As a college student getting used to living in an apartment for the first time, one of my most desired staples is cookbooks. I love having physical recipes to reference — they remind me of my mom’s extensive collection when I was a kid. TikTok food content creator Halle Burns shares these fond memories of cookbooks, giving her the inspiration to release her debut cookbook, Call Me Vegan.
Burns got famous on TikTok for her simple vegan recipes while she was still a college student herself. However, her cookbook dreams started long before, in her mom’s kitchen growing up. “My mom was a Martha Stewart fan,” Burns explained. “Having the recipes in a tangible book felt more like proof or a record… than digital content.” With so many fans requesting Burns release a book of her creative recipes, it just felt like the next logical step.
The cookbook itself took around seven months total to develop, marked by an expansion of Burns’ cooking abilities during that same time. This was because while she was writing Call Me Vegan, she was also attending culinary school in India, a goal of Burns for a while. “It feels like I’ve watched every blog or movie about culinary school,” she said. “Going would give me an extra level of credibility, and I wanted to see if that style of cooking was possible [for me].”
This specific school was a particularly good choice due to Burns’ veganism, too. “I went to college at the University of Alabama,” she explained. “Which is possibly the most anti-vegan place you can be.” Her time living in New York City expanded her horizons, but with vegan cooking as the core of everything she does, India’s tendency towards vegetarianism was the perfect place to develop new recipes.
She wrote and developed all of the recipes for the cookbook while in culinary school and didn’t pull any from her long backlog of creations on TikTok. “I didn’t want the book to just copy and paste old recipes,” Burns said. “It just made more sense to have new stuff.” Planning to develop completely new recipes quickly led to a book based on the fundamentals of cooking, a beginner’s handbook for vegans, of sorts. With over 125 recipes in the finalized draft, Call Me Vegan focuses on how to create easy meals for any and every meal with delicious vegan alternatives.
The book’s aesthetic also perfectly matches Burns’ online presence; bubbly and bright. The photos of the recipes reflect this, as if you’re flipping through her personal Pinterest feed. Many of the shots feature delectably messy presentations, with generous helpings of flavorings. Such is the “Angry Edamame” shoot from page 41, where Burns pours her signature “Angry” sauce over the beans still in their bag. Dripping over her fingers, the presentation mimics a walking taco — simple, casual, and effortless. The food stylist who assisted with the photography had worked with Shake Shack prior, leading to delightfully edible pictures. Burns insisted that Call Me Vegan wouldn’t fake any of its food. The pictures in the book should look just like the food readers would cook at home for themselves.
Burns’ entire career was started out of a desire to make cooking easily accessible to other college students. “People want excuses to mingle… and cooking is the perfect chance to throw events.” Burns said. This book overwhelmingly succeeds at doing so, further giving any reader the perfect rolodex of healthy, trendy recipes to impress any audience. Be sure to check out the book for yourself, available now.