Fridays with Friends: Robin Robertson and Her Vegan Cookbook Giveaway!
Meet Robin Robertson, a creative genius in the vegan cooking world who’s written 19 cookbooks and counting. She’s an inventive and tireless vegan cook who has inspired so many with her taste for the exciting and exotic as well as the quick-and-easy. 
Along with her many books, she also writes a column for VegNews and blogs about her amazing recipe creations, too. If you missed out or didn’t win in this week’s cookbook giveaway from Jo Stepaniak, you have another chance right now! Robin is allowing us to give away a copy of her book Quick-Fix Vegan to one of our lucky readers (read to the bottom for all the details).
Allison Rivers Samson: You are a prolific author, writing 19 cookbooks thus far! How do you decide it’s time to write another and how do you choose the theme? How long does your process take, generally, from start to finish?
Robin Robertson: The process is different with each book, really. Often my books are extensions of my own interests, such as my love of spicy food with Vegan Fire & Spice, or my years as a professional caterer with Party Vegan, and my two slow cooker books, because I love using a slow cooker. Other times, I see a real need for a book, which is what happened with Vegan on the Cheap and Quick-Fix Vegan – everyone wants to cook cheaper and faster! Other times, a publisher approaches me with a book idea, as was the case with 1,000 Vegan Recipes and a few others. Depending on the length of the book and the number of recipes, the process takes around a year. One exception was the 1,000 Vegan Recipes book – that one took most of three years from start to finish.
ARS: You are also one of my sister columnists for VegNews Magazine, writing the “Global Vegan” column. How do you come up with recipes for your columns compared with those you create for a cookbook? Is it any different? Another way of asking that: how do you decide which recipes you’ll use for your column and which to publish in a book?
RR: Deciding on recipes for my “Global Vegan” column is much different than working on a book. The column is extremely finite: only a certain number of columns per year, and a certain number of words. Also, I need to focus on a particular recipe from a particular part of the world. For each column, I pick cultures that interest me or that I already know about from experience. 
I want readers to come away feeling like they were enriched with new information – and great new recipes to try as well. A cookbook doesn’t have those same specific limitations, although it has its own set of guidelines. I love to discover new cuisines that I can get excited about.
ARS: How has your classical cooking training supported you as a vegan chef?
RR: My classical cooking training totally influenced my vegan cooking in the beginning. Going vegan (macrobiotic, at the time, actually) right off a stint as a French restaurant chef was like night and day. My main focus at the time was figuring out ways to make plant-based ingredients taste as rich and delicious as what I cooked in the restaurants I worked in. 
At the time, there were very few cookbooks or other guidance for the kinds of recipes I wanted to create, so I started writing the recipes – and then the cookbooks – myself.
ARS: How did veganism become a lifestyle for you?
RR: I feel there was always a vegan inside me trying to get out. As a child, I adored animals and thought of them as my friends. I never liked eating meat. When I was eighteen, I tried to go vegetarian, but at that time where I lived there were no stores, no cookbooks, no guidance of any kind (and of course no Internet). I couldn’t make it work, and then I got sidetracked with my cooking profession. So it was several years later when I finally quit restaurant work, that I went vegan literally overnight. For me it was effortless, because it was an act of love for the animals. I felt a sense of peace within myself for the first time in my life.
ARS: What easy meal ideas or tips would you make for new vegans starting to cook?
RR: This is my best advice for beginners:
• Tweak familiar favorites: List your favorite dishes and make notes about what ingredient(s) need to be swapped out to make them vegan (sometimes it’s just one ingredient), use the web or a vegan cookbook to look up appropriate substitutions if you don’t know them, then rotate these dishes regularly.
• Try something new: Depending on your schedule, plan to try a few new ingredients or recipes each week. Use recipes that are simple and approachable, whether you find them online or in cookbooks.
• Plan ahead: Prepare meals in advance and serve make-ahead one-dish meals on especially busy nights. Keep prepared foods for busy days; plan on quick-and-easy meals.
• Write up menus: No need for a complete formal menu plan – just write brief notes such as: “Monday: black bean chili; Tuesday: tofu stir-fry; Wednesday: pasta and salad; and so on. If you have a weekly menu, it can help with your grocery shopping
• Stock your pantry: Organize your pantry so you know where everything is at a glance. Keep lots of beans, tomato products, grains, and pasta as well as a variety of condiments such as soy sauce, sriracha sauce, chutney, and salsa, to add flavor.
• Get support: If your local area has a vegan group, join it, or get together with other vegans in your area for potlucks. Join an online vegan community. It’s important to have someone you can share your journey with and also ask questions as you go.
• Be joyful: Remember why you’re vegan and remind yourself about how much you’re helping yourself, the animals, and the environment. Old habits may be difficult to break, but it’s easy (and rewarding) to get some new habits in place, too.
