The Blooming Platter Cookbook:
A Harvest of Seasonal Vegan Recipes 
Betsy’s first book is a celebration of the seasons, featuring a wide range of accessible and elegant vegan recipes for the home cook. Spanning regional American favorites and global cuisines, these 175 recipes and 8 pages of color photos feature all the essential goodness that fresh vegetables, fruits, and herbs bring to your table, all year ‘round.
Available on Amazon.
Cheers and thank you for your support!
What’s “The Platter”?
The Blooming Platter offers a growing collection of recipes for creative appetizers, beverages, snacks, soups, salads, sides and entrees with a tendency toward ethnic fusion dishes, lightened-up comfort foods and updated classics with a twist. A baker since childhood, I also include a burgeoning selection of dessert recipes that will tempt even the staunchest dairy-lover. Here's to compassionate plant-based cooking and eating!
~Betsy DiJulio
About Betsy DiJulio
When Betsy—an award-winning art teacher and practicing artist—is not teaching, making art, reading, writing, or walking her new dogs, Patsy and Urban, she can often be found in downward dog on her yoga mat.
And after that? A little food, a little more wine, and a lot of communing with friends, family, and students (well, no wine for her students).
In addition to authoring The Blooming Platter Cookbook, Betsy is a regular contributor, columnist, or featured writer for:
- SchoolArts
- Coastal Virginia Magazine
- VEER
- The Virginian-Pilot
- Alimentum
Look for the occasional link here on her website.
Besides art and cooking, Betsy admits to being a little obsessed with:
-Anything eco- or animal-friendly
-Artisanal and small business ventures
-Day hiking
-Consignment fashion
-Design in its many forms, especially interiors and landscapes
Did someone say mid-century modern?
Blooming Blogroll
The lovely Lauren Rogers Museum in my hometown of Laurel, MS, is holding an art auction for which they wanted artwork created by people with ties to the town. They asked my mom if I would be willing to make a piece and, of course, I was happy to. So they mailed me an 8 x 10″ canvas on which I could paint anything. I was stumped because I wanted it to be “pretty” enough to sell, but I’m not one to make merely decorative art. This image came to me, kind of all at once, but only after I’d been ruminating on an idea for a while. It’s an intentionally ambiguous statement about what we eat, what we don’t, what we protect and what we choose not to. I’d love to know what you think.
March 16, 2010 at 11:01 pm
I love that when I click on the image it blows up and covers the whole screen so that I can really investigate the, is it monoprinting in the back ground? I find the repeat pattern very wonderful. I enjoy it as a backdrop to the glass house, spoon and nest…also the aged silverware is, for me, a reference to times gone by, visits to ancestors and the juxtaposition of nest/house and the importance of being nurtured.
Your blue hues and the warmth of the clay colors always make me feel comforted…so earthy and so natural.
The piece is soothing for my eye…thanks for posting it.
March 17, 2010 at 6:21 am
The ground is pieces of wallpaper, along with, actually, rubber stamping. I just used acrylic on the stamp instead of ink. You are so perceptive. The silverware was given to us by my mother when we got married and is certainly a reference to family heritage. I'm enjoying working in neutral colors with little blushes, or sometimes "pops" of color. I'm glad they work for you because I trust your opinion implicitly. Thank you so much for the time you've lavished on this little painting through your looking and thinking.
March 17, 2010 at 11:58 am
Hi Betsy, I find this piece very appealing!! I love all the layers, beginning with the warm tones in the back ground, and the repeat pattern which helps to set a peaceful tone for me. Then there is a feeling of nostalgia with both the style of silverware and the back ground pattern, bringing me homey comfort, along with the nest – the ultimate symbol of nurturing comfort. I love that there is tension (for me) as well though, with the 'glass' house – a home of transparency is a bit scary, and so is the idea of a nest with an egg in it, sitting in the bowl of a spoon – gulp!! It's a beautiful and generous donation piece – someone will get great joy from it, I'm sure.