worker that he got from Gail Eisnitz (author of Slaughterhouse). In addition to J.T. himself, other vegan contributors to DIGESTATE include (some famous names in here!)
Berkeley Breathed, Neil Brideau, J.T. Dockery, Nicole J. Georges, Adam Hines, Jonas Madden-Connor, Hazel Newlevant, Dan Piraro, Aron Nels Steinke, and James Turek.

There’s over 50 contributors in all. This is a pretty great anthology for just learning who’s who in indie comics. Here’s a bunch of non-vegan famous names in there: Jeffrey Brown, Renée French, Alex Robinson, James Kochalka, Marc Bell, Box Brown, Noah Van Sciver, and Sam Henderson. Top drawer stuff.

I asked J.T. some questions and he answered so well I’m just gonna quote liberally here:

Originally this was going to be a comic anthology split between vegans and carnivores (omnivores, technically, but ‘carnivore’ sounds more extreme!). Once I’d made sure I had enough vegans contributing I made up a list of non-vegan artists I hoped might contribute. Once I started asking around I realized that my original idea would end up excluding a lot of talented people that either didn’t identify as carnivorous or fell somewhere further down the dietary preference chain. I thought it would probably turn out more interesting to dial back the theme to anything having to do with food and eating and allow the artists to decide how to approach the theme. Judging from the comics I’ve received thus far, I think my instincts were correct! There’s a huge variety in subject matter and tone. Some gave me autobiographical pieces, some were purely fictional, some are akin to essays and just about everything in-between. I like to think a dialogue has been created that can help all of us understand each other’s point of view when it comes to our choices about food & eating.

I hope you’ll join me in supporting this awesome project. You’ve got only a few days left.

HEYA SUPERVEGANS! WE ARE STILL YELL-EY EXCITED ABOUT OUR NASOYA SPONSORED CONTEST!

HAVE YOU ENTERED YET?

HURRY UP! YOU ONLY HAVE TILL JUNE 8TH! THAT’S APPX. THREE DAYS FROM NOW, OR, YOU MAY KNOW IT AS “FRIDAY.”

All it takes to enter is a few clicks on the screen you’re already reading this on. Just follow us on Twitter, Facebook and or Instagram (@wearesupervegan) and then (re)tweet at us, “like” something, comment, or heart a pic! If you’re already doing so, you’re already entered to win!

YAY!

Hold on to your tofu blocks my friends, the fine folks over at Nasoya like us! They like you! And in a More Than Words Meets Weird Al (aka SuperVegan #1!) moment, they have given us some Vegan Treasure to give away to one of you lucky readers.

THE BOOTY:

The Treasure Map: A copy of Spork-Fed, a new cookbook by Wonder Twin SuperVegan Powers Jenny Engel & Heather Goldberg. These ladies have been plundering the LA scene for awhile, teaching cooking classes, catering things I’m not invited to, and cultivating a garden of celebrity fans (e.g. aforementioned Weird Al). And, not to peer pressure you or anything, but 58 out of 63 reviewers on Amazon gave it ***** out of *****.

The Eye Patch/Ruffled Shirt: A pair of Nasoya sweat shorts with the words EXTRA FIRM on the tush so you can show all those Juicy people who’s what at the Crunch, Equinox, or Y. Please don’t wear these outside otherwise, K? Thanks.

The Cure To Scurvy: Five, that’s 1,2,3,4,5 coupons for a FREE Nasoya item. Any item! You want some tofu? FREE. You want a jar of Nayonaise? $0. You want some Super Hummus? Gratis! You can keep all five for yourself or you can make your friends do things for ‘em, s’up to you.

Life is already hard, so instead of making you actually do something to earn this loot, all it takes to enter is a few clicks on the screen you’re already reading this on. Just show us how you feel by following us on Twitter, Facebook and or Instagram (@wearesupervegan) and then (re)tweet at us, “like” something, or heart a pic! If you’re already doing so, you’re already entered to win! We will randomly choose our winner on June 8th. EASY, right? We love you, too.

Bryant Terry

The first New York Food Book Fair is this weekend in, where else, Williamsburg. Come get your fill of panel discussions, lectures, and book and zine browsing celebrating a diversity of food writing and activism.

I suspect there will be a fair amount of “hip” discussions of raising backyard beasts and broiling their innards. The good news is it won’t all be about that and you can purchase tickets for individual panel events for $15. I’m looking forward to the Food + Cooking + Change panel discussion because Bryant Terry will be included. In addition to being wickedly handsome and a food justice activist, Terry is author of Vegan Soul Kitchen and, most recently, The Inspired Vegan.

Also exciting: Dr. Marion Nestle, food politics writer and Paulette Goddard Professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health and Professor of Sociology at NYU, will open the fair on Friday with a keynote lecture, Why Food? Why Now?.

Food Book Fair, May 4-6, Wythe Hotel, 80 Wythe Ave.(at North 11th St), Williamsburg, Brooklyn. More info: www.foodbookfair.com

Did you know we have a NYC Vegan events calendar here on SuperVegan? Well, we do. Here’s a list of some exciting happenings coming up this week.

• See US Premier of “Cages of Shame”, a film documenting Animals Asia’s rescue of 10 bears from a bile farm in China. Q & A to follow. (Sat 4/14, 6-8pm. Rubin Museum of Art, 150 W. 17th Street, West Village.)
• Stretch your compassion at Yoga for Bears, a yoga class, lunch, and fundraiser for Animals Asia. (Sun 4/14, 12-3:30. Jivamukti Yoga School NYC, 841 Broadway, 2nd Floor, Union Square.)
• Visit Vegan Shop Up to buy ethical edibles and other goodies from local artisans. (Sun 4/15, 12-5pm. Pine Box Rock Shop, 12 Grattan St., Bushwick, Brooklyn.)
• Drop in on Vegan Book Swap 3.0 to snatch up some vegan cookbooks or AR reads and support Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary. (Mon 4/16, 6:30-8:30pm. Sustainable NYC, 139 Ave A, East Village)
• Be heard at 2012 NYS Humane Lobby Day. Chartered buses and carpools make it easy for you to get your rear to Albany and encourage your elected representatives to put animals on the agenda. (Wed 4/18, 11am-4pm. Empire State Plaza Convention Center, Albany, NY)

Full disclosure: I work at the publishing company that’s putting out this beautiful, full-color cookbook by Cupcake Wars champion and total babe Chloe Coscarelli. She of the endless brown locks and honey eyes. That said I’m not going to review it, per se, but I do want to let you know, from a totally objective and not at all biased whatsoever perspective, Chloe’s Kitchen (Free Press) is excellent and you should pre-order it immediately or pick it up in stores on Tuesday, March 6, when it publishes. (There’s an ebook, too, and I guarantee you it’s good. My group worked on it!)

Truly, this book is gorgeous. There are full-page, color photos for many of the recipes, plus photographic demos for several of the little things I often scratch my head over (rolling sushi, anyone?). The recipe instructions are straight-forward, and the dishes a mix of healthy (Minted Couscous with Arugula, Butternut Squash, and Currants) and indulgent (Double Drive-Thru Burgers, Sea Salt and Vinegar French Fries) and everything in between (Sweet and Sour Party Meatballs that can be made gluten-free!). Look out for a review of Chloe’s Kitchen by my hilarious co-blogger, Andrea, coming soon.

A generous donor has offered to match every donation made to Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary through December 31st. This is a great reason to attend the 2nd Vegan/ Animal Rights Book Swap that I’m co-hosting this Saturday. It’s a fundraiser for the non-profit featuring a mini-bake sale and a raffle with prizes from Raganella, Owl & Thistle, Chavela’s, Terri, and Juice Hugger. Come collect books for yourself and those on your holiday shopping list.

