Hi, I’m Cadry! Welcome to my kitchen!
Cadry’s Kitchen is a vegan food and lifestyle blog. It’s where I share my thoughts about veganism, food & cooking, travel posts, video demonstrations, and restaurant reviews. More importantly, it’s my way to show that being vegan doesn’t have to be complicated or time consuming.
Many people assume that plant-based meals are ascetic, lacking, and boring. However, that couldn’t be further from the truth. In the same way that food gives us connection to our pasts, brings back memories from trips and adventures, and gives us comfort, plant-based foods have all of the pleasures and flavor while also supporting a compassionate life. It doesn’t take a lot of expensive ingredients or hours in the kitchen to make delicious food, and nothing feels better than eating peaceful, life-affirming meals.
(Visiting for the first time? Start here to see all of my favorite and/or most popular posts.)
Why vegan?
I have always been an animal lover, and some of my dearest friends have been of the furry variety. For many years in my youth, I felt a pull to vegetarianism. It didn’t sit right with me that there were some animals who were adored and cared for while others were commodities. I didn’t make the leap, though, until I was 30.
One day I came across a video called Meet Your Meat, and I was blindsided by how animals are treated in the animal agriculture industry. Once I saw the violence for myself, I knew that I didn’t want to be a part of it. I became vegetarian immediately. Over the course of the next year, I read a lot of books, watched more documentaries, and moved to being vegan. That means that I don’t eat or wear anything that comes from an animal. No meat, dairy, eggs, leather, wool, or honey.
What many people would assume as limiting, instead felt incredibly freeing. No longer did I have nagging feelings of guilt. It felt good to spend time with animals living out their lives in sanctuaries and knowing that I wasn’t paying for others like them to be killed for my dinner. Plant-based food made me feel alive. I was eating more fresh foods, discovering plants that I hadn’t known existed, and exploring restaurants in a whole new way. Before going vegan, I’d never had Ethiopian food. I’d never cooked collard greens or kale. I had never made beans from scratch. I’d never heard of nutritional yeast flakes or seitan. I was afraid of tofu. Now all of the aforementioned are some of my favorite foods.
Being vegan only heightened my interest and excitement about food. When I traveled, I started seeking out vegan restaurants and venturing to parts of the city I might not have gone otherwise. Away from the cookie cutter chains, I went to restaurants where people were putting their hearts and souls into their menus, creating a community, and looking to connect with other like-minded individuals hoping to affect change in the way we eat.
Many people assume in going vegan that it’s going to be isolating, but I’ve made friends from all over the world. Chefs come out of the kitchen to say hello, to tell me about what they made, and to see how I’ve liked this new thing they’ve tried. I’ve met other bloggers who are also doing this vegan thing in their own town, somewhere on the other side of the globe. And of course, there are the people like you who have come to my blog, who have left a comment, who have told me something more about their life experiences. Connecting with others who I would never have met otherwise has easily been the best part of blogging.
This is David.
He’s my life partner, husband, and major Doctor Who fan. Neither of us were vegetarian or vegan when we started dating. But now we’ve both been vegan for years and years. We first bonded over our lifelong love of taco pizza, and food continues to be a big way that we connect. Evenings are spent making dinner together with a glass of wine and records playing in the background. Saturdays always include hash browns. We love to travel together to new places, where sampling the vegan cuisine is always a major part of the to-do list. When we’re home, we love hiking, biking, and cuddling our cats.
David shoots and edits the videos you see on Cadry’s Kitchen, and sometimes you’ll see him onscreen as well. Any time that we make things together, it brings both of us so much joy. I hope that it does for you too when you watch it!
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