For years, Veg Kitchen's Nava Atlas has shown us what to cook and what to eat. But her just released The Literary Ladies Guide to the Writing Life shows us something else -- "How to be." Whoa -- rewind. This is Nava Atlas, right? Author of a crop of meatless cookbooks. So what's she doing profiling a dozen literary femmes?
Even if your last encounter with these authors was high school lit, "The message is inspirational and universal," she says. "It's about attitude. They believed in themselves."
An accomplished visual artist as well as a meatless maven, Atlas is "really interested in the creative process," the thing that fuels all artistic endeavors from art installations to chili-bright Thai soup. She is also interested in discipline. Not in the pleasantly kinky sense, but in its true meaning -- mastery.
"It sounds so stern and boring, but being disciplined about something you want to achieve, whether it's a cleaner diet or writing the Great American Novel can be so gratifying," says Atlas. "Many of the literary ladies were all about self-discipline -- not that they were always good at it, just like the rest of us."
Discipline and that other underappreciated virtue, perseverence shaped George Sand, Charlotte Bronte, Jane Austen and Atlas' other literary ladies. It shaped Atlas, too. She was 27 when she published her first book, Vegetariana, hailed as "a one-woman masterpiece celebrating vegetarianism." Today, she'd be a Food Channel diva with her own product line. But Atlas, who gave up meat in her teens, began making kick-ass meatless dishes at a time of hippies, not hype. So she just kept going. She launched VegKitchen a decade before The Julie/Julia Project carved a food blogging niche and went entirely plant-based when her youngest son did. Like the femmes she writes about, she's always been ahead of her time.
When she started out, "if you wanted to see other cookbooks, you went to the library. Now you just have to look in whatever browsers you have and have the whole world in front you. The internet has made everything so accessible. It's so easy to be a vegan now." On the other hand, she points out, polls indicate it hasn't made for a new crop of converts. "The trends have not grown. There's a very static number and I find that frustrating."
Clearly, providing easy to make, awesome to eat meatless dishes hasn't been enough. Now Atlas is taking the agitprop approach with her art. Just out is her cheeky art book, The Completely-from-Scratch-Steer-to-Sirloin Beef Slaughter Guide and Cookbook. "There's this dissonance," she says. "You're eating a sentient being. What can you say about something like that? I can't understand it and it does bother me. I'm not live and let live. People think grass-fed beef is a new kind of a holy grail, but the animal feels as much fear [as corn-fed, factory farm cows] as it goes to slaughter, shits just as much, it's still an environmental disaster."
You can see why Atlas has an affinity for the authors she profiles. "Charlotte Brontë didn't take shit from anyone, and Harriet Beecher Stowe was determined to change the world."
If you're thinking of changing the world by changing to a meatless diet, Atlas has advice "Keep it simple. That's really my guiding philosophy. I really like good food simply prepared. I don't like things with a million ingredients and million steps."
And persevere -- like Atlas' literary ladies and like Atlas herself. "We live in an age of instant gratification, but there's a great deal to be gained by sticking with something you love and becoming better at it."
Nearly-Instant Thai Coconut Corn Soup
Adapted from Vegan Express
When I first came up with this soup, I was looking to make something speedy to
serve with a main-dish salad. And speedy it is-- 20 minutes is about what it
takes from start to finish, yet it tastes like a long-simmering soup. The tiny
bit of red curry gives it subtle heat; if you'd like a spicier soup, use more,
and for a mild effect, omit the red curry altogether. It's a great choice for
the blustery, rainy days of March, when a warming soup is still welcome, but you
want to put winter's dense, homey stews behind you.
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
4 to 5 scallions, white and green parts, thinly sliced
1 medium red bell pepper, cut into short, narrow strips
Two 15-ounce cans light coconut milk
1 1/2 cups plain rice milk
One 16-ounce bag frozen corn
2 teaspoons good quality curry powder
1/4 teaspoon Thai red curry paste, or more, to taste
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1/2 cup minced fresh cilantro
Heat the oil in a small soup pot. Add the garlic, the white parts of the
scallions, and the bell pepper. Sauté over medium-low heat until softened and
golden, about 2 to 3 minutes.
Add the coconut milk, rice milk, corn, curry powder, the green parts of the
scallions. If using the curry paste, dissolve it in a small amount of water
before adding to the soup.
Bring to a rapid simmer, then lower the heat. Cover and simmer gently for 5
minutes. Season with salt and remove from the heat.
Serve, passing around the cilantro for topping.
Serves 6.
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"Mercy" is an important way of learning to be a better person. Being without mercy is simply incompatible with being a Buddhist. Having a merciful and compassionate heart will show up in all aspects of one's life; but the simplest and most direct way is to follow a vegetarian diet. Think of the intense pain of accidentally stepping on a nail is. So how can one have the heart to eat the flesh of creatures who have suffered the pain of being slaughtered, skinned, dismembered, and cooked? Being unable to bring ourselves to eat the flesh of these poor creatures is an expression of mercy.
For the sake of love of purity, the Bodhisattva should refrain from eating flesh, which is born of semen, blood, etc. For fear of causing terror to living beings let the Bodhisattva, who is disciplining himself to attain compassion, refrain from eating flesh...
It is not true that meat is proper food and permissible when the animal was not killed by himself, when he did not order others to kill it, when it was not specially meant for him Again, there may be some people in the future who .. . being under the influence of the taste for meat will string together in various ways sophistic arguments to defend meat eating .
But... meat eating in any form, in any mannor, and in any place is unconditionally and once for all prohibited... Meat eating I have not permitted to anyone, I do not permit, I will not permit . - Lankavatara 443 CE
What this does is take away the "we are more humane" argument as well as the "we do less despoliation to the Earth" argument vegetarians have. And btw, you say vegetarian, not vegan. If you eat dairy, you have no argument against meat eating on either of those grounds.
All that said, it does not take away the best argument there is for vegetarianism "because that is what *I* think is best for *ME*" No one can argue with that, except maybe one's partner and one's doctor.
I use no animal products, yet vegetarians are close to my heart, we both believe "All life is Sacred"
In India they(vegetariansÂ) milk their cows, but do not slauter them. They care for them like family:
A tale of two herdsWhat's the future for dairy farming? Juliette Jowit reports on new plans for an enormous super-dairy, home to 8,000 cows. John Vidal, meanwhile, visits a tiny herd of 44 in Hertfordshire – all have names and are cherished from birth to death
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/13/milk-cows-dairy-farming
And no need to talk friendly Now !
Lesson you should take from this: Arguments from authority are very open to refute.
I hope more and more chefs begin to incorporate all of the elements of cooking a sustainable meal, including where all of the ingredients come from. I noticed on the Working for Green website that their community page is welcoming people from all over to communicate with one another...maybe chefs can communicate with readers one-on-one here.
As for keeping things "simple"