FIRST I’D LIKE TO THANK MY PARENTS
, Lynn and Enrico Patton. They never laid any messed-up trips on me when I was a kid, and as a result I ended up fairly well-adjusted. They didn’t bat an eye when I became vegan, and always showed interest in my new lifestyle. They also had the foresight to plant that money tree in the backyard. Good work, guys!

Second, I’d like to thank the Girlfriend. She was pretty much my only taste-tester during the production of this book and gave me very valuable feedback. So if any of these recipes suck, blame her. While she doesn’t act like a chef (since chefs actually cook on occasion), she definitely thinks like one. That, along with the moral support and love she gave and continues to give, and a few XXX-rated activities slipped in for good measure, helped me get through the writing of this book. And while she never, of course, had to, she promised to tell me if any of my jokes or stories weren’t funny or good. Thanks, babe!

Finally, I’d like to thank that ballsy crew over at New World Library. Cover designer extraordinaire Tracy Cunningham: thank you for being the creative dynamo behind the perfect cover and design. The great Ami Parkerson: thank you for showing my videos to the editor, thus plucking me out of obscurity and thrusting me into semi-obscurity. To expert publicist Kim Corbin: without you, this complete stranger would probably not be holding this book right now
— they wouldn’t even be aware of its existence. Finally to Kristen Cashman, Jonathan Wichmann, and the whole editorial staff: thank you for taking my ramblings and molding them into relative coherence. You make me look good! Even more finally, a super special thanks to Georgia Hughes who carefully guided my newbie ass through this crazy process: thank you for everything — you are my Obi-Wan Kenobi of book writing.

Introduction

HELLO, PEOPLE!
Sexy Vegan here…wait a second…
here?
Where is here? Where am I? Am I in a book? How the hell did this happen? Hmm…I guess we should rewind.

Once upon a time, in early May of 1977, my dad got into my mom’s pants, thus planting a seed, which eventually sprouted arms, legs, and, thankfully, a head. Shortly after this seed was sown, with my tiny, gelatinous, cellular self forming in my mommy’s belly, my parents went to see a new, state-of-the-art movie called
Star Wars.
I only mention this because it marked a turning point in my life: it thrust me into geekdom faster than the
Millennium Falcon
did the Kessel Run (which, incidentally, was less than twelve parsecs…very fast). About nine months after that, on February 16, 1978, in Hazle-ton, Pennsylvania, I was welcomed into the world by being carved out of my mother’s womb, because I was all upside down and shit.

Then one day I went to college. Four years, two beer-pong trophies, countless blackouts, and one miraculous diploma later, I ended up on my parents’ couch…for a year…which I
know
they loved. While enjoying this much-needed “time to chill,” I happened upon a local-access cooking show. It was hosted by a portly, balding fellow with a mustache named Chef Lou (that was
his
name, not his mustache’s). He made an angel-hair pasta dish, of diced tomatoes, garlic, butter, basil, and Parmesan, and presented it so simply that I didn’t even need to write it down. Keep in mind, I had not
learned how to cook spaghetti until my senior year of college. But watching Chef Lou, I thought, “I can do that,” and the next day, I did it. I made it for dinner, my parents loved it, and I sensed that they were just a little less disappointed in me than usual.

Finally, in October 2001, I decided to strike out on my own and join the real world…so I moved to Hollywood, for no other reason than that one of my friends was moving there, and I had nothing better to do. So we loaded up the car and trucked across the country. After a few friendless, penniless, shitty job–having years, I found myself unemployed with zero direction. Tinseltown, my ass!

In those first few years, however, I did get addicted to cooking shows. I would TiVo episodes featuring dishes that I thought I could make, and then transfer them to VHS tape to keep “on file.” My roommate said he didn’t know what made me a bigger loser: that I was painstakingly preserving episodes of
30 Minute Meals
or that I was trying to conceal their existence by labeling them
Star Trek.
I didn’t care, though — I was too concerned with how terrible of a cook I was, but I
did
enjoy the process.

I don’t really know where that enjoyment came from. I grew up in an Italian family, but I had a mother who hated to cook. Sure, we would get the occasional pancake breakfast or some sort of Crock-Pot thing for dinner, but for the most part, we ate pizza. Pizza with sausage, pizza with pepperoni, cheesesteak pizza, and don’t even get me started on the stromboli. There were some really great pizza joints in town, and we had them all on speed dial. There were simply no vegetables to speak of, and I don’t even think I knowingly consumed a bean until I moved to California.

