Recently learned about the American Airlines rewards at shell, where you receive 3 miles per gallon of gas purchased.
It looks like United used to have a similar program with BP but all the information online is from 7-8 years ago. Does this program still exist and if so, how does it work?
Recently saw an instagram series where folks were "Trying restaurants from every country, all in Chicago."
What are your Cincinnati suggestions for restaurants in the region with less common cuisines? And of course, what should folks order?
Made this vegan bean salad for meal prep this week; I would love suggestions of other dense bean salads! It's the season!
Mediterranean Bean Salad from https://justinecooksvegan.com/mediterranean-dense-bean-summer-salad/ Recipe in a commnt
Each week, I get a plant-based cookbook from the local library and try to cook one new recipe.
This week's cookbook is Vegan Japan by Julia Boucachard, which was originally published in French as Japon Vegan. The author, Julia, is bicultural French and Japanese through her parents. She runs the Mori Cafe in Paris, a Vegan-Japanese restaurant with a beautiful instagram, which opened in 2020. You can view a copy of her menu (with pictures) online.
Japanese food can sometimes be difficult for plant-based folks due to the hidden nature of dashi and bonito flakes, neither of which are traditionally vegan. It was with this difficulty in mind that Julia began veganizing her mother's traditional Japanese recipes. Those recipes ultimately led to the opening of her cafe in Paris, which showcases seasonal Japanese vegan foods.
The cookbook includes some great sauce recipes including mitarashi sauce, ponzu sauce, and demi-glace sauce. There are also plenty of main plant based dishes and desserts. I love that there is an entire Japanese street food section including yakisoba and onigiri. This week I'm going to make the green bean shiraae and a sauce or two.
Overall, this cookbook is a beautiful collection of vegan Japanese recipes. At only 155 pages and 70 recipes, it feels accessible to folks wanting to explore Japanese food for the first time and still interesting to those who are more familiar.
Previous cookbooks of the week include:
As always, I'll try to answer questions about the book and love to read comments from other people that have liked it as well.
My family thinks this is a little excessive, so I'd love to hear the group's thoughts.
Current Cards: Chase Sapphire Preferred (have 15k points) and Chase United Explorer (<1000 miles). Credit score = 800
I have a big international trip planned coming up in the Fall. I cashed all my award miles in for a great flight to and from Asia and will visit several countries. On the way back, I'll have a long layover at DTW. I was looking into nearby hotels and noticed they have a Hyatt inside the airport with rooms for $381.
The World of Hyatt has an annual fee of $95 and they have two different sign on bonus offers:
Earn up to $350 Statement Credits and earn 5,000 bonus points. Receive up to $350 in statement credits for purchases at Hyatt charged to your card within the first 12 months from account opening
OR 30,000 Bonus Points after you spend $3,000 on purchases in your first 3 months from account opening. Plus, up to 30,000 More Bonus Points by earning 2 Bonus Points total per $1 spent in the first 6 months from account opening on purchases that normally earn 1 Bonus Point, on up to $15,000 spent.
I don't typically stay in Hyatts or Hiltons while traveling, which is why I don't have either of those cards. But would it be ridiculous to get the card just for a cheaper night then to cancel it in a few months after the trip.
The hotel says 'award category five' and if I attempt to book with points, it gives the option of 'World of Hyatt- Free Night Award from 20,000'. If I do get the credit card, would the first $350 statement balance be best rather than the bonus points, I'm nervous if I do the bonus points it'll be 'from 20,000' points and be a lot more.
I'm dragging an out of town friend to the Appalachian festival this weekend. They're European and it will be their first time having both Appalachian food and traditional US fair food. Any recommendations for can't-miss foods? I want them to have the full cultural experience.
Each week, I get a plant-based cookbook from the local library and try to cook one new recipe.
This week's cookbook is Seed to Plate, Soil to Sky by Lois Ellen Frank. Lois is a Kiowa and Sephardic food anthropologist, chef, and cookbook author based in Santa Fe, New Mexico (USA). She won a James Beard award in 2003 for her work Foods of the Southwest Indian Nations, which documented indigenous food culture and recipes.
Her newest book, Seed to Plate, Soil to Sky is a plant-based exploration of Ancestral Native American cuisine. The book was written in collaboration with her co-chef Walter Whitewater (Diné / Navajo). Together they run Red Mesa Cuisine, a Native American catering company, in Santa Fe. For those wanting to explore Indigenous cooking, they have a recipe collection on their website.
Seed to Plate, Soil to Sky focuses on "the story of eight plants that Native people gave to the world: corn, beans, squash, chiles, tomatoes, potatoes, vanilla, and cacao". The cookbook is organized in sections by each of these main ingredients. Recipes include more modern indigenous twists on foods such as pumpkin and ginger scones and traditional foods such as blue corn tortillas and posole with red chile. This week I'll be trying her sweet potato and carrot soup, as it's been a bit unseasonably chilly here.
Overall, this cookbook honors a food culture grounded in resilience and historically centered on plant-based foods. The cookbook is more than a collection of recipes, its a call for us all to understand Traditional Ecological Knowledge and support the reclaiming of ancestral foods.
Previous cookbooks of the week include:
As always, I'll try to answer questions about the book and love to read comments from other people that have liked it as well. This week's post is a bit early due to the holiday weekend.
