Then and now, we've appreciated every kind of chef who's cooked from this book. It's now a household word, and occasional kitchen tool, the vegan culinary world over. Veganomicon-a title our metalhead friend Dro devised, which hinted at the vast, epic place vegan food would occupy in the culinary universe ten years later-no longer is whispered only on vegan message boards. I get texts and Facebook messages with photos of a copy of Vcon (nickname since the start) propped up on a bookstore shelf in Tokyo, atop flatmate's fridge in Berlin, or used for pressing tofu in a long-lost college buddy's kitchen in Berkeley (nothing like a big fat hardcover vegan cookbook that can double as a tofu press). Years later, I still hear stories from old friends and new acquaintances about the dog-eared copy of Veganomicon that's been hanging out in their kitchen for years. Everybody = the 'newly minted since watching Earthlings' vegan, the battle-hardened eating-nutritional-yeast-by-the-spoonful since-1985-vegan, or just the adventurous omnivorous cook curious about seitan. Our love of obscure pop culture and blatantly urban aesthetics aside (you can practically hear us complaining about hauling groceries up the subway entrance stairs), I think we made it abundantly clear our stance on vegan eating was for everybody. Never could I have imagined the joys of scrubbing the insides of a refrigerator I actually own. I graduated myself from the omnipresent New York rental apartment kitchen (good-bye lopsided stovetop, crooked plywood cabinets, and never the luxury of a dishwasher) to a co-op apartment in Queens populated with appliances I bought myself. Although Veganomicon is absolutely the product of an urban upbringing, Isa for a short while did have an honest-to-gosh suburban kitchen in Omaha (one that I enjoyed very much baking pies in during our summer of wrapping up Vegan Pie in the Sky and with a view of picket fences, green lawns, and sprawling vegetable gardens).

I smile when I read through the lines about how much we've grown since 2007. Even though we were just entering our cookbook-writing career at the time, there is still a lot of wisdom packed into a few sassy pages. Sitting down to reread the Veganomicon introduction Isa and I crafted over ten years ago, initially I thought, 'Throw it out! Gimme a fresh start!' I'm glad I soon got over that impulse.

Veganomicon book