While Miami's vegan scene might be a little bit lacking, we have to give props to the dedicated herbivores working to educate the masses on the benefits of local produce, meatless Mondays and cruelty-free cuisine.

One such teacher is Ellen Kanner, blogger, columnist and now, cookbook author. Kanner has long been a force for healthy living in South Florida, and she's about to reach a broader audience with her new cookbook, Feeding the Hungry Ghost: Life, Faith and What to Eat for Dinner. In it, she schools readers on the four seasons, spirituality through food and greens galore.

See also:
- Top Five Vegan Cheeses
- Ten Superfoods to Make You a Stallion in the Sack

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You know meatless is mainstream when it's being embraced by the kitchen queen herself, Martha Stewart. The ex-con and corporate master known as M. Diddy just released a new cookbook compiling the best and brightest of her meat-free concoctions.

Meatless offers more than 200 recipes from the editors of Martha Stewart Living.Why the emphasis on meat-free eating? As Stewart says on her blog, "numerous studies have shown that you can reduce the risks of cancer, heart disease, obesity, and diabetes by consuming more vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds, and by eating fewer meats."

Amen, sister.

Read also:
- Martha Stewart, Emeril Lagasse Sued Over German Knives Made In China
- Celebrity Chefs' Million Dollar Mansions: Look What Cooking Can Buy

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Fifty Shades of Chicken

Be careful of those dripping thighs.

Fifty Shades of Grey, the erotic novel by E.L. James, became a breakout sensation, selling over 40 million copies and making the New York Times bestseller list. It's also been "roasted" by every comedian, literary critics, and Saturday Night Live for its bondage fantasy subject matter and less-than-Hemingway writing style.

So, it's only natural that someone would take this turkey of a book and make it all about chicken. Fifty Shades of Chicken, to be exact. This extremely hilarious cookbook offers 50 different erotic chicken recipes like dripping thighs, mustard spanked chicken, and chicken with a lardon.

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Clarkson Potter Publishing Group

Hedy Goldsmith is juggling a lot of sweets on her plate.

Baking Out Loud, Hedy Goldsmith's first book is finally coming out in about a month.

The 224-page tome features 80 recipes by the talented executive pastry chef at Michael's Genuine Food & Drink and photographs by Ben Fink.

Many of the treats featured in Baking Out Loud are upgraded riffs on the chow we all grew up with: Oreos, Pop Tarts, Swiss Rolls, and Twinkies. Goldsmith also reveals the secret behind her addictive "Junk in Da Trunk" cookies, which could possibly be worth the price of the book in itself.

Baking Out Loud lists for $27.50, but Amazon.com is offering the book for $15.54 on pre-sale with free super-saver shipping.

With every book release come the inevitable parties, and the first one has already been announced.

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Ms. Goldsmith goes to New York.

2012 is turning out to be a good year, indeed, for Michael's Genuine Food & Drink pastry chef Hedy Goldsmith.

The modest and talented chef is on her way this weekend to New York City for the annual James Beard Foundation Awards ceremony at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall on Monday, May 7, where she is a nominee in the Outstanding Pastry Chef category, alongside notable peers Joanne Chang (Flour Bakery + Café in Cambridge, Massachusetts), Melissa Chou (Aziza in San Francisco), Dahlia Narvaez (Osteria Mozza in Los Angeles), Ghaya Oliveira (Boulud Sud in New York), and Mindy Segal (Mindy's Hot Chocolate in Chicago).

If that's not all, her first book, Baking Out Loud: Fun Desserts with Big Flavors, which has an October 2 release date, is available for pre-sale on Amazon.com for $14.74 (which is a big savings over the $27.50 list price).

Chef Goldsmith has shared a sneak preview of her book with Short Order readers, with a recipe for her easy-to-make and delicious popcorn & peanut bark. Give 'em hell in New York Hedy!

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​Some women at a Texas prison have compiled their culinary wisdom into a cookbook for those on the outside. The volume, titled From the Big House to Your House, is a collection of 200 recipes written by six women of the Mountain View Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in Gatesville, Texas. All except one of the authors -- Celeste Johnson, Ceyma Bina, Barbara Holder, Tina Cornelius, Trenda Kemmerer and Louanne Larson -- are serving prison sentences of at least 50 years for murder convictions.

