Why the book title, Surprise! It’s Vegan?

Have you ever voiced a phrase over and over and adopted that phrase as your go to wording to promote your product or service?

That’s exactly how the title of my cookbook was created. After being a Private Vegan Chef for a few rewarding and enlightening years, I realized I was answering the same questions and providing the same easy solutions to eating healthier. 20 years working at various culinary and restaurant positions motivated me to bring new ideas to the ‘table’ regarding old ways of serving, preparing and promoting event and party-pleasing food consumption, especially in more of an upscale setting. Not just healthier, but shocking people (in a good way) with the comfort food tastes they grew up with or thought that they were missing by choosing vegan food.

50 percent of my customers were surprisingly meat eaters. I would look back at my year and study the demographics of who was booking my service. To my surprise, it was half and half. I loved providing my vegan food services to my plant eater customers, because they were decisive in their menu choices and already familiar with how satisfying vegan food was to consume and they also supported the ethics that were important to me. However, the meat eater customers were more of the customer-type that needed to be impressed with the choices they did not know were available. The meat eater customer would often say, “I can’t believe there are no eggs in this – it tastes even better than the traditional dish!” Also, the meat eater customer would comment frequently about how they did not miss the dairy or the meat. This interaction, between the two different types of customers, would inspire me to consistently create new menus and dishes centered around infusing new flavors and meat-like textures to my repertoire.

The only challenges I did face when marketing to and providing vegan food services to my customers were always based on customizing their experience. For example, maybe a customer wanted a “Mexican Themed Dinner Party”, did the partygoers have a gluten allergy? Did they have certain vegetables that were an allergy or a dislike? When creating menus – this is very important. The importance is revealed by how well you tailor the menu and experience to match the energy and overall attitude of your guests.

For that reason and many other scenarios, adapting to everyone’s food preferences doesn’t have to be unattainable task. Keeping the menu simple, but exciting is possible! Making everything pretty doesn’t hurt anything either. The name of this book and it’s message flows freely through its pages. 44 recipes are not an overwhelming number of recipes. You can easily choose your favorites by not being inundated with too many complicated choices. Whether you are a new vegan or a flexitarian, your friends, co-workers or family will be surprised the recipe you just created is vegan. Not the negative icky vegan food that gets a bad rap, but the fresh, thrilling surprise of plant-centric comfort food that pleases the soul and creates a true appetizing experience.