to review and makes Beet Salad as her first recipe from the cookbook? That would be me. Because people want to know about the beet recipes! Or because you all have taught me to love beets, and this is the best pickled beet recipe I've tried. (The secret? Ground caraway seeds.)Since then, I've used several of Jennifer McCann's fabulous international lunch ideas and have fallen utterly in love with her Boston Brown Bread Muffins. I am always especially interested in vegan baked goods, as adding meat to main dishes isn't an issue for us, but baking with dairy sure is. As Beck said when asked about lunch ideas, "...I generally just look at old Vegan Lunch Box posts for ideas, substituting 'pot roast' for 'tofu,' of course." Exactly.
My only complaint about Vegan Lunch Box Around the World
is passages like this, "One of the biggest shocks I had when I first turned vegetarian was discovering where gelatin came from: the boiled bones, skins, and tendons of animals. Yuck!"Yes, it's gross. Yes, authors are entitled to their own food choices and being able to write their books the way they want. But I think there are ways to put forth one's ideals without making some non-vegans *cough*my husband*cough* feel defensive and turning them off of a great book of recipes.
I've been a fan of Jennifer's blog for years. She inspired us to buy the Laptop Lunch system. Once I experienced her second cookbook in person, I used a little birthday cash to buy myself the first Vegan Lunch Box, too.
This review was written for Go Dairy Free.
I've not bought her cookbooks despite really ENJOYING her blog for that very reason: enough preaching, thank you. It would be a far better conversion tool to just show people delicious recipes instead of constantly battering them over the head.
ReplyDeleteYou quoted me! Ha! Awesome.
I personally don't eat meat, but I cook meat for my husband and sons. I'm especially careful not to get all weird and grossed out about it because I don't think it's fair to my kids. If they want to choose not to eat meat in the future, that's fine, but if they love meat and (in the case of my skinny youngest) it is a big part of their caloric intake, who am I to try to turn them off of it? I kind of hate that about vegetarians and vegans, the judgemental attitudes that many have. I just tell my kids that I don't really like meat, but everyone's different, etc., etc.
ReplyDeleteI agree: there are gross and non-gross ways to put EVERYTHING, so let's not start a food war hmmkay? I mean, you know what vegetables are grown in? DIRT AND WORM POOP!! Gross!
ReplyDeleteOh, haha!! My older brother would never eat mushrooms because a) they are fungi and b) they are grown in manure. Ewww!
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree! It was a huge no-no in our house to speak negatively about food and say "ew" or "yuck." I hate when people do it now, it seems so rude to those who DO choose to eat that food!
ReplyDeleteha! I love the perspective. I have always thought it was "insensitive" the way people say that foods eaten by other cultures are gross. I guess gross is defined by what you grow up with, huh?
ReplyDeleteim all for a vegan/veggie lifestyle because I am most of the time, but I hate when they get into the gross details...
ReplyDeleteboiled bones, and tendons of animals...that sounds yummy to me. My favorite soup is made from the hoof of a cow, and beef tendons are amazing done the Taiwanese way...I supposed it all sets of different reactions by different people.
ReplyDeleteThe skin of animals, though...yuck.