Preparing for Vegan Mofo...

This year I’m going to be participating in Vegan Mofo, and I’m super excited about it! For those of you unaware Vegan Mofo stands for ‘Vegan Month of Food’ and is a world-wide online blogging event. Where vegan bloggers devote themselves to furiously writing as much as they can about all things related to vegan food in one month. Some bloggers have themes like creating food inspired by a favorite t.v. show or movie. Some people review products, some people may only blog about drinks or desserts etc... for the month, and some people don’t have any theme at all. They simply devote themselves to creating as many new, amazing and delicious recipes as they can to share and blog about.

To flood the internet for one entire month with vegan food, and other vegan topics is a brilliant idea. To be able to share delicious, and creative vegan recipes in abundance, and to have so many people dedicated to writing about all facets of veganism is a great way to spread our wealth of knowledge to help those who may be new to veganism. To help those who may be vegan-curious, and to help veteran vegans and one another who may be feeling a little uninspired lately. Last year I followed along with a lot of really great blogs who were participating in Vegan Mofo. I ended up just stumbling across the event, and got so wrapped up in it. Many of those blogs I still follow today, and they were incredibly helpful to me at a time in which I was making the transition to veganism. During the month I got to read a lot of cool and inspiring stories about veganism and vegan transformation. I got to see that living and eating vegan isn’t so hard after all, and I felt that sense of comradery. Since I had no vegan friends at the time, and knew of very few vegans aside form cookbook authors and such it made me feel really good and comfortable and at ease to know that there were so many other ordinary/extraordinary people out there just like me. People who’d been through the same things I was going through, or were going through the same things I was. It gave me a sense of community and support. So to now be a part of that, and to have the opportunity to maybe give that feeling back to someone else makes me feel really good. Vegan Mofo was also an indispensable resource as far as getting really good honest feedback on various cookbooks, restaurant, bakeries, retail stores, and vegan products. That information alone is incredibly valuable to a new vegan, and sometimes even to a veteran.

So for my first Vegan Mofo experience I’ve decided to use "Cooking the Books" as my ‘theme’ Since I will be on vacation from October 8^th - 22^nd probably without internet access I wanted to pick something easy, something I knew I’d be able to do without a lot of stress. Also since I plan to be away for those two weeks, I’m hoping to update at least twice a day for the time that I am home, to make up for the two week absence, and to make sure I meet the recommended goal of posting twenty times in the month. As far as the ‘Cooking the Books’ theme is concerned I’ll be making dishes from various cookbooks, and posting a review of the dish. How it tastes flavor and texture wise. If I needed to add anything or if I left anything out, if I followed the directions exactly or changed somethin and why. How long the recipe averages, and the difficulty of the dish. Thrown in there too I’m sure will be comments about the cookbook as a whole, and probably some personal anecdotes.

So I hope you enjoy my month of vegan food, and I hope you find it helpful. Buying cookbooks is something I always find to be hard. You can never really be sure if it’s going to be good or not. I spent the first few months only borrowing from the library but at this point I’ve borrowed them all and now when I buy them I have to do it on nothing else but a whim and the hope that it’ll be good.

Unfortunately that isn’t always the case, so if you find yourself in the same position I hope you’ll find these posts to be beneficial in helping you decide whether or not a cookbook is worth it. Or maybe you own the book(s) already but haven’t cooked from them, or just haven’t cooked the particular recipe I have, maybe you’ll see a post and be inspired to cook that dish too. If you’re a new vegan or an omnivore maybe you’ll just get some good ideas or feel inspired by knowing all the wonderful things that are possible when you switch to a vegan diet.

Vegan Mofo Starts tomorrow - October 1^st so let the blogging begin! And as always happy and healthy eating to you.

I hope that wherever you are, whatever you’re doing you have a happy and fun filled Vegan Mofo!

For lots more Info on the event, and all the blogs participating check out the Vegan Mofo webstie -

 http://www.veganmofo.com/