Isa Chandra Moskowitz | |
|---|---|
 Moskowitz in Omaha, Nebraska, 2010 | |
| Born | February 3, 1973 |
| Culinary career | |
| Cooking style | Vegan |
Television show(s)
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Award(s) won
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Isa Chandra Moskowitz is an American vegan chef, cookbook author, former host of the vegan community access cooking show Post Punk Kitchen, and restaurateur.
Raised in Brooklyn, New York, and having dropped out of The High School of Music & Art, where she majored in fine art, Moskowitz found herself drawn toward the punk rock scene of the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the late 1980s, embracing first a vegetarian diet, then veganism.[1] She also volunteered with Food Not Bombs.[2] an anarchist organization that provides free vegan meals to the homeless and needy.
In 2023, Tasting Table named Moskowitz as one of the “21 Plant-Based Chefs You Need To Know,”[3] and VegNews listed her as one of the "37 Creative Chefs Crafting the Future of Vegan Food."[4]
The inspiration to create her own cooking show, the Post Punk Kitchen, came while watching the Food Network and wondering to herself why there were no vegan shows.[5] According to Moskowitz, the show used the title The Post Punk Kitchen to signify the feeling of being "older and facing the conundrum of growing up and making compromises that their eighteen-year-old selves might hate them for".[5]
In April 2008, she relocated from New York to Portland, Oregon, then to Omaha, Nebraska. Her restaurant, Modern Love, has locations in Omaha and Brooklyn.[6][7][8] Her first restaurant, Modern Love, opened in Omaha in 2014[9] and a second location opened in Brooklyn in 2016.[10]
The success of The Post Punk Kitchen led to the compilation of a cookbook, Vegan with a Vengeance, in late 2005, and a number of additional cookbooks over the years.[11][12][13]
In 2023, Food & Wine listed both Veganomicon and Isa Does It: Amazingly Easy, Wildly Delicious Vegan Recipes for Every Day of the Week as 16 best vegan cookbooks for the year,[14] and also named Isa Does It as one of “The 18 Best Vegan Cookbooks for Every Type of Meal."[15]
VegNews listed Veganomicon,[16] Super fun Times Vegan Holiday Cookbook,[17] Vegan Brunch,[18] Isa Does It,[18] and I Can Cook Vegan[19] as "Top 100 Vegan Cookbooks of All Time" in 2024.
Moskowitz is a vocal opponent of "humane meat",[21] promoting animal rights through what she calls "Culinary Activism" or "Baketivism":[22][23]
After the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Moskowitz posted on her blog a call for vegans to host bake sales in their home cities to fundraise for relief[24] which resulted in over $75,000 being raised.[23]
