I May Be Alone Here, But I Really Like Rachael Ray

Okay, so Rachael Ray is a little on the gabby side, and a lot of her recipes are based around meat. BUT! If you can look past that, there is plethora of ideas inside of just one issue of her magazine! Her recipes are quick, simple and easy to veganize! If she calls for chicken, you can very easily use seitan (though I haven't yet, but I keep meaning to!). I once made the most amazing tropical bread pudding from one of her guest recipes, using cashew cream and coconut milk for the dairy counterparts.

This is the issue on stands now! I'm very inspired by it, and I can't wait to get home and make some of the pasta sauces and cocktails. Plus, she gives a shout-out to North Beach in my home-base of San Francisco!

I love people who are naturally bubbly. It's taken me 31 years to cultivate a "natural" effervescence, because what I usually want to do is be a wallflower. Let's not get started on how easily I blush. SHYNESS IS REAL, AND OMG, KIND OF THE WORST.

On that note, people always want to tell me they can't cook. At 23 I was making stirfry with frozen chicken breasts, frozen veggies, and calling it a day. Easy. Not vegan, obvi, but where I started. In the meantime, I poured over cookbooks. I read the intros, the outros and all the tips inbetween. When I got into veganism, I did the same thing. That's how I learned. I don't think I was born with this ability, I just spent all my free time teaching myself how to do it! To learn what flavors go together, what the vocabulary means. And I never stop learning. (Which means everyone else can do it too! Or not, some people can do math and I only understood fractions once I started baking.)

And then on that note, I don't like watching cooking shows (I just think they are so boring), but I really love Rachael Ray's 30 Minute Meals. I always learn new tips and new flavor combos, yo. Plus, how could anyone not like her traveling show, $40 a Day? (SHE ALWAYS FINDS A WAY TO SAVE MONEY FOR A FANCY COCKTAIL!) The talk show, okay, I can't do that one.