“You really can’t say”: survived from cancer, mother of 3 serves vegan versions of family recipes – Advocate

Red beans and rice, seafood gumbo, lasagna-these are just a few of the recipes that Nicky’s Nicky Martin-Tompson family has been passed on for generations.

Her mother, Mary Jones, owns Nonna’s cafe in Amite, where she cooks food recipes for soul that she received from her mother, who had taken them from her mother before.

But when Martin-Tompson was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2020, she went vegan and the recipes went vegan with her.

Through experience and mistakes, she adapts her family recipes to adapt her meat, there is no diet for animal products, and according to her family one cannot try the difference. Now, with his cancer in remission, Martin-Tompson owns and manages vegan vibrations, the All-Wegan Soul Grocery Restaurant on Avenue Bennington in Baton Rouge.

When Nonewegans hear the words “vegan restaurant”, they can think of salad, green drinks or raw vegetables, Martin-Tompson said, but she is committed to serving the full range of delicious food that people love. From Louisiana Staples to vegan versions of Tiktok Trendy Recipes, she changes her menu daily and constantly tries new things.

“Ish” in the vegan is inspired by the television series “Black-Ish” and its subsequent spinofs. Not that some foods on the menu are not vegan, everything is. Like his names shows, Veganish Vibes explores the rich complexity of what vegan food can be.

“Vegan vibrations are a completely different concept of vegan food,” she said. “I like to tell everyone that eating you have before you is the eating I would eat.”

To her, this means that it should look good, taste good and not lack taste. Thus, the cheese is melted, the beigners do not contain eggs or butter, but one does not miss them, and Lazanya has all his or her meat layers. The bigger part of her clients are not vegan and she understands this.

“Our motto here is that you don’t have to be vegan to enjoy vegan food,” she said.

Martin-Tompson usually receives clients inflow earlier this year. This is “vegan”, and some Baton Rouge churches make Daniel quickly in January, which encourages people to give up meat, dairy and rich foods to focus on spiritual practices like prayer.

In addition, she has loyal customers who come regularly, out of town guests who find her vegan sites like Happy Cow, and people who come in to try something new. It uses gluten -free meat substitutes and offers gluten -free buns for those who have gluten sensitivity.

When Martin-Tompson was first diagnosed with cancer, husband Jordan Thompson and their eldest daughter went vegan with her. Now their family of five is mostly vegan, but about once a month her husband eats seafood.

Thompson, a native of Marero, raised every weekend, eating seafood, so when they started going to plants, he was a little skeptical of how durable he would be. Will they just eat salad all the time? But the aromas in Martin-Tompson’s food won it. One of the recipe that is especially highlighting is her vegan Gumbo.

“Gumbo tastes like shrimp, The Crawfish – Regular Gumbo has all this in it, or if you make the Gumbo chicken and sausage, this taste will be difficult to get,” he said. “But she managed to do it.” She found Vegan shrimp, she received the vegan sausage; These are the spices and the various ingredients it finds and assembles to give it the actual taste of Gumbo. “

Martin-Tompson’s family helps at the restaurant when they can, especially on weekends, but most days she cooks in the kitchen and manages the register alone. For a few days, this is a steak made of mushrooms, others are ribs made of jackfruit or fried wings made of cauliflower.

There are also some staples from the menu: the special red beans (red beans and rice, fried mushrooms and greenery/candied wells), ISSA vibration burger, Philly Cheesesteak egg rolls and sweet potato white. Sweet potatoes are Martin-Tompson’s own formulation, a closely kept secret recipe that even her mother doesn’t know.

The recipes may sound as if they taste very different from their ignorant colleagues, but according to Jones, they don’t just taste, they taste.

“You really can’t say,” Jones said. “I am very proud of her that she took my recipes and made it a plant base.”

Nowadays, Martin-Tompson works on a recipe for cinnamon rollers between greetings for his red beans and rice Fix. Some people order the special red beans every day on Doordash, she said. It goes through 40-60 kilograms of red beans every week.

Veganish Vibes is open from 11:00 to 18:00 Tuesday-Friday and from 11am to 7pm on Saturday; Closed Sunday and Monday.