SV Book Review: 'Vegan World Fusion Cuisine'

Healing Recipes and Timeless Wisdom From The Blossoming Lotus Cafe, Kapa'a Hawaii

My friend Virginia is a live foodie who lives on the island of Kaui, in Hawaii. She raved about The Blossoming Lotus Cafe, and served me a dish that was inspired by something she ate there. So it was serendipitous that 'Vegan World Fusion Cuisine' showed up on my doorstep recently. Mark Reinfeld and Bo Rinaldi founded The Blossoming Lotus, and co-wrote the book with a large cast of beautiful, spiritual, creative, vegan artists and restaurateurs.

Vegan World Fusion Cuisine is first of all a glorious work of art, crammed with beautiful photographs and illustrations - Hawaiian landscapes, food, people, spiritual icons - inspiring quotes, lovely layout and text, all put together to showcase the recipes. Oh-My-God! The Recipes!

The recipes are part live food and part cooked - what the authors call transitional. I have to say that it would be easy to be a live foodie in Hawaii. I could happily have lived on avocados, papayas and mangos when I visited there. And these recipes are truly inspiring. But really I'm more of a cooked foodie, so I was most interested in recipes such as 'Thousand Petals Tempeh Stir Fry', 'Sicilian Seitan With Sundried Tomatoes and Pine Nuts', or 'Presto Manifesto Lasagna'.

I loved the recipe names, and I loved that there are many recipes using tofu, tempeh and seitan, as well as a wide variety of whole grains and beans. There are also wonderful desserts, with almost no sugar - maple syrup and agave nectar are often used as sweeteners. I was intrigued by a vegan pumpkin pie recipe using almond butter and soy milk, but not tofu - 'Prem's Pumpkin Pie'.

Vegan World Fusion Cuisine recognizes that some of us might need more food and cooking education. Besides the beautiful presentation and the incredible recipes, there's a marvellous section on vegan natural food preparation, with basic prepping and cooking techniques, how to make marinades and condiments, soup stock, soaking and sprouting, grain and legume cooking charts, and a sugar conversion chart. In case you aren't a convert to a vegan diet, living food, organic, eco-friendly lifestyle, there's a thoughtful introduction, and excellent resource guide, to help you along. But the recipes say it best.

There may be vegan cookbooks that are more comprehensive, or practical, or even inexpensive (this one is US $24.95) but very few this beautiful, spiritual, loving, and knowledgeable. Those ingredients make 'Vegan World Fusion Cuisine worth having, and using daily, although it seems a sacrilege to muck up those beautiful pages, as I always do with cookbooks. Maybe for this one - copy out the recipe first, then close the book and carefully put it away before slinging food around. Visit Vegan Fusion online.

"To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art." - La Rochefoucauld

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