Introduction

Plant-based foods are a veritable cornucopia of colors, shapes, textures, and opportunities for creativity. Finding new ingredients, and new uses for familiar ones, can provide an endless source of inspiration that can fuel your passion for adventure, travel, and cooking. It certainly fuels mine.

I first went vegan in the early nineties. I was a young, iconoclastic kid with a desire to fight for animal rights, and not much interest in the quality of my food. Back then, Tofurky hot dogs, BOCA burgers, and soy milk were essentially the only choices. Oh, and French fries, potato chips, and all that other accidentally vegan junk. The vegan diet of my youth was the diet of many teenagers: junk food. The belief then was that tofu was bland, and that most reconstituted plants-as-meat more closely resembled canned dog food than something to serve on a prix fixe menu. Vegetables were side dishes, not main attractions, and vegan diets ended up dominated by starchy carbohydrates. When popped rice cakes and diet soda stopped trending and the health food industry began to push diets that emphasized protein and eliminated carbs, I, like many others, was told by my doctor to give up veganism if I ever hoped to lose weight, be healthy, and fit in.