What we’re about
Hi Everyone,
Lately I’ve been making a concerted effort to:
A. Dramatically improve my health
B. Find my people in Arizona
To quote Wayne: “If you can be one thing, you should be efficient.”
So, after searching around Meetup and seeing that no group already existed around here that I felt ticked both boxes, I decided to create this one.
We can work out specifics prior to our first event, but here are the basics:
1. A few people head over to my place
2. We cook some delicious, plant-based/vegan food together
3. We eat the food that we just cooked
FAQ
Q: Do I have to be vegan to join?
A: Absolutely not. If you want to cook, meet people, and try some food that you might not have otherwise, you are welcome to join.
Q: Are you going to charge people to come to events?
A: Probably, but I'm thinking like $10-15 dollars, just to help defray the cost of groceries. It's not a $5 Biggie Bag, but I promise our food will be much tastier and far less likely to cause diabetes.
Q: What kind of food are we going to make?
A: I've been working my way into the WFPB lifestyle thanks largely to the work of Dr. Michael Greger (a personal hero of mine). He has a wealth of information available on his site, but the broad strokes are to focus on whole plant foods. I've never really cooked with tofu/tempeh/seitan (maybe you have some recipes that will open that door for me), so my recipes tend to be heavy on vegetables, fruit, beans, and legumes. You won't see meat replacements like beyond sausage or plant-based chicken nuggets here. We might make some plant-based versions of familiar foods like veggie burgers or chickpea meatloaf or buffalo cauliflower, but the goal is to make delicious, healthy food, not to make a taste facsimile of a chicken wing - and who would want to? Eating food off of bones has always made me shiver.
Q: Why the age range?
A: Part of me feels bad about putting that in the name, but this is where the "finding my people" piece comes in. Obviously, I want this group to be successful and for us to have a great time and eat some awesome food, but my end goal is to find some like-minded people that I'd enjoy spending time with outside of my house too. I live in a building where the average age is probably 60, so I've got my interactions with seniors merit badge sewn up, but look - I'm not checking IDs - if you're in your 20s or 50s and think this is a good fit for you, give it a shot.
Q: Anything else I should know?
A: A few things:
1. I have a 75lb dog at home. He is very sweet, but very large and can get overly excited when meeting new people. I'll keep him at bay, but if you hate or are terrified by dogs, best to sit this one out.
2. I've been cooking since I was 10. I worked in a handful of professional kitchens before deciding to leave that life, but I did not go to culinary school. If you are a professional chef that will be annoyed by how the rest of us are chopping onions, you probably won't be happy here.
3. I have a small place that will probably max out at somewhere in the range of 4-6 of us, but my unit is next to the community room in the building. If somehow there are more than 3-5 people out there that were interested in the concept AND not turned off by reading all of the above, we can probably get some bigger groups together in there.