Monday, March 19, 2012

Celebrate Vegan



When Dynise Balcavage's new book, Celebrate Vegan: 200 Life-Affirming Recipes for Occasions Big and Small, arrived in my mailbox, I read through it trying to decide which of her featured occasions I should celebrate first. Would it be my birthday, Cinco de Mayo? What about Nowruz or Festivus or the recent St. Patrick's Day or Tea Time? With so many marvelous options, I was having difficulty choosing. Then, an extremely persistent upper respiratory virus permeated the armor of my self-proclaimed immune system of steel. I've been steadfastly battling this virus, which seems to be compounded with a very bad allergy attack, for well over a week now.



I've barely eaten anything other than toast in the past week, but last night, I wanted soup. I started flipping through this cookbook and found that one of Dynise's celebrations is none other than...Sick Day! The Sick Day menu is three-fold: Ginger Tea, Minimal Pastina with Spinach (soup), and Baked Apples. I made all three and enjoyed warming comfort food in under 20 minutes.



Dynise is a very gifted story-teller and each of Celebrate Vegan's recipes is introduced with an anecdote. The menus are thoughtfully and creatively put together with two indexes that make navigating the book a dream. I've bookmarked many other recipes and the only question remaining is what should I celebrate next?

4 comments:

Hannah said...

Aw, hope you're feeling better very soon!

I don't have this book yet (I know, I should get on that!) but if there's a Passover section, I would be very curious to see the options. It's coming up soon, and it's such a tough holiday to cook for.

Bianca said...

I love that book, and I didn't even realize it had recipes for Sick Day. Now, I kinda wanna get a cold so I have an excuse to celebrate. ;-)

Hope you're feeling better!!

trina said...

I was happy to see you on the mend the other day - I hope you're all better! I love the looks of this book. So what does the Urban Vegan say I should make for Easter dinner?

Sarah E. Hoffman said...

Wow - having a sick day in a celebration book is absolute genius! :)