CHAPTER 7: LEARN TO COOK, EVEN JUST A LITTLE.
Okay, I am not saying that every vegan needs to blossom into a competitor on Iron Chef but I highly recommend learning some cooking basics. I would recommend this for every adult but especially vegans. Hear me out: If you know how to cook some vegan dishes, not only will you be less tempted to fall back on your default eating habits during your transitional period, you will be modeling to the world that vegan food is not about sacrifice. Do you want to be that vegan who is projecting to the world the idea that our food is limited and depressing? Of course not. Don’t be that vegan. Learn how to cook a little. In addition to gaining access to some great dishes you can make yourself, you can ultimately use these culinary skills for effective outreach.
For example, if you can bring a bangin’ lasagna or batch of sublime brownies to your office potluck, it can lead people to consider vegan food in a new way and you have made valuable inroads. Great vegan food is as powerful and slyly persuasive an outreach tool as we have. Also, if you develop some basic skills in the kitchen, it will help you to be able to more easily see and offer suggestions to the menus you see when dining out at non-vegan restaurants. (Please see our dining out guide for much more helpful advice on the topic.)
For example, if you can bring a bangin’ lasagna or batch of sublime brownies to your office potluck, it can lead people to consider vegan food in a new way and you have made valuable inroads. Great vegan food is as powerful and slyly persuasive an outreach tool as we have. Also, if you develop some basic skills in the kitchen, it will help you to be able to more easily see and offer suggestions to the menus you see when dining out at non-vegan restaurants. (Please see our dining out guide for much more helpful advice on the topic.)
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There are about a billion vegan cookbooks out now, give or take a few, but I recommend anything from Robin Robertson’s canon as well as Zsu Dever, Skye Michael Conroy, Bryant Terry and JL Fields . There are really so many talented chefs and recipe developers today. In addition to traditional cookbooks, there are diverse recipe sites like Rabbit and Wolves, Blissful Basil, The First Mess, Hot for Food, The Buddhist Chef, World of Vegan, Carrots and Flowers, Happy Healthy Life, Vegan Richa, Mouthwatering Vegan Recipes, The Korean Vegan, Sweet Potato Soul, Nora Cooks, Dreena Burton and Cheap Lazy Vegan . (We also have hundreds of Vegan Street recipes, of course.) Videos are also a great option for visual learners. Hot for Food, The Vegan Zombie, Korenn Rachelle, It Doesn’t Taste Like Chicken, The Edgy Veg, Every Day Dish TV, Bosh! and Vegan Black Metal Chef are just some options for vegan recipe ideas in handy video form.
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