The Galloping Garbanzo

UC Santa Barbara Student Elaine Skiadas Pens

Vegan Cookbook Targeting Teens

By George Yatchisin | April 1, 2023

Chipotle BBQ Mushroom Tacos | Reprinted with permission from ‘Fantastic Vegan Recipes for the Teen Cook’ by Elaine Skiadas. Page Street Publishing Co. 2023. | Credit: Elaine Skiadas

First-year UC Santa Barbara student Elaine Skiadas isn’t so much precocious as she is creative and hungry. When the pandemic hit, the Glencoe, Illinois, native took to Instagram to post recipes. “I could just make stuff up and put it on the Internet,” she recalls. Her Wandering Chickpea persona grew in popularity, gave birth to a blog, and even gave her motivation to buy a better camera.

Elaine Skiadas. | Credit: Elaine Skiadas

Two years into the project, she got an email out of the blue from Page Street Publishing asking if she might be interested in writing a cookbook. “I thought, ‘This has to be a joke — I’m 17,’” she says. In a Zoom call, the publisher made an offer and gave her a week to decide. She got back in touch in two hours. She admits, “In my head, a book was a goal that was 10 years out.” On April 11, she will become the 18-year-old author of Fantastic Vegan Recipes for the Teen Cook.

Now, more than 60 healthy recipes await her readers, from savory golden porridge with spiced chickpeas to salted caramel crunch bars, with a host of “weeknight wonders,” “weekend feasts,” and “globally inspired meals” along the tasty way. “Creating content for the Internet, you always have to consider something could go viral,” she says. “For the book, I didn’t need to focus on things being so flashy.” That isn’t to say Skiadas isn’t an artful food stylist; she admits enjoying the challenge of good food photography, and the mouth-watering results in the book (and on her blog) speak for themselves.