Customer Reviews

La Dolce Vegan!: Vegan Livin' Made Easy

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Le Dolce Vegan, the third cookbook by Sarah Kramer is a true joy. I have over three hundred cookbooks, but Sarah's blow my socks off. They're also some of the ones I use the most, even when cooking for non-vegans. Why?

Her books are not only full of the most delicious, mouthwatering recipes ever, but they are also full of cook cooking tips, nifty crafts, pop culture, and humor. This and the two preceding books she did with Tanya Bernard I have read though and through before I ever cooked out of them, just because they're fun! Sarah is also down to earth, and her books aren't preachy like other vegan books. No guilt trips here. Just good food. How good?

Wow! Not only is this book full of many yummy general recipes, the deserts in this book are to die for. Yum! Sarah also tells us how to make our own faux meat from scratch, so no more having to buy the pricey stuff from the heath food store. 95% of the ingredients used are simple things every grocery store has, and when something even semi-exotic is used, a common counterpart that can be substituted is named. Most of the recipes make 4 small or 2 large helpings, and can be made in 20-30 minutes. I appreciate this so much!

I know that I'm ranting on and on, I just literally can't say enough about Sarah or this book. If you or someone you know is vegan, or even if you want to eat healthier, I can't recommend this book enough! It's just too much fun!

There are lots of reasons to love this cookbook: the aesthetics, the fashion tips, the motivational text. But the real reason you should own this cookbook---and the two previous volumes as well, which were co-authored by Kramer---is the fact that the recipes rock: they are simple, creative, easy and delicious. So many cookbooks are inaccessible in that they are unrealistic: yes, the recipes might be wonderful, fanstastic, even inpirational, but most of us want fast and simple. There are some "complex" recipes in here, too, but for the most part, these are dishes that are in the 30-minute- or-less range. Sadly, a lot of the better vegan cookbooks out there are very involved, time-consuming and full of obscure ingredients.

That said, this cookbook is not perfect. It could stand one more good editing. I could list all of the small mistakes I found (such as places where ingredients were listed, and then not mentioned in the actual part where you assemble/cook the recipe). But these omissions are minor, and there aren't many of them. Little mistakes in cookbooks can spell disaster, but the oversights, at least the ones I've found, are all obvious and inconsequential.

My biggest suggestion for this cookbook would be more tips on how to improvise some of the dishes (Vegan With A Vengeance is full of suggestions on how to alter recipes based on what's sitting around in the refrigerator). Several of the recipes I've made lend themselves to a multitude of variations. This would have made an already good cookbook great.

As an enthusiastic fan of How it all Vegan and Garden of Vegan, I'm sorry to say I was very disappointed with this book. La Dolce Vegan is overloaded with stirfrys and other simple recipes you could pretty much figure out for yourself. There are also a lot redundant recipes for the same dish, and just silly fluff like chocolate-covered pretzels that nobody needs a cookbook to make. There may some gems in this book, but they get lost in a sea of what seems to be filler.

Also, I would have to agree that it is pretty obnoxious that there are more pictures of Sarah Kramer being cute and quirky than there are pictures of the actual food, especially since many of the recipes are credited to other people.

I was once told that a cookbook is a good purchase if you find just a handful of recipes that you enjoy enough to start making regularly, but I didn't find any such recipes with this book. I didn't even pick up any useful cooking tips. Pick up the first two books from this author if you like, but skip this one.

I used to own all of Sarah Kramer's books, but have given them away. They came highly recommended, but I found them to be too simple, and almost insulting. I mean, does a person really need a burrito recipe, or a fruit smoothie recipe?

Plus, many of these recipes were contributed by fans, and since I got iffy results from them (and have friends who got the same iffy results), it makes me wonder if they were even kitchen tested before being considered for the book.

Unrelated to the recipes----I would have preferred if investments had been made in a few really nice, color photographs of the FINISHED DISHES, rather than multiple, black & white photos of the author. Is it a cookbook, or a personal photo album?

I am a fan of the previous two cookbooks in this series, but this one doesn't have much new to offer. Many of the recipes are from other people and there seems to be a lot of typos, which makes me doubt that all of the recipes were tested. Also the author's photo is on almost every page. Shouldn't the photos be of the food? Or how about no photos at all? It's distracting and self-absorbed. The index, as in the previous two Sarah Kramer vegan cookbooks, is virtually useless. There are no footers on the pages, so you have to page to a section's start page to know where you are in the book. There are some good recipes but I don't think I will buy Kramer's inevitable sequel.

So you know how the internet is chock full of weird recipes by everyone and their grandmother involving ketchup and mustard as the main seasoning ingredients and how most of it tastes only palatable?

Well, sadly, that's this cookbook in a nutshell.