ARS: Do you have a favorite seasonal fruit or vegetable you’re eating a lot of right now? Any favorite ways to prepare it?
RR: I’m kind of obsessed with cauliflower and kale right now. My favorite way to prepare kale is to make crispy kale bacon to use on BLTs. It’s so good. As for cauliflower, my favorite way to cook it is to cut it into 1/4-inch slices and roast it until tender. I also like to top roasted cauliflower with a little pasta and a creamy picatta sauce (see photo above). You can find the recipe on my blog.
ARS: I make KLTs too! So yummy. Do you have a favorite AG product?
RR: Well, I’ve loved everything I’ve ever had, but I have to say the Chocolate Orange Brownies we had over the holidays were absolutely outstanding. 
I’ve always been a fan of a chocolate and fruit combination, and they had just the perfect balance. Not surprisingly, I’m also crazy about your Cherry Chocolate Brownies – they’re fabulous. Of course, now I’m craving them…
Thanks so much for sharing with us, Robin, and for letting us give away your book Quick-Fix Vegan! To win this lovely cookbook of quick-and-easy vegan recipes, leave a comment with your suggestion for what the theme of Robin’s next cookbook should be. You must be a resident of the US or Canada to win. We’ll pick a winner on Thursday, March 22nd. Have fun!
Thanks for all your responses, this Giveaway is now closed. Click here to see the winner!
New Rotation for Brownie and Fudge Flavors
If you’re a monthly club member you may soon notice that we’ve rearranged the order of our baked goods and fudge flavors a bit, eliminating a couple of less popular flavors in favor of offering the most beloved flavors of our vegan brownies and fudge more often in our rotation. 
It’s not a huge change, and many people probably won’t even notice (that’s the advantage of having a monthly club membership, you get the goodies without having to think about it). But, for those of you who do pay attention to our monthly flavors, this new rotation means that Amaretto Almond Brownies are now appearing in March, followed by Double Chocolate Brownies in April and Mexican Chocolate in May. 
What a line-up! The cookie flavored haven’t changed, and the only difference in the vegan fudge roster for the next few months is in May, when our classically smooth and creamy Original fudge takes the place of Peppermint Velvet, which has moved down to December to take center stage at all your holiday parties.
If you’d like to receive delicious flavors at a 15% discount each month plus get a 15% discount on all other orders you place while you’re a monthly club member, sign up now! And, the discount applies whether you get a membership for yourself or give it as a gift. Monthly Clubs make great corporate food gifts for your best clients, favorite colleagues or that new boss you really want to impress. Give a gift that shares compassion and new flavors of enjoyment every month.
Happy Leap Year!
Fridays with Friends: Millennium’s Eric Tucker
Ann Wheat, Eric Tucker, and Larry Wheat - photo credit: VegNews
When I started my business (then “Allison’s Cookies”) near Seattle in 1997, I exhibited at EarthSave Seattle’s Taste of Health event. A delightful and friendly woman came up, introduced herself and told me all about an upscale, elegant, all-vegan restaurant that I just had to visit in San Francisco. This woman was none other than Ann Wheat, co-owner and marketer extraordinaire of Millennium Restaurant. Funds were tight for me at the time, but I began planning my first excursion right then and there. When I finally made my way to the restaurant, Ann, her husband Larry, and Executive Chef Eric Tucker gave me a warm welcome and took great care of me. I was hooked!
Now, every chance I get, I make the journey to Millennium and a visit to San Francisco is incomplete without a luscious meal from Eric and his team. I love Millenium so much that we take our daughter, Olivia, who is now 5. She calls it “our favorite restaurant” and makes sure we’re going if I mention San Francisco. When she was 2, Olivia called it “Milleni-yum.” I couldn’t agree more!
Allison’s Gourmet: You are the rock star behind one of the most well-loved, upscale vegetarian restaurants in the world. Now that veganism has become more popular, has that changed the restaurant’s mission or vision since you helped create Millennium in 1994? How so?
Eric Tucker: Our mission has been to provide exquisite vegetable-based cuisine since day one and that hasn’t changed. Being that vegetable-based cuisine is limitless, we are always adding something new to our mix!
AG: That is so true; vegetables offer myriad options. Do many non-vegan guests dine at the restaurant? What’s that like… is it more or less pressure than cooking for your core veg audience?
ET: Well, our core audience isn’t necessarily hard core veg, at least from those I talk to and a demographics survey we did a decade ago. We generally find that our main clientele are intelligent, educated, and adventurish in their dining choices.
AG: If they’re eating at Millennium, of course they’re intelligent! 
One of my favorite dishes is your cornmeal-crusted fried oyster mushrooms. What’s your favorite menu item at Millennium?
