Jennifer Duke

I work as features editor for Smart Property Investment magazine, I blog about Jane Austen and, most importantly, I’m a herbivore and a food-lover.  I’m a resident of a city you probably know for the tourist hotspots of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, but you might not know for its vegan friendliness… yet.

I’m an avid writer, scribbler and collector of everything in paper form. The notebook of research I’ve put together for Vegan City Guides, for instance, contains everything from receipts, leaflets, menus (Revolution Foods kindly gave me their when I went knocking) and tram timetables. I also snap photos (some bad, some good). This isn’t even necessarily related to actual projects (my Mum still has a collage in her laundry room that my siblings and I made after we came back from Disneyland Paris).

I enjoy exploring cities, and Sydney is huge enough to still have me exploring with constant wonderment. I’ve visited much of the UK and quite a bit of Europe, and have had some fun experiences in Fiji and San Francisco, as well as a brief run-in with the toilets in Japan. I love writing, magazines and cooking – and reading and talking about all three.

I think eating food, sharing a meal, is one of the most powerful acts of friendship left. A few years ago I was on a trip that ended up with me sitting on the dirty ground of a campsite, soaking wet, freezing cold and eating dumpster-dived dinner provided by Food Not Bombs. I was surrounded by other vegans and vegetarians and we were having the absolute time of our lives. It was excellent.

I don’t claim to know much, but this is what I do know: There are vegans everywhere and it's not "just food".