Happy end of semester impulse buy to me (university English teacher here). I have to admit I wasn’t expecting much from The No Meat Athlete Cookbook, since my scan in the bookstore revealed a pretty generic set of recipes, but I went ahead and bought it because it included a sweet red bean recipe and I’ve been wanting something like that (could I have gone internet digging, sure, but that’s a bother), as well as some actually palatable looking diy sports drink options.
Most of the recipes are pretty non-offensive, and it looks like I can cook my way through nearly everything, which is a plus. Plus, on closer inspection, there’s actually a lot more to the recipes that look promising for me and my upcoming summer marathon training (yuck, I live in the South, pray for me). I also really appreciated the “do things as they work for you, which may or may not be the same as for us” (authors use the plural throughout). That means, if I want to ignore the authors’ mostly oil-free recipes such as “Black eyed pea and collard stew with spicy tahini” (sautee veggies sans oil? That’s steaming, not saute, and no browning, imho), I do so with the author’s acknowledgement. Granted, they’d never know if I ignored instructions like that, but the recipe includes instruction for how to do that kind of thing both ways, and I like the assumed flexibility there. I also have to admit, I like the lack of frying (it’s messy and takes forever, and my electric stove is hard to control heat on) that probably comes from the generally oil-free approach.
I also have to admit I like the generic “blue-print” recipes because they include ideas for variation should I want to try something again or don’t like something about an included recipe. Again, I could totally do that on my own, but the acknowledgement means something, and honestly some of the suggestions look interesting. For example, in the salad section, there is a salad dressing “blueprint” with the ratios for acid, oil or creamy factor, and flavorings. The rest of the page includes some suggestions not mentioned in the following recipes for both oil-free and “traditional oil-based” options.
Even though I’m slightly suspicious of the switchel-based sports drink options, I am still tempted to try some of them out since I don’t particularly most Gatorade, PowerAde, or similar; really only the white flavor is ever any good, no matter which brand. I also have to admit I’m kind of intrigued by the diy protein powder blueprint as well. That stuff’s expensive and not always tasty.
I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before in a review, but I sometimes struggle with finding breakfast things I can use since often it’s got to be something that doesn’t require heating and can sit in the car for a while; I also don’t like most breakfast sandwich options (heavy, greasy, etc.), and there’s some decent looking not sweet options, like a savory oatmeal, a brown rice porridge (both potentially room-temp edible), a salad, a grinder, and a chickpea flour quiche.
The one big negative I need to mention though is that in the opening introduction, there’s some weird sections with no word spacing. It’s distracting and kind of a dumb editorial miss.
