Friday, October 5, 2007

Random Fridays: Cookies and Blogs and More


My good friend, Sky, recently did some tabling for Animal Place during the 8th Annual World Veg Festival, where Compassionate Cooks’ Colleen Patrick-Goudreau was speaking and doing a signing for her just-released cookbook, The Joy of Vegan Baking. Sky introduced herself to Colleen as a friend of mine and the two of them orchestrated the photo above.

Colleen has kindly allowed me to post the picture here as long as I place the disclaimer that she did not sleep much the night before. Well, she looks to be about the most adorable and cheerful of sleep-deprived people I have ever seen. But since she was gracious enough to create this message for me and always kind enough to answer my e-mails despite the fact that we have never met and I’m sure she gets a slew of e-mails daily, I will post the disclaimer, however unnecessary I think it is.

The real reason for posting the picture is to provide more incentive for anyone reading this to run out and buy The Joy of Vegan Baking (besides Sky, our most devoted, and possibly only reader, who already has her copy). I would recommend it to the novice baker, as this book is chock full of excellent and sound advice on baking techniques. The more experienced baker, especially one who can’t imagine making a cake without eggs and butter, will expand their cooking repertoire as Colleen shows you that vegan baking is a) not some new-fangled fad but a technique that has been used throughout the ages for various reasons and b) delicious. You don’t need chicken’s eggs and cow’s butter to make cookies. Believe me. Try eating Liz Lovely or Alternative Baking Company cookies and tell me you miss the yolks. Then bake your own using Colleen’s recipes. Beyond the many cookie, bar, cake, and muffin recipes housed in this collection, Colleen also shares recipes for pancakes, crepes, waffles, breads, puddings, smoothies, and so much more. For starters, I am dying to make the mango sticky rice and German apple cake. Besides all of this, you get a chart on various baking apples, the deal behind baking soda and baking powder, easy and cruelty-free alternatives to using eggs, milk, cream, and butter for baking, and indices that are broken down by type of ingredient and occasion. At the heart of this book, however, is Colleen's clear and eloquent explanation on her journey of becoming a joyful vegan and her reasons for this choice. As a pretty hardcore cookbook fan, I can safely say that The Joy of Vegan Baking is easily one of my favorites and one I am sure to refer to quite often.

In Addicted to Race’s podcast episode number 82, host Carmen von Kerchove reads a comment I posted about a previous podcast, which focused on bloggers of color. Go check it out to hear what I said.

2 comments:

Sky said...

That book (not to mention it's beautiful author) does, indeed, rock. I can't wait to make me some pumpkin-related items for the fall weather. And, surely, I can't be your only reader! People need to leave some comments....

BK said...

You're revolutionizing the blogging "industry," my Latina sister. So awesome you are. Keep fighting the good fight and staying true to yourself. I love you.

XOXO