To Serve Vegetarians, the Birth of a Cookbook

While perusing the Veggie cookbook shelf at Copperfield's Bookstore in Sebastopol, I had a thought....

I should write a cookbook meant not necessarily for vegetarians/vegans, but for their friends, family and maybe somebody wishing to become the friend or family of a veggie. Something about "How to feed those crazy vegetarians," or "What to fix for your nutty vegan friends." And then synchronicity happened. (Oops, there's another idea. This time for a T-shirt ..."Synchronicity Happens."

DH (Darling Husband), DF (Dear Friend) and I were looking for a place to eat in Downtown Petaluma. We were outside the upscale, fresh, organic Central Market restaurant reading the menu, looking for the vegan options. (They weren't really there.) The chef and owner, Tony Najiola, poked his head out in an effort to cajole us in for a meal. When I asked if he could serve vegans, he said yes, especially with a ranch dip. Buh-dump-bump.

While there was no "vegetarian" entree, he promised he would feed me. I had a lovely plate of several sides. Alas, no protein. Unless beets have protein. (I might have consumed about 3-4g total protein by cleaning my plate of spinach, avocado, beets, potato, garlic, french green beans, asparagus and a glass of chardonnay. BTW, check out The Daily Plate to find out all the nutritional information you could ever want to know about any food.)

The titles for this site (It's a Cookbook!) and the eventual cookbook (To Serve Vegetarians) were born.

And just in case you didn't catch the reference to the cookbook title...there was a short story and a Twilight Zone Episode in 1962. "Helpful" aliens land on earth, and leave a book behind titled "To Serve Man." The first chapter doesn't get translated until it's too late. While trying to stop people from getting on the spaceship, the translator shouts, "It's a cookbook!"

So, it's a cookbook! Or so it will be at some point in the future. (A pox on you if you decide to steal this idea or title.)

Until then, it is a Blog about vegan and vegetarian recipes and a notebook of sorts for thoughts on the cookbook. So, tell everyone you know (or who might care) about this site and lets get the public worked up about this wonderful cookbook and and we can tell publishers that we have public demand for it already!

So let's start the conversation! Please send me your favorite recipes (vegan and vegetarian, that is) and I will deem if they be fit for the blog or the book. I'd like to see recipes that are fairly easy for the non-veg to create. More on this later. It's all a work in progress. Chapter titles will come soon to give you a better idea of where I'm going with this.

No, I don't expect to share any profits, but hopefully I'll send you a book and you'll get a credit when it's published.