If you need more than just books, come to the U.S. Veg Corp’s Green Holiday Festival on Sunday: “A one-day Winter holiday festival comprised of various green-minded gift vendors, non-profit information tables, live entertainment, and activities all in celebration of green living. For the first time, get all of your vegan and green gifts in one place!” Sounds fun! Also, leave the pepper spray at home people. There’s a $20 entrance fee so there will probably be more elbow room than there was at the NYC Vegetarian Food Festival.

• Not that you need an excuse to shop, but Mooshoes is celebrating its 10th anniversary this Saturday, Dec. 3, with a 15% discount on all in-store purchases, plus beverages and snacks from Blossom du Jour and Dun-Well Doughnuts.
• Veg Blog has released the third installment of its vegan business profile series, this time featuring cookbook publisher Heritage Press.
• On Wednesday, Dec. 7, head over to Pianos on the Lower East Side for some Freerange Nonfiction and listen while Hannah Tinti, Alison Espach and Alison Smith read from their animal-related books. The event’s $8 cover will directly benefit Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary. For more information on this and other happenings in New York City, check out our Events Calendar.
• Speaking of farmed animals, Mercy for Animals has uncovered yet more abuse, this time by Sparboe Egg Farms, the supplier of McDonald’s eggs.
• In other atrocities, the USDA released its 2010 Dairy Checkoff Report, and the results are, well, atrocious: In 2009, $108 million was spent promoting milk, while $283 million was used to push dairy products like cheese. Is this really how we want our tax money spent?
• On a lighter note: Sending out holiday cards? Be sure to order a book of PETA’s stamps featuring veggie celebs, now through January. The stamps, which can be purchased online, are available as of today and feature famous faces such as Woody Harrelson, Chrissie Hynde, Bob Barker and Morrissey, plus historical notables including da Vinci, Tolstoy and Pythagoras. Celebs aren’t always the most consistent carrot eaters, but they do help expose the mainstream to the cause.
• Maybe PETA will consider dedicating a stamp to five-year veghead Jessica Chastain. She’s not the only vegan to make people think the chicken she was chomping was “real.”
• For the young compassionate people in your life: The Vegetarian Resource Group is giving away two $5,000 college scholarships to vegetarian high schoolers graduating in the spring of 2012. If you know a senior who lives and promotes the veg lifestyle, make sure he or she applies by Feb. 20.
• The Clash’s Paul Simonon was arrested earlier this year while working undercover as a vegetarian cook for Greenpeace. He might not have been a vegan pirate cook fighting whalers, but protesting against Artic oil offenders gets a thumbs-up too.
• Jane Brody wrote about vegans’ favorite vitamin in The New York Times: Vitamin B12 Deficiency Can Cause Symptoms That Mimic Aging.
• Arms dealer Viktor Bout, the closest thing to a real-life James Bond villain, is demanding vegan meals in jail.
• Last, I’m sad to say that Marti Kheel has died. I had the privilege of hearing the ecofeminist and the author of Nature Ethics speak a few years ago, and her message was inspiring. RIP, Marti.

I don’t know about you, but I was all set to break out the Tofurky this Thanksgiving. In the end, though, my cousin invited me over for an intimate vegan gathering, and for a change, a fake roast was not the centerpiece. She said I didn’t have to bring anything, that I should consider myself a guest, but my mother would roll over in her grave if I went to someone’s house and didn’t bring something, no matter what I’d been told.

Dinner started a little late because the Butternut Squash Risotto didn’t seem to want to cook (man, it’s hard to find a recipe without Parmesan cheese!). But that was fine because I’d made an appetizer: the Artichoke Puffs from Carol Adams’ Living Among Meat Eaters, tasty, flaky little treats filled with artichoke hearts, mushrooms, roasted red pepper, scallions and garlic. Everyone was surprised I’d made them because I’m not a mushroom fan; in fact, they’re way more mushroomy than artichokey. But these small bites are incredibly savory and flavorful, so if mushrooms are your thing, you’ll definitely want to pull Carol’s book off the shelf and flip to the recipe section. There aren’t many recipes in the book, but the ones that are there were well-chosen, and I’ve never been disappointed.

Carol Adams’ Artichoke Puffs should really be called Mushroom Puffs. These tasty bites were almost gone before I got a chance to take a picture!

When the risotto was finally ready, we sat down to eat. And this is how the meal played out: apple and cabbage salad with sesame-tamari dressing; Portuguese kale soup with red beans and Field Roast Mexican Sausages; Candle 79′s Cornmeal-Crusted Tempeh, marinated in garlic and ginger (she never got around to encrusting it, but it was still delish!); a mash of parsnip, potato and celery root; and, of course, the risotto. Everything was amazing—I would make the tempeh any day of the year, and the soup was incredibly flavorful, even if the sausages were way too spicy for my wimpy palate. That said, I would have preferred the risotto seasoned more traditionally; cumin and tarragon just don’t do it for me. But overall the meal was stellar, as was the company.

Then it was time for dessert. My cousin made the best Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake I’ve ever tasted (she used the classic filling from the spelt crust recipe). Okay, so she bought a premade crust, but she used fresh pumpkin from her CSA share instead of puree from a can—how’s that for ambitious? She also made a cashew cream to go on top, but it was incredibly rich, so I opted for a dollop of vanilla ice cream instead. What can I say, I’m a purist.

Of course, I’d made a dessert, too. Though delicious, the cookies were a departure from the route I normally would have taken: Chocolate, my ingredient of choice, gives my cousin migraines, and her husband can’t digest tofu. So as you can see, my options were limited. Leave it to Hannah Kaminsky to save the day! Her Maple Pistachio Cremes, from My Sweet Vegan, were pure genius: a sandwich of simple cookies, sweetened with maple syrup, and filled with a thick, rich pistachio paste. The dough was so delicious, I didn’t think there’d be any left to make the cookies with. And the cream was just the right balance of rich and sweet. I’m always amazed when recipes with very few ingredients pack such a flavor punch, and these treats definitely fall into that category.

Hannah Kaminsky’s Maple Pistachio Cremes are simple and sweet yet rich, the perfect holidy treat for anyone who can’t have chocolate or soy (I used hemp rather than soymilk).

So yet again, we vegans prove that being animal-free doesn’t mean being deprived, and that we can stuff ourselves with the best of them. How was your holiday? Did you use any of our reader-submitted recipes? Let us know how your Thanksgiving meal turned out. And start thinking about what you’ll be serving for Hanukkah, Christmas and Kwanzaa!

Now’s your chance to read all those vegan/AR books you’ve been hearing about!

• Still need to come up with another Thanksgiving side dish? How about our latest reader submission: Sweet Potatoes Caribbean.
• And Turtle Mountain has launched two brand-new holiday drinks: Coconut Nog and Mint Chocolate.
• Holiday fare often leads to excess weight gain (if you’re doing it right). Need to lose those extra pounds? Check in with Dr. Frank Sabatino for some plant-based weight loss ideas.
• Speaking of eating, if sandcastle cookies, fried pickles and kale chips spell holiday spirit to you, you won’t want to miss the Vegan Holiday Shop-Up, on Sunday, Dec. 4 from 12-5pm, at the Pine Box Rock Shop.
• Then on Dec. 10, join our very own Livi Lane in the County of Kings for Vegan/Animal Rights Book Swap for Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary 2.0. Stock up on all the tomes you’ve been dying to read, and grab some issue-oriented stocking stuffers!
• Speaking of Woodstock FAS, the Guesthouse is open for business! Well, almost. Make your reservations now: Rooms are available starting Jan. 6. I got a sneak peek during Thanksliving, and let me tell you, it’s a sweet place to stay!
• Thanksgiving is followed by Black Friday, which means holiday shopping is upon us. Want to be sure all your gifts come from cruelty-free sources? The Veg Blog just launched a series of vegan-business profiles, the first of which features Herbivore Clothing Company, and the second, jewelry maker McFarland Designs.
• Still haven’t made much of a dent in that list? On Dec. 11, head over to the Green Holiday Festival, an eco-friendly, cruelty-free shopping event. It’s $20 to get in, but part of that benefits For the Animals Sanctuary.
• For more information about these and other happenings in the NYC area, check out our Events Calendar.

