The Luxury Vegan

I've often said that Prince Consort and I are "Luxury Vegans."  A Luxury Vegan is not a Bark and Twig Vegan.  Luxury Vegans take their food very seriously.  We don't skimp, we don't settle, and we rarely go without dessert.  A Bark and Twig Vegan may be "all natural," but a Luxury Vegan is never going to give up her cruelty-free hair dye (nor her Stella McCartney fragrance or even her Urban Decay lip goop). One of the ways you can tell the difference between a Luxury Vegan and a Bark and Twig Vegan is by the number of words needed to describe their food. Are you having a salad?  Or are you having the roasted fennel and hazelnut salad with shallot dressing from Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero?

If you're new to the idea of veganism, you may think it's all about plain tofu or vinyl cheese.  But if you've ever had one of the chickpea cutlets from Veganomicon, you know what Luxury Vegan food is all about.  If it's a gourmet entree, or a dessert so spectacular you talk about it for weeks, or just super yummy comfort food that makes you happy on the worst of days, it's Luxury Vegan. There's no reason in the world why we vegans can't have 5 star restaurant menu items, just because we eschew both the surf and the turf.  How about some butternut squash ravioli with sage sauce, from Skinny Bitch Kim Barnouin's Ultimate Everyday Cookbook?  Or the to-die-for Beet Tartar appetizer at Madeline's Bistro in Tarzana, California?  Do you think you have to settle for fruit every night for dessert?  Not when there's vegan turtle cheesecake, you don't!  And there's not a single Bark or Twig ingredient in there.

Don't get me wrong-- Luxury Vegans are not always as pretentious as you might think!  We're not afraid to don our old jeans and a pair of rubber boots to volunteer at the local animal rescue farm.  We'll just have our Luxury soy caramel latte on our way there.  And why not?  Life is meant to be enjoyed.  Taste things worth tasting!  Yes, sometimes the simple life is all well and good.  Organic produce grown in your own garden, for example, is one of the best parts of a simpler life.  But sometimes, marinating your tofu before you grill it is worth the little bit of extra time and effort it takes. OK, it's always worth it.  Life is challenging enough.  It may as well taste good.