Brian L. Patton is executive chef for Vegin’ Out, a vegan food delivery service in Los Angeles. As the quintessential “regular dude” vegan chef, he started posting instructional cooking videos on YouTube as his witty, ukulele playing alter-ego “The Sexy Vegan” and quickly gained a large following. Brian offers his popular cooking demonstrations at stores, restaurants, and community centers throughout Southern California and in his travels around the country.
I recently had the chance to chat with Brian, and we talked about what most vegans talk about when they get together: veganism and food!
Chic Vegan – What motivated you to become vegan? Was it an overnight switch or more gradual shift?
Brian Patton – I switched to a vegan diet as an experimental kickstart in hopes of losing weight. I was around 260 pounds and I felt terrible all the time. And since I was the only meat eater working for a vegan company (Vegin’ Out, L.A.’s vegan meal delivery service, where I’m now executive chef, www.veginout.com), I thought I’d give it a try for a month. I started to feel better and lost a few pounds, so I went another month, and another month. Ten months later, I lost 60 pounds and felt better than I had in my entire life. But just because I had adopted a vegan diet didn’t mean I was a full-on, level 10 vegan. I had been gradually becoming conscious about the other aspects, like not buying leather belts or wool socks. And let me tell you, my silk underwear collection took a big hit in that first year. Then one day, I instinctively trapped an interloping spider with a cup and a piece of paper instead of stomping on it. My roommate walked into the room while I was escorting it outside and said, “Dude what are you doing?” I said, “I don’t know, but I guess I don’t kill spiders anymore either.” My perspective had shifted. In that moment, I saw a being just trying to go about its day, like we all do. I thought, “We, the inhabitants of Earth, don’t really know what we are, in the grand scheme of things…maybe we’re just a lucky spider of the universe that hasn’t gotten stepped on yet.” Until that point, I would occasionally still handle animal products, and prepare them for my friends. That was the moment, I decided I could no longer take part in the use of animals. I call it my “spider moment.”
CV – When people learn that you are vegan, what is the #1 question they ask and what is your response?
BP – Surprisingly, it’s not “where do you get your protein?” That’s so 2006. I think that people today, are plenty aware that protein can be obtained from plant based sources, which is much different from when I became vegan 8 years ago. The one I always get goes like this, “Oh, you’re vegan? Is it for health reasons, or….?” Something very weird happens at this moment: They never finish the sentence. It’s like they don’t know what to say after the “or”. Probably more like they don’t want to say what has to come after the or, since that’ll make them look at themselves and their own choices. It’s also like they’re trying to take my temperature, and see what “kind” of a vegan I am. It’s a strange phenomenon that I had never thought about that much until I started to answer this question. Very interesting. Anyway, after the awkward question, I basically tell them the story I just told you in question #1.
CV – Where did the name “The Sexy Vegan” come from?
BP – When I decided to make my first youtube video, I was going to call it “The Smoking Vegan”. I had not been vegan for very long at that point and still smoked a pack a day. I thought it would have been funny to have me cooking healthy food while smoking a cigarette or something like that. But then I decided that would have lost it’s humor after 5 seconds, so I went with “The Sexy Vegan” because I thought people would click on it more, assuming they would think there was some sort of hot chick involved. I will say there were boobs. But just the ones on a chubby, pasty dude showing them how to make guacamole. By the time they figured it out, however, they had already clicked on it. So I won! Plus they would learn something if they watched the whole thing, so they would win too. Everybody wins! It was really the best name to choose for the betterment of humanity.
CV – Tell me a little bit about your cookbook The Sexy Vegan’s Happy Hour at Home and what inspired you to write it?
BP – I was sitting at my computer one day and got an email from my editor at New World Library. As I remember it, she said something to the effect of, “your first book is selling really well, and we project that it will continue to sell. And we love you better than all of our other authors. And you’re the best at everything, oh, and do you have any ideas for another book?” I had recently started a tradition in my house of doing a little “happy hour” on our tiny balcony just for me and my girlfriend (who has since become my wife). It was a tapas kind of thing with small plates and, of course, some adult beverages. I presented this idea to the editors and presto! Happy Hour at Home was created! It’s got fully planned out menus – each with a few, easy to put together, small plates and beverage pairings – along with shopping lists, and efficiency tips that help speed up your cooking process, and teach you how to manage kitchen time properly. It’s got everything from Rigatoni Poppers, to Samosa Pizzas, to Nashitinis and Figgy Lifting Drinks. Food and booze – you can’t go wrong.
CV – What inspires you to create a new recipe?
BP – Inspiration comes from all around – something I ate at a restaurant, or a classic meal from my childhood. It can come from some foreign ingredient I discover at an ethnic market, or just figuring out what to do with whatever is left in my fridge at the end of the week.
CV – What advice would you give to aspiring chefs?
BP – Get to work. Don’t spend a ton of cashola on culinary school until you see what it’s like to work in the food industry for real. Find a restaurant, a cafe, a catering company, or any type of food production establishment, and work there – doing whatever job they have for you. If you can deal with de-stemming green beans, peeling potatoes and picking basil leaves for hours on end…and you’re ok with wearing unfashionable shoes and compression stockings, culinary work might be for you – at which point you can weigh your schooling options.
CV – What would you cook for a dinner party of die-hard meat-eaters?
BP – The Lasagna Fauxlognese from my first book. I’ve fed it to meat eaters many times, and many times I’ve watched them scrape the casserole trying to get every last bit. It’s got my cashew and artichoke ricotta, and a ground tofu sausage bolognese, layered in a lasagna-like manner. The meat eaters swoon.
CV – What’s your favorite meal or favorite type of food?
BP – Favorite meal is easily Thanksgiving Dinner. I’m pretty sure I don’t have to explain why.
CV – What vegan product could you not live without?
BP – That would be Edward & Sons Bullion Cubes. Their Not-Chick’n and No-Beef cubes are used almost daily in my kitchen. They are the best! They also have some curry bullion cubes that are very tasty. The only thing I don’t understand, is that their packaging should say “Not Chicken.” Because if “chick-n” is meant to mean “fake chicken”, and they call this “not-chick’n”, then that means it’s “not fake chicken”…so then what is it? I realize that’s a rather annoying thing of me to point out, but, well, sometimes I’m annoying.
CV – What can we expect from you next? Are there any more cookbooks in the works?
BP – I have ideas for books, but not working on anything in particular right now, except for the Sexy Vegan Radidio podcast. It’s a weekly podcast that you can find on iTunes and Stitcher where I share recipes, and interview cookbook authors like Terry Hope Romero, Fran Costigan, Gena Hamshaw, and Julie Hasson, I also feature all of your favorite vegan bloggers and other people in the vegan world. The recipes I share and supplemental info for the podcast can also be found on my blog, thesexyvegan.com.