The regular SuperVegan staff are a relatively un-pregnant bunch, so we asked the recently pregnant and now new mom Amy Rae Richardson to review this book for us.

I wish Sayward Rebhal‘s Vegan Pregnancy Survival Guide (published by Herbivore) had come out like 7 months earlier than it did, so I could have saved myself ridiculous amounts of time Googling, stressing myself out, and questioning everything I ate while pregnant.

This book is everything you need to know about how to take care of your body while baking a little bun. There’s endless information about vital nutrients, supplements and general dietary concerns that typically make a vegan pregnancy harrowing. Everything from what to eat and what to take before you’re pregnant, the down-low on iron levels, DHA and B12 during pregnancy, to what you can eat postpartum to keep your spirits high and increase milk supply. She also covers the what-to-do when suffering from some of the most miserable (and sexy) pregnancy side effects like gas, bloating, heartburn, swelling and hemorrhoids.

Sayward seriously did her homework writing this book. She arms you with all the facts and resources that will ease the tension of explaining a vegan lifestyle to a health provider during pregnancy. There’s also a nice fat section in this book on how to combat all the snarky questions comments you are definitely going to hear during a vegan pregnancy, and on the issue of raising a child in a cruelty-free home. Being confident in a vegan pregnancy (and raising a vegan baby!) during a time when you’re already overwhelmed, tired and confused is really difficult–I think this book is an absolute must-have!

When I first started thumbing through the pages of David Stowell and George Black’s The Veganopolis Cookbook: A Manual for Great Vegan Cooking, I was excited. The 70 recipes, taken from those served at Stowell and Black’s former restaurant, the Veganopolis Cafeteria, take you on a culinary tour of the world: Ardennes-Style Vegan Scalloped Potatoes, African Yam and Peanut Soup With Fresh Ginger, Blackened Tofu Etoufée, Stuffed Paisano Roast, Moroccan Vegetable Tagine With Preserved Lemon and Almonds, Moussaka, and Vegan Coq au Vin. If that doesn’t whet your appetite, there’s more: City Cinnamon Pecan Rolls, Stuffed Baby Pumpkins, Butter Bean and Walnut Chorizo, Broiled Sesame Ginger Tofu Sandwich, Roadhouse Vegan Burgers… I could go on.

My mission is always to get more greens in my diet, so I decided to start with the Cajun Slow-Cooked Greens: collards cooked with onion, celery and bell pepper, and seasoned with garlic and onion powders, white and black peppers (I didn’t have any white), cayenne, nutmeg and liquid smoke. The greens get cooked down for 30 minutes, so it’s not a quick steam-and-serve type of side. But the stewy result is worth the wait: The collards were hearty and flavorful. They were also a little peppery for my taste—and that’s with having added only the black pepper. But it was a nice departure from my usual steamed kale with Earth Balance, garlic powder and red pepper flakes. My main issue with the recipe, though, is that the instructions don’t say when to add the stock. It’s easy enough to figure out; all of the other ingredients are used in the order in which they’re listed. But I’d rather not play a game of fill-in-the-blank while I’m testing a recipe. Still, the dish was quite tasty, and I’d make it again, although with considerably less pepper.

The Cajun Slow-Cooked Greens were hearty but a little peppery for my palate.

As far as main dishes go, there was a lot to choose from. I was short on time, so I opted for something a little less involved, the Vegan “Bacon” Loaf: vital wheat gluten, kidney beans, liquid smoke, maple syrup and seasonings. I’d never worked with wheat gluten before, so I was surprised to see how gummy it becomes when it’s combined with liquid—now I understand why bread is so hard on your system! And it was a major pain in the ass to clean up.

Boy, does this stuff get sticky!

All that aside, the “Bacon” Loaf was tasty, and a great alternative to store-bought seitan, if not bacony tasting. And unlike the side dish, it was on the underseasoned side. At first I mixed it with the greens, to see if the overpeppered collards and underseasoned loaf would balance each other out; all I tasted was pepper.

The Vegan “Bacon” Loaf is a tasty, seitan-like main, even if it’s not very bacony tasting.

A couple of days later, I sautéed leftover slices of the loaf in onions and barbecue sauce, placed it on toasted Italian bread and topped it with vegan cheese—the result was pretty damn amazing: It smelled and tasted just like faux barbecue spare ribs (with cheese). So this was how the bready Loaf should be served! With a thick, tasty sauce. Here again, though, the instructions left me scratching my head: Once the dry ingredients are mixed, you add the “remaining stock,” but then later, before placing the loaf in the oven, you add a mixture of lemon juice and the “remaining stock” to the cooking pan.

Guys, what do you have against clarifying how much stock to use and when?

I’m not a huge sandwich fan, but this one—Vegan “Bacon” Loaf cooked with onions and barbecue sauce and topped with vegan cheese on toasted Italian bread—was absolutely divine.

For dessert I went for the Double Evil Brownies: spelt flour, firm tofu, cocoa, rice milk and sugar, with optional chocolate chips. They were very good—sweet but not overly so, and rich without being overwhelming—though I wouldn’t necessarily call them Double Evil, or even plain old Evil. And I wonder how chocolatey they would have been had I left out the chips. Of course, it wouldn’t be me in the kitchen if something weren’t slightly amiss. I didn’t have a hand mixer, so I used a fork to combine the ingredients; this means that every few bites or so, a little nugget of unmashed firm tofu makes itself known. So I suggest you do whatever it takes to procure a hand mixer if you decide to make these brownies. That said, they’re a nice treat, if not the most decadent things I’ve ever tasted.

Chocolate and sugar. ’Nuff said.

All in all, my experience with The Veganopolis Cookbook was mixed. But the range of recipes in the book is enough to warrant another go-round. Next on my list might be the Ecuadorian Yapingachos: seasoned potatoes stuffed with cheese, topped with an onion-pepper-peanut butter sauce and served with a side of avocado. Thankfully there’s no stock to worry about, and I’ll be sure to go easy on the pepper.

I eat a lot of takeout and junk, then periodically I try to clean up by going on a cleanse. I spoke with Denise Mari, the founder and executive director of Organic Avenue, and asked her to tell me more about her juicing empire, why it’s important to say your affirmations, and raw vs. cooked food.

Denise, you founded Organic Avenue in 2000 because you believe in whole foods and healing. Why did you focus primarily on juice instead of raw foods?

Actually, I focused on the whole lifestyle from the very beginning, even more extensively at first with food, fashion and education. I believe in a holistic view of life and an organic LOVE* (Live. Organic. Vegan. Experience)-based lifestyle that includes juicing, cleansing, raw and vegan foods, beauty and skin care, fashion, education, inspiration and meditation. I feel that a commitment to the LOVE* lifestyle requires focus and dedication and a well-rounded approach. Juicing is key and a jumpstart to cleansing and detoxification, which assists in focus and motivation, as health benefits and results are noticed quickly.

