Do I even have to explain? Above, vegan vanilla/vanilla cupcakes from The Cupcake Bar. Truly elegant and toothsome treats. Below, lunch at the Durham Food Co-op, all vegan: seitan mac and cheese, cabbage dumplings, fiesta corn, creamed spinach, and vegetable soup. I’m not proud. Tomorrow I may be all brown rice and kale, but today, this is where I’m at: What’s your comfort food?
You must believe me–I had no intention of baking brownies when I awoke this morning. After a rainy workweek, I spent this past beautiful, balmy weekend tidying the house, hiking with my dog, watching a Harry Potter movie with my family, and making wholesome meals. But sometime during the night the rain returned and when I opened the door for the morning dog walk, I was greeted by a wet, dreary Monday. Even then, the thought of brownies hadn’t entered my mind. This evening, when I picked up my son from his fall break day camp, he asked to go to Toys R Us. No, I said. He then asked to go to the nearby artisanal coffeehouse for vegan chocolate cake. Again, no. It was still drizzling and darkening, with the days growing shorter by the minute, and I just wanted to get home, get the dog walked, and get into my pajamas. I suppose I could have fallen back on that old parental chesnut and told him that we weren’t going to the coffeehouse …
For some time now I’ve been toying with the idea of a plant-based food blog. I already write (fitfully) a blog about, well, stuff, but mainly about writing and nature, called Thoughts Like Birds. In one post about cozy mysteries, my love of home-cooked comfort food was revealed: I featured a recipe for dahl that has received rigorous and repeated taste-testing in the Thoughts Like Birds kitchen. This past weekend, while browsing the wonderful Healthy Slow Cooking blog, I discovered that September is Vegan Mofo–a NaNoWriMo-esque month of intensive vegan food blogging. While it was too late to register for the 2014 Vegan Mofo, I decided to take it as a sign that it was an auspicious time to launch Ovenbird. So what’s it all about, this new blog? Pretty, pleasing, plant-based eating that’s not too hard on the wallet or the watch. I work full-time and have a young child and an elderly dog to look after, and in my “free” time I blog and write fiction and creative nonfiction. I want to make time to make …
Ovenbird 