Roundup, May 23, 2023

Vegans in the House

I stopped eating meat when I was a senior in high school. I eat eggs and dairy products, and I don’t ask a lot of questions when I am eating out or travelling. I’ve rarely had a problem, and I don’t think I’ve caused problems for other people. My friends might tell you differently, of course, so I don’t want to be too smug.

And then, in 2019, my husband decided to go vegan. That’s a whole new level of complication, especially for folks who don’t like Impossible Burgers. A vegan diet is better for the planet and better for health than a traditional omnivorous diet, but it’s not as much fun.

Many vegan recipes published online are terrible. Most food blogs are written for maximum search engine positioning and affiliate sales; the food is secondary. A lot of vegan recipes found online are omnivore recipes that simply use fake eggs, margarine, plant milk, and Impossible Burgers instead of the real things. The problem is that when you substitute so many ingredients, you throw off the taste and texture. Good vegan recipes are written to adjust for the substitutions. That’s also why good vegan recipes are so often so complicated.

I have found a few good cookbooks, though. These are affiliate links, by the way:

• Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, by Marcella Hazan: This is an omnivore cookbook, but Marcella Hazan knows her way around vegetables. Many of the dishes are vegan, although they don’t carry that label. Others are super easy to veganize, say with margarine instead of butter or capers instead of anchovies.

• Any of Chloe Coscarelli’s cookbooks: Chloe Coscarelli won a Food Network show and now has a vegan cooking empire. She writes good recipes with clear instructions. The Italian cookbook’s rawsagna is *chef’s kiss*.

• Sweet Potato Soul, by Jenne Claiborne: Jenne Claiborne’s speciality is creating vegan versions of traditional American soul food. Her gumbo recipe is to die for.

• Vegan for Everybody, by America’s Test Kitchen: These recipes are excellent. Like most America’s Test Kitchen recipes, they are also complicated. It takes a lot of technique to achieve excellence! The fake nacho cheese sauce made with potatoes is amazing and isn’t THAT hard.

Finally, I have a pro tip for managing a vegan diet in almost any restaurant: The Pittsburgh Salad. This is a salad with French fries on top, but you can order the fries on the side if you want to be classy. Just don’t ask pesky questions about beef fat in the fryer or anchovies in the dressing, unless you want to be disappointed and hungry.

Things to Read

• Be a better negotiator: First tip: do the opposite of anything that Succession’s Roy siblings do. You want to collect incriminating evidence before you fire someone, not send them evidence that incriminates you. Second tip: read this article and watch the embedded videos. (Chicago Booth Review)

Things to Hear

• Audiobooks: A reader responded to last week’s article on big books with a recommendation for free audiobooks of public-domain classics. Volunteers do the narration, and some are excellent. (LibriVox.org)

• Swing Life Away: A fantastic song by Rise Against that doesn’t get enough love, with excellent shots of early-aughts Hipster Chicago. (YouTube)

Things to do

• Discussion: A friend recently asked for ideas about the Generation X equivalent of The White Album by the Beatles, as well as who (if anyone) could or would write an equivalent of The White Album by Joan Didion. What do you think?