A Canadian's Take on "New American Vegan"

Context, Yes!

It's not a secret to anyone who's ever been inside my home that I am a little cookbook-obsessed -- just a little. I will often read them cover to cover and it's not uncommon for me to keep a few of them on my nightstand for bedtime reading. Reading through recipes from a new or trusted cookbook author is a great way to introduce yourself to different taste and texture combinations. A good cookbook will also offer up a bit of introductory information for those who may be new to cooking. What tools will you need? What are some basics with which you should stock your cupboard? It will teach you a little about potentially new ingredients used in the book's recipes and then, if it's a really awesome cookbook, its author will have done what I always appreciate, which is to suggest pairings of different dishes. If it's a vegan cookbook, its author will also (hopefully) spend some time explaining not just why we don't need to use animals to eat delicious food, but why we shouldn't treat animals as things and why we should consider going vegan.

Abolitionist animal rights activist Vincent Guihan's New American Vegan does all of this and more. The little extras in his book leave it rising (far) above most of the vegan cookbooks on the market these days. There are a lot of them and many of these books, sadly, are missed opportunities for their authors to actually educate others a little about veganism and about what it's like to go and to be vegan. Vincent not only shares his own experience going vegan, but provides some pretty useful advice on things like how to entertain as a polite but unapologetic vegan. He also goes over and above most other vegan cookbook authors in conveying to his readers how flexible and forgiving recipes can be -- particularly his recipes. He suggests alternative seasonings for the recipes, as well as substitutes for those harder-to-find ingredients.

This empowers the reader, whether a new or experienced cook, to feel comfortable being creative with the recipes without having to worry about wandering too far off course and possibly ruining the recipe altogether. Cooking should not be a daunting experience; neither should going vegan and learning new ways of approaching meal preparation. I was one of the original testers for the recipes a few years ago and I got hooked even then. I'd been anticipating the book's publication for a while and was thrilled when I first heard that it was finally coming out.

On Feeling Free to Drool

Here are some of the gorgeous and tasty treats I've tried and loved which you'll find in New American Vegan:

Clementine, Kalamata Olive & Collard Salad. A little sriracha, as suggested in the book, really rounded out this already intricately tasty dish quite nicely.

Quick, Rich Borscht. A lover of beets, I'd never tried borscht before; now I have a recipe that's a keeper.

Basic Crackers. Those pictured above are the yummy Pepper Jack variation, great by themselves or with soup, chowder or dip.

Avocado Creton. The smokiness combined with the rich fatty avocado is awesome. It was perfect with the aforementioned Basic Crackers.

Chickpea, Avocado Ceviche. Again with the avocado, because who doesn't love avocado? The cilantro and spices in the recipe are subtle and the lime picks it up just perfectly.

Fiery Illinois Corn Chowder. Creamy with an adjustable spiciness, this chowder is even more amazing topped with a handful of cilantro.

The Interview-ish Part

I contacted Vincent with some questions to weave some of his answers into this exploration of his book and he graciously replied:

MFIoF: When and how did you first learn to cook?

VG: Not surprising for Chicago, the first thing I learned to cook was pizza. That meant learning how to prepare bread dough, the sauce, etc. Pizza is a big deal in Chicago. There are a lot of different ways to make it -- some very inventive, and the toppings and combination of ingredients make it a good place to learn flavour combinations and flavour layering.

MFIoF: How did going vegan impact your time spent in the kitchen and the development of your mad culinary skills?

VG: I spent more time in the kitchen after going vegan. I was a vegetarian for a long time, which although well-intended, was misguided. After going vegan, I spent a lot of time working with more basic ingredients in combination to create the food I wanted to eat. In most respects, it was a liberation of my palate in a move away from prepackaged foods, and more important, away from prepackaged cultural notions of what food should be, how it should look, how it should be prepared. Notions of the 'centre of the plate', eating in courses, and of course, the primacy of animal products in meals are all deeply culturally contrived.

MFIoF: What other sort of activism have you engaged in? Where and how does writing a vegan cookbook fit into your activism as an abolitionist?

VG: Activists approach moral problems differently. In most social justice movements, organizers play an important role with helping people to understand the issues and get started in terms of practical work. There's not a lot of that today in the movement -- just a lot of businesses co-opting donations and volunteers (the free labour of the movement) to do fundraising. I think it's important for advocates to bypass the animal agriculture-welfare complex and promote abolition. My cookbook is a direct appeal to the public to go vegan and work for the abolition of the property status of nonhuman animals. But I think people fear change when they cannot envision who they will be after the change. The cookbook is really meant to speak to the notion of how life goes well as a vegan.

