I grew up in the restaurant district of suburban Washington, D.C. Making several trips to the culinary hot-spot of New York, and subsequently living in San Francisco, where I worked for a while at a top-notch vegan restaurant, I am used to great (not just "good") food. I was raised in a house full of cooks, where, as one of my high school friends remarked, food was always "happening." Either someone had just gone grocery shopping, was cutting up ingredients, taking out or putting away a cookbook, stirring something on the stove, serving or eating a meal, or doing the dishes. My grandmother, a Bulgarian immigrant, would spend entire days at the work of preparing just a single part of the family meal. I watched in wonder as she hand-beat the eggs and oil to make mayonnaise, or walked in endless circles around the dining room table, pinching and pulling at the dough to make the paper-thin fillo for the banitsa and strudel. My parents took turns cooking dinner, my father impressing us with his Bulgarian and French concoctions, and my mother inviting my sister and me to take part in the chopping and mixing, battering and frying of her more classical American fare.

And so it was that in my family cooking was taught and learned instinctively, like walking or talking, dancing or making art. It was coached and mentored, but there were no strict manuals forbidding experimentation. It was all about feeling the proper balance of spices and textures and sensing the appropriate timing, while juggling 5 separate pots on the stove. Recipes, if used at all, were followed loosely, and improvisation was highly encouraged. Perfect timing was learned through a long process of trial-and-error, with some coaching and critiques given by the head-chef of the moment.

I began cooking when I was 4. Throughout my childhood, when left alone in the kitchen, I would close both doors and narrate my little "cook show" to an imaginary audience, a la Julia Child. When my American grandmother visited at Christmas time, we would always bake cookies together. Her meticulous nature transformed our sloppy, kid-crafted blobs of dough into beautiful designs with artistic decorations. And my mother's love of sharing information meant that by age ten I knew all the rimes and reasons behind every herb and spice that was used in every different type of cooking. Well before graduating from high school, I understood all the nuances and implications of various cooking and baking temperatures, which to this day baffle many of my peers.

Ironically, my family's lessons on how to make traditional American and Bulgarian dishes (which are based around meats and dairy products and loaded with fat) eventually led to my culinary rebellion against most of what they had taught me. It was not until high school that I became interested exploring a vegetarian diet, and I could swear I thought my father was going to disown me. However, it became quite clear that, even if my parents ignored my requests for vegetarian dinners, I would not starve. I was already a smart cook. Now I only had to learn a few new recipes to replace the old ones.

I made the transition to a vegan diet gradually, over the course of one year. For every staple of the diet I eliminated (cutting out first beef, then chicken, then pork, then fish, and then finally eggs and milk), I found several substitutions. For every familiar recipe I eliminated, I introduced three new ones. In a short time, I was fully vegan, and was eating a far more diverse and interesting array of dishes than any of my friends or family, although they proudly (if defensively) proclaimed that they could eat anything, anyplace, without restrictions. I learned easily which ingredients to substitute with and which to avoid, and quickly got to the point at which I no longer had to think about how to make vegan food--it just happened effortlessly.

When my friends in college skeptically asked how I found enough different foods to eat without boring repetition of the same old stuff, I pointed out that they were the ones who rotated between spaghetti, burgers and pizza, while I would feast on a different ethnic meal every day of the week, and create in my spare time vegan versions of the American stand-bys just to prove I could. They would get the same old greasy cookies at the dining hall for dessert, while I was making chocolate pudding one night, carrot cake the next, and on and on. And so I began to set my recipes to print, in order to educate others about pure vegetarian cuisine: how simiple, healthy, and delicious it could be.

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As time passed, I came to realize the downside of my attempts to eat a more diverse and interesting diet than the rest of the world. Ostentatiously celebrating my successful vegan recipes every day, I also got to show the world how even strict vegetarians can put on a lot of weight. My over-consumption of sugar and simple starch led to hypoglycemia (an increasing health concern among Americans), which completely threw off my sense of when I'd eaten enough. My appetite grew significantly, and although my cravings led to more and more interesting recipes, I became painfully aware that food was no longer the answer to everything. Like so many Americans today, I began to struggle with my weight.

Once I realized that my scale wasn't broken, mirror wasn't warped, and laundry machines weren't shrinking all my clothes, I reluctantly admitted that I needed to pare down my diet. I didn't want to shun the tasty new world I had discovered, yet was aware that the ultimate purpose of food is to nourish the body, not weigh it down. I quickly saw the need to refine my eating habits, and once again share my acquired wisdom with others, to save them the pain of repeating my mistakes. Could it be possible to eat fabulous food every day and maintain a beautiful body? Happily, the answer is yes.

My cookbook, then, is a testament to all my explorations, nutritional research and discoveries. It is the culmination of my journey through the possibilities of the kitchen and healthy vegan food. I have transposed traditional meat-and-dairy based recipes from all over the world into healthy pure-vegetarian dishes for you and your friends to enjoy. My thorough dessert section, although significantly easier on the body than the average American indulgences, is not meant to be used every day...especially since a person following a vegan diet is even more prone to the harmful effects of sugar than is the average omnivore, as well as the high amounts of carbs that can be associated with a vegan diet.

My greater goal in putting together is that you never hear or think again, eew, vegetarian food! That stuff has no flavor! Using this cookbook as your guide, may you find no limitations in the vegan kitchen. May you may empower yourself, in this world of fast-food and crash diets, to really feed your body with foods that enhance your health and celebrate your life. May you make dishes so good your kids don't wrinkle up their noses at trying something new.  And if your family wants a pumpkin pie on thanksgiving and chocolate chip cookies for the bake sale, may you be empowered to create them in a purely vegetarian, cholesterol-free way. If your parents think your veggie food is weird and they challenge you to bring something edible to the holiday table, may you pleasantly ask them to speak a little louder, as they ask you to pass the gingered kale...again.

It is also my hope that you will use your own personal style and artistic talents to create your own recipes, using mine as a springboard. Some of my most fantastic creations started out as an attempt to emulate a dish I tasted in a restaurant, or were inspired by another book's recipe, which I decided would taste a lot better if it were approached in a very different way. Before I knew it, I had completely transformed the recipe into something all my own. It is my hope that students who attend my workshops learn to use my techniques to transform their favorite recipes. 

 

enjoy!

-lisa talev
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