Winner of Saveur’s “Best New Blog” in 2013, Thug Kitchen started out as a way to get people to “eat like you give a f*ck.”
The blog is made up of vegan recipes that are entertainingly explained through a mix of colorful swearing and actual directions. With directions like, “Eat a goddamn salad!” the site quickly grew in popularity with vegans, healthy eaters and celebrities like Rachel Ray and Gwyneth Paltrow.
The blog’s half a million fans started asking for a cookbook. “Thug Kitchen:The Official Cookbook: Eat Like You Give a F*ck” came out in October and quickly climbed the ranks to become the No. 1 best-seller in Amazon’s Vegan Cooking section.
The creators
“Vegans have this reputation of being fussy and self-righteous,” blog co-creator Michelle Davis said on the Wisconsin Public Radio Show, To the Best of Our Knowledge.
“You don’t have to be like that,” she adds. “You can want to eat more vegetables and still be a normal fucking person.”
The blog writers were anonymous until after the book’s release and had no idea that it would achieve such success.
“When we created it it was like a free Tumblr account,” Co-creator Matt Holloway said. “We made it to make each other laugh.”
The recipes
The cookbook has recipes like mixed veggie tofu chilaquiles for breakfast, Moroccan spiced couscous for lunch, and smoky black-eyed peas with roasted sweet potatoes and collards. There are also innovative recipes for snacks, think pineapple guacamole, and healthy desserts, like peachy almond tapioca pudding. The blog has even more recipes, all along the same line of eating foods that are in season, can be found semi-locally, and that won’t break the bank. Davis and Holloway have made the point that eating healthy should be affordable and easily doable. According to their fans it’s a point well taken with Thug Kitchen at hand.