MFIoF: Why did you decide to write a cookbook? How would you describe your cookbook?

VG: It's awesome. Seriously. I know some people in the community may be offended that some vegans aren't prepared to bow and scrape to promote veganism, but I think people who are not vegan are cheating themselves out of a much better life. Veganism is good news for them. I wanted to write a book that would be full of good news for people who were ready to hear it. My book is provides the basis for personal change for anyone who's ready to go.

MFIoF: What advice would you give to new vegans who are first learning to cook, or at least learning to prepare vegan food for the first time?

VG: Keep going. Most people hone their palates licking the boots of the oppressor, so to speak. Eating inferior tasting "foods", thinking that what is least interesting about a dish is the most important. Few things taste as good or look as beautiful as a slice of fresh mango or pineapple. Meat, diary, and other animal products do have flavour and texture. However, it's often the 'garnishes' and the preparation that gives the finished dishes their appeal. Once you understand that animal products tend to be 'canvas' ingredients that absorb the flavour of the rest of the ingredients, the more you understand that it's the other ingredients that have beautiful flavour, colour, texture, etc., that are important. Free your plate. And keep going.

MFIoF: Where's the best place for the interested to snap up your cookbook?

VG: It's at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and I believe you can buy it directly from PM Press.

The Freebies!!

To share the New American Vegan love, I have a copy of the book to give away! To enter the contest you'll need to do the following: Email a photo of your favourite vegan dish to m.of.the.maritimes @ gmail.com along with a list of its ingredients. Because I am not a wealthy vegan, the contest is only open to folks residing in Canada or the US (i.e. unless you're willing to cover international shipping costs, I can only mail the book to either country). The winner of the cookbook will be drawn randomly from all entries on Monday, April 9. When I announce the winner, I'll post two recipes for dishes pictured above based on requests by email and comments below indicating which recipe you'd love to have most.

Now go out and buy this cookbook!

A Pilgrimage to Herbivore

As noted below in my post from last week about my first experience with flight, I recently traveled to the San Francisco Bay area for a rare vacation. My intention had been to track down as many vegan restaurants as I could within reasonable distance and to sample some of their fare. I quickly found out that Berkeley, where I was staying, is overflowing with a huge number of restaurants offering up more food options than this hapless French-Canadian could handle. Most meals with my non-vegan host Joshua ended up shared in the wide variety of Korean, Taiwanese, Indian and Mediterranean restaurants to which he introduced me, few of them vegan, but all of them with numerous clearly-marked vegan selections. (I'll definitely elaborate upon this in a future post.) My solo exploring is what twice brought me to a place about which I'd only ever read on the internet, often from from others who live on or have traveled to the West coast.

Herbivore: A Backgrounder

Herbivore: The Earthly Grill has three restaurants in the Bay area. Two are in San Francisco and its most recently-opened location is at 2451 Shattuck in downtown Berkeley. All locations are vegan and feature an international menu. The Berkeley location has a really laid back atmosphere and left me surprised with its affordable prices. During my visits I saw that it attracts people of all ages and backgrounds, whether vegan or non-vegan. I had been to a couple of vegan restaurants a few years back in the Philadelphia area, but nothing with as extensive a menu as what I ended up gawking at just outside this restaurant's front door upon arrival, almost afraid to go inside before weighing at least a couple of options lest I end up drooling over a menu at my table for hours.


I hadn't been sure of what to expect of the place in terms of either service or atmosphere, although I'd heard enough recommendations concerning the food to have a pretty good idea that
I wouldn't walk away horribly disappointed. My biggest issue as it turns out, was what the heck to try first. For those of you who don't live in large urban areas (and I'm guessing that many My Face Is on Fire readers fall into this category), you probably understand what it's like, if you do choose to eat out, to scan a menu hoping to find something--anything--that's vegan-friendly. There's usually not much deliberation involved; you find an item or two on the non-vegan menu and you order it, grateful for it and relieved that you're not actually the 'picky' eater your friends and family may sometimes accuse you of being so that you're content enough with whatever it is that ends up on your plate.

When faced with dozens of possible options, though--whoa! I hail from a big-town-pretending-to-be-a-small-city where the closest thing we have to a vegan restaurant is a juice bar that serves up a couple of randomly selected mostly-raw entrees a day, but with no guarantee from one day to the next that those entrees won't contain a bit of egg or involve some sort of cream-based sauce. It's a crap-shoot at best. The feeling of having every single thing on the menu from which to choose is a strange feeling to someone like me. Herbivore left me embarrassed at just how long it took me to figure out where the hell to begin with what I desperately hoped would be a a prolonged fling with it during my visit to the area.