The women pooled their resources to seek alternatives to prison chow, which eventually led to the cookbook. The recipes are easy-to-prepare meals, snacks, and desserts. They have to be easy because in prison there are no toaster ovens or microwaves; all they had to cook with was a hot pot and an empty potato chip bag -- which works well for trapping heat.

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Bea Arthur: Thank you for being a veg.

​If you always wanted to cook like a (dead) rock star, then The Dead Celebrity Cookbook is for you.

This little tome of awesomeness is the brainchild of Frank DeCaro, who started collecting the recipes of stars gone "bye" after attending a "dead celebrity party." DeCaro, who was a movie critic on The Jon Stewart Show, has broken up the recipes into some freaking funny chapters, like:

I Lunch Lucy, featuring Lucille Balls' Chopped Chicken Livers, Sunday Night Goulash, and Tropical Treat (a possible homage to ex-husband and fellow dead celebrity, Desi Arnaz).

Thank You For Feeding a Friend is all about the Golden Girls being healthy (before taking dirt naps).  PETA supporter Bea Arthur's Vegetarian Breakfast, Rue McClanahan's Non-Dairy Cheesecake, and Estelle Getty's Baked Chicken Fingers recipes are included. So far, Betty White, who just turned 90, isn't included since she's still above ground.

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I have come to praise Miami Book Fair International, not to bury it. I mean seriously: Is there any other event of this size that runs so seamlessly and trouble-free year after year? Plus, if not for Mitchell Kaplan, a lot of people in Miami might still not know what a book is.

All I'm saying is that the cookbook authors secured for this year's event are not necessarily the cream of the crop. And there are some legitimate reasons. Many of the top-selling cookbooks of 2011, for instance, were penned by chefs who have restaurants to run and can't be flying off to do every book fair (Heston Blumenthal, Daniel Humm, and so forth). Other authors were simply unavailable due to their own meager personal reasons.

The book fair did manage to get Calvin Trillin, whose The Tummy Trilogy remains one of the best collections of stories about eating ever written (although he is known for far more than food writing).

Other food events include:

This coming Saturday at 11 a.m., Andrew Carmellini (American Flavor), Gabrielle Hamilton (Blood, Bones & Butter), and Jessica B. Harris (High on the Hog) will take part in a reading.

Later on Saturday, at 4 p.m., there will be a See, Learn, Eat! cooking demo with Daniel Orr.

Michael Schwartz (Michael's Genuine Food) will be joined Sunday at 3 p.m. by Cheryl Tan (A Tiger in the Kitchen) and Mary L. Zamore (The Sacred Table).

BUT, here are five authors who have not only written great cookbooks but also could have taught us all a whole lot about food and cooking.

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Miami Book Fair

The Miami Book Fair: eat and read at the same time.

​The Miami Book Fair International is once again taking over the streets of downtown Miami. Every fall, voracious readers look forward to perusing both new and antique books in the hope of finding a treasure or a bargain at the street fair, or listening to a book reading by a celebrity author.

The fair also hosts some great cocktail parties, book signing events, and an international village (this year's featured country is China). We've put together a list of the food-related events at the Book Fair, by date, so you can have a handy, dandy guide.

Events start Sunday, November 13th and the street fair runs November 18-20. Admission to the fair is free, Friday, November 18th. Saturday and Sunday, November 19th and 20th, admission is $8 for adults. Admission for teens 13 to 18 and seniors over 62 is $5. Children 12 and under are free.

Admission to the Twilight Tastings are free. Most events are included with event admission, but some events (as noted), require additional tickets. See miamibookfair.com for details and to purchase advance tickets.

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The White House

Michelle Obama and Bo in the White House garden.

​The first lady has written a cookbook with gardening tips. The 256-page book, American Grown: How the White House Kitchen Garden Inspires Families, Schools, and Communities, is scheduled to be released April 10 in both print and e-book editions. (Pre-order it at randomhouse.com.)

The book is Mrs. Obama's first. (Her husband, the president, has written several best sellers, including a children's book.) She has taken no advance and is donating all "net or after-tax author proceeds to a charity or charities to be named after."

American Grown tells how her daughters -- Sasha and Malia -- helped the family change its eating ways. The girls, in fact, were the reason behind the edible garden on the South Lawn. The last first lady to plant a vegetable garden, by the way, was Eleanor Roosevelt during World War II.

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