Hey, I'm Isa

So cool that you're here! Grab a spatula and let's do this.

I’ve been cooking vegan since the late 80’s! And I’m a Brooklyn Native and Best-Selling Author.

More About Me

The most important things to know about me: I was born and raised in Brooklyn, I love cats, and I love to feed people—myself included. I’m obsessed with cookbooks. As a kid, flipping through a box of recipe cards was just as fun as rollerskating. Which reminds me: I’m Gen X through and through. I love the feel of paper, cutting my own bangs, and watching full-length cooking shows. I’m not on TikTok even though I probably should be.

I started cooking seriously when I went vegetarian as a teenager in 1989. The first vegan cookbook I ever cooked from was Tofu Cookery by Louise Hagler. It changed everything for my family. We never really cooked together before that. We’d make Barbecue Tofu or Tofu Balls and Spaghetti, and it brought us closer. My love of cookbooks took on a whole new life.

My vegetarian friends and I cooked for any reason at all—birthdays, holidays, road trips, touring bands. We’d stay up all night making elaborate seitan roasts, wake up in the afternoon and make pancakes, go to an anti-fur demonstration, then start all over again.

People Often Ask Me...

if I’m self-taught. Technically, yes. But really, I’ve picked things up from all the amazing people I’ve worked alongside over the years. From the guy at Food Not Bombs who showed me how to slice ten pounds of broccoli in under ten minutes, to the prep cook at a Brooklyn restaurant who taught me how to slice onions without crying—the world has been my cooking school. And sometimes I’m just plain spying, like when my roommate made her secret maple potatoes and I’d pretend to talk about some guy while stealing all her potato knowledge.

It’s been over four decades since I formed that first tofu ball, and I’ve never looked back. I’m ecstatic to see vegan cooking gaining ground every day, one dinner at a time. Even so, my mom, sister, and I still make those same tofu balls. Some things never change.

It completely warms my heart when fully grown adults tell me they grew up eating my pancakes. That’s the best possible thing to hear.

Post Punk Kitchen Began...

as a cooking show on Brooklyn Public Access in 2002. (You can still find some episodes on YouTube if you try real hard.) Then it became an online community with recipe sharing and message boards—the kinds of things people did on the internet in the mid-2000s. Eventually it became mostly my recipe blog. I’ve changed the title over the years, but nothing else has stuck.

The world moves fast, and maybe at this point the name evokes nostalgia for everyone who’s been on this journey with me, or at least their parents. So I’m sticking with it for now. And I’m excited to help raise a new generation of tofu lovers, one pancake at a time.

xo Isa