About Me
Welcome! I am so grateful that you’re here. I’m Melissa, which is Greek for "Honey Bee" (hence the blog name). I love food, especially when it is plant-based. There is nothing better to me than a kale caesar salad, veggie tacos, a cashew cheese plate & a glass of wine, or a sinful vegan cupcake (or two).
For many years, I blogged under the handle, Vegenista, which I created in November 2009 when very dear friends of mine, Andi & her husband Kevin, decided to adopt a vegan diet. Knowing I was raised vegetarian, & eating vegan at the time, Andi had plenty of questions & I had plenty of answers. After bombarding her email account with forwards, links, & information, & spending our work days talking more about food than about work – it struck me! Why not put all of this knowledge into a blog? So I did, & Vegenista (the moniker that Andi lovingly gave me) was born. Over the years, Vegenista evolved pretty organically, taking many different shapes & forms. As the blog evolved, I did too. I joined a local farm’s CSA program, started attending cooking classes, & began spending more time in my own kitchen cooking, creating, & experimenting. I also became more conscious about the products, cosmetics, goods, & clothing I was purchasing. Thus, I shared it all on the blog, eventually gaining 10k followers, which was HUGE at the time.
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Then, in 2017, I had a rock bottom moment after a series of personal setbacks. As my life began to unravel, I stopped writing, cooking, or caring. The things that had once inspired me lost their luster & I was stifled by grief & pain. I lost my voice, my identity, & myself as I'd once known her. After months of walking wounded, & in an effort to move forward in any way possible, I immersed myself in a three-year graduate program which consumed most of my energy. During that time, the blog was left idle, & eventually, I deleted everything as if to erase that painful period of my life. Turns out, it doesn't quite work that way. In hindsight, I realized that I had lost a significant body of work that was so very important to me, & the pain was still there, so like it or not, I had to find other ways to work through it.
In March of 2022, in a moment of nostalgia, I realized the error of my ways & used an internet archive service to retrieve & republish my content. Unfortunately, the old site was an absolute mess, & so I just let it sit. Then, in the Summer of 2022, I was finally able to celebrate my 2020 graduation with a "Vegan Adventure" in Italy with the Getaway Co. A conversation with a fellow guest got my wheels turning & he really encouraged me to bring the blog back to life (thank you, Ross). In need of a creative project to keep me inspired when I returned home, I began sifting through my archives looking for my favorite recipe creations to reshare. So here we are. My hope & intention is to keep the inspiration going by creating some new recipes as well. This is a work in progress as I comb through pages & pages worth of archived content. I am also still trying to find my voice in this new space & virtual landscape. So much has changed since I launched 12 years ago!
If you are new to me, welcome. If you are a previous reader, welcome back! Nevertheless, I appreciate you being here, & as an aside, I have no judgments about the diet which you choose for yourself. All are welcome in this space. My hope is to inspire you to make more plant-based choices for your health, the sustainability of the planet, & in kindness to animals.
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