When Mérida Anderson (pictured) was 16 and told her family she had decided to become vegan, her mother plopped a stack of cookbooks in front of her and said, "We're having chicken for dinner, what are you having?"
With no one to cook for her, she was forced to learn how to prepare meat-free meals consisting of more than canned mini corn and raw cauliflower.
Anderson, who grew up in the Blueridge area of North Vancouver, initially decided to change her diet after watching videos about animal cruelty. A mix of personal ethics and teenage stubbornness motivated her to stick to her new lifestyle and, through much trial and error, she eventually learned her way around the kitchen.
In April, the 28-year-old self-taught chef is releasing a cookbook called Vegan Secret Supper: Bold & Elegant Menus from a Rogue Kitchen published by Vancouver's Arsenal Pulp Press. The collection includes 150 animal-product-free recipes for breads, appetizers, soups, entrées, desserts, as well as sparkling water and tea infusions. Anderson originally created all the dishes for the pop-up dining club she has run in Vancouver, Brooklyn and Montreal.
Vegan Secret Supper was inspired by one of Anderson's friends in Halifax.
"Every Sunday he would have this little secret café where people would come and he'd have a three-course dinner. It was vegan as well," she says. She started hosting her own by-donation dinner parties in a tiny attic apartment in East Vancouver in 2008. Word spread quickly via blog and email and, after a year, she was serving up to 40 guests each Sunday.
"I just love cooking for people," she says. "I barely cook for myself. If it's just me I'll have crackers, but if somebody comes over I'll get really excited to cook."
Her menu changes every week, depending on the season and availability of fresh, local ingredients. >
