There is a very good chance I danced around my kitchen to Buddy Jewell’s “Sweet Southern Comfort” after tasting these. I’m continuously mystified by foods ability to take me anywhere. And lord, have I been missing the Southern United States for awhile now. There’s nothing quite like sitting at a Georgia brunch on a Sunday morning eating a plate of steaming biscuits and gravy. Once upon a time, I was living on the Florida Georgia state line. I spent my days treating and rehabbing injured Florida Panthers (that’s a story for another time), and my nights diving into deep South…
vegan recipes
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Continue ReadingIn my humble opinion, corn is the superior vegetable. Like any typical midwesterner, I grew up next to a corn field and my grandpa was a corn farmer… who’s shocked? What can I say, a corn dish just feels like home. When I first started a plant-based lifestyle, one of my very first dishes I made was corn curry. That first bite of sweet and spicy curry made me stop dead in my tracks and think… I could do this for the rest of my life. That’s what daunting though, right? The idea that something is forever, and what if…
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Continue ReadingOh, Budapest, you whimsical, eerie wonderland. Arriving in Budapest is like stumbling through a rabbit hole and stepping out into a confusing alternate dimension. An electric trance of haunted bliss- if you will. Days in Budapest are meant to dive into the other worldly things. It would be a sin not to spend the day floating through ancient bath houses in hot springs and thermal steam. Granted, you may be floating next to rather large Greek men in a speedos… but that’s just the weirdness that is Budapest. The Perfect Hungarian Meal While in Hungary, head down your nearest…
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Continue ReadingEastern Europe is one of my favorite nooks of the world. Growing up I was always requesting this dish over and over again, but of course now I have completely veganized it! This meal takes all of 25 minutes and I swear if you close your eyes, you are going to be transported cute cafe on the Baltic Sea. History of Stroganoff Would you believe that the famous Russian dish is actually French fusion? In the 1800s, the Russian aristocrat Count Pavel Alexandrovich Stroganov brought a French chef back to Russia. He then created this now famous dish specifically because of…
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Continue ReadingTheres no doubt that as children we are pushed and encouraged to chase our creative dreams. When did that desire stop? For some of us, I’m sure it simply never did. That innate calling to live a life daring to be transparent is often simply ignored. Books are left unwritten, movies are left without endings, and dreams are simply a place you go in the middle of the night when nobody is watching. Maybe I’m naive. Maybe there are people who don’t have those pacing feelings… to get the words out in the middle of the night or embark on…
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Continue ReadingOnce upon a trip, my brother and I packed our things to hit the European road. We ditched our jeans (maybe not Rob) and cars for the whimsy allure of a European wonderland. Rob, who has never not had plan a day in his life, threw his hands in the air and let me take the wheel. Luckily, I had been mapping this continent since middle school. I had journals full of hand written dotted lines connecting cities and prices of train tickets vs bus tickets scribbled in the margins. My way of thinking was different back then. Thinking about…
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Continue ReadingI can’t unknow the magic that is road tripping through Mexico. Truthfully, I have a difficult time sitting still in any one place, so road trips are my love language. I met up with some local friends and we took the pickup truck down the coast of Mexico, stopping at every road side stand in sight, meeting as many people as I could. I fondly recall making friends with an absurd amount of los gatos on this trip, another reason why I always carry animal treats in my purse. Food=love. There is something utterly romantic and captivating about traveling in…
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Continue ReadingVietnam is perhaps my greatest love affair of them all. I spent several months working at a nonprofit just outside of Hanoi. So for a brief moment in time, Hanoi felt like a place I would call home. I fell in love in between almost being ran over by motorbikes in the middle Old Quarters. Skipping the streets on a Sunday morning with an iced Vietnamese coffee (recipe to come) was my literal love language. Every street was not so neatly organized by what it was selling. You had silk street down one row and medical street down another. Maybe…
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Continue ReadingEchoes of “Ciao, Bella” ring in the back of my mind, while I reminisce on memories of taking the European railway around Italy. I spent weeks bouncing from the Italian Rivera villages to the canals of Venice over the ancient ruins of Roma. Walking into a restaurant in Italy, was like walking into your sweet old grandpas house. I vividly recall walking along the Mediterranean, salivating at the smell of fresh pasta and white wine in the air. The owner of the seaside Italian restaurant ushering us in, and delicately placing each dish down like a newborn baby. Italy felt…
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Continue ReadingAll things crab take me back to a late summer boardwalk on the Maryland coast. Once upon a time I had a mini love affair with Maryland. I had just quit my job and bought a one-way ticket to Europe, soon to be embarking on what would become a 15 country hiatus. There was just one problem, my then boyfriend wanted to go “find himself” in Baltimore and climb the corporate ladder as they say. I internally folded at the idea of myself committing to Maryland, but I went anyways. My mind was already mapping out all of Europe in…