Herbivore Loves Me!

…Or at least they’re curious about me! Imagine my surprise when I got an email about a month back asking if I would be interested in answering a few questions by none other than my fellow vegan crafters and foodies, Jess and Michelle, on behalf of Herbivore online- I’m still thrilled that anyone might want to know more about little old me. You can check out the full interview here, but alas, you must have a paid subscription to view it. For all of you frugal readers who have trouble parting with money that could otherwise be spent on good yarn or vegan ice cream, (Don’t worry, I know the feeling!) here’s just a little snippet to tide you over…

How long have you been doing your Bittersweet Blog? Why do you do it?

It’s truly amazing to think about how long BitterSweet as been on the web, especially considering how long my previous blogs had survived. I initially just wanted a place to show and tell about my various crafty ventures, because I was always posting about my projects on Craftster. Eventually I was making so much stuff that adding new threads for every single one was more like spam than useful content! Since I’ve always been rather shy and the last person to brag about any sort of achievements, it took a long time to find a strong voice to tell the world about my passions. Few people know this, but in the beginning, I went through a maddening cycle of starting a blog, making a post, and then deleting the whole thing hours later. It’s now been almost a year and a half now that BitterSweet has been up and running, and I haven’t regretted a minute of it.

Do you think of Bittersweet as more of a food blog or a craft blog?

Defining my blog is perhaps one of the hardest things I’ve been asked to do for it, as I tend to blur the line between both categories, finding inspiration for crafts through different foods and using food as an artistic medium…But in my eyes, baking is definitely an art when it all comes together as planned, allowing for endless creativity just as any other craft, so if I were forced to chose one designation for my blog, I think that BitterSweet would be a craft blog with a couple of edible “patterns” thrown in.

A little birdie told me you have a cookbook on the works?

Yes, it’s true! As it was a mere pipe dream of mine to for so long now, I still can’t believe that it’s really happening. My Sweet Vegan published by Fleming Ink is currently scheduled to be on shelves this fall, but I can’t put an exact date on it just yet. As the title indicates, it will be a book of nothing but vegan sweets, with recipes easy enough for the beginning baker yet unique enough to satisfy the ambitious pastry connoisseur. And since I like seeing what each dish should look like before I attempt it, one of my favorite aspects is that every recipe will include a full-color photo, taken by yours truly. I’m so excited to share these recipes with everyone out there, it’s going to be a long, hard wait while the books are printing! The book will be available on Amazon.com and MySweetVegan.com (under construction), and in many national bookstores, but I will also keep everyone updated via my blog.

On your blog you’ve shown homemade wasabi chocolate cupcakes? You amaze us. What was the inspiration?

There are so many things that inspire me, I can barely go a single day without thinking up more ideas! Many of my ideas are sparked from finding exciting new ingredients, and then thinking of what they might taste good with. Sometimes I’ll pick up a new fruit off the shelf and automatically think “This would be perfect in a tart!” but most of the time I just play around with different combinations in different forms until it tastes right. If there aren’t any new ingredients waiting around to be used, I like to reinvent old favorites, such as recreating a non-vegan candy bar as cupcakes, using the flavors of a traditional cookie to make a pie, or numerous other mutations of my childhood sweets. But seriously, by just going about my day, talking to people, reading, watching tv, I find more inspiration than I know what to do with. There’s a list that I keep by my bed of all these ideas, and it just keeps on growing with no end in sight!

…And there’s much, much more of my rambling responses in the full article, so go on, you know you want to read it!