Thankfully, no one ever told them not to play with their food…

I’m a strong adherent of The McDougall Program, and each month the arrival of their newsletter brings new recipes. I always make at least one of the dishes soon after receiving it. The McDougall Program does focus on health and weight loss, and therefore no oils are generally used, which is why the saute here is with water, not oil.

While I like pushing myself and trying new and exotic recipes, this is what you’ll find in my refrigerator more often than anything else. It’s only met with favorable reviews across the board.

Without further adieu, I bring you:

CARIBBEAN VEGETABLE STEW

This spicy bean stew reheats well so it can be made ahead and refrigerated until needed for mealtime.

Preparation Time: 35 minutes
Cooking Time: 60 minutes
Servings: 8-10

• 1/3 cup water
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 red or green bell pepper, chopped
• 3 cups peeled & chunked sweet potatoes
• 1 15 ounce can tomato sauce
• 1 15 ounce can diced tomatoes with jalapenos
• 1 20 ounce can pineapple chunks with juice
• 2 cups chunked green apples (unpeeled)
• 1 4 ounce can chopped green chilies
• 1⁄2 cup vegetable broth
• 1 15 ounce can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 15 ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 15 ounce can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons chili powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground oregano
• 1⁄4 teaspoon cinnamon

Place the water in a large pot. Add onion and bell pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes. Add sweet potatoes, tomato sauce, tomatoes, pineapple, apples, chilies and vegetable broth. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and cook over low heat for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add beans and seasonings, mix well and continue to cook over low heat for another 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve over brown rice or other whole grains.

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This recipe is found in the January 2004 newsletter. All of the McDougall newsletters/recipes are archived on their website, and you can sign up to receive their free monthly newsletter here.

I look at the pictures first, I’ll admit it.After buying a new book today, I didn’t bother with the index or anything else. Certainly not the text. I’ll get there eventually, sure, but first, it’s about the visual elements.

It’s a weakness, but I never take in one photo for too long before I’m onto the next. And, far too soon, it’s over.

Let me describe the first picture. Just looking at it again and parts of my brain are already firing anew. I’m salivating.

Seven spicy tempeh nori rolls are arranged on a plate. All seven have the rice on the outside of the roll (and I know it’s wrong I forget the name for that. But, I’m being honest here. I could’ve Googled, come back and appeared smart, but I didn’t). Three of the rolls were rolled in black sesame seeds, the other four have some sort of orange-red powder on the outside (cayenne, perhaps?).

The second page is a Portobello Salad with Spicy Mustard Dressing. And, after that, it just gets worse, with subsequent pages adding an inset photo on every page, so that the dominant Baked BBQ Tofu with Apricot Sauce gets less time before you shift to the top right to take in the Hot Sauce-Glazed Tempeh. And we haven’t even hit the seitan yet!

I’ll admit it. I’m into food porn. So far, I stick to the pro stuff: professionally-bound books purchased in stores, with plentiful pictures of mouth-watering dishes. I had some Borders gift cards today, and this is what happened to them. I almost got two books, since I did have another card left, but I stuck to my guns and only bought the one book.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m aware there is a lot of amateur food porn online, but flickr doesn’t really do it for me. If I want to see a bunch of limp porcinis on ugly stoneware in bad lighting, I know it’s available. But, honestly, keep it in your kitchen. I’m not that desperate.

Besides, professional food porn is aspirational. With a recipe, a digital camera, and a Flickr account, I could make my own amateur stuff now. The bar is way too low. And, let’s face it, a lot of stuff on the amateur circuit could never go pro if it tried. I’d rather strive.

Better to make my Potato and Kale Enchiladas with Roasted Chile Sauce three or four times until they look like the photo than just bang out my first attempt at Chickpea Cutlets and think it’s ready for a money shot. Yeah, and next you’ll probably think I’d use non-organic beans from a can, as if…

Now, I do realize that my prowess is more kitchen than camera. And the pros have separate people doing both the cooking and the photography. So, when I do make my Eggplant-Potato Moussaka with Pine Nut Cream, I do take that into account. I won’t be using Photoshop to punch up the translucence of my quinoa.