What is the origin of the name L.O.V.E.: Live, Organic, Vegan, Experience?

A lifelong journey of learning and discovering led to relationships that inspired me. A dear friend, Dr. Shawn Miller from California, encouraged the use of LOVE* as a tagline to what Organic Avenue was about. I tweaked it a bit to come up with Live. Organic. Vegan. Experience, yet he was largely the inspiration for the use of this acronym. I give him credit and am eternally grateful to him. Therefore, LOVE* is the central theme of my life and business.

Your LOVE*deep cleanse is 1, 3 or 5 days of all juice (I recently did it for 3 days), but you have other cleanses that are 5 days long and that include salad and/or raw food. What are the differences between your cleanses, and who should do which?

Each cleanse can be taken on by a novice or experienced raw foodist; it all depends on your level of motivation and desired goals. Some people want a break from their diet and would like to give their bodies the highest-quality nutrients on a per-calorie basis, while others want to lose weight or gain energy fast. Some people choose to periodically abstain from solid food intake all together. Whether you choose LOVE*easy (raw food and juice), LOVE*fast (salad, soup, juice and smoothies) or LOVE*deep (all juice), the benefits can be felt. LOVE*easy is by its name easier and gives the satisfaction of chewing. It has plenty of raw calories and is a novel experience that allows the individual to sample many of our raw entrees, salads, juices and desserts. Upon completion of this cleanse a person has a really good idea of how to continue eating and juicing on their own. LOVE*fast reduces solid food intake, speeding up the detox process. And LOVE*deep is typically for someone wanting to gain energy and lose weight quickly. It greatly improves the glow and clarity of everything from skin to removing fuzzy thinking!

How do you come up with the juice combinations, like the Green LOVE*—spinach, swiss chard, kale, cucumber, celery, green apple, and lemon juice—and my favorite, Green Lemonade: lemon, spinach, cucumber, celery, alkaline water, ginger, agave, Himalayan salt?

Often by accident! From experimentation of combining existing juices together to come up with new favorites, to taking recommendations from clients and customers, to working with the best chefs. Recipes evolve over time, and we LOVE the creative process! I am often just the director of the process yet allow the creative collaboration to produce recipes that are delicious, focused on top-quality organic ingredients, produced consciously for greatest nutrient retention and bottled in our signature glass for an unmatched experience.

How do you determine the order in which the juices should be drunk over the course of the day?

Usually from lightest to heaviest, the most alkaline and hydrating, then work toward blends, soups, smoothies and foods with the fiber intact. If it’s pure juice, we start with sweeter, fruit-based juices, then more mineral-rich vegetable juices later in the day.

Why do you suggest that people “chew” their juice?

We are encouraging them to be present and to slow down. Others suggest that the enzymes produced by the salivary glands, mixed with the nutrients in the juice, help with absorption as well.

I’ve been told that including protein in a cleanse is necessary for ridding the body of toxins, but with an all-fruit and –vegetable juice cleanse, the protein is minimal. What do you think about that?

There is protein in our cleanses, and minimal is what is needed. We have nut and seed-based entrees and drinks, and even a 16 oz. Green LOVE* has 7 grams of protein. The best forms of protein in my opinion are plant-based sources of amino acids that the human body arranges into protein structures, perfect for building blood and healthy tissues (including muscles!).

You say elimination should occur about 20 minutes after eating or drinking a juice, but I found myself somewhat, um, stopped up while I was doing your LOVE*deep cleanse. Why is that?

Yes! This happens to so many people—you are constipated! Most don’t even realize it because they think it’s normal to go once or less a day. A truly healthy colon releases within 20 minutes of consuming. My baby boy does this as his colon has not been damaged by the standard American diet and his food is mostly pureed, giving access to fiber-rich foods for easy elimination.

During the cleanse, you recommend massages, saunas, yoga, meditation and dry brushing, among other things. I’ve always wondered: Are there benefits to brushing your skin while it’s dry that you don’t reap using a loofah or scrub brush in the shower?

I believe dry brushing has optimal benefits. There are reasons for doing it dry! Yet I believe much of the same can be accomplished with a little water in the mix as well. There is a technique, and you can find information online as to the exact procedure and incorporate it into your morning routine.

You also recommend saying affirmations. How important are they, and why?

I think they are so important. They help get control of the mind, which may be on autopilot. This way you can reestablish what is going on in the mind and direct it toward positive, health-supportive messages. Quieting the mind also relieves stress. What you think has a lot to do with how you feel and how stressed you are. Affirmations help calm the mind and focus on what is good and positive, improving both internal stress and physical interpretation of the thoughts.

What kinds of support do you offer people who do your cleanses?

We have a call center full of talented people who are there to answer questions about our cleanses and all of our products. I consult on an individual basis when I can, and we have a network of qualified health practitioners to whom we refer people as needed.

You offer food prep classes, and you sell a number of prepared raw foods, including Cashew Scallion Cream Cheese, Portobello Reuben Wraps, Cucumber Basil Soup, White Chocolate Flan, and Cheezcake. Yum! What’s your favorite raw food?

Hmmm, I have lots of favorites. Our SunFlower Falafel and Raw Green Soup top my list right now. We also have a new Veggie Wrap and a Coconut Yogurt that I LOVE too! Our fresh coconut water and Green LOVE* juice is a daily necessity.

Are you competely raw?

No, I consider myself high raw, yet I eat cooked vegan food too. I was 100% raw for five years and now incorporate some cooked vegan food, typically for dinner. Then I do periodic cleanses with all raw foods and juices. I’m always striving to eat more raw and drink more green juice, yet I find that consciously cooked and novel vegan foods make the lifestyle even more approachable and sustainable. I’m often inspired to head back toward 100% and encourage anyone who wants to feel the full benefits to take it full on for as long as possible. This way one will always know how to look and feel younger, or heal from any nagging symptom before turning to pharmaceuticals (always check with your MD and make sure a raw diet is right for you). In my experience, it’s a natural and miraculous way of eating and living.

Do you recommend a completely raw diet for everyone?

Everyone is on their own journey, and it will happen in due time. I would suggest starting with a 5-day LOVE*cleanse and see how you feel. Read more information that backs up what common sense tells us about a whole-food, plant-based, unadulterated diet and lifestyle that promotes peace and environmental cleanliness, along with incredibly vibrant health. Create a new foundation on vegan eating, then begin to increase the amount of raw in your diet—occasionally 100% raw and at other times feel comforted by consciously cooked foods as well.

You have a new book, For the LOVE of It, coming out next year. What’s it about? Will it contain recipes for any of the dishes you sell at Organic Avenue?

Stay tuned—more will be revealed soon! :-)

This is one of Supervegan’s posts for Vegan MoFo 2011.

• A screening of Forks Over Knives convinced Ozzy Osbourne to go vegan in an effort to stay healthy. Maybe he can take cooking classes with this guy.
• Same thing happened to Russell Brand after seeing the film. Meanwhile, over at Smith, students were in an uproar over rumors that the school was going completely vegetarian and locavore. Like that’s a bad thing?
• Famous veggie Paul McCartney released his first vegetarian cookbook this week, The Meat-Free Monday Cookbook. And on the other side of the Channel, the French government has said Non! to vegetarian meals in schools. What the foudre?
• Chrissie Hynde’s Akron restaurant, VegiTerranean, might be closing, but the singer is set to open up a new vegan eatery in LA with Ellen and Portia.
• Don’t throw meatballs at vegan actress Lea Michele if you don’t want to get kicked off the set of Glee. Well, unless they’re these.
• I don’t know about you, but I don’t get out to Jersey much. Which is why I’m thrilled the Cinnamon Snail Truck is heading to Manhattan and Brooklyn starting in mid-November.