ET: Our menu changes seasonally, so right now it might be a tagine of artichokes, winter squash, ayoc morado beans and kale swimming in a well-seasoned saffron broth with a barley cake, preserved lemon aioli, a little aleppo chile and deep fried crusted olives!
AG: Sounds like it’s time for us to come visit again! Do you ever tire of cooking? Like at home, are you a microwave and PB & J kind of guy or are you always working on something new?
ET: Whole wheat sprouted bagels and good bread — a conduit to all kinds of bad fatty things you can smear on ‘em at midnight when you realize you are hungry after tasting the entire line up at 5:30 pm. Also, steamed Korean veg dumplings with a 2-second peanut chile dipping sauce, also good at midnight! Sometimes I’ll work out a simplified version of an idea or use a new product I’m not familiar with, but that is rare.
AG: The question on all vegan women’s minds… are you single? Have women expected extravagant meals from you or have they cooked good meals for you?
ET: Well a few days ago, my girlfriend and I went up north harvesting wild mushrooms – hedgehogs and black trumpets. We came home, made pasta from scratch, cleaned the dirt out of the mushrooms and by 10:30, we had dinner, a collaborative effort.
AG: That answers that! Since you are quite the mushroom buff, that sounds like the recipe for a perfect day in your world. One Valentine’s Day, David and I made one of your dishes at home and spread out the prep over a couple of days. It was fun and yet we’ve decided that we prefer going to Millennium to be taken care of by you and your talented and attentive team. For the newbie or the person who doesn’t have a lot of time to cook complex dinners and doesn’t live close enough for regular visits, do you have any recommendations for meals that are easy, delicious and healthy?
ET: Learn key ingredients and ways to season and spice food from different cultures, keep some of those ingredients as part of your larder, extrapolate and simplify. For example, instead of pounding out a complex curry paste on a Wednesday night, maybe a simpler version with slices of lemongrass, ginger, kaffir lime leaves from the stash in your freezer (or tree on your patio) and some garlic – chile paste sautéed into some coconut milk, add veg and protein du jour, squeeze of lime. Done.
AG: You make it sound so simple, Eric! What are your favorite vegan kitchen staples? Any exotic ingredients you’d rather not live without?
ET: Miso, Shoyu, good olive oil, toasted sesame oil, at least a half dozen chile pastes and sauces, frozen curry leaf, chutney and indian pickles. Basically, condiments and spices, dried mushrooms of a couple different varieties, and dried sea veg. Ingredients like these give me a lot of room for a last minute improvisation with whatever starch and veg I have on hand.
AG: If you and I were playing in the kitchen together, what would be your dream creation?
ET: It would involve smoked salt, espresso, chocolate, chile, and olive oil. All prepared while listening to 80′s hair metal.
AG: You know my favorite ingredients so well! That combination sounds amazing. But wait, have we talked about my former life as a big-haired metal chick or are you that intuitive? Craziness! Do you have a favorite AG product?
ET: Brownies of all stripes.
Thanks for chatting, Eric. It’s been equally pleasurable and mouth-watering, as always.
Valentine’s Day: It’s Closer Than You Think
So I know Valentine’s Day is still over a week away, and most of us are probably just now starting to think about it. But I just have to say, we sure wish that calendar makers would consult with us before placing important holidays on Mondays and Tuesdays! 
Here’s the one challenge to an online business: you have to order early to allow time for shipping, and, since we don’t ship over weekends, getting packages delivered on Mondays is impossible, and deliveries on Tuesdays require Overnight shipping which is expensive. So, this year, ordering early is even more important then usual.
Don’t wait until the last minute and leave finding the right gift for your Valentine to chance or the whim of the grocery store candy isle clerk. Your sweetheart deserve more than that, don’t you think? How about treating him or her to the compassionate indulgence of some of the very best organic, dairy-free and fair-trade chocolate on the planet. And, although chocolates are customary for this time of year, we have plenty of other options if chocolates aren’t suited to either their taste or your purpose. Maybe a fair-trade tea sampler or something from our vegan bakery will more accurately express your sentiments. We’re here to help, we want to make your Valentine’s Day as delicious and stress-free as possible: just let us know how we can help.
Fridays with Friends: Real Food Daily’s Ann Gentry
Ann Gentry is a vegan restaurateur pioneer. She opened her first Real Food Daily, an LA institution, in 1993, long before the masses were catching on that a vegan lifestyle is healthy, compassionate, sustainable and delicious. Ann’s work directly contributed to the exposure vegan food has received in recent years. Serving Hollywood’s celebrities scrumptiously wholesome meals got the word spreading like wildfire. I had the honor and pleasure of sitting down with Ann to learn more about her journey and what she’s up to these days…
Allison’s Gourmet: When I first considered going to cooking school in 1996, I heard about a woman who had a daily home-delivery food service, catering to folks (especially stars) who followed a hardcore macrobiotic diet. I even had one of your flyers from before you started the restaurant! A few years later, I enjoyed my first meal at Real Food Daily. Will you correct any erroneous memories I may have and tell us how Real Food Daily came about?
