Isa Chandra Moskowitz - Isa Does It: Amazingly Easy, Wildly Delicious Vegan Recipes for Every Day of the Week

VEGAN WITH A VENGEANCE

VEGAN BRUNCH

APPETITE FOR REDUCTION

VEGANOMICON

VEGAN CUPCAKES TAKE OVER THE WORLD

VEGAN COOKIES INVADE YOUR COOKIE JAR

VEGAN PIE IN THE SKY

Isa Chandra Moskowitz

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LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY

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by Isa Moskowitz

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ISBN 978 25578

the next generation of tofu lovers

introduction

ISA DO

?

From Scratch Vegan Meals Made Easy!

WELCOME TO Isa Does It! This book has a mission: to get you in the kitchen,
cooking satisfying meals with fresh ingredients any day of the week.

Cooking doesnt come second nature to everyone. In fact, Id go so far as to
say that in this age of convenience food, it hardly comes naturally to anyone,
except maybe bloggers and reality show contestants.

But what Im proposing isnt a diatribe against convenience food; my fingers
have known the pleasures of keying up a microwave burrito. Maybe you already
cook, but not as much as you would like. Maybe youre a proficient cook but new
to the vegan pantry. Or maybe youre familiar with vegan cooking and simply
looking to breathe new life into your repertoire? What Im offering are recipes,
tips, strategies, and even some philosophy to make your time in the kitchen as
productive, easy, and hopefully even as fun as possible! Of course, fun isnt a
requirement. Ive spent many a night angrily sauting rainbow chard, but it should
be at least somewhat enjoyable most of the time.

I burn with jealousy when cookbook authors recount their love of apple pie, developed while sitting
on the kitchen counters of their granny, or the curry paste created by their mother with ingredients
from her garden, or how they awoke every morning to the wafting scent of Dads French toast.

Nope. For my family it was Hamburger Helper and powdered mashed potatoes all the way.
Sure, we had the occasional home-cooked meal here and there, but for the most part cooking was
as unfamiliar to teenage me as astrophysics. I was as likely to make a lasagna as I was to vote for
Reagan, teach my mom how to use the VCR, or discover the Higgs boson. That is to say, not very.

And then I went vegetarian.

A few weeks and several cheeseless pizzas later, I was ready to branch out. Luckily for me, my
mom and sis decided to come along for the journey. One day my mom came home from work with a
small stack of vegetarian cookbooks, and the adventure began.

2 Isa Does It

I suppose fearlessness is just a by-product of youth; the same way I never thought twice about
riding the subway between cars or swimming way too far out at Coney Island, I never looked at how
long a recipe took, how many ingredients were needed, or how many dishes were required. That was
the spirit in which I dove into cookbooks like Louise Haglers Tofu Cookery with total abandon.
Which is kind of funny, because even with all that chutzpah, tofu scared the hell out of me.

But what I love about that time, too, is that people didnt assume that tofu was somehow
reprehensible. American cooking titles like That Was TOFU? You Bastard! and I Cant Believe You
Served Me Tofu! had not yet appeared. Instead, the recipes in Tofu Cookery were written as though
tofu were something delicious and wondrous and, most important, loved. This is what it became for

me, and this is what it had been in China and Japan
for hundreds of years.

So this is where my love of cooking beganin
1989, in a small kitchen in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn,
with linoleum floors and fluorescent lighting,
alongside my mom and my sis and even my brother,
who hated vegetarians but would soon have to admit
that he loved our cooking. My best friend would
come over and wed get out all the pots and pans,
blast the music, crank up the burners, and have at
it. For almost any occasion. I can recall a gigantic
Thanksgiving spread with ten different kinds of tofu
for every course and strawberries way out of season.
A Chinese-inspired Christmas buffet with spring rolls
that needed ten layers of brown paper shopping bags
to absorb the oil. Everything wasnt always a success,
but most of it was, and even if we failed we had fun.

This marks the time in my life when the kitchen

went from smelling vaguely of microwaved frozen

dinners to becoming the heart of our home. Youd open the front door downstairs, leave the cold air
and the sound of the Q train overhead, and enter a downright enchanting bouquet: garlic, olive oil,
and cinnamon, all mingling and cozy.

Of course, things from then on werent always smooth sailing on almond milk seas.

Enter adulthood. My free time became more and more precious. I worked full-time, often at