Vegan Cookbook Author: Phillip Gelb, Sound and Savor

There are so many amazing vegan chef's in the Bay Area.  We have had the pleasure of enjoying a treat from Phillip Gelb and have is kick-ass cookbook.  He has and continues to host an underground meal with music and cooking classes. Make sure to check it out.   Here is a little more about Phillip.InspirationTwelve years, ago, after achieving great artistic success as a musician, recording and performing around the world with many of my favorite musicians and dancers, I realized I needed a way to have a more stable income in my life. At the time cooking was a very serious hobby. A lot of self study turned that hobby into becoming a chef.Sound and SavorSound & Savor (formerly In the Mood for Food) is a vegan catering business, based in the San Francisco Bay area but also travels to cook. Besides catering various kinds of events from weddings to business lunches, we offer cooking classes and our very popular underground restaurant and dinner/concert series. The dinner/concert series pairs gourmet food with world renowned musicians in very intimate spaces. After the savory courses, we clear the tables and then we have a concert. The performance is followed by dessert.MissionThe most recent accomplishment is the release of my first cookbook, “Notes from an Underground Restaurant: Improvisations Through Food and Music”.I am constantly studying and learning about new ingredients, new culinary traditions and new ways to approach food. Jamaican cuisine, particular Ital cuisine, the vegan food of the rastafarians, is my latest fascination and field of self studyAnnecdotesHannah Kaminsky described the dinner/concert series very well, here:Far from the revered fine dining palaces of San Francisco, where hype and hyperbole are the most popular items on offer, an ordinary studio in the heart of Oakland plays host to an distinctly different, refreshingly sincere, and entirely immersive eating experience. Don’t call it a secret supper club or a pop-up restaurant, because this twice-monthly meeting of food and music has been making headlines for years, and it’s not about to disappear anytime soon. Born from the recklessly creative mind of chef Philip Gelb, this musician with a passion for cooking set up shop in pursuit of unifying these two pursuits. Each dinner comes not only with a carefully crafted menu of edible delights, but a unique musical performance selected to complement the meal, satiating the voracious audiophile as well. Sound & Savor is an on-going dinner series offering hands-on culinary classes and private catering in addition to these unforgettable evening events.Upcoming eventsAlways a lot of events on the calendar.a new website will soon be up at http://soundandsavor.com which will have a calendar.I maintain a calendar on a Facebook business page at: https://www.facebook.com/soundandsavor/eventsClasses:Wed. Jan 27 Chinese food classSunday February 7 Winter Chowders and Citrus Salads classSunday February 21 Bagels and spread classSaturday and Sunday February 27 and 28 Ramen making classDinner/concertsSunday Jan 31 Shoko Hikage solo kotoValentines day, Feb 14 Howard Wiley/Tiffany Austin sax/voice duet. Steve Draper mixing drinks!Friday, February 19 cheesy winter menu with special guest Miyoko Schinner in the house!Friday February 26 Naked Kitchen San Francisco. Marijuana Pairing menu.March (various events in Florida)Sunday April 24 Passover dinner with 2 giants of radical Jewish music, Ben Goldberg and Mark Dresser (clarinet and bass duet)Community and compassion I certainly hope so! The overwhelming amount of ingredients are sourced locally and many direct from farmers and purveyors. We get all our tempeh from friends at Rhizocali Tempeh, who are based in the same neighborhood. We shun ALL corporate products in the kitchen and do not use any name brand ingredients. Instead we get real food from real people who we happen to know by first name.We pay our workers well above minimum wage as we live in a very expensive area and no-one can make a living at minimum wage. Besides we have very skilled assistants who earn their decent wage. Since it is not usually a solo effort, I have to show gratitude in many ways to those who help make our business a success. Pay and treatment of workers is key! Of course, a vegan menu is more compassionate than an omnivore menu in terms of animal rights and climate change but we extend that compassion to human rights and worker rights. We give leftovers to poor artists in the neighborhood and contribute classes and food to many non profit arts events.Tips to live a more compassionate lifeListen….deeply. As a musician, my mentor is the amazing composer Pauline Oliveros, a brilliant woman who espouses a philosophy she refers to as “deep listening."Being vegan is a simple and obvious starting place. But it is only a small step. Stop supporting corporations as much as possible. In terms of food, support your local businesses that also support local businesses (ones who source local ingredients, not ones who use packaged manufactured ingredients).When police keep murdering young black people and black people and their allies take to the streets demanding justice, do not begin your response with the words, “but” or “however”.Resist the dominant paradigm, daily in your professional and personal lifestyles!Study, study, and more studyBuy the Sounds and Savor Cookbook here...