BlogHop!

Cookbook author and colleague Robin Asbell instigated this BlogHop — half a dozen veg writers are answering the same interview questions on the same day. Here’s my interview. Check out the links to the other peeps below. Hop from blog to blog for fun and deliciousness!

What is the title of your upcoming book?

All I know if that I’ll be writing one. The publisher of my current book, Main Street Vegan: Everything You Need to Know to Eat Healthfully and Live Compassionately in the Real World, has asked for another that has something to do with veganism, and I’m eager to get started. Life is so busy right now that I may need to escape for a week, go somewhere quiet and lacking WiFi, and focus on just what I have to say next.

Who is publishing your book and what is the expected release date?

TarcherPenguin, provided they like the proposal for the new book as much as they like the sales of the current one!

How long did it take you to research and write this book?

I’ve written eleven books. One of them, The Love-Powered Diet, took a solid two years. Another, Fit from Within, just about wrote itself in under four months. The others have been somewhere in between. That timing question is curious, though, because when I say ‘four months’ or ‘two years’ or whatever, I’m talking about the first draft of the actual book. A proposal can take me six months, and the editing process can go on almost that long.

What inspired you to write this book?

Since I haven’t been inspired for the new one yet, I’ll tell you about Main Street Vegan, which came out last year. I’d gone to a PETA fundraiser and was so moved that all I wanted to do was write them a check with lots and lots of zeroes at the end of it. I wasn’t in a position to do that and I wanted like the dickens to be able to be of some serious help to animals. I was mulling that over in the subway on my way home that night and I quite literally inspired – a voice in my head really – that my next book was to be Main Street Vegan, have 40 short chapters with a recipe after each one, and be written to someone not so different from the woman I was in Illinois and Missouri and Wisconsin back in the 1980s when I wanted to go vegan but didn’t think it was possible.

So, do you have an agent?

Yes, Joelle Delbourgo.

What is your favorite aspect of writing a cookbook?

I don’t relate to writing cookbooks, although I like to read them. The recipes in Main Street Vegan were largely donated by wonderful colleagues who are chefs and recipe creators as well as authors. Robin Asbell donated a yummy one, as well as other cookbook celebrities such as Nava Atlas, Jennifer Cornbleet, and Isa Chandra Moskowitz. If I ever do a cookbook, someone else would do the recipes. My first choice for the job is Lisa Pitman from Toronto: we think similarly about food and nutrition, and she’s gifted at both creating recipes and photographing food. I see myself more as a philosopher who writes. Doing a cookbook doesn’t feel as if it’s my work to do in this life, but you never know.

What is the hardest aspect of writing a cookbook?

Everything: that’s why I’ve never written one! I think it’s the precision of recipe creation that would cause me the most trouble. I do some creative cooking in my own kitchen, but to have to repeat that process like a scientific experiment is daunting to me. I’m a wordsmith by nature and will let the cuisine experts do what they do.

What interesting things would we find in your refrigerator right now if we were to open it?

Ah, ‘interesting,’ the word of many meanings…Actually, my fridge is in an unusual state right now because we’re two days past the most recent Main Street Vegan Academy course. This is a training and certification program for Vegan Lifestyle Coaches that I do four times a year here in New York City – the next author featured in this series, JL Fields, is a graduate of the program and a certified VLC. During the program, we go out to eat some (the vegan restaurants in this town are beyond belief) but I cook a lot, too, and I’m eating through the leftovers: kale, steamed sweet potatoes, one bag too many of yellow Finn potatoes (those aren’t in the fridge, of course), quite a bit of tofu, and three glorious chocolate bars since someone gave me boxed chocolates just before the Academy began and I served those instead of parsing out squares from the bars.

What is your favorite sound in the kitchen?

What a lovely question! I’d have to say it’s the boiling of my electric kettle. Every kitchen in the UK, including the temporary flats I’ve stayed in with my husband when he’s had work there, has one of these and, since I’m a tea drinker anyway, it’s a must-have appliance for me. When I hear that it’s boiling – it’s really quick – I feel that pre-tea contentment.

Which actors would you chose to place your main characters in the rendition of this book?

I write nonfiction, so we’re not apt to get one of my books made into a movie, but I am the co-writer with my enchanting husband, William Melton, of Miss Liberty, a family feature film about a cow who escapes from a slaughterhouse and the human adventures that ensue. Gene Baur, co-founder of Farm Sanctuary, is our co-executive producer, and we’re in pre-production with Brookwell-McNamara Entertainment. As for actors, we’re in the embryonic stages of casting but our goal is to have an all-vegetarian cast, and stars of that description are all over Hollywood!