Staff Review: Vegan Cheesecake Recipes

It started as a joke. My friend Jackie was describing a complicated cheesecake recipe she was baking for a party while I was browsing through the smoothie recipes on a vegan blog, when I stumbled across a recipe for Raw Vegan Strawberry Cheesecake*. I immediately suggested she switch recipes, to which she responded, "How can it be cheesecake if there isn't any dairy!?" 

A year later Jackie has come to Dubuque for a visit, and I immediately realize that this is my chance to have someone who knows how to bake food help me in the creation of the mysterious raw vegan strawberry cheesecake.

Raw Vegan Strawberry Cheesecake, based on a recipe found in Raw Food for Real People

"Wouldn't you rather I show you how to make a real cheesecake?" she asked. No. No, I wouldn't. I can buy real cheesecake at the store or in a restaurant, but a raw vegan cheesecake is a challenge. A quest. An accomplishment. A topic for a book review for the library's blog.

I've seen other libraries post reviews of recipes from their favorite cookbooks, and I knew that our collection includes vegan cookbooks, so all that was left was to identify a recipe and bake a cheesecake.
 

 In the end, we decided to try making two different vegan cheesecakes:

• Strawberry Cheesecake from page 47 of Sweet Vegan: a collection of all vegan, some gluten-free, and a few raw desserts by Emily Mainquist (641.86 MAI)
• Rasberry Vanilla Cheezecake from page 149 of Raw Food for Real People: living veganf ood made simple by the chef and founder of Leaf Organics by Rod Rotondi (613.26 ROT)

Things we learned from our experience:

• Vegan baking is expensive, but it's possible to substitute vegan egg substitute with soy yogurt.
• The reason Sweet Vegan calls for you to make your own vegan graham crackers that you can then crush to use for the crust is likely that there are very few pre-made vegan cookies available in the store. We went with a vegan, nut free, gluten free, cinnamon cookie.
• Simulating regular food with a raw food recipe is far, far too much effort. It would've been so much easier to just fill a bowl with sliced strawberries, mixed nuts, and healthy squeeze of agave nectar.
• All the extra effort does make the reward of taste testing at the end that much sweeter. Plus! Vegan cheesecake has to be healthier than regular cheesecake!

Then came the fun part, bringing the finished product into the library and convincing my co-workers to give it a taste! While several library staff members turned a piece down on the basis of not liking regular cheesecake, or finding the idea of a vegan cheesecake too off-putting, those brave enough to try something new gave both generally positive reviews.

The last piece of vegan cheesecake.

The baked vegan cheesecake was the real winner. Amy said that if I hadn't told her she "would never have known it was tofu or vegan. All I could taste was the vanilla in the cinnamon crust and the consistency seemed very cheesecake-like." Andrew found both cheesecakes to be "entirely cromulent." He also coined the term "nut mush" for the raw vegan recipe, which more accurately describes the cashew butter experience of a raw vegan cheesecake.

And in case anyone was wondering, Jackie and I followed our vegan baking adventures up with burgers at Paul's tavern - to maintain a balanced diet.

~Sarah, Adult Services

*The blog with the original raw vegan strawberry cheesecake is no longer in existence. :(

Thanks to Dubuque Author Robert Byrne

Thanks to Dubuque author Robert Byrne and everyone who came to our screening of The Towering Inferno last night in celebration of Dubuque Main Street's Architecture Days.

If you missed Bob's visit to the library, you can place a hold on Bob's novel Skyscraper in our online catalog, and browse through Bob's many other titles.

Our next movie is Life of Pi on May 22. We hope to see you there!

Snack Time, Read Up!

 

Gulp, the latest book by popular science author Mary Roach, tackles the mysteries of the digestive system. If you enjoy learning while you laugh, you should definitely check out Mary Roach's writing. She has an ability to bring humor and insight to topics that would normally make the average person squirm (sex, death, etc.). If you're already on the waiting list for Gulp, or you're not quite sure you want to read about what happens in the small intestine, we've pulled together a list of some other recent titles that explore our relationship with food.