The Zero Waste Chef by Anne Marie Bonneau.
The author also a website: https://zerowastechef.com/
Read {the 13th Zodiac by Cassidy Penn} after seeing it recommended on this subreddit. It's the first book I've read by this author.
I loved the fact that the badass FMC actually leaves after the MMCs mistreat her. The MMCs mess up, betray her, she's devastated, and then she actually does something about it. There are just so many endless books where the MMCs are huge jerks for most of the book with a lukewarm forgiveness scene and just not enough grovel. I keep finding myself wanting to throw my kindle across the room and shout 'leave them!'
Spoilers:>!The MMCs think that she had been manipulating them to fall in love with her, but she was set up. They proceed to try to break the bonds by sleeping around, not realizing that she can feel everything. By the time they figure it out, she is transferring to another academy and has already been introduced to the new harem. I think by the end, there will be a reconciliation and both harems will integrate. !<
Only the first book is out yet with the second planned for release in October 2026. Edit: The author's FB group says, "This is a fast release trilogy, and all books will be live by July 2026." Then posted on April 27th, "Book 2 is almost here! Only days away!"
Would love to support a locally owned flower shop or plant store this Mother's Day. Thanks in advance!
Recently finished Bloom & Blood (The Second Fate of Elodie Devine series) by Eva Chase and loved it! However, the second book in the series is not coming out until the end of July.
In Bloom & Blood, the FMC is torn from her original universe to an alternative dimension. In her original world, one mate had already died and the FMC and MMCs lived in poverty as outcasts. She's brought to the new dimension because her doppelgänger has passed away, giving her a second chance with her mates.
Any recommendations for other series set in alternative universes? I had also liked Isla Davon's series as well.
{Bloom & Blood by Eva Chase}
Each week, I get a plant-based cookbook from the local library and try to cook one new recipe.
This week's cookbook is Big Vegan Flavor by Nisha Vora. Nisha's Rainbow Plant Life is a treasure trove of amazing recipes. Her youtube channel has 1.53 million subscribers and her instagram has 1.1 million, all for her amazing vegan recipes. Nisha is also a contributor for the New York Times Cooking section, bringing an important vegan voice to a mainstream cooking outlet.
Her cookbook, Big Vegan Flavor is a full 5.3 pounds (2.4 kg) and 608 pages of vegan recipes. And yes, I did weigh the cookbook! However, the true strength of her cookbook is not just the recipes themselves but the first 150 pages of techniques and strategies to bring true flavor to vegan cooking. She discusses the fine details of everything from aromatics by cuisine, to incorporating chiles into cooking, to enhancing flavor with plant based acids. The next section is on understanding the building blocks of recipes by combining condiments, proteins, grains, and veggies. The book then wraps up with 200 more pages of recipes spanning from salads to brunches to sweet treats. Hidden in the very back of the cookbook is a short section on 'fancy time menus' where she lists out what recipes to use for special occasions including spring dinner parties, Mother's Day Brunch, and summer picnics.
I always borrow my books from the library, cook a few recipes (and copy them into my recipe book), then return the library book. This is one I'll be purchasing for my own collection so I can slowly cook my way through the book. For folks wanting to try just a recipe or two, I suggest her Lentil Bolognese or her noodle salad with rainbow veggies (I'll be making this one for meal prep this week).
Overall, Big Vegan Flavor is an amazing resource for anyone wanting to up their vegan cooking and bring it to the next level. The book is an intimidating behemoth of techniques and recipes, but it's worth sitting down and reading through.
Previous cookbooks of the week include:
As always, I'll try to answer questions about the book and love to read comments from other people that have liked it as well.
Songs are organized by year from 1945 to 2023, with each color representing a different genre
Ran out of time today for grocery shopping and meal prep.
Each week, I get a plant-based cookbook from the local library and try to cook one new recipe.
This week's cookbook is The Modern Mountain Cookbook: A Celebration of Appalachia by Jan A. Brandenburg. One of the most beautiful but misunderstood regions of the United States, Appalachia is known for its delicious (but typically non-vegan) food. Historically either forgotten about entirely or looked down upon, Appalachia has faced generations of economic and environmental exploitation.
Jan is a vegan and Eastern Kentucky native; her cookbook celebrates Appalachian culture and veganizes a cuisine that might be less known to folks outside the region. She has a small instagram and website with just a few recipes as well. You can listen to a public radio interview with her here. Interestingly, Jan isn't a food influencer or blogger like our other authors, she's a full-time pharmacist.
Her cookbook includes comfort food dishes that will be more familiar such as banana pecan waffles but also regional specialties such as Hoppin' John Salad (a southern black-eyed pea salad) and Potato Rolls (a type of bread roll with potato in the dough). The cookbook also reads like an old-school style cookbook, the kind where the recipes are right after another rather than on separate pages and there are no glossy pictures.
This week, I'm looking forward to making her desserts such as half-moon pies and no bake chocolate cookies. There are a ton of main courses and veggie-based sides, but this cookbook really inspired my sweet tooth.
Overall, the Modern Mountain Cookbook is a delicious celebration of Appalachian culture and cuisine. It's a wonderful reference to those wanting to re-experience dishes from their childhood but also a fantastic introduction to a lesser known food culture.
Previous cookbooks of the week include:
As always, I'll try to answer questions about the book and love to read comments from other people that have liked it as well.