Vegetating with Leslie

I like food, plant food, that is — I like to plant, grow and eat it. I like to serve it to others and recycle it to contribute to next year’s harvest. I like working and being outdoors, walking and hiking. I like to study Hebrew Bible, Tanakh, especially the first five books, the Torah. Most of all, I like to think about all these things and what they have to say about the meaning of life. I started my blog when I decided to explore veganism, and it has led not just to recipes and farming but to taking a look at the Hebrew Bible from a different perspective. It also gave me a chance to study the biblical perspective on modern themes like ethics, ecology, evolution, animal rights, and the human place in creation. I explore and refresh my own spirituality through these projects.

Our Brain: All It’s Cracked Up to Be?

On: December 3, 2015December 16, 2015 By: Leslie Cook

A brain is an interesting thing. I was just thinking about brains the other day. My thought process began this way: I took a walk with my husband. Along the way, we saw a dead rabbit in an area where we had

Prophecy and Politics

On: November 16, 2015December 16, 2015 By: Leslie Cook

Did Prophet Muhammad Warn Us of ISIS 1,400 Years Ago? I read and shared this post today about the Quran predicting the Islamic State. I don’t usually support using the biblical text to say that this or that particular event in modern

Vegan Spinach Pesto

On: November 14, 2015September 12, 2017 By: Leslie Cook

OK, I’m in love. I made a Shabbat dinner for our scholar-in-residence weekend, and the visiting scholar was the first (and only) female rabbi in Italy. Of course I decided to make an Italian inspired dinner. Of course it had to include

Let’s Talk (No) Turkey

On: November 8, 2015April 20, 2017 By: Leslie Cook

“Thanksgiving dinner’s sad and thankless. Christmas dinner’s dark and blue. When you stop and try to see it From the turkey’s point of view.” – Shel Silverstein If you are vegetarian and the rest of your family and friends are not, you

Moroccan Sweet Potatoes Signify a Sweet Six Years

On: October 30, 2015April 20, 2017 By: Leslie Cook

This delicious sweet potato preparation is both sweet and spicy from the natural sweetness of the potatoes and the crushed red pepper. The salad marks a special “anniversary” for me — it was six years ago to the day on Halloween that

Zen and the Art of Peeling Potatoes

On: October 23, 2015January 23, 2019 By: Leslie Cook

Printed in The Woodstock Independent, January 2013 “Avoid food that makes health claims. Don’t take the silence of the yams as a sign that they have nothing valuable to say about health.” – Rule # 2 from Food Rules by Michael Pollan.

It’s Fall! Mushroom Barley Soup on the Menu

On: October 21, 2015April 20, 2017 By: Leslie Cook

Yesterday I made my first pot of Mushroom Barley Soup for the season. Oh, so good! I had three big bowls for dinner. This one is easy, folks, even if you’re not into cooking. How hard can it be to throw things

7 most important health practices from my “aging” vantage point

On: October 19, 2015November 14, 2015 By: Leslie Cook

As many of you know, I have been interested in health and particularly in good eating for most of my adult life, ever since my grandmother died of colon cancer in 1969. During those years, I’ve watched a lot of fads come

Politics: Hope and Money

On: October 15, 2015November 14, 2015 By: Leslie Cook

I don’t come from a tradition that views money as the source of all evil. Money is useful. Money feeds people, saves people, builds and creates. Money can accomplish amazing things. It can also subvert a political system, corrupt our food supply, limit

Politics: A New Category

On: September 20, 2015November 14, 2015 By: Leslie Cook

I added a category to my posts and a section to my blog: Politics. When I began my blog, I dedicated it to my Dad, a man deeply engaged in and committed to the democratic political process. He was an acute political observer,