This is one of Supervegan’s posts for Vegan MoFo 2011.

Chef AJ wants you to stop eating junk! The chef and cooking instructor battled her own body, and the food she was putting in it, until illness finally forced her to take her health into her own hands. In addition to teaching Los Angelenos how to prepare healthy food, she puts out weekly recipe videos with Julieanna Hever, called The Chef and the Dietitian. Chef AJ took a few minutes out of her busy schedule to give me the skinny on her cookbook, Unprocessed.

Chef AJ, health-wise, you’ve had more than your fair share of challenges: You were overweight, then anorexic, then obese; you developed adult onset asthma; your spine was crushed in an accident and you were paralyzed and in a body cast for a year; you contracted a life-threatening lung and liver infection on your honeymoon; you suffered from panic disorder and agoraphobia and didn’t leave the house for over a year; you had several miscarriages, and the first pregnancy resulted in complications that required surgery; and you had several large, bleeding colon polyps. You were a hot mess! But you turned it all around by changing your diet. How difficult was it to go from having 32 oz. Coke Slurpees with eight pumps of vanilla for breakfast and 48 oz. Big Gulp Dr. Peppers for lunch to eating unprocessed, whole, plant-based foods?

While it was difficult initially, I’m quite sure that if I’d let the polyps progress into full-blown cancer, it would have been far more difficult. Also, I had help. I went to the Optimum Health Institute [in San Diego], where I was able to detox without having the pressure of being at work at the same time. So while I did go through some withdrawal, I was in an environment where I was actively learning about what foods caused disease and being nourished with the foods that could reverse the disease.

How did you find the Optimum Health Institute?

I had a magazine of discount vacations, and it was the cheapest place I could find to go ($875 for a whole week). I had no idea it was a healing center and that I would have to put wheatgrass up my butt!!

Sounds like fun!

You say you’d rather see people eat 90% vegan and 90% unprocessed than 100% vegan and 10% unprocessed. Living in New York, it’s easy to be a junk food vegan; there are so many restaurants, bakeries and other goodies at our fingertips. What do you think poses the biggest challenge for people, eating plant-based or eating unprocessed?

Let me first clarify that I’m also an ethical vegan and would prefer that people not even eat 10% of their calories from animal products. But from purely a health standpoint, one would be better off doing that if the other 90% of their diet was truly unprocessed. The problem with many vegans is that they’re just as addicted to processed foods in general, and sugar, oil and salt specifically, as carnivores are. I think it’s easier for people to eat plant-based than unprocessed. There are many foods that are vegan, and even organic, that aren’t health-promoting, like agave, coconut oil and all of the fake vegan meats and cheeses. Eating these fake and processed foods may earn you a place in animal heaven, but it doesn’t make you bulletproof against Western lifestyle diseases. I cannot tell you how many vegans I know who have cancer and diabetes from eating a VegJUNKtarian diet. Sure, these foods may be okay as transition foods and an occasional treat, but some vegans never transition and just eat crap!

Chef AJ’s Hail to the Kale Salad features a nutty dressing that makes even the most salad-averse gobble their greens. I used sunflower butter and seeds instead of almonds, and it was delish!

Your aunt’s mother Memé studied at the Cordon Bleu and made gourmet, whole-food meals for you while you lived with that part of your family; my mother shoved me in front of the TV with chicken TV dinners every night. For me, food wasn’t a joy; it had to be fast and convenient and filling, and that’s where my interest stopped. Do you think you would have made it to the other side if you hadn’t had experienced Memé’s cooking?

If I hadn’t experienced eating real food as a child, I would probably be like so many other people I know who eat only processed foods and animal products: fat, sick and nearly dead (which, by the way, is the name of a wonderful movie!).

You talk about addictions to hyper-palatable foods: sugar, fat and salt. Why are these foods so hard to kick if they’re so bad for us?

To really answer that question scientifically would take me an hour. (I actually do a presentation called “How to Avoid The Evil Trinity,” where I cover this in-depth.) But one can gain all of the understanding on why processed food, vegan or not, is addictive by reading the books The Pleasure Trap and The End of Overeating. In a nutshell, sugar, fat and salt work together to make food damn near irresistible. The perfect combination of sugar, fat and salt addicts most people’s brain chemistry, and the more sugar, fat and salt one eats, the more one craves. In addition, the more highly concentrated the calories, the more dopamine—a feel-good brain chemical—is released. People are stressed and looking for that hit of dopamine, which they get from eating processed food. Most people are just like rats pressing the bar for their next fix of something sweet, fatty or salty. They’re so addicted that even the thought of giving up these foods causes discomfort. If you look at some of the research done with rats, when given a choice of cocaine or sugar, 94% of the rats chose sugar!!! And once they were addicted and the sugar was withdrawn and healthy rat chow was given, all of the rats chose to starve themselves to death rather than eat the healthy food when they couldn’t get sugar. Does this sound like anyone you know?

I’ll take the Fifth on that one.

In your book, you say that Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Your Life helped turn you around. What in particular did you take away from the book?

That our thoughts and words are powerful, and that what we think about we bring about—if we want to create health, we have to think healthy thoughts—and that there’s a “probable mental thought pattern” associated with all diseases.

Your father died from coronary artery disease, your mom suffered from dementia and heart failure, your grandmother died of colon cancer, your mom and other grandmother had bowel obstructions, and your uncle had 80% of his colon removed. But for many people, like you, a road map of what’s probably going to kill them often isn’t enough to convince them to make life-saving changes. You yourself had polyps that were so advanced they couldn’t be removed. If you hadn’t been so afraid of drugs and surgery, would you have made the changes you did, changes that ultimately sent your polyps packing, and within just six months?

No, I probably would have just had them surgically removed and gone on eating my disease-promoting diet. I have friends who’ve had cancer for the second time, and they still won’t change their diet. Doctors are given almost no training in nutrition in medical school, and people believe that diet has nothing to do with whether or not we get a disease. That is why books like The China Study and movies like Forks Over Knives are so great; they’re bringing this information to the masses. The information has been around a very long time. Even Hippocrates said, “Let food be thy medicine.”

The pineapple juice sweetness of AJ’s Sweet and Sour Tempeh is balanced by the coolness and crunch of the green peppers.

You recommend eating a diet that’s organic, raw and plant-based, and free of sugar, oil and salt. But that’s not easy when you’re on the go. How can busy people with stressful jobs working long hours eat well?

Well, here’s the thing: You have to make it a priority. And in my opinion, your health should be your number-one priority. Everyone has enough time to tweet and check their Facebook account and play Angry Birds; people always make time for what they truly value. So first you need to make it a priority. Then there are things you can do, like putting all of the ingredients in your blender for your green smoothie the night before or putting everything in the crock pot before going to work. But remember, if you’re stressed, you’re looking for that hit of dopamine you get from eating crap. You’re not going to get it from eating fruit and veggies.

You said something that really caught my attention, being the sugar addict that I am: Sugar inhibits the absorption of other nutrients. How so?

Again, I’m not a scientist, so I can’t explain the exact mechanism. But if you read Suicide by Sugar or Sugar Blues, these experts can tell you exactly how it works. Sugar, like oil and alcohol, is at best empty calories: It provides zero fiber and zero nutrients. And many experts will tell you that it feeds cancer. Disease can exist only if the body is in an acidic state or in a state of inflammation. And sugar, like all processed foods, is acidifying and causes inflammation in the body. It really is more like a drug than a food.

