Plant’s chef Jason Sellers.
Jason Sellers is a long-time vegan, a champion of animal rights and the mind behind the scenes at Asheville’s Laughing Seed Café. Sellers can be seen on most days orchestrating the goings-on in the kitchen while simultaneously surveying produce deliveries and fielding phone calls in the bustling and successful vegetarian restaurant. Jason recently took some time out of his busy schedule to answer some questions for Bold Life.
What is your idea of perfect happiness? As an idea, perfect happiness is a bad one.
What is your greatest fear? That my fears are mine alone.
What is your inspiration? Whatever might allow me to rise happily in the morning.
Which person, alive or dead, do you most admire? Laura Wright.
What is your guiltiest pleasure? Staring, non-confrontationally, at people.
What is your current state of mind? Undertow.
What is the quality you most like in a person? Good quality people.
What is the quality you least like in a person? 21st-century entitlement.
Which habit would you most like to be rid of? Nervousness and nervous ticking and clicking.
What do you consider your greatest achievement? Being 37 and actually loving my parents for it all.
What is your biggest vice? Bob Seger.
What is your favorite thing to do on a cold day? Turn on the oven.
What would you cook for the President? Vegan: tempeh crusted with pecans and herbs, red pepper cream sauce, haricots vert, oyster mushrooms with roasted garlic, whipped potatoes.
Who would you most like to have dinner with? Joan Jett.
What is your favorite culinary tool? The flattop griddle.
What is your idea of hell on earth? Zoos.
What quality do you most value in your friends? Their acceptance.
Who is your favorite chef? My mom.
Who is your favorite writer? Don Delillo.
Who are your heroes in real life? Animal-rights activists.
What is it that you most dislike? Inattention to resource value and subsequent waste.
What food could you not live without? Quinoa.
What music could you not live without? Music made by people who care about the music they make.
How would you like to die? Skinny, in a black t-shirt, completely enamored.
How would you like to live? Well-informed and excited.
What is your motto? I’m a salad-eating vegan who’ll put you through a wall.