Vegan with a Vengeance
Isa from the Post Punk Kitchen never seems to let me down. Every recipe or even basic idea for a recipe that I have taken from her and shamelessly used and/or abused has been nothing short of extraordinary. Quite frankly her book, Vegan with a Vengeance, is the first book I look to when I need ideas of what to cook when I’m not feeling particularly creative.
What makes her book different? Isa writes for people who are already vegan. I admit that when I first became vegan I found all the general advice and descriptions of veganism inevitably in the introduction for a vegan cookbook to be helpful and informative. After reading the same information a dozen times, however, I’ve found that it’s much less helpful the more often I hear it. I already know how to substitute eggs. I’ve already bookmarked sites with that information on the Internet, and I already have a handful of books on my shelf explaining my options. There’s officially no need for this in new cookbooks.
Isa strikes just the right balance between being informative and being entertaining. Any cookbook can just list recipes. Make me care about your book by making it unique. Isa allows her voice to come through in the interstitial blurbs and recipe introductions. It made me read the book in the first place, and it encouraged me to actually try the recipes (something I almost never do verbatim).
If you’re a vegan, you need this book. If you know a vegan and you want to cook something that he’ll love, you can’t go wrong with any recipe in the book. I can’t fathom a reason why this book isn’t on everyone’s shelf.
Technorati Tags: Food, Cooking, Vegetarian, Vegan, Post Punk Kitchen