“Hello!” began my email. “I’m a reporter with WBUR’s Public Radio Kitchen.” A simple and understandable identity – unlike, I was beginning to suspect, the person I was chatting with.

His name is Joshua Ploeg. He is currently “based in Mexico, abou 20 min. south of Tijuana in Rosarito.” He is the vegan author of In Search of the Lost Taste, a cookbook and adventure zine  printed through Microcosm Publishing.

What’s a zine, you ask? Basically, it’s a small and often handmade magazine – but really, it’s much more than that. Wikipedia traces zines back to revolutionary pamphlets like Thomas Paine’s Common Sense – a lofty beginning, but not an entirely unaccurate one. They are strongly tied to punk movements – in particular, the early 1990s riot grrl scene. Apparently, every small liberal arts campus had a couple of radical girls who would cut-and-paste together earnest articles about rock bands and feminism.

You’d think the internet would have wiped these curious publications out – and you’d probably be right, for the most part. But Microcosm Publishing’s zines have persisted – maybe because its headquarters is in hippie-dippy Portland, or maybe because of 90s nolstagia, or maybe because there’s something really neat about exploring someone else’s small and personal passions.

I’d like to think that this was the reason I requested the zine distributer’s $20 “I Like Food! Food is Good!” superpack – a collection of mostly politically radical books about food. Included in this was The Frugal Vegan’s Harvest & Holiday Survival Guide, which includes a recipe for Chakra balancing oil amid its tofu terriaki bites and soymilk fudge; Nine Gallons #2, a comic book about Food Not Bombs; Edible Secrets, a short and simple book about classified U.S. documents involving food; and, less food-related than the rest, Firewood #1, a somewhat instructive manual for going off the grid. To say that these books were largely amateurish is both true and – as a complaint – somewhat missing the point.

The publisher had thrown in Ploeg’s tome as representative of some of their other food-related offerings. I’m glad she did – it was my favorite of the books by far. Ploeg’s recipes are truly inventive – weird, even. Read some of the recipes titles: “Plum and Pistachio Crisp with Ouzo-Lemon ‘Ice Cream’ and Rose Syrup.” “Fried Zucchini Logs Stuffed with Olive ‘Cream Cheese.'” “Saffron Crumpet with Violet Jam.” Interspersed with this is sort of a rollicking pulp adventure story – the quest for a mysterious, perfect recipe for “the lost taste.”

Ploeg’s real life is more mundane, but just barely.  A spokeswoman from Microcosm had described him as a “touring vegan chef.” His book described him as part-cook, part-salonnière, part-Indiana Jones. In real life, he lives on trains, buses and in other people’s homes, cooking and exploring wherever he’s invited. This is, for him, a full-time job.

He’s a true bohemian, getting all his money from sales of his cookbooks: “I usually stay where I cook, go out if they go out and hang out by myself if they go to work or whatever,” he wrote. “I try to do multiple dates in each city as I travel so I can accumulate transpo and party money. That is my job as such, I hate normal work, work for other people is shit.”

I’ve always associated food with home – with a family, with security, and with thankfulness for all that entails. But food can also be an exploration – a way out the door, to something new. It has brought Ploeg all over America, Canada, Mexico, parts of Europe and the Carribean. But what is it that drives Ploeg?

“It is for fun. It is for money. It is for passion. And for fashion,” he wrote. The words seem like an oft-recited manifesto. “To be an individual, do what I wish, cook without limits and both meet new people with at least a few common interests as well as see, stay with and reconnect with old friends who are scattered about all over the country and the world.”

“It is a self-sustaining job/tour/vacation combo that pays for itself as it goes along,” he explains. “A top idea. Politics, always on my mind but not necessarily the impetus behind it. There is always a political edge lurking behind vegetarianism, veganism and DIY culture, whether you embrace it or try to avoid it, that connection remains.”

In other words, the recipe below isn’t just a recipe – it’s a small bit of activism, albeit one that sounds yummy enough for even the most committed carnivore.

Lemongrass-Basil “Ice Cream”

2 cups coconut milk
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon lemongrass (more to taste)
1 cup chopped basil
1 small minced Thai chili
innards of 1 vanilla bean
1/2 cup mango juice
1/2 cup lime juice
2 tablespoon gin
1/2 cup soy creamer
a pinch or two of salt

Melt sugar in soy creamer over low-med heat with lemongrass, stirring occasionally. Cool and then blend in batches with the rest of the ingredients. Freeze until firm, making sure to give it a good stir every half hour or so – so that it won’t ice up too terribly. It takes a while to freeze properly, so give yourself some time on this one and make sure your freezer works properly.