Despite how quiet it’s been on the blog, lots of stuff has been going on at nom! headquarters (aka my house). Outside of the edible, I will finally be graduating from college (hallelujah!) at the end of this quarter and I recently started a yoga teacher training program- both very good things (on top of my rockin’ day job). And, in the world of food, I have some exciting news to share!

This week I had the opportunity to teach a class on vegan baking at the Nordic Ware outlet store here in the Cities. I had a great time presenting, meeting folks and, of course, feeding them.

At that class, I officially announced my upcoming cookbook, which I’m currently in the thick of working on.

*drum roll please*

My next book is the I 3 Trader Joe’s Vegetarian and Vegan Cookbook!

It’s true, my dependency on Joe’s has actually proven to be a professional asset. Not many addicts can say that! And, it’s a COOK book, so for those of you who have been patiently waiting for me to expand beyond the realm of sugar comas and pastry induced Type 2 diabetes, the time has arrived! The book will be out by the end of the year, so I’m in serious cooking and development mode and it’s fantastic. All of the Hawaiian shirts at my local TJs are becoming my BFFs, thanks to the serious R&D time I’m spending at the store (could I have fit any more acronyms in that sentence?).

That said, I am still heavy in recipe development, but need to start testing the recipes that I have already finished. If you are interested in testing for this book, please fill out this survey. Details about testing are in the survey, but feel free to let me know if there are any questions. Testing will start by the end of the month.

Trader Joe’s, baby!

*For those who are interested/concerned about the vegetarian aspect of the book- every recipe that is not already vegan, will have a vegan version of it available. By providing a book that appeals to a broader base I feel that I can take my love of TJ’s, in all its vegan-friendliness, and expose a greater population to it and to animal-free food in general.

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14 Responses to nom! nom! news!

  1. Congrats on all your accomplishments Kris!
    I would love to test, but alas, we have no Trader Joe’s in the great white north. Hopefully someday they’ll open a store here.

  2. Lee Ann says:

    :( I don’t live near a TJ either. :(

    • Kris says:

      I’m sorry that there’s no TJs by you. :( Thankfully, at least once the book is done, a lot of the ingredients and recipes are pretty standard and can still be made from a regular grocery store.

  3. Josiane says:

    So many great news, wow! Graduation, starting the YTT, teaching that class on vegan baking (looks like you had a good number of very attentive students – yay!) and the new book! Congratulations on them all!

    Too bad there is no Trader Joe’s around here. I’d have loved to test your recipes again. Oh well, next time!

  4. Ben says:

    Congrats!

  5. Tammy says:

    I wish I could have been at your demo. Sounds like it was fabulous. Good luck with the new cookbook, but like others, I’m also Trader Joe’s deficient in my area. However, when the cookbook comes out I will buy one!

  6. Lisa says:

    Congratulations! What an awesome idea. I love Trader Joe’s so, so much. Question – how will you deal with the issue of products appearing and disappearing from their shelves? Stick to basics as ingredients or just roll with what they have right now and oh well if they stop carrying it? (I’m still sad about the green tea soba noodles they stopped carrying something like 5 years ago…) Speaking of new products (and not that these would be an ingredient), but their new vegan chickenless mandarin chicken tenders? Nom nom indeed.

    • Kris says:

      Good question, Lisa. I am working with the standard things that TJs normally has in stock. This makes me a little sad because I’d love to play with things like Speculoos and other random goodies, but it doesn’t make sense to formulate recipes for ingredients that won’t be available anymore. TJs corporate is really helpful when it comes to identifying what things are seasonal, temporary or regional.

  7. Now I’m extra sad that I don’t have a TJ’s here! Hopefully some day :)

  8. Claire Weiss says:

    This is great news! I shop at TJ’s at least once a week! I will definitely buy this book!

  9. Courtney says:

    I hope the class went well! It looks like it was a success from the picture–lots of people came!

    E-mail me…we need to do something!

    Courtney

  10. Congrats on the upcoming book – I love TJ’s, most of my blog posts begin with me walking up and down the aisles of my local TJ store while I day-dream!

  11. Karen says:

    What a fun class. And, oh, the tasty deliciousness we got to sample! Thanks, Kris!