I am in the home stretch! I hope to complete my cookbook by the end of February and that means things are going to get a little crazy around here. I will, of course, still be writing posts for you but I’ve enlisted help. I invited some of my favorite authors, chefs, business owners, and bloggers to share Vegan Quick Tips with you – simple and easy ideas to make your vegan, vegetarian or veg-curious journey even easier! Print-friendly, if you want to keep the tips on hand you can clip them with Evernote or print and stick on your refrigerator!
Today meet my friends Ethan and Michael of the Vegan Mos. They want to help those of you who are not vegan host a vegan dinner!
The Vegans are Coming!
We recently had some friends over for a game night and potluck dinner. Upon entering our house, one friend said, “I get nervous when I have to make vegan food.” Her next sentence brought all conversations to a standstill, “The recipes always call for weird things like yeast.” Yeast is weird? She then acknowledged that yeast is in fact not weird. However, it got me thinking about what it is like for an omnivore to host a vegan for a meal or make food to bring to a vegan home. I imagine everyone frantically running around screaming, “The vegans are coming! The vegans are coming!” Fear not, the Vegan Mos are here to help, and, guess what? It is easier than you think.
Ethan became vegan before I did, but I was the primary cook in the family at that time. I quickly learned what to do and not do in the kitchen. After all, I wasn’t born knowing how to cook. I had to learn. This was simply expanding my repertoire – and it was fun! The basic rule for food in our house became: if it was a conscious or self-aware being, or it came from one, it was off limits. Learning to bake as a vegan took a little more work, but with good cookbooks and the internet, I picked it up in no time. Very soon, “vegan cooking and baking” became just cooking and baking.
Not only was I learning, but our friends were too. When they would want to have us over, they were very considerate and asked lots of questions so they could prepare food we could eat. Some even asked to borrow cookbooks to get recipes. When you invite someone over, it is incumbent on you, the host, to make sure your guests are taken care of. You don’t invite people over for a meal and then serve food they can’t eat. Unfortunately, we’ve encountered this situation a few times. To help you out, we have come up with some quick and easy tips for worry free vegan hosting.
Vegan Quick Tips from the Vegan Mos: Worry Free Vegan Hosting
• Tip 1: When hosting vegans for a meal don’t think of it as “vegan food.” It is just food. We don’t typically think of fruit, hummus, salsa or pasta (eggless of course) with tomato sauce and beans as “vegan food,” but they are. Did you see that? the lights just dimmed a little. Probably from power being diverted to light bulbs over people’s heads as they’re getting it. Look what I just did, I gave you a menu! Appetizers: hummus and pita, chips and salsa; main course: pasta with sauce and beans; dessert: fresh fruit or even sorbet. How hard was that?
• Tip 2: Treat the menu like one of those SAT word problems where you have to figure out the proper order of something. To solve those problems, you start with the most specific element and work from there. As everyone can eat anything a vegan can, start with that. Offer many vegan options and then, if you really need it, you can add in a non-vegan item.
• Tip 3: Pick up a vegan cookbook for help, inspiration or guidance. Some of cookbooks we like are Isa Does It by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, The Joy of Vegan Baking by Colleen Partick Goudreau and Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. Also, check out VeganMos for lots of great recipes.
Vegan Quick Tips on JLgoesVegan.com
So the next time you bring food to a vegan house or host vegans for dinner, don’t stress out. Remember these tips and everything will turn out great.
Vegan Mos is the brainchild of Ethan Ciment and Michael Suchman. As ethical vegans, they started Vegan Mos as a vehicle for sharing delicious vegan recipes and promoting a better understanding of animal rights issues. The Vegan Mos seek to help people expand their circles of compassion by understanding better the intersection of gay rights and animal rights issues. The Vegan Mos are regular contributors to the weekly podcast of Our Hen House. Ethan and Michael live in Maplewood, New Jersey with their three non-human children: Phoebe, Riley and Charlie.