I decided to indulge and to order something I keep forgetting I love as much as I love (a grumbling thanks to my cheap juicer's having broken down some time ago): I ordered a small glass of carrot juice. More specifically, it was carrot-ginger-lime juice and it was simply amazing. I quickly made a mental note to start saving up for a good juicer as soon as I got back to Canada; it's well overdue. Since I had spent the previous five days enjoying Korean, Indian and Egyptian food (as well as what could qualify as some vegan-friendly junk-food), I was drawn to the idea of selecting something that felt pretty back-to-the-basics and maybe even something akin to comfort food. I chose Herbivore's Lentil Loaf, which comes with mashed potatoes, sauteed greens and crostini bread, with a choice of either roasted beet sauce or a tomato-sesame salsa. I chose the former, ever a lover of beets, although given the chance to have this again I think I'd opt for the salsa for a bit more zing.

I hadn't noticed on the menu that the entrees come with salad, and the one they brought me almost immediately could almost have been a small meal in itself. I'm used to limp mesclun mix or dodgy romaine when ordering salads back home. These greens, though... sigh! They were firm and crisp, tossed with red cabbage, a bit of cuke and a perfect tangy Dijon dressing, topped with a few token cherry tomato halves and grated beets. I'd hardly had a chance to dig in (thanks to my food photo fetishism which led to my snapping away photos of the aforementioned salad for several minutes and then typing away about it) when the entree was brought out. It was a lot of food! The mashed potatoes were wonderfully fluffy and generously coated with mushroom gravy. The lentil loaf and roasted beet sauce were earthy and subtle, and although I'd initially thought the sauteed greens--mostly kale--a bit too salty, a drizzle of lemon juice transformed 'em; alternating bites of them with the loaf and beet sauce, I realized how nicely everything on the plate balanced out. The crostini was crisp on the outside and warm and soft in the center and just right for sopping up gravy (if one can admit to 'sopping' in a restaurant review). The truth is that five days into my visit, I was enjoying what was quite possibly one of the best hearty vegan restaurant meals I'd ever had.

My second visit to Herbivore was not meant to be my last. The place was busy. It was a Saturday and just crawling up to dinnertime. I started with a coffee and not unlike almost all of the coffee I enjoyed during my stay in the Bay area, it was strong and delicious and served up with a side of soy milk (which isn't often an option in these parts, although the independently-owned coffee shops around Fredericton are coming around with the increasing demand for dairy alternatives). I had a lengthy mental checklist of dishes I was determined to try before leaving Berkeley. From the Starters section of the menu, I'd spied Nachos (vegan nachos when dining out in Fredericton = soggy cheeseless nachos). The Salads section? The Raw Kale Salad was a huge temptation, and given my recent obsession with Thai cuisine, I was quite curious about the Green Papaya Salad. The Entrees section of their menu left my head spinning: Ravioli, Red Curry, Quinoa Cake, Quesadillas, Lemongrass Noodles and their Macaroni and Cheese were all high on my list of things I was tempted to try. I was definitely planning to have their pizza--at least once! During this second visit, I almost gave in and ordered the Phillo Dough Pie ("filled with spinach, tofu, cheese, mushrooms, onions, capers, artichoke hearts with roasted red pepper sauce and sauteed greens"), but since I anticipated returning at least twice, once to take my host out to Sunday brunch and again by myself on my last day in the Bay area, I decided to opt for a more simple and familiar selection.

I'd had a vegan "chicken" Philly cheese steak sandwich in Philadelphia a few years earlier (and subsequently at home again a few times from 'Kitchen Chez Mylène' when my Pennsylvanian ex visited me in Canada). For some reason, it felt right to revisit it here at Herbivore over 3000 miles from home (and something like 2300 miles from Philadelphia). I ordered two sides with it--the salad with the Dijon dressing, and their potato salad (made with carrots, celery, red onions, parsley and Vegenaise). The sandwich felt a little decadent. The French bread was soft and fresh and just barely crusty on the outside. The chicken substitute and the grilled onions and peppers were plentiful and topped with a scandalous amount of gooey Daiya cheese. I don't often buy cheese substitutes at home and tend to be frugal with the Daiya I do get from time to time because of its price. Herbivore certainly didn't skimp.

I regretted having ordered two sides with it, though. I'd opted for the tossed green salad, my taste buds still fondly imprinted with my previous salad experience there, but the smallish handful of greens wasn't as crisp and impressive this time around. Also, although I'd been charged the full price for it as a side, the portion seemed a little less than half the size of the side salad a customer beside me received with his own sandwich. The potato salad was saucy and although I'd been expecting something more creamy and mild from the Vegenaise listed in the ingredients, it was a little bit more vinegary than expected, but this worked perfectly to complement the milder cheese taste of the cheese steak sandwich.