Ann Gentry: That’s about right. In the late 1980’s, I started a home delivery cooking business serving organic vegan meals because at that time there were not many, if any, gourmet whole/real food restaurants in LA. I know, hard to believe, right? This was pre-Whole Foods Market and there were a few places to eat plant-based cuisine but they were kind of hippie-ish and the food may have been healthy for you but didn’t always taste or look satisfying.I opened the first Real Food Daily in 1993 as a direct result of having no place to go out to eat the kind of food I was cooking at home.
Allison’s Gourmet: Wow, you are a true pioneer in the realm of delicious vegan restaurants! Were you always a fan of cooking or did that come when you turned to a macrobiotic/vegan diet?
Ann Gentry: I grew up in a household of some mighty fine Southern cooks. Good thing I didn’t keep eating that way, as I’d be as big as a house by now and probably facing some serious health problems, too. Once I was introduced to vegetarian cuisine, then macrobiotic cooking, I put down my Dr. Pepper and took a real interest in learning how to cook for myself.
Allison’s Gourmet: Amazing how those lights just turn on, huh? When I finally had the honor of meeting you when Anna and Frances Moore-Lappé did a book signing at your fun and funky West Hollywood location, I was struck by your unexpected and charming Southern accent. How do you weave your Southern roots into your macrobiotic/vegan menu?
Ann Gentry: It is just a natural connection to use my Southern heritage in both cooking and hospitality when it comes to my restaurants. I never try to mimic the exact creation of a certain dish, I just let the essence of the recipe guide me. For example, creating the Salisbury Seitan came out of my love for eating Salisbury steak at independent Southern diners and cafeterias.
Allison’s Gourmet: Lucky you. I only had them in TV dinners. No wonder yours are so much better. Did you set out to create a gustatory haven for stars or did that just happen?
Ann Gentry: When you have a great business in Los Angeles, everyone flocks to it. Hollywood keeps coming because these folks, just like everyone else who is a beloved RFD guest, wants to eat food which is deliciously clean and pure. All kinds of people following a variety of strict dietary guidelines—whether for ethical, health, or religious reasons—find themselves with a lot to choose at RFD. We have earned the trust of people who are seeking out a plant-based diet whether full or part time. When folks leave RFD, they feel a satisfaction from eating fresh organically grown plant based foods. People respond well to this, sometimes without even knowing why. I know why – because RFD is committed to serving balanced, nutritional whole foods cuisine using high quality produce and ingredients most of which are grown organically and this affects people on many levels.
Allison’s Gourmet: Your latest book, Vegan Family Meals: Real Food for Everyone is geared towards cooking vegan at home; what’s your favorite piece of advice for healthy home cooking for people on the go? And do you have any advice for people making the transition into veganism?
Ann Gentry: A plant-based diet with a seasonally rotating palette of fresh, colorful produce ripe for use encourages creativity in the kitchen. If you prepare the best local and seasonal ingredients with a variety of cooking methods, you’ll have more interesting and diverse tastes, textures, and colors on your plate. Any quality home cooking takes a little time. As a busy working mother, I too am juggling the day-to-day challenges. In Vegan Family Meals I talk about how it’s nice to have the American-style four or five dishes at every meal, but it’s not necessary. Balance your nutrition intake across the week, and don’t get hung up on making every meal a feast. Instead, focus on preparing a few recipes that will keep your cooking simple and your time in the kitchen enjoyable. If you are making the transition to a plant-based cuisine, know it takes time to change and embrace a new way of eating. Take it easy and be kind to yourself.
Allison’s Gourmet: Those are great suggestions, Ann. What’s your favorite vegetable and how do you like to prepare it? How about your favorite super simple vegan meal/recipe that keep you supercharged through your day?
Ann Gentry: I’m blessed; I love all vegetables. Right now, I love to roast cauliflower as it has such a simple satisfying texture and mild flavor. I start my day making the first recipe from Vegan Family Meals, Acai Berry Granola Bowl. I even have my 8 1/2 old son loving this breakfast. It is filled with super foods, nuts and seeds and is filling and satisfying.
Allison’s Gourmet: And that’s no minor feat! Congratulations. Finally, what’s your favorite Allison’s Gourmet product?
Ann Gentry: Someone sent me your gourmet brownies that are laced with a hint of orange. I loved that they were not overly sweet, as I didn’t taste the hit of sugary sweetness most brownies have. Yours were just the right amount of chocolate and sweet and they were divine.
Thank you, Ann, that’s high praise indeed coming from you!