You quote Jack LaLanne as saying: “You wouldn’t wake up your dog in the morning and give him a cup of coffee, a doughnut and a cigarette, so why would you do that to yourself?” I’ve never been a smoker, but I could definitely go for the coffee and the doughnut. What do you have to get yourself going in the morning?

Because I’ve been sugar-, caffeine- and chocolate-free for so long, I no longer need stimulation—I wake up every morning and literally jump out of bed with boundless energy that lasts all day. I also need very little sleep. Most people have to medicate themselves with coffee in the morning to wake up and alcohol at night to calm down; I get all the energy I need from my green smoothies in the morning. And it’s sustained energy, not like the crash and burn you get from sugar and caffeine.

You say you eat lots of bananas and white potatoes, but from what I understand, they’re both high on the glycemic index, and highly caloric. Why are they staples for you?

I rarely eat potatoes; I prefer sweet potatoes. I like bananas because they’re great in smoothies, but really I eat all fruits and veggies. How can you say bananas are caloric at 300 calories a pound? And potatoes have 400 calories a pound. Sugar has 1, 800 calories a pound and oil 4,000 calories a pound!!! And we don’t just eat foods based on the glycemic index alone; the glycemic load is more important. If the glycemic index were a health indicator, then we should all be eating Häagen-Dazs ice cream instead of carrots because it’s lower on the glycemic index. And why not down a bottle of low-glycemic agave, which is the worst crap in the world—even worse than sugar!!!

AJ’s Hockey Pucks—dates, cashew butter (I’m allergic to almonds), cocoa powder, vanilla extract, dates—are rich, creamy and delicious, yet healthy. My consistency might be a little off—we had to eat ours with utensils—but there was nothing wrong with the flavor!

What do you think about eating a completely raw diet?

Unless one is eating and chewing fruits and veggies all day, a raw diet is difficult to maintain unless one starts eating processed raw crap like olive oil, coconut oil, agave or too many nuts and seeds. I think people should eat high raw, as many raw fruits and veggies as they possibly can, but there’s nothing wrong with eating some cooked foods, like lightly steamed veggies, beans, legumes and whole grains. There are micronutrients in some foods that actually become more bioavailable when cooked.

Most of your recipes can be prepped in minutes and cooked in less than 30—that’s music to my ears! I made your Hail to the Kale Salad, Sweet and Sour Tempeh, and Hockey Pucks, all of which thrilled everyone in my house, including my two vegan chef housemates! The biggest shocker was that my husband couldn’t eat the tempeh fast enough, and he typically hates tempeh. So in my eyes, you’re a genius! One question: Why no serving sizes in the book? It made me a little batty.

Actually, almost all of my recipes have seven or fewer easy-to-find ingredients and can be prepared in less than 30 minutes. I chose not to include serving sizes because I don’t know how much someone else eats. The beauty of an unprocessed, SOS-free diet is that unless you’re gorging on nuts and seeds, you can pretty much eat all you want; you can eat to satiation and satisfaction. Eat when hungry, stop when full. No weighing, measuring or calorie counting necessary! So how much is that for you? I don’t know. How can I dictate how much someone else can or should eat? It all depends on their activity level and how hungry they are!!!

When you put it like that it makes sense! Though when cooking for other people, serving sizes are helpful— (FYI, readers: The Tempeh and Kale dishes yielded about four servings each, and we ended up with 16 Hockey Pucks.)

What’s your Unprocessed 30-Day Challenge?

It’s a program I run in LA, where I live. Participants come to my home five Sunday nights in a row for meals and support. They pledge to eat unprocessed for 30 days, and they get daily e-mail support and weekly phone support. In this program, people have lost weight, lowered their cholesterol to within normal limits, gone off their statins and diabetes medications, refined their palates and lost tremendous amounts of weight. The “winner” of the challenge gets a front-row ticket to the annual event I produce called Healthy Taste of LA. This year, Dr. T. Colin Campbell is our keynote.

Support and competition—a little something to motivate everyone! Thanks for the chat, AJ, and for the healthy, delicious recipes!

This is one of Supervegan’s posts for Vegan MoFo 2011.

Gluten-Free and Vegan Holidays: Celebrating the Year with Simple, Satisfying Recipes and Menus, Jennifer Katzinger. Available now.

I’ve been vegan for four years and gluten-free for two, and holy guacamole, have the last two holiday seasons been one trap door after the other. Everywhere I go, people are making GODDAMN SUGAR COOKIES in the shape of little men, with smug smiles that I know mean they’re just waiting for me to take a sickening bite of their legs. Not this year. This year I’m making my own sugar cookies and they will be made of almond flour and they will be modest and sincere and not try to kill anyone except that kid with the nut allergies. But enough about me, back to this book. This book is more than recipes for the cold weather holidays; Katzinger’s included recipes for all the biggies, including Halloween, Hanukkah, and St. Patty’s. Who else desperately misses Irish soda bread? Actually I could say that about dozens of holiday foods — who misses Challah bread? Shortbread, stuffed cabbage, etc.–and this book covers all of those, plus plenty more “man, I really miss that [holiday food]!” dishes.

Quick-Fix Vegan: Health, Homestyle Meals in 30 Minutes or Less, Robin Robertson. Available Now.

Two things: 1. Robin Robertson. 2. Quick: all recipes can be prepared in 30 minutes. I love to be fancy sometimes, but honestly most of the time I eat salad or apples with peanut butter or Amy’s frozen burritos, when I’d so rather be eating something homemade. This book covers more than soup and salad recipes — it’s got tips for little things you can do when you have time so that when you’re crunched the cooking moves faster, lists of the kinds of foods you want to have on hand so you can make things in a hurry, and lots of real recipes you would want to make whether quick or not so quick, like pumpkin hummus, mushroom-artichoke risotto, and chocolate cheesecake squares.

Vegan Pie in the Sky, Isa Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. Available October 25.

Piiiies! I can’t count the number of times I’ve thought, “Gosh, I should really have a pie party!” Now, no excuses! In the style of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World and Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar Isa and Terry bring their simple and straightforward recipes to an eight-inch round. Dessert pies only, 75 in all. And you can test out a couple of recipes this weekend before the book publishes next-next Tuesday; Isa posted the recipe for Old Fashioned Chocolate Pudding Pie (and three other beautiful sample recipes) at the Post Punk Kitchen, and it looks just like what my mom used to make with that chocolate jell-O pie mix. I miss that stuff terribly. Thanks for keeping my childhood alive!

Candle 79 Cookbook: Modern Vegan Classics from New York’s Premier Sustainable Restaurant, Joy Pierson, Angel Ramos, and Jorge Pineda. Available November 1.

HOLY YES. Who doesn’t want to cook like the geniuses at Candle FREAKING 79?? Since I devoured my copy of The Candle Cafe Cookbook, I’m hungry for another challenge from my favorite, favorite restaurants. Listen to this and try to tell me these don’t sound 3,000 percent delicious — Heirloom Tomato-Avocado Tartare, Jerusalem Artichoke Soup with Crispy Sage Leaves, Stuffed Avocado with Quinoa Pilaf and Chipotle-Avocado Dressing, Stuffed Ravioli with Wild Mushrooms and Cashew Cheese…and that’s just a handful of the many delightful recipes many of us Candle lovers may be making at home next month. I’m cooking and it’s going to be fancy! Who’s coming over? Everyone!

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Gluten-free Vegan Cooking, Julieanna Hever and Beverly Lynn Bennett. Available December 6.

Idiots! That’s me! I’m not above a good Idiot’s Guide — I like them. Particularly because every time I’ve excluded something new from my diet I’ve had to re-learn to cook, so I’m ready for a book that gets down to the basics. That is to say that this is one of the first books that’s gotten down to the basics on this very specific topic. Plus one of the authors is a really attractive dietician. What more do you need to know!

