I love to cook and create in the kitchen. I love teaching and spreading the word of Veganism just as much. In the past year I have seen many other bloggers getting their certification to be Health/Lifestyle Coaches. The idea of this career choice seems a perfect fit for me, except for the fact that I have been self-employed in the past and absolutely suck at it. Mostly because I am terrible at self promotion.

With my career I change locations often and at every place I have worked for the past ten plus years there has always been at the very least another vegetarian if not vegan working with me, until now. Not one. Well at least not when I started there six months ago. Over the course of the past months I have been approached by quite a few people about being vegan and the normal questions regarding the health factors and getting enough of what their bodies need to survive.

A few decided that they were going to try it out the first of the year to see how hard it was. Others are interested, but simply don’t know where to start, others want to incorporate more plant-based meals into their lives. Learning this, I decided to open up my kitchen to teach them basics and how easy and inexpensive cooking vegan can be. To help solidify how easy it really is, I had my nine-year old daughter help teach the class. There was no charge for the class.  All that was required was an open mind.

Everyone loved the food, including the guy who had never had a meal that didn’t include meat. In fact, he was the first to ask when the next class was. Do I expect him to ever go vegan? Heck no. What I do know is that he can honestly say that vegan food can be delicious, it filled him up without animal products, and he won’t fear the vegan. Plus, maybe he will opt to eat more meals without meat in the future.

As much as I would like to convert the world to a vegan lifestyle, I know it is not an over night process. However, by educating and sharing, I can create tolerance and make people crave more vegan food.

The menu for the night featured the following recipes:
Cream of Mushroom Soup
Pea and Hearts of Palm Salad
Scalloped Potatoes
A Nut Loaf, complements of the Magical Loaf Studio
Garlic Cheesy Bread
Maple Creme Brulee (though I have made creme brulee in the past, this one was not blog worthy)

I will be hosting another class this month. It will be a raw class. I will continue teaching them every month until I run out of people interested in learning. If you are in the Salem, Oregon area and want to participate let us know. We’d love to have you.