vegan baker

I hate my birthday. I know it is cheesy and sort of melodramatic to feel this way (”oh look at me, I hate to be looked at!”) but I always have. They’ve improved since I switched from a partner who forgot them to one who agonizes over everything he does for me, but I still hate the premise of being looked at and talked to by everyone who happens to know. But while I hate my own birthday, I do love celebrating when other people have them.
    And it’s not just birthdays, really, it is whatever gets you excited. The wonderful thing about making cakes is that people nearly always buy them for happy things. I have brought tears to the eyes of old ladies with their grandchildren’s christening cakes, I’ve made a sister literally shout out with joy at the sight of her younger sibling’s graduation cake (it was a little much), and I’ve made ridiculously debaucherous 21st birthday cakes which I’m certain got big laughs. These are all events I’d have hated had I been central to them, but which were great when all I did was sculpt the cake and step aside.

I think there is a natural tension between vegans and the Slow Food movement. We have a lot in common. We want human diets to be healthier than agrobusiness allows. We see the food we eat as reflecting on our values and principles. I even was initially excited about some of Slow Food’s ongoing projects because I felt they were well-intentioned and worthwhile.

But there’s a memory I have of standing in the Salone di Gusto in Turin, looking at pictures of heirloom pigs and lovingly made sausages, when my ex-boyfriend’s father sneered, “Those piggies haven’t had a hard day in their lives.” The implication being that the reason I am vegan is that I am just too sweet and kindhearted, and it is my hippie weakness that stops me from eating something objectively good. I know those people exist. I suppose I never explained to that man why I really was what I was. But let me say now that even Slow Food showcase pigs don’t tempt me.

In the end, Slow Food means a return to ways that have been in decline for what some seventy years. It is a return to the moral ambiguity of raising animals for slaughter while attempting to treat them as sentient beings. Sure, foodies, put your heirloom cows out to pasture, but our point, in the end, is that we do not need to move backwards. I do not want to do it, and you, fellow rich Americans, do not need to, either.

I lived in Italy for a short while a few years ago. Mostly, food was impossible and frustrating, but there were occasional victories. The big one was called cecina di farinata. It is a pizza-size crepe-like chickpea flour and rosemary savory. (It is called faina on the amazing package above because I am in Argentina now. Also isn’t that the scariest thing you have ever seen?) There are already recipes online. Here is one with a picture, but you’ll have to translate the Italian. Here is one in English, but it was written by the sort of person I would aggressively avoid in a public place, and it tells you to let the mixture rest for four hours, which is excessive. I usually use the recipe from The Silver Spoon.

Anyway, the end product is creamy, mild, and has a texture not unlike cooked eggs. It develops a brown crust and is lush like something fatty without actually being bad for you. Salted and well-done, it stands in for scrambled eggs like nothing else.

I told my father that I want to be a pastry chef. A vegan one. For context, this is the man who asked me at Thanksgiving if I could eat bread. About ten years into my veganism.

But his response was great.

“First off, I was told, frequently, that I’d never starve if I worked in theareas of food, clothing or shelter, as in “there’ll always be a demand.” This is probably still true, and I think your idea could prove to be rewarding, both in terms of how you could earn a living, and what it could lead to, also with respect to said living. You know far better than I whether the preparation of vegan pastries would be, in itself, limiting, but I am confident that you’d be a superior vegan pastry chef, given your capacity to do what it takes to succeed. Again, with no idea of numbers of vegan cake eaters (other than a hazy awareness of what’s available in NYC), I trust your instincts in this matter and look forward to hearing more!”