How Did That Just Happen? My Journey Into the Vegucated Family Table Cookbook

Tell me if you’ve been here before…

I was scrolling through my social media when I happened upon a heated discussion on my friend’s Instagram page.

Sound familiar?

The topic being discussed was the upcoming Black Veg Fest. It all hit home for me in a way that I could not keep quiet.

In as calm a tone as I could muster, I gave my feelings on why I felt Black Veg Fest was not exclusionary, but rather an important addition to the Vegan community.

As you can imagine, it was quite a divisive topic.

There were lots of us chiming in back and forth. Names that I knew and those that I didn’t. But it became very clear who resonated with whom.

My comment must have sparked some interest in one of the respondents because a few days later I got a private message.

A woman reached out because she had been in the discussion that day, and saw that we had some friends in common.

I had gone to NGI, a health supportive cooking school in New York, which has turned out many of today’s hottest Vegan chefs, and I interned with the celebrated Vegan Pastry Chef, Fran Costigan. I had worked at a runway show for Vegan design house Haute Couture, had taken a business class with Vegan cookbook author Tess Challis and the author of Will Travel for Vegan Food, Kristin Lajeunesse, and I am friends with the founder of the incredible Vegan Street Fair, Jessica Shay.

She was Marisa Miller Wolfson, the producer of the award-winning Vegan documentary, Vegucated.

Yeah.

We actually had over a hundred friends in common. Because vegan food was my first big exploration into the ‘New Natalie’, it’s where my focus was. So for sure, I was Vegan-ing everywhere!

She went on to tell me that she was working on a Vegan cookbook for families and asked if I would like to submit some recipes for her book.

At the time I was creating recipes as part of my platform and I just so happened to have two all ready to go that I hadn’t published yet, so I was fortuitously prepared. 

Ah that felt good.

Just to meet the moment like that.

What I found was that regardless of whether that moment sparked something new, or if it never went anywhere, it was valuable to me, and served me in just the way I needed it to.

Some time later I got another email from Marisa. Her family was testing the recipes right then, and I had forgotten to add a step in the recipe. “Could you please tell me how to proceed?”

Oh. My. GOSH!!!

The utter horror and mortification!

My heart pounding, the sound of my blood whooshing in my ears, I quickly responded to the email and apologized for my error!

But had I gotten to it fast enough?!

Was she even still cooking by the time she got the answer?!

Did she have to just figure it out on her own!?

“I’m such a LOSER!” I thought to myself.

Sidenote: Sometimes I initially overreact. I’m sure I told myself later that I wasn’t a loser, and that we all make mistakes. Still embarrassing though.

A few months later however I got another email.

The recipes had gone through the first testers and the responses were good. She asked if I could make some of the directions more clear.

“They’re still testing… just put it out of your mind,” I thought.

Meanwhile, I had decided to stop making new recipes and focus more attention on things to do with personal development.

I had also been inspired to create a product and company: MSL Bags (launching soon!)

So when an email came—asking me to confirm all of my information because the book was going to print with not one, but two of my recipes inside—I finally allowed myself to get excited!

“Oh my GOSH! That’s crazy!”

But what I was most blown away by was the series of events that had just taken place.

Like… How did that just happen?

I wasn’t looking for this at all! But somehow my passions and my efforts converged into a really cool moment.

I think part of the problem is this idea that you have to have everything figured out before you start.

If I waited until I knew all I thought I should know, I would never start anything!!

The takeaway for me from this experience is that we need to feed all the pieces of ourselves.

Give time and energy to them, and help them grow. Because when those parts of you grow they start extending and touching others like you.

This book will forever be special to me, not only because of my recipes inside, but because it illustrates a concept that I live by.

Do YOU with all the passion you can muster and more of that energy will literally be attracted to you.

Of course there’s also something to be said about being proactive!

CLICK HERE to read about the lesson I learned in elementary school that changed my life forever.