— Dan Marek

So I have two, and it should be no surprise, this was my very first plant-based cookbook. I had no idea what I was doing. I had no idea who Rip Essel was. But shortly after getting the book, I saw him on CBS this morning with Tracy Smith and he did a wonderful, wonderful 10 minute TV spot explaining everything about being plant-based. And getting this book was one of the prerequisites for going to the immersion. I've had it for 15 years, it's worn. Everything I know about plant-based cooking without using oil or salt is from this book. So I love it dearly. It's autographed by every member of the Essel family. And it's just a very wonderful book, easy to read, simple recipes. And you can tell that it's a, an older cookbook because it doesn't say plant milk, it says non-dairy milk. So back in the day before, there was the abundance of now plant milks in the world. People use the term non-dairy milk, the other one. And actually this book is just very dear to me because it has about 125 recipes in it all created by Anne Selten. And some of these recipes are 35 years old because you know that Dr. Essel and Ann Seldon were pioneers in this entire movement of whole food, plant-based, no oil, salt, or sugar. So I love the book. The first thing I ever made in it was Ann's the walnut sauce from, um, Casa de Lu in Austin, Texas. It's a great recipe. There are no photos, but the recipes are really, really good.