I've tried six of these recipes and they all failed to pass muster in much the same way unrated recipes off the internet tend to. This doesn't surprise me too much since most of the recipes are actually recipes sent to the author by her fans and her friends. A nice thought but she really should have done some serious culinary editing. If a free recipe I've jacked from some website bombs I just shrug my shoulders - I should have known better. If a recipe from a cookbook I've payed about 20 bucks for bombs I get a little tetchy.

Sometimes people don't like a vegan or vegetarian recipe because they've never eaten tofu before or think that tahini is the misspelled name of a pacific island and why is it being called for in this recipe?! Sometimes people just aren't used to the way carob chips taste and get testy when they were expecting them to taste EXACTLY like chocolate chips. This is not my problem. I've been vegetarian for 12 years, vegan for 1 year, I grew up in a hippie household eating health food and I've been cooking for myself since I was ten.

I feel sad about having to write such an unfavorable review. Sarah seems like someone I would really like and the book does have a section of fun vegan stuff (plus cute retro pics of Sarah) that aren't without merit. However since her book is marketed as a COOKbook and not a neat-vegan-stuff book I feel obligated to warn other not terribly wealthy vegans to save their cash. If you want to know how to make a vinyl cuff that says vegan on it or think pictures of Sarah Kramer being silly are worth 15 dollars than go for it. If you want delicious vegan recipes look elsewhere.

I ordered this book sight unseen, because I have her other two cookbooks, and I was not disappointed. This cookbook is great. I only found one typo (Wolffie's brownies need 1 1/4 cups of flour, not 1 cup; Wolffie let me know herself). Every recipe has been easy and my omni friends and relatives love them and don't even realize they're vegan recipes. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Not sure exactly where the recent negative feedback is coming from on this book. I've been vegan for over ten years now. When my omnivorous guy and I got engaged, my mother-in-law didn't know anything about veganism or vegan cooking but was incredibly open to it--she thought it was an interesting new culinary challenge (yup, I lucked out in MIL department). This was one of two cookbooks she got.

Let me tell you, the recipes out of this book are AMAZING. They are very easy--anything that requires over 30 min of prep time is marked with a little clock, and the ingredients are very accessible. My MIL, with minimal experience cooking vegan, has made incredible feasts with this book.

For example, not only did she use it for holidays (Thanksgiving & Christmas); this cookbook was also the basis for a vegan-friendly bachelor party on the request of one of my fiancee's friends--all with fantastic results. Friends of ours have asked for the recipe to the fantastic chocolate frosting that for once isn't made out of chocolate chips, and the cake (a depression-era crazy cake with tofu that even my tofu-phobic brothers enjoyed and asked for more) to go with it. Just a moment ago, I finished a lunch of leftover fantastic peanutty soup that I made from a recipe in this book. I think we've found one recipe in the book that didn't really work well (a pie crust recipe), but everything else we've tried so far has been GREAT. In fact, MIL loaned us the book, and I am hard-pressed to give it back any time soon :)

Some recipes make a lot of food, but I like Sarah's idea of just inviting over friends for a dinner party to use it up, or I just freeze/chill it and eat it for lunch at work. I especially appreciate Sarah creating recipes that use whole cans of ingredients. Recipes that require half the can, leaving you to strategize using it up or leaving it to rot forgotten in the back of the fridge, drive me crazy.

I also appreciate that Kramer is very down-to-earth and not preachy--being vegan is at least as much about celebrating fantastic food as it is making a political point.

Sorry to gush. Yes, the recipes are easy, and sometimes, yes, they could be things that you might come up on your own. But for those of us with "cook's block", or those new to vegan cooking, this is a very good start.

I love the overall content of this book. The recipes I've tried have been delicious, it's written in a laid-back, fun kind of way, and the author gives you recipes or substitutions to make a lot of the ingredients that aren't so easy to find (for example, there are five different ways to replace eggs and she actually tells you how to make faux meat from scratch). I don't have a problem with the fact that many of the recipes were written by people besides the author--it doesn't mean they don't taste good! There is just one reason it probably won't get as much use as the other vegan books I've recently... it has just about the worst, most incomplete index I've ever seen It's frustrating because I constantly rely on indexes to find ways to use up food I have that needs to be used up, and indexes are what I use to I find a recipe quickly if I don't remember where I saw it. But when I searched for both "garam" and "masala" there was no reference to either of her recipies for the spice mix, and her "Simple oatmeal cookies" couldn't be found by looking up "oats" or "oatmeal." Oh, and adding nutritional information wouldn't be a bad idea either....

I'm not going to rave and rave about this book like everyone else. It is merely "aw-ight." I do appreciate Kramer's commitment to veganism and her personal thoughts about that, but the many, MANY pictures of her on, like, every other page get corny after a while. Many of the recipes are things that any halfway creative person that had a clue could pull together on their own. I think the book could have used some editing, both for bulk (like nixing some of these no-brainer recipes) and for correctness: there is a recipe for a sauce that tells the reader to mix two powdered ingredients in a blender and makes no mention of water or any liquid. Hello!?!