Nava Atlas took a trio of talents that emerged as a youngster and adding her particular food preference has become a well-known author of vegan and vegetarian cookbooks.
The New Paltz resident remembers a Michigan childhood when she loved to draw, write and cook. The vegetarian preference came originally not from any philosophical conviction (that came later), but just “I didn”™t like the texture of meat.”
Her mother balked at preparing two sets of meals, so she offered her daughter the option of cooking her own fare.
Today, in addition to books on other subjects, Atlas has authored “VegKitchen,” “Vegan Express,” “Vegan Soups and Hearty Stews for All Seasons,” “The Vegetarian Family Cookbook,” “The Vegetarian 5-Ingredient Gourmet,” “Great American Vegetarian,” “Vegetariana,” and “Secret Recipes for the Modern Wife.” She also runs the popular cooking site, vegkitchen.com.
While vegetarians shun meat, vegans take this aversion one step further, Atlas explains, terming herself a “vegan.”
“Vegans do not wear leather shoes or woolen garments. While the sheep are sheared and not eaten, there are still inhumane practices.”
Atlas, who was raised in Oak Park, Mich., studied art, drawing and graphic design at the University of Michigan, receiving a bachelor of fine arts degree. She spent her junior year studying at New York City”™s School of Visual Arts. “I never studied writing,” she adds.
Thirty eventful years went by before graduation from the State University of New York at New Paltz, where she earned a master”™s in arts degree.
Life did not begin for Atlas in Michigan. She was born in Israel to eastern European parents who migrated to Palestine in the l930s. They later moved to Detroit, “where my mother”™s three surviving sisters lived.”
One of Atlas”™ two brothers settled in New York City, where she eventually moved. There she met Harry Tabak, to whom she has been married for 33 years. “We were both starving artists back then. I illustrated book covers and interiors.”
With a growing family (son Adam is now 22 and Evan is 20), they needed more space and chose to settle in New Paltz. Both sons bear the Atlas name. “My husband thought the name was cool,” she explains. With no coercion on her part, the three men in her family joined her as vegetarians and all are now vegan. Her spouse went into the real estate field, but is now returning to art, doing sculpture.
Like most professionals, Atlas has had her good and her unfortunate experiences. The downbeat one came during graduate school, “when I wrote a nonfiction book and decided to self-publish. I didn”™t think it through and spent good money after bad. We learn a lot from disasters.”
Then there was the thrill of having a book published by a real publisher. The success of “Vegetariana” led to other books.
Her writing is not limited to cookbooks. She boasts 500,000 copies of books in print. As a writer herself, confronting such matters as dealing with rejection, balancing family with the solitary writing process, she selected 12 celebrated women authors of past years, including Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte, and studied their journals, letters and diaries, weaving them into “The Literary Ladies”™ Guide to the Writing Life,” recently published by Sellers Publishing Inc.
Atlas has strong convictions about fostering creativity in children.
“Parents discourage children from going into creative fields and becoming self-employed,” she laments. “Cutting creative classes from schools in disastrous. Unlike memorizing, these help them grow.”
Challenging Careers focuses on the exciting and unusual business lives of Hudson Valley residents. Comments or suggestions may be e-mailed to Catherine Portman-Laux at cplaux@optonline.net.
