Table of Contents
Praise for WITH A VEGAN VENGEANCE
Its hip. Its punk. Its high energy. And its darn fun to read! Cohost of a community-access vegan cooking show called The Post Punk Kitchen, Moskowitz here espouses a philosophy of being kind to both animals and ones budget and of adopting a do-it-yourself attitude for a fun time in the kitchen. Vegan has a solid repertoire of recipes that will carry readers through the day, the seasons, and the holidays. Even though everything is made from scratch, most of the recipes are neither complicated nor time-consuming. The ingredients are common enough to be found in most large grocery stores or health food stores, and Moskowitz encourages substitution and experimentation. She provides good, basic information about handling tofu and making seitan and includes sidebars, a.k.a. Punk Points, with tips ranging from how to pure soup in a blender to how to cook with lemongrass. And who can resist a vegan cookbook with recipes for Hazelnut Scones or Brooklyn Pad Thai that yield excellent results? This book will be a hit with teens and young adults as well as with adults wanting to add more spice to their own kitchen experiments. Highly recommended for all public libraries.
LIBRARY JOURNAL, starred review
This is not your mothers cookbook. Vegan with a Vengeance has got plenty of attitude, and killer recipes to back it up. Watch out, Betty Crocker. Isas coming to kick your ass.
ERIK MARCUS, author of Meat MarketAnimals, Ethics, and Money,
publisher of Vegan.com
Good, honest vegan recipes with broad appeal.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Rise up domesticated thirty-something punk rockers! We may not be dyeing our hair purple or accessorizing with safety pins and duct tape anymore, but were still creating culture with the same feisty D.I.Y. ethic as when we booked our first basement show (sorry Mom!) or photocopied our first zine. Vegan with a Vengeance artfully integrates Isas New York and punk roots with a sophisticated culinary palate and political nuance that only comes with experienceall served up with humor and attitude.
JOSH HOOTEN, Herbivore magazine
If youre sick of feeding corporate giants while you feed yourself, Isas book is the best place to start. Food doesnt have to be filled with preservatives, injected with hormones, painted artificial colors, and wrapped in plastic to taste good. Vegan with a Vengeance shows you can make great, healthy food and still live with yourself in the morning.
JIM LINDBERG, Pennywise
A vegetarian since her teens, Moskowitzs philosophy about food can be summed up by the words cooking is fun. If your only frame of reference for vegans is the type of activist whos decked out in an Anna Wintour mask outside the Cond Nast building or protesting against Perdue, think again. Moskowitz is likely to get chefs and non-chefs, vegans and meat-eaters alike salivating over scrumptious-sounding recipes.... Prepare to have your appetite whetted.
GOTHAMIST.COM
This is, hands down, the most kick-ass vegan cookbook ever. Were going to buy copies for everyone we know so theres never any doubt as to how well vegans eat.
BOB AND JENNA TORRES, authors of
Vegan Freak: Being Vegan in a Non-Vegan World
A chatty Brooklynite who hosts her own public access cooking show, [Moskowitz] scatters stories about her mother, her friends, and her politics among recipes for goodies like Fresh Corn Fritters and Curried Split Pea Soup.... BBQ Pomegranate Tofu is actually baked, not barbecued, but still the tofu is rich and smoky, terrific over rice or packed into heroes. Even better, the vegan iterations of Spanakopita and Seitan-Portobello Stroganoff so closely approximate the traditional versions that even the pickiest eaters would happily trade one for the other. And although theres no chicken broth in Matzoh Ball Soup, the vegetable stock is hearty enough to cure the fiercest cold. Best of all, and rare in a vegan cookbook, the author provides several appealing dairy-free desserts that are tasty enough to fool most omnivores, yet unique enough to thrill any vegan who just cant face another tofu ice cream bar.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Dedicated to my mom, Marlene Stewart, RN:
The most kick-ass nurse and mother NYC has ever known.
My first thank-you is for Justin; for typing, prepping, listening, going to the store, cleaning up after me, and ghostwriting the entire book for me while I lay in my hammock and fanned myself. Well, not quite, but still.
My testersJennifer Philburn, Adam Nelson, Jo Scovell, Drew Blood, Chris Poupart, Carrie Lynn Reilly, Paula Gross, Justin Walsh, Dominique Ryder, Kittee Berns, and Lynda Bartram. Not a day went by when I didnt check our testing site and think that you guys were awesome.
Terry Hope Romero, my partner in crime.
Denise Gaberman, Niharika Desai, and Lou Thomas for being part of Post Punk Kitchen and helping to make the most awesomest vegan cooking show in the worldwithout which there would be no cookbook.
Michelle Moskowitz Brown, for inspiring me and giving me honest feedback. Thanks to her hubby, Aaron, just because, and of course my nephew Maxwell Aaron Brown for being a beautiful baby. See Max? Tanta Isa put you in a book!
Erica Rose Levine, even though she didnt do anything she is my best friend and would kill me if I didnt thank her. Oh, she let me stay at her house and write so scratch that. And Amy Sims for proofreading things via Instant Messenger during the wee hours of the morning.
Michael Robert Cooper aka Mumbles for workshopping with me and being the wind beneath my wings (literally).
Geoffery Tischman for working with my crazy schedule and taking such beautiful photographs.
Marlowe & Company: Kylie Foxx for bearing with me through a computer melt-down and nervous breakdown, and Matthew Lore for accepting my proposal.
My literary agentMarc Gerald at the Agency Group. Thanks for believing in me and realizing the potential my little idea had.
And lastly thanks to all the zines and Web sites that supported me and got the word out about The Post Punk Kitchen: Punk Planet, Herbivore magazine, Satya magazine, Bust magazine, Venus magazine, Nerdnyc.com, Vegblog.org, and Veganfreaks.org especially.
foreword
by Ryan MacMichael, vegblog.org
IM ABOUT AS far removed from being punk as one can be. Or at least, I look that way. Im more of a ... how do you say? ... a nerd. But one part of the punk aesthetic Ive always connected with is the idea of Do It Yourself. Whether its in relation to music, publishing, or cooking, the unpolished, improvised nature of DIY projects results in something much more interesting than most overtly commercial efforts.
Vegetarians and vegans have long adopted the DIY philosophy because, lets face it, we dont live in a very vegan world. We have to be constantly creative, finding ways to adapt to situations that clearly dont have animals (or animal-friendly humans) in mind. And, really, the only thing more creative than trying to form a vegan meal out of side dishes at a diner in rural Kentucky is creating a new recipe from fresh, locally grown ingredients or adapting a childhood favorite like Lard-Covered Lardballs Simmered in Lard-Enhanced Lard. Actually, that last thing probably wouldnt be possible. Well, if you substituted Crisco for the lard and homemade seitan for the lard, then