So? If you're ever in the San Francisco Bay area, you'd be a little silly to pass up stopping into one of Herbivore's three locations. The number and variety of selections on the menu are almost embarrassing. The food in Berkeley was oh-so-far from disappointing and the service was fast with both attentive staff and what I gleaned was a really efficiently-run kitchen. The Berkeley location is bright and has an uncluttered feel to it and even offers a bit of outdoor seating. Calling ahead for dinner reservations might not be a bad idea, particularly for more than two people. My only other heads up concerns the noise level. As with most places with hard surfaces and where people can sometimes be seated closely together, it can get a little loud when it's busy. If you combine this with the noise of whatever contraption it is they use to make their beverages, it's possible that someone with noise sensitivity issues might find it a bit much, which is easily solved by stopping by at times other than peak hours. When I dropped in a few days later with my Bay area host, hoping for a leisurely brunch over a shared Sunday New York Times, the clatter left him asking that we relocate to a different location. I don't mean to overstate this, however. During the two solo visits I made, one during the early afternoon and the other just at the very beginning of the dinner rush, noise had not really been much of an issue at all.

I really do hope with all of my wee blackened heart that at some point in the future, my travels involve a return to Berkeley; if or when they do, another meal (or three) at Herbivore will definitely be a must.

Meeting Halfway for Good Eats

During two separate trips to Pennsylvania this past year, I found myself developing some pretty strong emotional ties to a little place in Reading called Good Eatz Green Cafe. Initially started as a gluten-free bakery, Good Eatz eventually rolled out a cafe to accommodate various food allergies and preferences. I first heard of it after a few internet searches to find someplace near my host's family's home where we could sneak out for a bite and where I could find some vegan fare. No, it's not a vegan restaurant, but it was within an hour's drive of where I was staying, had the most intricately labeled menu I'd ever seen in a non-vegan restaurant and had a sort of laid-back "mom 'n' pop" vibe that left my friend and I feeling comfortable from our very first visit.

Some of my favourite picks from the menu were the Harvest Salad (roasted butternut squash and grilled asparagus on mixed greens, tossed with a cranberry white balsamic vinaigrette with dried cranberries, spiced walnuts and carrots), the Sautéed Vegetable Wrap (containing broccoli, butternut squash, sun-dried tomatoes, onions, peppers, grilled asparagus and hummus) and the Vegan Grilled Reuben. The Marinated Tofu "Burger" was OK, as was the Vegetable Burger, but if I get to visit again, I'll likely go back to that scrumptious Harvest Salad or try out one of the numerous other vegan options they have on their menu (the Vegan Shepherd's Pie and Vegan Veggie Lasagna were tempting). Their wraps and sandwiches are all served with a fresh date, some pieces of orange, a pickle and one of the 2-3 salads of the day (either fruit, pasta, potato or rice based and so the waitress told me, always with at least one vegan option).

The servings were generous and the service was great. The prices were reasonable, too. A few of the times we went, someone was setting up to do an open mic sort of thing and the crowd was always a balanced mix of college students and older ordinary looking folks. We always managed to find a table in the small place that offered us privacy, which was really nice. I've lost track of how many times we ate there -- four or five? I'd been looking forward to four or five more and do hope to return someday.

I hadn't felt comfortable blogging about it up until now, because the truth is that the place does sell animal products, which is usually greeted with a sigh and a shrug by those of us who are stuck in towns or cities with no vegan restaurant options. The place also perpetuates the whole "organic is better" myth, unfortunately, when it comes to the animal products it serves. One waitress informed me during a visit, however, that the vegan portion of the menu at Good Eatz has been increasing quickly and significantly since they've opened and that the demand for vegan fare is obviously there and growing. Fingers crossed that this place of which I've grown nostalgic for other reasons does at some point end up with a completely vegan menu. In the interim, if you're ever in Reading, PA and in need of a place to eat, check them out and talk to them about wiping the animal products off their menu.

Vegan Eats?

Back in September, I traveled to a town around an hour or so outside of Philadelphia to visit with a certain floppy-haired boy. The trip involved a lot of firsts for me. Aside from the fact that I hadn't ventured out of the country in well over seven years, it was my first time traveling through the US on a bus and setting foot in the states of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. It was the first time I've ever fallen asleep listening to a loud chorus of cicadas. I also met a couple of vegans for the first time since going vegan, myself, when we got to share a meal in a fantastic and unassuming little vegan restaurant. The trip also provided me with rare (for me) opportunities to explore a wide variety of other vegan options.

