About

This is me.  

This page is about me.

On Cooking:

I love the idea of cooking!  Who doesn’t love eating freshly made dishes…pizza hot from the oven, golden tofu crisp from the stove, homemade gelato from the freezer?  However, the reality is that I find cooking takes quite a bit of energy.  I’m a slow moving person.  I’m also a thinker, and the idea of taking out all my ingredients and equipment, prepping and chopping everything, actually cooking, then cleaning everything up can be overwhelming.  I still love cooking, but sometimes I just want to eat without all the fuss.  So, I write recipes that reflect this idea…making really delicious food as efficiently as possible.  You aren’t going to dirty half your kitchen with my recipes! I have all kinds of tips and tricks to save bowls, equipment and steps and I think of more every time I cook.  If you don’t love to cook, but still love the *idea* of cooking, I TOTALLY GET IT.  If you can’t get your husband, partner, girlfriend, sister or roommate to cook for you, try some of my recipes if you are in the mood.  Feel free to share any of your efficiency tips and tricks with me, too.  I’ll take any shortcuts I can get.  Almost sounds like I don’t like cooking, huh?  I know.

Here I am making VCCCO Cookies with my son.  See?  I'm cooking!

On Eating:

I’m a *mostly* vegan eater, cooker and shopper.  Plant foods agree with me and I love all the benefits of plant foods for the environment, the animals, and for our public and personal health.  I also buy vegan friendly products for my home and hearth.  Sometimes, though, for various reasons that I won’t bore you with, I do eat animal foods.  Don’t judge!  It gives me flexibility if I am out on the town, rids me of anxiety about trace ingredients in foods that I didn’t personally prepare, and lets me relax and enjoy my food.  I also prefer local and organic ingredients whenever possible. You can call this "mostly vegan, mostly organic, mostly local" eating style whatever you like. You can say I’m a plant-based person, a flexitarian, an organic locavore, a vegan wannabe, or whatever feels right to you.  This blog, however, is 100% vegan.  And I totally respect that decision.

On Reading:

I am a voracious reader.  I have piles of books all over my house, even  a pile in my bed (yes, *in* my bed).   I love reading cookbooks, food memoirs,  anything food related.  Thankfully, my town’s library has an extensive cookbook collection that I hit hard and often.  I am also a therapist (I'm a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, or LCSW) who likes thinking about therapy.  I like researching for my clients (and for my family, who comprise half my caseload) so I always have something from the psychology section in my piles. Those books sometimes draw suspect looks from the librarian.  I can see her wheels turning as she is checking me out…Are you a hoarder? Why are you checking out six books on depression?  Anyway, I also love reading and writing poetry.  I think poetry needs a reality show, something to boost its popularity among the masses.
I’m the only one at the pool reading Denise Levertov?  That’s just not right.

On Writing:

Beware!  I use two spaces between my sentences even though the new standard is one space.  I'm getting old, I need those two spaces.

On Photography:

I like to photograph food in its natural habitat.  I photograph my food in my actual kitchen and dining room on actual tables and counters on actual dishes and plates.  Then, I eat the actual food. I’m not really into the current (and seemingly endless) photography craze of putting food on top of weathered wooden boards.  Don’t get me wrong, I like some style!  It’s just that I’ve even seen bloggers literally putting their food *on the floor* to get this effect.  Folks, seriously, it’s not necessary.  If you are addicted to seeing food on top of wooden boards, I know of some helpful books that you can borrow from the library.

OMP (Oh My Pizza!)

On Vegan Fazool:

This is a fun vegan blog with a ferocious focus on plants.  Here we have plants as food (delicious do-again vegan recipes and real-life pictures, lots of ‘fu!), plants as growing, living things (gardening, my CSA share), plants as delish products I find at the store, plants as medicine (think Dr. Greger) and plants in restaurants (think restaurant visits and reviews).  Stop by anytime for food, fun and ‘fu (tofu, of course).  Comments and questions are welcome and I try to respond to all of them. You can also find me on Facebook under my real name (Dawn Carlock, there! I said it!), which is my personal FB page, but it's fine. You can “follow” me there or friend me. My personal Twitter is @DawnCarlock and I'm Vegan Fazool on Pinterest.  I put blog updates on all three virtual time sucks, so you can find me on any one of them, though I mostly hang out on FB.  I’ve also started doing some videos, which are really fun! Techniques, tastings and tryings can be found (for now!) on my personal YouTube channel.  A YouTube channel just for VF is coming soon.

Please note: this blog is for entertainment purposes only.  Read at your own risk.  

Enjoy!

Dawn