But, that’s the point. This is about fantasy. I mean, sure, if I go to the French Laundry, it could be like that in real life every night. But Yountville is a total red-light district at this point, and I can’t afford to hire professionals every night.

No, I have to live in the real world most of the time. Some days, the food will taste perfect, but it might not photograph well. Other days, it might be photogenic but the spice balance is off. But, vegan comfort food is like a waiter’s tips at a gourmet restaurant, even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty darned good.

Soon enough, I’ll work my way into this book and try some of the moves myself. It’ll be a bit awkward at first, until I get to know them better. But, before long, it’ll find its own rhythm.

Of course, before I master it, there will be a new book, with new promises, perhaps a unifying theme, and the cycle will begin all over again.

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(Recipe names taken from my new vegan cookbook, just purchased today, Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook, by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero, authors of the amazing Vegan with a Vengeance and Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World.)

The article originally appeared on my own personal website, jeffwalsh.com, on November 8, 2007. Admittedly, moving it to this site sort of loses the reveal that it’s actually food porn, but oh well…

If you’re vegan, you have to have an opinion on PETA. It will come up, guaranteed.

My take has always been that they provide a valuable role, because their outlandishness at least gets the issues of animal cruelty and compassion, as well as vegetarianism, on the nightly news and talked about. No press release put out by the Humane Society or any vegetarian group will get the same attention. The question is, though, does attention lead to results?

I just watched the recent HBO documentary “I Am An Animal: The Story of Ingrid Newkirk and PETA” and found it a pretty compelling piece. You can call Newkirk crazy, but I don’t think you could watch this and doubt her sincerity. She truly believes in everything she is doing.

Watching a board room full of PETA members as they watch footage taken undercover at a Butterball turkey processing plant, and no one in this room is phoning it in. They are horrified and affected on a deep emotional level. At one point, Newkirk is driving her car while being interviewed. Suddenly, she sees a dove on the opposite sidewalk and immediately makes a U-turn. She says they are usually dead but, you never know. The bird is dead, so she gets back in the car and continues her drive, as though this was the most commonplace thing anyone would do in this situation.

As much as I admire the efforts of PETA (and let’s face it, at the end of the day we all have the same vision no matter how we arrive there), I just do not believe people will stop eating meat or being cruel to the animals that aren’t their pets anytime soon. Over the summer, I watched a BBC 3 show called Kill It, Cook It, Eat It,” which was a sort of reality show. Each week focused on a different animal, and invited guests would see the live animal enter a working abattoir. It would then be killed, processed, and butchered while the audience/diners watched every step of the proceedings. The meat was immediately brought into the restaurant side of the building, and a chef would prepare the minutes-old meat for the crowd to enjoy. Without fail, audience members said the same things each week, “I was impressed by how humane the process is.” Now, this was a high-end abattoir and not a factory farm without cameras running, so this meat was probably not what you’d be getting at your local supermarket, but even so, I found the comments telling in that they all spoke to a common understanding: I eat meat, I’m going to continue to eat meat, so I’m glad it is at least killed humanely.

That’s sort of the root of the issue to me. I don’t know that you can go up against “My dog is my friend and that cow is my dinner.”

The documentary also featured footage of Alex Pacheco, who founded PETA with Newkirk. When he first appeared, he immediately seemed to have a more level approach about him. By the documentary’s end, we find out that he had since left PETA and questions the group’s focus on media attention.

I don’t think this documentary will change too many people’s minds, and certainly not the people who already have a clear opinion of the group. But, personally, it did put them in a positive light for me. I respect them more because it let me see behind the publicity stunts and what I saw there was compassionate group expressing itself against almost an entire world opposing them.

As per usual, PETA Board member and comic Bill Maher cuts through the fog and does his usual no-bullshit spin. On the topic of whether PETA crosses the line, he said, “It’s not the worst sin in the world to cross the line. To me, a much worse sin is to never approach the line.”

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For more information on the documentary, visit
http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/iamananimal/. And PETA, of course, is at http://www.peta.org/.