![]() Giving it "kitchen" rather than "bakery" would also allow me, in some distant future, to branch out into savory items. It was just that I liked pirates, and Spanish, and thought it was cool that it was explicitly female. ![]() I didn't name it La Pirata because I knew that the way I was running it-out of my apartment's kitchen, with no paperwork or food handler training-was illegal. I had a logo designed, bought a domain name, and developed a full-on menu for La Pirata Kitchen-a name none of my friends liked, which made me love it more. I didn't think I should pass up these opportunities despite having absolutely no idea how to run a business. Considering my dreamy teenage aspirations and the fact that when watching marathons of the Food Network's Cupcake Wars, I'd fantasize about what I would name my bakery. All of a sudden, I had an order for 200 cupcakes for an event, birthday cake requests, and a connection at a local natural grocery store. The only thing I could think to do with all these excess vegan sweets was bring them to my yoga studio, where they would be happily greeted without judgment by the kind of people who desperately want any excuse to feel less guilt in indulging their hard-won, lithe bodies. When basic vegan recipes were turning out to taste like crap-all greasy Earth Balance frosting and dry canola oil cake-I developed a coconut-oil-based butter that perfectly, richly replicated dairy in buttercreams and cookies. It didn't seem doable, so I kept up the amateur baking, even as I transitioned to veganism. In my downtime from work, I'd obsessively read recipes and look at the cost of culinary school. I was constantly at Williams-Sonoma, caressing KitchenAid stand mixers until finally ordering one for myself. This brought with it the requisite restlessness of one's mid-20s, and I'd started to bake a lot. Despite my secret teenage dream of being a pastry chef, I went to college and majored in English, and had settled into copyediting at a major magazine's website. A man got on a mic at the New York City's Vegan Drinks meetup I'd catered and said, "I've been vegan for twenty years, and these are the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever had." A local paper called me the "Non-Dairy Queen." My linzer cookies were renowned by bloggers.
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