Dueling Chefs: A Vegetarian and a Meat Lover Debate the Plate

One eats meat. The other doesn't. Both are professional chefs. And both have recipes that make a deliciously persuasive case for each chef's point of view. In a delightful culinary turn on "he said, she said," dueling chefs Maggie Pleskac and Sean Carmichael engage in a delectable debate over the merits of the cuisines of vegetarians and carnivores in the form of recipe one-upmanship in which only the reader is sure to win.

Between entertaining banter and edifying discussion of exciting ingredients, Pleskac and Carmichael challenge each other--and cooks everywhere--with eighty recipes as creative (and mouthwatering) as Beef Brisket with Blueberry BBQ Sauce and Jackfruit Pineapple BBQ on a Bun. Lobster and falafel, curried eggs and smoked halibut, tempeh and quinoa, stuffed capon breast and chickpeas in coconut sauce, goulash and salmon cakes and Bolshevik Beet and Blue Gratin: whatever diet suits your fancy, the dueling chefs have dishes to make your days and nights as delightful as your taste buds can bear.

Maggie Pleskac is owner and chef at Maggie's Vegetarian Caf in Lincoln, Nebraska. She is on the board of directors of Open Harvest Natural Foods Grocery and the vice president of Slow Food Nebraska. Sean Carmichael, a graduate of the Art Institute of Colorado, is executive chef at Chez Hay catering in Lincoln, Nebraska.