The Kitchen Divided: Vegan Dishes for Semi-Vegan Households

by Ellen Jaffe Jones

Dining together is a great way to foster a relationship, but many vegans find themselves in conflict with partners, family members, or friends who don t share their dietary persuasion. If those vegans are lucky, their loved ones will be happy to share meatless dishes and won't mind postponing a steak or chicken dinner until they eat out. More often than not, however, both vegans and meat eaters are forced to accommodate each other in the confines of the same kitchen. The emotions stirred by their contrary diets can heat that kitchen to the boiling point.
Enter cookbook author, fitness trainer, and kitchen referee Ellen Jaffe Jones. With an abundance of tips for dealing with the many common food fights that arise in such living arrangements, Ellen dishes up sage advice for how to restore harmony, peace, and joy in divergent food relationships. Her mouthwatering recipes include delicious vegan alternatives to conventional dishes typically based on meat or dairy products. This is hearty fare even a diehard carnivore will love. Ellen also provides recipes for versatile meatless main dishes that nonvegan diners can add meat to or enjoy as side dishes.
Ellen offers anecdotes and coping ideas gleaned from her cooking classes and social media groups, and from other vegans who have spent years living in a kitchen divided. She demonstrates that it's not only possible to survive but thrive when a challenging living arrangements puts different eaters at odds.

Genres: Cookbooks, Vegan

160 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2013

About the author

Ellen Jaffe Jones is an American athlete, certified personal trainer, health and fitness journalist and vegan writer.

She lives with Rustie the Rescue who as found by the local Humane Society wandering the streets of Bradenton, Florida on New Year's Eve 2017.

Reviews

[Sandy Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Received a copy of The Kitchen Divided: Vegan Dishes for Semi-Vegan Households. The book is attractive, easy to read and has a nice variety of recipes. It's a welcome addition to any cookbook collection.

[Niffer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book through a Goodreads First Reads giveaway.

I should also disclose that I am not vegan, nor do I live with one. I am, however, someone who is trying to eat healthier and is looking for good resources for recipes.

There are a lot of good recipes in this book and I look forward to further explorations of them. I did feel as though there was a little more emphasis on using processed ingredients than I would have liked (I get that butter is not vegan, but I'm not sure I agree margarine is the ideal substitute, nor am I enthused about the number of meat substitutes she recommended). I also would have liked to see more variety in some things, like there were several smoothie recipes and they all called for bananas--as someone who loves bananas but hates them in smoothies I would have appreciated a little more variety.

I think my biggest issue with this book, though, had to do with the print and the formatting. Much of the text (cute little quotes, etc.) is written in a pale orange and is hard to read. And rather than give the ingredients first and then the instructions, the ingredients are listed on the left column and the instructions on the right--even if the ingredient list/instructions were more than a page long. It was not always clear that the ingredient list continued onto the next page. At one point there was a big picture between the first and second page and no "continued on page..." type notation to make it clear the recipe continued. As someone who tends to read an ingredient list and then go shopping, I would be really frustrated if I didn't notice the ingredients were continued and I started to make the recipe without having purchased key ingredients.

Overall a decent addition to my cookbook collection but probably not my "go to" resource for vegetarian/vegan options.

[Shelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was excited about this concept, but this book didn't bite me the way I wanted it too. There are not as many pictures of the food as I would prefer, and the little "self-help counseling" blurbs seemed like common sense points. I just didn't take to it.