Accidental Vegan

9781580910798

1580910793

DEVRA GARTENSTEIN is an omnivore who owns and runs the Patty Pan Grill, a vegetarian restaurant and take-out counter in Seattle, Washington. She is also a farmers'market vendor who can be found at her stand at a local market nearly every day in the summer.THE AUTHOR SCOOP If you had to boil the message of The Accidental Vegan down to one sentence, what would it be? You donrs"t have to be a vegetarian to eat vegetarian food, just like you donrs"t have to be Thai to eat Thai food, and you donrs"t have to be Mexican to eat Mexican food.When did you know you were a writer?When I was in third grade one of my teachers said, "You should never start a sentence with ls"and,rs" unless yours"re a writer." And right then and there, I decided thatrs"s what I wanted to be.What's the farthest you've ever traveled?I once traveled to a small town in Poland thinking it was the birthplace of my great grandfather, but when I got home and double checked, it turned out Irs"d gone to the wrong town.Any memorable kitchen disasters?I once spilled half a bucket of tahini. Thatrs"s twenty pounds of tahini. Therers"s no good way to clean up twenty pounds of tahini.What book do you re-read every few years?I re-read Isak Dinesenrs"s Babetters"s Feast, and then I watch the movie again, because itrs"s every bit as good as the original story.What are you working on now? Irs"m working on a book called Honest Food: A History of Eating Well. Itrs"s an account of the relationship between humans and food, from Paleolithic times until the present day.