Online vegan friends and acquaintances from the Philadelphia area had recommended Govinda's Gourmet Vegetarian to me. More specifically, they'd recommended the fast-food / takeout part of the restaurant called Govinda's To Go. Although it had been described to me as a vegan establishment, I soon discovered that it wasn't. When the floppy-haired one and I arrived, I noticed that the menu posted on their wall stated that they offered (dairy) mozzarella cheese as an option for their sandwiches and other dishes. Having had their cheese steak sandwiches recommended by one of the vegan friends who'd suggested the place, the floppy-haired one ordered their Chicken Cheese Steak and I ordered their Pepper Steak Sandwich, both of us making sure to confirm that we wanted dairy-free cheese on them.

After a short wait, our food was ready and we carried it outside to eat, due to limited seating inside. I then noticed that we'd each been prepared Chicken Cheese Steak sandwiches, and after my sweetie and I discussed our disappointment with the amount of filling in them, I took a bite. We'd spent part of the ride into Philly laughing over his stories of the notoriously sky-high-piled classic Philly cheese steak sandwiches he and his family had enjoyed when he was a kid; these sandwiches had a modest amount of "chicken" in them, with some grilled peppers and just enough of a very, very tasty gravy to moisten them. The bread was whole grain, hearty and delicious and to make my sandwich a little less "dry", I eventually took some of the small bit of plain mesclun mix on the side and tucked it into the bread. Don't get me wrong--it was good. In fact, it was good enough that I took yet another bite before remembering to either stuff in the mesclun mix or take a photo.

When we got home, I took a look at the takeout menu I'd grabbed as a "souvenir" and noticed how the words "vegan" and "vegetarian" were both used as descriptors in it, but that although the front of the menu had the words "fresh", "healthy", "vegan" and "fast" written on it, the back of the menu stated that all items on the menu were either "vegetarian or vegan". I decided to visit the Govinda's website to see what it had to say and found the following general disclaimer:

All of our Selections are Either Vegan or Vegetarian - No Meat, Poultry, Fish or Egg products are used in the preparation of our dishes although for familiarity we utilize the names of meat products. We are committed to the protection of animals.

I then noticed that the menu on their site also mentions that "Authentic Mozzarella Cow Cheese" or casein-free soy cheese are both offered as options for their sandwiches. What was really disappointing, however, was reading that the meat substitute used in their version of the classic Philly cheese steak--the Philly Pepper Steak Sandwich I'd initially ordered and (thankfully) not been given--is not vegan. Curious, I did some searching using Google and brought up a few ads for the restaurant where they described their menu as "90% dairy-free".

I live in a small city where vegan options in restaurants or other eating establishments are limited to a small handful of decent ethnic places or the local pita place. I rarely eat out aside from the occasional workplace-related lunch (and even then, I often opt out). The bottom line is that the very few times a year I do eat out, it's at the few places in my city where I know the menu and know the staff and am sure that there's little chance of cross-contamination. I know that many vegans feel that eating at non-vegan establishments is wrong since it entails supporting businesses that also profit off the exploitation of non-humans or that some vegans make exceptions for "vegetarian" non-vegan restaurants. There are no "vegetarian" restaurants here in my city, and even if there were, I wouldn't view them any differently than I would ordinary restaurants (i.e. where animal products including flesh are served) and wouldn't feel compelled to support them any more than I would ordinary restaurants. I have mixed feelings about consuming animal-free products at establishments that otherwise profit off the sale and use of animal products, hence my generally refraining from eating out here, since although I can't avoid buying groceries, I can avoid restaurants. For years, I felt that it was important to provide a demand for vegan options at ordinary establishments, but I'm no longer sure of how (or even whether) this is effective.

I'd been excited about Govinda's, as I'd been excited getting to eat at SuTao Cafe earlier in my visit, where for the first time since going vegan, every single thing on a restaurant's menu was up for grabs. I'd been excited and my disappointment with the place ended up being twofold: First, given how the overwhelming majority of their menu offerings are vegan, I don't understand why on earth they couldn't go the extra step to eliminate the rest of their animal-based options. Secondly, I felt that for a place that half-markets itself as vegan, they should really be more forthright about the animal products contained in their dishes. The fact that the meat sub in their Philly Pepper Steak Sandwich is described as being "not vegan" on their website, while no mention of this is made on their posted or paper menus is disconcerting and--whether deliberately so or not--misleading to vegans. I should have done it months ago, but I do intend to contact them about this over the next few days to get clarification and to express my disappointment.