After months of neglect, it’s about time I breathe new life
into this blog of mine. A lot has happened since I last wrote: I moved to Las
Vegas, started an MFA program in poetry, went through some pretty big life
changes, and moved into my first very own little apartment under the glow of
the Stratosphere and the lights of The Strip.
One thing about my life hasn’t changed one bit, however; I’m
still absolutely dedicated to my now nearly five-year strong vegan life and I am still fervently holding the sour cream
(especially when dining at one of the many yummy Mexican restaurants in my area
of Vegas). As such, this will still be a vegan food blog, dedicated to all
things deliciously animal-free.
I was thinking earlier, however, that I want this blog to
have a real direction and not just be about my general vegan cooking hijinks
(although I could fill a blog with such things). My previous focus of this blog, living vegan
in Ukraine, where I spent seven months teaching English in 2010, gave this blog
a real direction. Writing, therefore, became a little harder for me once I left
Ukraine and couldn’t keep with my original theme.
That’s why I have decided to restart this blog with
something specific in mind. I intend to focus my blog on vegan adaptations of
traditional—and not so traditional—Jewish cooking. Some of my earliest and
fondest memories I have growing up are in my mother’s kitchen as she whipped up
a batch of matzo ball soup, or with my grandmother putting salad plates
together for one of her epic Passover dinners. I’m sorry to say that since
going vegan, I haven’t had one bite of matzo ball, kugel, potato latke,
tzimmes or cholent. And dare I say I’ve never met a vegan shmear I liked. I
hope to change all this and cook my way through some favorite Jewish recipes
with a vegan spin. I also hope to continue blogging through the Jewish holidays
as I’ve done here and here in the past. If this blog serves to help me reunite myself
with all my favorite childhood dishes (and perhaps meet some new ones along the
way), then hooray!
Also, I can’t think of a better time to start blogging about
vegan Jewish food than right now. In less than thirty-six hours, I am flying to
Eastern Europe to spend two months in Lithuania, Latvia and Poland. What better
place to revive this blog than in the “Old Country” as my dear bubbe—may she
rest in peace—would call her place of origin?
Over the next couple months as I explore Vilnius, Warsaw,
Krakow, Gdansk and Riga, I hope to glimpse some of the roots of my favorite
family recipes, successfully navigate what I know to be an otherwise very meat
and dairy-heavy cuisine, meet wonderful and inspiring travelers, and blog along
the way. When I return to Vegas, I’ll have my kitchen simmering with the smell
of carrot tsimmes, savory borscht, and—baruch hashem—my Grandma Molly’s divine
mandel bread (with some substitutions of my own, of course).
