Love is Served: Inspired Plant-Based Recipes from Southern California

Splendid, clean, and hip plans to captivate veggie lovers, vegans, and omnivores the same, from plant-based sanctuary Café Gratitude.

Before it was an installation on the L.A. feasting scene and a magnet for VIP cafes, Café Gratitude was established in the Bay Area with the straightforward ethos that euphoria gets from adoring and being thankful for food, wellbeing, and great organization. The dishes are named to twofold as attestations of self. "I Am Fearless," "I Am Humble," and "I Am Open-Hearted" gesture to the café's center conviction that food is similarly as much about soul all things considered about hunger. From that point forward, the bistro has advanced a lot. It's changed areas, extended, and been the setting for more paparazzi shots than one can tally. In any case, the establishing standards have continued as before, and the food keeps on commending the kinds of plants with natural, without any preparation, and restorative fixings liberated from creature items, handled soy, and, in practically all cases, refined sugars.

Presently, with Love is Served, Seizan Dreux Ellis, leader cook at Café Gratitude, brings Gratitude-quality suppers to your table and the spirit and mission of the eatery to your home. Enjoy bistro top choices "I Am Awakening" (Raw Key Lime Pie) and "I Am Passionate" (Black Lava Cake) while concocting generous, supporting dishes like Grilled Polenta with Mushroom Ragout ("I Am Warm-Hearted") and Radicchio, Roasted Butternut Squash, and Sundried Tomato Pesto Grain Salad ("I Am Gracious"). With unfussy strategies and simple to-get to fixings, this cookbook makes the healthy fulfillment of the eatery as open as could be expected for the home cook as it charms and moves perusers to change the manner in which they take a gander at food.

About the Author
Café Gratitude is a vibrant global community of joyous gathering places where people come together to enjoy food and life.

Chef Seizan Dreux Ellis oversees the development and execution of the organic, plant-based menu at all Café Gratitude restaurants in Southern California. In April 2012, Dreux came to Venice, California as Executive Chef of Café Gratitude in Southern California, bringing his health-based, flavor driven cuisine to a wider audience. In 2017, Seizan received lay ordination in the Soto Zen lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi at the San Francisco Zen Center.

I’m a big fan of the Cafe Gratitude restaurants so when this cookbook came out I was very interested in it. But the ebook (I have a strong preference for digital cookbooks) was priced at $18.99 and the preview did not include the table of contents — probably an oversight but it made it hard to push the purchase button because I wasn’t sure how many of my favorite menu items would be included. Well, last night I finally broke down and bought it. And even at $18.99 for the ebook, I’m not sorry! Love is Served has many of my favorite menu items from the restaurants. Here is the Table of Contents, with a few of my comments in parentheses. I typed this by hand, so there may be a mistake here and there. I left out the cheesy affirmation names (“I am Magical” etc), both to save time and because they annoy me. --LFL

I love Cafe Gratitude! I was sad to see that recipes like smoothies and juices were not included in this book and I was surprised how much soy is required to make meals (very bad for inflammation). This book is a chef-book because you need a heap of expensive ingredients (so its definitely not low-income friendly unless you're an incredible bargain shopper) and a desire to have high skill in the kitchen. I agree with other reviewers that it would have been incredibly helpful to have substitutions for ingredients and recipes, making one recipe from scratch needs to be well-thought out and planned because you will need to (for example) make three different sauces from scratch while also cooking two other things in one meal recipe. Definitely not for the quick meal prepper unless you spend a day prepping all the sauces, which unfortunately for some sauces the book says last only two days in the fridge, this can be great nightmare fuel for the person who is worried about wasting the 20$ container of macadamia nut cheese they just mashed into sauce! This book is fabulous but it is definitely a book for the ASPIRING HOME CHEF. Last note: I think they should have spent more time writing about the seasonal nature of food. If you eat seasonally, not all the recipes can be used unless you substitute. Which again, a list of substitutions would have been dope. --Hannah

I usually do not have (or take) the time to write reviews. This cookbook is simply amazing! Everything is made from scratch (so it will not call for vegan cheese or other processed vegan "meat") and the food is as good as in the restaurant. Several recipes on the menu are included in the cookbook, for instance the amazing Pad Thai Kelp Noodles and several of their bowls (macrobiotic, indian curry, gratitude bibimbap bowl). The instructions are clear and the recipes inspirational. There is a beautiful picture for every dish, the cookbook is beautiful. I made several dishes already and the results far exceeded my expectations. This is clearly a piece of culinary art and is by far superior to other restaurant vegan cookbooks I own (including Crossroads, in which Tal Ronnen often calls for Kite Hill cheese or other processed vegan items, - I find it a bit frustrating considering the price of vegan processed food). Love is served is my best vegan cookbook so far along with Isa does it and the Buddhist chef! It is clear that a lot of work (and love) went into the making of this cookbook! --Annie

Love is Served: Inspired Plant-Based Recipes from Southern California