About two months ago, one of my favorite food bloggers and cookbook authors posted in her Facebook group that she was planning a book signing in New York City on May 1st, the day her latest cookbook became available. I had already pre-ordered her book and was excited to head up to the city to attend!
I asked my sister who lives in NYC to go with me so we met up for a drink at Terroir and then headed over to Maman Tribeca for the event. When we arrived, there was Ali being so gracious greeting everyone and a HUGE spread of food from the new book!
Some of the recipes we tried were the Vegan Cheese Ball, Ricotta & Fig Golden Beet Crostini, the Zucchini Pork Dumplings and BLT Sweet Potato Sliders. I loved all of them! (My sis wasn’t so keen on the Cheese Ball though!)
Since I knew I was attending the signing, I change the shipping on my pre-ordered book to my oldest sister for her birthday. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the signing, they didn’t have books for purchase. But Ali being on the ball, had stickers she signed and personalized for our books! The next morning my first stop was at Barnes & Noble to pick up two copies!
I knew I’d love the book when she shared on IG some of the chapter contents. Everything sounded delicious! I’ve been cooking from her other two cookbooks for the last few months and have yet to try anything that I didn’t love. She just knows how things should go together and features other things I would have never thought to try.
My favorite part of the book is “how to go beyond”. This was the info that I’ve been searching for! Ideas like how to use vegetable slabs to replace toast, using jicama as taco shells and using mushrooms and lentils to replace meats.
Last week she did a live demo of her Hoisin-Pulled Hearts of Palm with Stuffed Sweet Potatoes and Ginger-Lime Slaw. I can’t wait to give that recipe a try! I went to the store this morning and the recipes in the lineup this week to try out are the Chickpea “Tuna” Salad with Avocado & Sunflower Seeds, Sesame Shrimp & Green Beans with Scallion Kohlrabi Rice and the Chicken Saltimboca Skillet with Spinach & Rosemary Potatoes.
Ali has been such an inspiration to me and I’m excited to test a recipe this week… revamping an old favorite to make it healthier and GF/DF (more on that later this week!)
It was such a wonderful few days in NYC and meeting Ali was so special. She was so kind and gracious! She took her time to talk to everyone who came and took pictures as well. She’s very, very inspiring!
[…] While he was out with the guys, I had the ladies over and tried another recipe from Inspiralized & Beyond. The girls were a bit unsure at first, but one bite of these BLT Sweet Potato Sliders with Cilantro Lime Avocado May and they were sold just like I was when I tried them at the book signing! […]