This is one of Supervegan’s posts for Vegan MoFo 2011.

At first glance I didn’t have much interest in The Part-Time Vegan: 201 Yummy Recipes That Put the Fun in Flexitarian; I’m a full-time vegan, so I didn’t really see the point. But once I started cooking—woowee! Cherise Grifoni’s recipes are surprisingly good. It’s not that I doubted Grifoni—I didn’t know anything about her before this. But once you’ve test-driven a lot of cookbooks, you stop expecting to be swept off your feet. And given the title, I expected to be only partially impressed, if that. Boy, was I wrong.

Not only is the book full of great recipes, it’s an easy “read.” Grifoni’s tone is conversational and jokey; flipping through her cookbook is like catching up with your smart-ass friend from college…albeit one who’s way off base about honey. And her approach to veganism can be a little confusing. She definitely doesn’t want to be seen as a preachy vegan, so she promotes a take-it-or-leave-it approach. And she doesn’t seem to want to pass up the occasional pastry just because it’s not vegan (she went vegan when she realized dairy was the culprit behind her migraines). But she also dedicates an entire chapter to Veganism 101, in which she provides a lot of great information. And how can you argue with statements like, “I’m here to let people know that even small changes in your diet towards veganism can help you lead a happier, healthier life”? Maybe it’s all a front, her laissez-faire approach to doing the right thing, to make it more palatable to the masses. A spoonful of sugar and all. Whatever the case, two of the three recipes I tried knocked my socks off, so at least as far as her food goes, I’m sold.

The first dish I tried was Honey Mustard and Balsamic Vinegar Green Beans. This side of green beans and broccoli cooked in onions and garlic and seasoned with (ahem) Dijon mustard and topped with nutritional yeast was really tasty. Next time I’ll go a little lighter on the mustard, but overall the flavor was nice, and it was a great way to bring green beans into my regular cooking repertoire. It wasn’t my favorite dish of the bunch, but it was certainly solid. The most baffling thing about it, though, was the serving size: Grifoni says it serves one, but my husband and I shared it and still had some left over.

Honey Mustard and Balsamic Vinegar Green Beans, minus the Honey.

Then it was onto the entree: Orange-Glazed “Chicken” Tofu, which Grifoni promised would be reminiscent of Chinese food. She wasn’t wrong. By the time the firm tofu was cooked down in the garlic, Bragg’s (the recipe calls for soy), orange juice, maple syrup and red pepper flakes, it had that almost-stringy, piecey look of braised chicken you find in some of the dishes at your favorite Chinese restaurant. But on their own merits, the texture and taste were perfect: not too firm or soft, with just the right balance of tangy and sweet. This was a radical departure from how I’ve cooked tofu in the past, and I will definitely make this dish again…and again. It’s something I could see eating cold, straight out of the fridge (that is, if there are ever any leftovers). Again, serving size seemed not to apply: Grifoni says this dish serves three, but the two of us gobbled it up without leaving a scrap behind.

The Orange-Glazed “Chicken” Tofu is similar to what you’d find at a Chinese restaurant, except you’re not hungry again an hour later.

But the highlight of the evening was the Chocolate Graham Cracker Candy Bars. (How many of the words in that title set my heart to racing?) When you’re first putting it together, it seems simple, so again, I didn’t expect much. But when I took my first bite, midstep between the kitchen and the living room, I literally stopped in my tracks and yelled, “Holy crap!” Yes, they’re that good. Even with some alterations. I couldn’t find vegan graham crackers to save my life (there’s that honey issue again), so I substituted Annie’s Chocolate Bunny Grahams. (FYI, roughly six bunnies equals one graham cracker.) Lining up the buns foot to foot and head to butt, I created a bottom sandwich layer, which I covered with cashew butter, then topped with six more chocolate rabbits. Because I was using bunny bites instead of one large cracker, I couldn’t pick the sandwiches up and dip them, as instructed, in the melted chocolate chips and Earth Balance, so instead I coated them with a layer of the stuff, then topped half of the goodies with coconut and the other half with coconut and chopped walnuts. This might not sound groundbreaking, but let me tell you this: These babies are divine. And after being refrigerated for a while, they harden and can be eaten like the sandwiches they were intended to be. But leave room, because you’ll find it hard to eat just one. Between the gooeyness of the chocolate and the cashew butter, the crunch of the cookies, and the softness of the coconut, there isn’t a whole lot more to say than, “O-M-G!” OMG indeed.

The only thing I can say about the Chocolate Graham Cracker Candy Bars is, “Holy crap!”

I’ll give it to Grifoni: She knows her way around the kitchen. And the cookbook: All of her recipes are labeled to make it easy to find what you’re looking for (high in fiber or protein, quick to make, or flexitarian, or easily made with nonvegan ingredients). She’s also included a section of Dinner Plans: an Appetizer, Main Course and Dessert whose marriage she’s already arranged. The Chocolate Graham Cracker Candy Bars are the dessert from Dinner Plan #8, the Backyard BBQ Wannabe, which also features Tempeh Dill “Chicken” Salad and Seitan Barbecue “Meat.” Other Plans include Spicy Sweet Cucumber Salad, Caramelized Onion and Barbecue Sauce Pizza, and Maple Date Carrot Cake (#1); Vegan Cheese Ball, No Shepherd, No Sheep Pie, and Tofu Chocolate Pudding (#7); and Strawberry Milkshakes, “Cheesy” Macaroni and “Hamburger” Casserole, and From Scratch Chocolate Cake With Vanilla Icing (#10). How much easier could she make it?

I might not agree with everything Grifoni says, but good vegan food can do as much, if not more, than a reasonable argument to change people’s hearts and minds. So while she might not have set out to expressly convert anyone, I think a lot more people will be eating animal-free thanks to her amazing vegan recipes.

This is one of Supervegan’s posts for Vegan MoFo 2011.

I’m kind of in love with Christine Waltermyer right now. The founder and director of the Natural Kitchen Cooking School, Waltermyer has taught at the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health and is a teacher with PCRM’s Cancer Project, so it’s no surprise that her book focuses on whole, unprocessed foods. I constantly struggle with trying to eat well, so I was excited to see what she was serving up in The Natural Vegan Kitchen.

I’ve been battling that nasty change-of-season cold everyone seems to have, so I decided to start with her Ginger Squash Soup—an aromatic mix of squash, onion and ginger juice topped with scallions. I used a can of pumpkin puree that I had on hand and some summer (rather than winter) squash from a friend’s garden, so the soup was a little thinner than it might have been otherwise. But the flavor was amazing: hearty and just a little bit sweet, and with the zing of the ginger going right to work on my throat. If you’re not a ginger fan, this is not the soup for you! But if you are, enjoy. I certainly did. Next time I might add more vegetables—and stick to fall/winter ones—so that the soup is a little thicker. Another option is to not blend the veggies at all and have more of a broth, leaving some chunks of squash throughout. No matter what you decide to do consistency-wise, though, the taste is superb. To find out for yourself, Waltermyer has posted almost the exact same recipe on her school’s site.

The Ginger Squash Soup is not only delicious, it’s good for you.

Next up was the Millet-Cauliflower Mash (the recipe in the book is a little more fleshed-out, I think), which I topped with Onion, rather than Mushroom, Gravy. The mash was just what you’d expect: thick and hearty, a perfect side as the weather gets colder. This is also just one of the gluten-free dishes in the book, a nice feature for anyone with celiac disease or a gluten sensitivity. But the real star of the show was the gravy, made with sliced onions, miso and arrowroot; it was a tasty, salty counterpoint to the starchiness of the mash. My only complaint was that I wanted more! The gravy came out quite thick, so next time I’ll be sure to make more. This gravy would be an amazing accompaniment to so many things…

Be sure to top the Millet-Cauliflower Mash with Waltermyer’s Onion Gravy—you will not be disappointed.

