My Meh Reading of Recent

With a title like My Vegan Year, you’d expect a book to either be more of a memoir, or a guide to seasonality. Somehow this book manages to be neither. It is a vegan  guide of sorts, with lists and  general discussion that might be useful, including pantry basics, produce by season (in the UK), and vegan lifestyle (like clothing and skincare).  It’s got some recipes too, but that’s  where things get random.  Each season has some combination of various meals, but there’s no clear reason for why Spring (just for example) has breakfast, drink, 2 dinners, dessert, dinner, lunch, dessert, snack ,dessert, snack with some pauses for New Year’s Resolutions and keeping up on nutrition while being vegan. Summer then goes breakfast, snack, lunch, dinner, dessert, dinner, lunch, dinner, snack, dessert, drink with pauses for growing your own tomatoes and other gardening tips.  The recipes are fine, but not super surprising or interesting. Breakfasts are fruit pancakes in Spring and edamame-pea fritters with corn salsa in Summer.  Drinks are Cucumber (+lime and mint) cooler in spring and an iced mocha float shake in Summer (why is this not dessert?). Dinners in the fall are either black bean chimichanga wraps, squash carbonara, or harissa bean burger (with pauses for how to make jams and canning). Winter snacks might be chocolate candies (mendiants), onion bhaji or cheat samosa (how is using pre-made filo cheating? That stuff scares professionals), and a harissa dip platter (with pauses for staying healthy aka cold remedies). There is also the occasional pause for preaching the benefits of growing your own produce; what this whole thing feels like- an excuse to tell everyone how superior you/it might be in growing your own stuff, while being vegan. Growing your own produce is fine, if you have the time and space, but not everyone has those things (not even counting the equipment and other costs involved). If you want to preach gardening, fine, but actual information on that might be useful beyond a basic how to do tomato? It’s generally a perfectly fine generic vegan recipe collection without a clear organizing principle, and it doesn’t go too far beyond the regular grocery store. That’s about it.