I do remember my grandmother and my great-grandmother — or Little Nana and Big Nana, as we called them — making huge Sunday dinners. After having a little Jesus wafer amuse-bouche at church, we rolled on down to the grandparents’ house for the
weekly feast. Homemade pasta, ravioli, meatballs, sausage, tomato sauce, and Italian bread, all from scratch. Their kitchen looked like a bomb had hit it, but the aromas and flavors were out of this world. I can’t imagine what time Big and Little Nana had to get up in the morning to feed fifteen people by noon, but I do know that my other grandmother, on my mom’s side of the family, goes to bed at 6
PM
, wakes up at midnight, and starts cooking. Maybe this is where I get my enjoyment for cooking…and as I age, my sleep schedule seems to be moving in that direction as well.

Back to being a fat, jobless, twenty-six-year-old loser. Oh, I didn’t mention
fat
before? Yeah, I’m about 5 feet 9 inches, and I was pushing 260 pounds at the time. As depressed and directionless as I was, I did see my unemployment as an opportunity to choose a path. My cooking got to the point that I felt just confident enough to serve my food to other humans, and since I had no interest in utilizing my $100,000 public relations degree (something else I know my parents really
loved),
I thought this would be a great time to see exactly how much I enjoyed preparing food, so I tried doing it for a living.

I found an online ad looking for a cook to work at a (now defunct) little cafe in Culver City called On Higher Grounds. It served breakfast, sandwiches, burgers, salads, and soups. I thought these were all things I could handle, so I called. I went in for the interview, and this is where I met the great chef Teri Gooden. She was running the kitchen for her friend who owned the joint. She must have seen something in me during our conversation, or perhaps she was responding to the fact that I offered to work for free, but she hired me on the spot, with zero professional experience.

On Higher Grounds was, for me, more or less a crash course in everything food. I don’t mean just making the dishes; I mean prepping, prioritizing, organizing, taking inventory, produce ordering,
shopping — essentially managing the entire operation of the kitchen. Chef Teri showed me the ropes, teaching me a great deal about not only food but also efficiency and organization. After a couple of months, she began devoting all her time to her catering company, In Good Taste L.A. (she gave me my start, so, yes, she gets a plug — she’s awesome!), and left me to run the cafe. We were staffed with one waitress, one dishwasher, and myself, period. No assistant. No backup. Was it stressful? Yes. Did I want to drive my car off the Santa Monica Pier on a daily basis? Yes. Am I totally awesome for being able to effectively handle all this with no prior experience? Yes. It was also an experience of inestimable value, and I will forever thank Chef Teri for all she taught me…plus, she paid me for every single hour that I worked, which was nice.

Something, however, just didn’t feel quite right. Despite the stresses, I enjoyed doing the job, but I was left feeling somewhat unfulfilled, and I wasn’t sure why. I was feeding people food they wanted, it tasted good, and it was of good quality, but deep down I thought there was almost a frivolousness to it. Not specifically to the food I was preparing there, but to the more complex food that I imagined I would prepare in the future if I continued to more upscale endeavors. I had the mentality more of a home cook than of a professional chef. I didn’t want to be extravagant or wasteful. I wanted there to be more value in the food that I prepared than just tantalizing people’s taste buds, but I didn’t know what other value there could be. This led me to seriously question my career path. As I was writing this section I came across a quotation from Marianne Williamson that pretty much summed up my feelings at the time: “The most important question to ask about any work is: ‘How does this serve the world?’”

Since I’m not on “Oprah’s Favorite Things” mailing list (anymore), I didn’t know who this Marianne Williamson was. But when
one of my hippie Twitter friends tweeted her quote, I was so happy that someone had given me the perfect words to describe my plight at the time that I retweeted it immediately. (By the way, if you don’t know what all this “tweeted,” and “retweeted” stuff is about…congratulations! You have a life!)

Now, don’t worry, we’re getting to the part where I become a supersuccessful vegan cookbook author, but I have to become vegan first.

During my time at On Higher Grounds, I was also aware of Vegin’ Out, a small weekly vegan delivery service that my friend Dan Boissy and his brother owned (where I am currently executive chef ). They were running the business out of their apartment and wanted to expand into a commercial kitchen, so I worked it out that they could rent the kitchen at On Higher Grounds on Sunday nights, when we were closed. They also asked me to cook with them, and I said, “Sure!”

After about six months, they offered me a full-time position doing marketing during the week and prepping the food Sunday nights. I had been at On Higher Grounds for a year and a half, so I was definitely ready to move on. I gave them my two weeks’ notice and became a full-time employee of Vegin’ Out.

Being the only meat eater working for Vegin’ Out, I thought I’d try becoming vegan for a month. Remember, I weighed in at a whopping 260 pounds, and I thought this little, one-month “diet” would give me a solid kick start to getting back into shape. Actually, “getting back into shape” implies that I was once in shape. To clarify, there had been only about forty-eight months of my life where I was actually in shape, and nine of those months I was in utero. So I was really just hoping to get
in
shape.

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