The final recipe I tried was her Tempeh Mock Tuna Salad (there’s a recipe here), and the alternative Chickpea Mock Tuna Salad. Wow! I know mayo, onion and celery go a long way toward giving mock tuna its flavor, but both of these recipes are spot-on. I’d never made fake tuna salad before, and I was surprised at how similar the taste was to the real thing; I was even more surprised by how closely mashed chickpeas resemble flaked tuna. But at the end of the day, taste is what matters, and this recipe has it in spades. I put it on toast and had a “tuna” sandwich, something I hadn’t done since I was a kid. But it was so good I was also eating it out of the bowl, which is always a good sign. I’d recommend either version, but for me the true winner was the chickpea version, because the taste was just a smidge closer to reality, plus there’s no cooking involved (if you use canned chickpeas). The only thing I’ll do differently next time is cut down on the mayo; surprisingly, Waltermyer uses a lot more than I would have expected. But that’s a minor complaint, and probably one that more-skilled cooks won’t have; it’s only novices like me, probably, who follow recipe measurements to the letter! I’m sure the more I make this dish, though, the more I’ll have a sense of how much of each ingredient to use without having to consult the book.

Waltermyer’s Mock Tuna Salad knocked my socks off! I can’t wait to make another sandwich.

Meanwhile, I noticed that there’s a thread connecting all the recipes I tried here: onion. If you ask me, you can never get too much of a good thing. Though it is curious that when I go down the list of dishes I’d like to try next, all of them contain onion: Creamy Cauliflower-Broccoli Soup, Zucchini Rice Patties, French Onion Soup, Boston Baked Beans, Vegetarian Sloppy Joes, Tofu Pot Pie, Baked Onions… I could go on. But there are other dishes I’m game to try that don’t contain it, most notably Glazed Brussels Sprouts and Chestnuts, and two desserts: Cinnamon-Scented Poached Fuit and Basmati Rice Pudding. And I’ll be taking many more of Waltermyer’s for a spin ASAP. All of which to say, I give The Natural Vegan Kitchen two big, oniony thumbs-up!

This is one of Supervegan’s posts for Vegan MoFo 2011.

I’m not the greatest cook in the world, but I enjoy preparing food. I’d do it more often if I could—I’ve been eating way too much takeout lately—but I have a crazy job with long hours that leaves me really tired at the end of the day. So when a cookbook like Maribeth Abrams’ The 4-Ingredient Vegan comes along, I’m all over it.

Caveat: While most of the recipes in the book call for four ingredients or fewer, some require a few more; water, salt, pepper, and oil/margarine are exempted from the count. Just FYI.

The first dish I made was Asparagus in Corn Sauce. I love the aromatic flavor that comes through no matter what you do to asparagus, and corn is nature’s candy! So this dish seemed like a no-brainer. The sauce, a blend of corn, celery and cumin, is poured over lightly steamed asaparagus, and the dish is baked for half an hour. Some of the sweetness of the corn cooked off, so it didn’t overwhelm the asparagus, which stayed true to its natural flavor. The next time I make this, though, I’ll bake it for a shorter period of time so that the asparagus doesn’t wither quite so much. But the baking process browns the sauce nicely and imparts a bit of a crust around the edges, so maybe I’ll cook the sauce a little before spooning it over the veggies, then bake the rest of the way. In any case, this was a good start.

The Asparagus in Corn Sauce was slightly sweet and very asparagusy, though a little on the wilty side.

Next up was Hefty Greens: kale boiled for a minute in very little water, then cooked down with sausage that’s been fried for about five (I used Field Roast Apple Sage) and seasoned with tamari (to avoid the alcohol and added salt, I used Bragg Liquid Aminos instead). Full disclosure: The recipe calls for water chestnuts, but, um, I forgot to buy some. Never the less, the dish was a hit. I mean, you’d have to be pretty incompetent to screw this one up, wouldn’t you? Delicious-on-its-own faux sausage plus my favorite greens of all time, seasoned on the slightly salty side? ’Nuff said.

You can’t go wrong with Hefty Greens…that is, unless you forget the water chestnuts. In any case, yum!

I rounded out the meal with Halvah. Abrams’ version is made with tahini, of course, but also with cashew butter and vanilla extract and is sweetened with dates. (I didn’t use the optional agave; the dates made it sweet enough.) It tasted amazing, the distinct tahini flavor reminding me of the halvah my mom used to buy. What disappointed me, though, was that the halvah never solidified enough so that it could be sliced; it ended up more like a wet cookie dough, despite the fact that I refrigerated it for three hours, as instructed. Maybe next time instead of stirring the tahini, I’ll keep it separated from its oil and see if that makes the halvah any more solid. In any case, it was delicious, so if I have to use a spoon to eat it, so be it.

The Halvah tasted amazing! Too bad the consistency wasn’t right…

Overall the dishes were tasty, even if they didn’t turn out quite as I expected them to. I don’t know if the mixed results were the fault of my less-than-stellar culinary skills or of the recipes, but in the end, a good meal was had. Next I’d love to try the Hot Spiced Apples and Spinach Casserole, though I live in fear of the phyllo—I’ve heard that it can be tough to work with.

Aside from the texture’s being off in two of the recipes, my main complaints about the book are that there are no pictures (maybe Abrams is as bad a food stylist and photographer as I am?), and that so many of the main dish recipes don’t seem like recipes at all: Barbecue Tempeh is simply tempeh cooked with store-bought barbecue sauce; Classic-Style Pierogies are store-bought pierogies cooked in onion and served with sour cream; etc. That said, I’d definitely recommend The 4-Ingredient Vegan to anyone who wants to keep things simple without sacrificing flavor. If done right, less can definitely be more.

Do you have a favorite recipe that doesn’t require a lengthy shopping list? Share it with us in the comments section!

Update: The Halvah has now been in the fridge for two days, and it’s a lot more solid than it was after the recommended three hours, so maybe a longer refrigeration period would help. I also wonder if, instead of stirring the tahini to recombine the oil and solids that had separated in the jar, using just the solids might give the treat more of its trademark consistency. If you have any experience making sliceable halvah, please let us know what you did differently!

Update 2: That solidity lasted only as long as the Halvah was in the fridge. Back to the drawing board.

This is one of Supervegan’s posts for Vegan MoFo 2011.

Calling all veggies and friends of animals with dusty, crowded book shelves! Thursday, August 11th at 6pm, please join me and Jamie Hagen for an evening swap of inspiring vegan cookbooks, theory books, how-to dvds, and all other media related to vegetarianism and animal rights. This event is open to all whether you are a hardcore vegan with a dozen books (and tattoos) or a veg-curious passerby.

There will be a raffle in support of Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary. (Prizes include a gift certificate to the eco-friendly boutique Sustainable NYC!) All books remaining after the swap will be donated to the Housing Works Bookstore Cafe.

As if scoring free books, helping rescued animals, and supporting New Yorkers living with AIDS wasn’t enough, we’ll have lots of delicious flavors of Lula’s Sweet Apothecary vegan ice cream for sale in the cafe and a 10% discount on all items in the shop during the event!

Thursday August 11th 6pm-9pm. Sustainable NYC, 139 Avenue A (btw 9th St. & St. Marks), New York, NY 10009. Free! RSVP via Facebook. For more info or to contribute a prize to the raffle, contact me.