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Hot For Food blogger Lauren Toyota rocks Vegan Comfort Classics cookbook

TV personality and Hot For Food blogger Lauren Toyota has just released her first cook book, Vegan Comfort Classics, featuring 101 plant-powered recipes.

Lauren Toyota grew up being the odd kid out whose mom brought home soy milk and carob from the health food store. Luckily her mother also passed on a love of cooking, but Toyota has managed to take her own connection to food to a whole new level.

A well-known TV personality and blogger, Toyota has just released her first cook book, Vegan Comfort Classics.

 Lauren Toyota (Photo courtesy Penguin Random House)Lauren Toyota (Photo courtesy Penguin Random House)

Having volleyed her eating habits as a teenager and young adult between omnivore, Toyota finally took the plunge and went vegan, and as part of her journey to embrace her new way of eating, she launched a blog and YouTube channel called Hot For Food.

Toyota recently came to Vancouver as part of her book tour, doing a slew of media interviews, TV appearances, and book signings, and hosting a dinner at Mount Pleasant's Juice Truck store. She sat down to chat with us at the Vancouver Is Awesome office.

A post shared by Lauren Toyota (@laurentoyota) on

"It was always my destiny to be vegan," Toyota explains.

Toyota, who many may recognize from not only her YouTube channel and blog, but also her stints on MuchMusic and MTV Canada, had gone through a mind-opening phase of reading and watching a number of books and films that many recent plant-based converts cite as influential: Food Inc., The Omnivore's Dilemma, The Kind Diet.

Food access, corrupt food systems, and a love of animals, teamed with years of grappling with experiencing physical illness after eating meat, brought Toyota to a point where she finally felt she could cross the line.

Her last vice, though: Cheese.

Knowing she was getting ready to quit being an omnivore, Toyota confesses she "went full glutton," on a trip to the States, getting a farewell taste of things like fried chicken and wings. Sure, she got wicked sick, but she worked it out of her system, and was inspired to find a way to tap into those textures and flavours without animal products.

Here's where the love of cooking paid off; to figure out how to enjoy the same comforting foods she used to eat as a vegetarian or omnivore, Toyota got in the kitchen and tried to crack the code for creating dairy-free cream sauces and the like.

One of her most popular recipes from Hot For Food is the "cover girl" Buffalo Cauliflower Sandwich. It's a towering beast where the star is a sideways slab of cauliflower, breaded, baked, then finished in a Buffalo-style hot sauce, perched between buns, served with a vegan ranch dressing, pickled onion, pickles, lettuce, and tomato. The sandwich is punchy, decadent, filling, and totally crave-worthy, in addition to being an Instagram superstar.

 Buffalo Cauliflower Sandwich (Photo courtesy Penguin Random House)Buffalo Cauliflower Sandwich (Photo courtesy Penguin Random House)

And that's the sweet spot for Toyota, whose book is packed with pages of standouts like the sandwich: Mac and Cheese stuffed onion rings, loaded fries, nachos, "Crab-less" cakes, a Po'Boy, and all kinds of baked goods.

"It seemed like everybody was getting book deals," says Toyota of a time a couple of years back when food bloggers with big social followings were really hitting their stride. But Toyota didn't want to put a book out just for the sake of it, so she waiting until she felt the partnership was right.

Vegan Comfort Classics took about six months to prep, and is packed with 101 recipes, many of which Toyota developed just for the book. She started out with what she calls a "wish list" of dishes as her table of contents, and just knocked them out steadily, day after day. Toyota photographed her own dishes, and orchestrated her own recipe testing, sending out batches of 10 or so recipes to a handful of trusted friends and bloggers around the globe.

 Tofu Benny with Hollandaise (Photo courtesy Penguin Random House)Tofu Benny with Hollandaise (Photo courtesy Penguin Random House)

For current vegans or the plant-based curious, a book like Toyota's Vegan Comfort Classics is an easy way to get in the kitchen and see what it's like to try creating crave-able eats without any animals.

Toyota has a low tolerance threshold for people who are quick to point out that some store-bought vegan products are highly processed, or who can't get their heads around why vegans want to create and eat foods that typically are made with meat or dairy, or who are overly concerned about protein levels in a vegan diet.

"Why are we nitpicking this plant-forward movement?" Toyota says. She points out that if you put a processed vegan cheese slice next to its dairy-based counterpart, the vegan one tends to have fewer ingredients, and those ingredients aren't "weird chemicals."

"We're socially conditioned to consume meat and eggs and we can't possibly see any other way," she says of critical omnivores. Instead, Toyota hopes that more people understand that eating more plants can be better for your body and the environment. She sees the store-bought replicas of familiar animal-based foods as "good transitional foods," people can use as they go through a "re-education" of how to shop, cook, and eat as a vegan.

Then, says Toyota, you can move away from those staples, and get cooking. That's where her book comes in very handy.

And of course, the 101 recipes in the book are just what she was able to accomplish this time around.

"I still have a whole list of things I haven't made," says Toyota--great news for those already hungry for a sequel from the Hot For Food kitchen. But for now, Toyota is focusing on her first book, and hopes to get back to Vancouver again in the summer.

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Speaking of Vancouver, while Toyota was in town for a few days, she did some excellent eating.

"Vancouver is very plant-forward and plant-friendly," Toyota observes. Where did she eat? Chickpea, Kokomo, The Juice Truck, The Arbor, and Virtuous Pie, to name a few. Excellent choices.

Lauren Toyota's Vegan Comfort Classics cookbook is available at booksellers all over Vancouver and online.