How Veganism Got Cooked

"Moskowitz is not a conventional celebrity, but she is extraordinarily famous to an extraordinarily small number of people. Mainly, vegans. Specifically, vegans in or rapidly approaching middle age. "If someone recognizes me, their joints probably hurt," she said. "Or their mother likes me." As a vegan of increasingly middle-aged experience, I found this assessment unsettling. "I love it," she added. She officially gave up meat at 15 and discovered both veganism and leftist politics through the New York City punk scene of the late '80s."

"As a teenage high-school dropout, she learned to butcher broccoli and make soups taste good while cooking for Food Not Bombs in the East Village, and though she went on to work in professional kitchens, she stayed true to her anarchist-punk DIY roots. The Post Punk Kitchen, her gleefully low-budget cooking show on Brooklyn Community Access Television, led to an ever-growing canon of voice-y vegan cookbooks, which made way for the restaurant."

Isa Chandra Moskowitz is a vegan chef and cookbook author whose recognition is concentrated among vegans, particularly those nearing middle age. She adopted veganism and leftist politics at 15 through the late-1980s New York punk scene. She learned cooking skills volunteering with Food Not Bombs and maintained anarchist-punk DIY roots through professional kitchens and community-access television. The Post Punk Kitchen show led to a series of distinctive vegan cookbooks and to the Modern Love restaurants. Modern Love opened in Omaha in 2014 and in Williamsburg in 2016; both locations closed, with Omaha ending in 2024 and Brooklyn closing six months later.

Read at Grub Street