Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Recipes

Can Vibrant New Cookbook Help Veganism Blossom?

“If you can enjoy eating without hurting another, why not do it?” This question was posed to me by Ronen Seri, co-owner of the Blossom restaurant group, when I asked why he became a vegan. Seri and his partner, Pamela Elizabeth, both vegan since the mid 1990s, have just come out with “The Blossom Cookbook: Classic Favorites From The Restaurant That Pioneered A New Vegan Cuisine.” Vibrant and accessible, the book features more than 80 vegan recipes for dishes served at the restaurants, most of which are accompanied by bright, appealing images.

Ronen Seri of Blossom Image by Alex Etling

Seri grew up in Jerusalem, and says that the global flavors that make up that country’s cuisine influence the menu at Blossom. Israel also happens to be the place with the most vegans per capita. Interestingly, Seri said more than 60 percent of the restaurants’ customers are not vegan. And that’s fine by him.

“I want to appeal to more people who are either gourmet diners or people who are not necessarily into veganism or vegetarianism,” he said. “Hopefully they’ll taste it and rethink their position. I hear a lot, ‘I didn’t know it could taste so good.’”

Seri specializes in creating vegan versions of delicious, popular dishes. “I look at menus and I think of ideas and I veganize them,” he said.

Recipes in the book include BBQ seitan skewers, seitan piccata, enchiladas made with shitake mushrooms and a tofu BLT. A gorgeous zucchini napoleon caught my eye. Made with ripe tomatoes, fresh zucchini and pistachio pesto, it, like so many of the recipes in the book, would be a colorful, flavorful addition to any table, vegan or not.

“People associate plant-based diets with boring; not flavorful,” he said. “I want to break the myth of that.” This book seems like a perfect place to start.

Liza Schoenfein is food editor of the Forward. Contact her at [email protected] or on Twitter, @LifeDeathDinner

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.