Mark Kurlansky is another popular author of non-fiction known for his engaging style and incredible detail, though his tone is far more serious, and his focus tends toward the historical. If you're looking to learn more about our relationship to food prior to consumption, you should ddefinitely check out Salt: a world history (333.85632 KUR), Cod: a biography of the fish that changed the world (333.956633 KUR), and Birdseye: the adventures of a curious man (LP Biography Birdseye). For other in depth explorations of a single consumable's impact on humanity's history, try:

• Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization by Steven Solomon (553.7 SOL) 
• Sugar: A Bittersweet History by Elizabeth Abbott (633.6 ABB)
• A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage (394.12 STA)

Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss (613.2 MOS)
This recent title has also spent some time on the best seller lists. A through-provoking and passionate look at our relationship with junk food by an award-winning journalist. If you're already on the hold list for this one, check out:

• American Wasteland by Jonathan Bloom (363.7288 BLO)
• In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan (613 POL)
• Super Size Me by Morgan Spurlock (DVD 647.95 SUP)

Blood, Bones, and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton (641.5092 HAM)
The stories of the people who devote their lives and careers to food and the restaurant business can provide a different perspective on our relationships with food. Blood, Bones, and Butter is a moving and straightforward autobiography by Gabrielle Hamilton. The book chronicles Hamilton's difficult path from rural New Jersey to the head chef of her own New York restaurant. For more chef, foodie, and restaurant memoirs, try:

• Relish: my life in the kitchen by Lucy Knisley (Graphic Knisley)
• Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-quoting Butcher in Tuscany by Bill Buford (641.59455 BUF)
• Kitchen Confidential: adventures in the culinary underbelly by Anthony Bourdain (641.5092 BOU)

Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza by Ken Forkish (641.815 FOR)
Perhaps you're more interested in creating the delicious foods you eat yourself? Carnegie-Stout does have an excellent collection of cookbooks, but for today we'll stick to a few on baking bread. Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast is a recent guide to home baking from ken Forkish, a Portland baker. The recipes in this cookbook range from the beginner to rather more advanced. If you're looking for more, check out:

• Flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston's Flour Bakery by Joanne Chang (641.815 CHA)Flour 
• My Bread: the revolutionary no-work, no-knead method by Jim Lahey (641.815 LAH)
• Bread Baker's Apprentice: mastering the art of extraordinary bread by Peter Reinhart (641.815 REI)

Please stop by the Recommendations Desk on the first floor, check out NoveList Plus on the library's website, or visit W. 11th & Bluff next week for more reading suggestions. Or submit a Personal Recommendations request, and we'll create a reading list just for you! 

The Master of Disguise and Argo by Antonio Mendez

The Master of Disguise: My Secret Life in the CIA by Antonio J. Mendez with Malcolm McConnell.
Nov, 1999

Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History by Antonio J. Mendez and Matt Baglio. Sep, 2012

Tony Mendez has won my ongoing debate as to who is the best James Bond ever.  Yes, of course, I know Bond, James Bond, is a fictional character and Antonio Mendez is not.  That’s why I’m giving the edge to Mendez, a retired CIA agent, artist and author.

The Cubby Broccoli Bond movies have it all; an unbelievable opening sequence, the Bond girl, a musical superstar singing the title song.  I grew up with Sean Connery as Bond.  None of the others—Moore, Lazenby, Dalton, Brosnan even comes close till Daniel Craig.  Just when I pretty much have decided Skyfall is the best Bond movie ever, along comes Argo, which isn’t part of the Bond franchise; it’s even better because it is a spy movie based on actual historical events and real people.

I wanted to know how much of the movie Argo is true and how much is Hollywood. That’s when I discover that the actual Tony Mendez, the character played by Ben Affleck in the movie, wrote a pre-Argo book called The Master of Disguise.  That’s the one I want to read, but I have to request it through Interlibrary Loan, which means I have to wait a few days for the book to arrive.  In the meantime I read Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History, the post-movie book which is in our collection.

While I like both of Mendez’ books, I give the edge to his first because it preceded the Hollywood hype.  So much for the movie Argo winning an Academy Award; do you know that the Center Intelligence Agency personnel, similar to the military services, are eligible for medals?  Tony Mendez received an Intelligence Star for the Canadian caper, and his wife and children could not even attend the ceremony because the mission he got the medal for was still classified.  Mendez also was honored as one of fifty CIA Trailblazers, an award given in 1997 to celebrate 50 years of CIA operations.

Both of Mendez’ books went through the CIA approval process for former operatives required prior to publication.  I speculated that all the “good stuff” had been edited out, but I didn’t find that to be true.  Although some details were sketchy, I found enough content to read both books and to put in an ILL request for a third book Mendez co-wrote with his second wife, also a retired CIA master of disguise:  Spy Dust: Two Masters of Disguise Reveal the Tools and Operations That Helped Win the Cold War by Antonio and Jonna Mendez with Bruce Henderson published in September 2002.

I found both The Master of Disguise and Argo fast-paced and suspenseful enough that I kept reading. The first person narration allows Mendez’s character and voice to shine through and balances some of the drier details of the spy trade.  Mendez’s portrayal of his years as an agent matches John le Carré’s George Smiley more than Ian Fleming’s Bond.  Will I quit watching Bond movies now that I’ve read an insider’s view of the espionage business?  No, but I will be a more critical viewer thanks to Tony Mendez.

 - Michelle, Adult Services