Jenné Claiborne is a chef and charismatic blogger with 217,000 followers across social media. She grew up in Atlanta eating classic soul food--but thought she had to give all that up when she went vegan. She now celebrates the plant-based roots of the cuisine in her book SWEET POTATO SOUL: 100 Easy Vegan Recipes for the Southern Flavors of Smoke, Sugar, Spice, and Soul, which are beautifully vibrant.

Some people wonder how you can have soul food without the chitlins, fried chicken, and pork-stewed collard greens. But Southern cooking and soul food actually have deep roots in fresh, local, plant-based lifestyles. In her first cookbook, Sweet Potato Soul, Jenné Claiborne honors the cuisine's important roots while offering new ways to prepare 100 classic (and new!) dishes for optimal nutrition--dishes like Coconut Collard Salad, Peach-Date BBQ Jackfruit Sliders, and Sweet Potato-Cinnamon Rolls.

Jenné explores the narratives surrounding iconic and beloved soul food recipes, as well as their innate nutritional benefits--you'll never look at super-healthy foods like dandelion and other bitter greens, black-eyed peas, or sweet potatoes the same way. You'll learn how to make better-than-the-original takes on crave-worthy dishes that are good for the environment and your health, heart, and soul. Illustrated with gorgeous full-color photography, these recipes are delicious and easy to make--thanks to Jenné's years of tweaking and experimentation--without sacrificing flavor, tradition, or soul: from decadent pound cakes and fluffy biscuits to smokey collard greens, deceptive "crab" cakes and the most comforting sweet potato pie you'll ever taste.

Jenne Claiborne is a NYC-based vegan personal chef, cooking instructor, and the blogger behind Sweet Potato Soul. She studied at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and founded the personal chef company, The Nourishing Vegan, whose clients have included India Arie, Lucy Liu, Lululemon, Soho House, Whole Foods, and many more. Jenné has been on Today, and her recipes and nutritional advice have been featured in VegNews,the Vegetarian Times, Shape.com, the Huffington Post, Reader's Digest, ThoughtfullyMagazine, Greatist, Well+Good, Laika magazine, Urban Bush Babes, Main Street Vegan, Our Hen House, and Refinery 29. She is the cocreator of Buddhalicious, an online meal planning service that makes it easy for people to adopt a healthy and delicious vegan diet.