About

Hello and welcome. My name is Timothy Pakron, creator of Mississippi Vegan. I am the photographer, food stylist, and recipe developer for everything you see here. I’m happy to have you join me!

MY EARLY JOURNEY

My love for cooking began at an early age. I remember baking sugar cookies for my 6th grade teacher, Mrs. Portwood, and asking my mom to teach me how to make her delicious gumbo around the age of 13 (and she happily did!). In addition to cooking, I loved watching the Food Network (a time when the network truly celebrated cooking shows). I always felt excited when I could cook in the kitchen and deep down I knew that it came naturally to me. As I grew older and attended boarding school in Rome, GA, I began cooking at my friends’ houses, making dishes to share and enjoy. I just loved it.

GOING VEGAN

After graduating from boarding school, I headed to the College of Charleston in South Carolina to study studio art. As I turned 20 years old, living in the gorgeous lowcountry, I found veganism. After watching a few videos of animal factory farming, in addition to my newly-found interest in eating nutrient-dense foods, switching to only plant- and mushroom-based ingredients felt like a no-brainer to me. It just made sense and I quickly began adopting the lifestyle and learning everything that I could.

To be honest, it was an exciting time! My brain was wide open and I was eager to grow. My first step was figuring out how to navigate shopping for ingredients and understanding how to build flavors in dishes without using animal products. Although there was much to re-learn, I realized that I was already eating loads of vegan food without even trying! Fresh fruit, good sourdough bread and baguettes, pasta, rice, and, of course, all the vegetables, beans, and unique grains you could imagine. And although veganism wasn’t nearly as popular as it is now (this was 2006 people!), I still felt empowered. I was eager to show the world that you can still enjoy delicious and incredible food—even if it’s vegan.

Outside of the home, I quickly learned that the rest of the world was not on the same wavelength as me and that dining out was going to be a challenge. This meant that I was going to be cooking at home more than ever before and I was ok with that! As time went on, my passion for cooking grew and my love for celebrating plant- and mushroom-based ingredients became an integral part of my life.

CREATING MISSISSIPPI VEGAN

After living in Charleston and graduating college, I decided it was time to move to NYC! It was there that the concept of Mississippi Vegan was born. This moniker merged my past and my present and allowed me to explore my love for cooking with plants and mushrooms, while celebrating kindness to animals. It also allowed me to utilize my expression with photography and creating art in a unique way. Instead of using traditional mediums, like canvas and paint, I used ceramics, ingredients, food styling, and the skills that I learned in art school to create a body of work. Luckily, all of this resonated with people greatly on Instagram. (This was the early days, when the platform was all about photography and it was an absolute joy of a time.)

As I was building my social media audience, I started to connect with other foodies, content creators, and cookbook authors. I felt inspired and began to envision writing a cookbook of my own. The idea excited me greatly! At this point, my time in NYC was beginning to come to an end. I was starting to feel burned out by the hustle and I really wanted to live in an environment where I could be more relaxed and focus on my blog, develop recipes, and have my very own garden. I decided Mississippi was the place to go, my beautiful home state. It was, after all, a huge part of what inspired the concept of Mississippi Vegan. It felt like the right move.

MY FIRST COOKBOOK

A few months before making the big move back to the south, my literary agent reached out and asked if I would like to write a book. I was beside myself with excitement and told her that I was eager to do so. I created a proposal, submitted it to her, and before you knew it, I had landed my very own book deal! I never could have imagined that I would have left the city with a new career and the opportunity to be a published author. My dreams were coming true.

I decided to move to Jackson, MS, in the central part of the state. It was the perfect environment for me to write a cookbook that was focused on food that I grew up eating, in addition to being calm and slow-paced. By 2017, the book was complete and in the fall of 2018, Mississippi Vegan, was released by Avery, an imprint of Penguin Random House. (I am proud to say that the book has received a beautiful amount of praise which you can read about here.)

After finishing the book, I decided that it was time to move to a new city. Although I loved my time in Mississippi and will always go back to visit my parents and explore the state whenever I can, I knew that I needed to change things up. I decided that New Orleans was the perfect fit and it truly was! After moving here, I began to build the garden that I always wanted and the concept of my new book, Garden Variety, was created.

This new book will be released with my same awesome imprint, Avery of Penguin Random House, in the fall of 2026. I have been working on this project for the last 3 years and it is a collection of over 130 brand new recipes that are plant-focused, vibrant, and greatly inspired by the garden. I styled and photographed every single image and wrote and tested every recipe multiple times. It is my best work to date and I am so thrilled to share it with you!

MY INSPIRATION FOR COOKING

My inspiration for cooking comes from a few different places. One, I love making vegan translations of the recipes I grew up eating, such as southern, Cajun, and Creole dishes. That is why you will find recipes like gumbo, red beans & rice, drop biscuits, and brunswick stew on this blog. (And that is precisely what my debut cookbook is all about!)

In addition, I also think it is important to share healthy, nutrient-dense recipes like smoothies, salads, and vegetable-heavy dishes, which you will also find on the blog. I am very interested in adding a fresh spin on classic dishes whenever I can and I adore big, bright, and bold flavors. I am also greatly inspired by ingredients and cooking techniques from all around the world.

What I love about vegan cuisine is the excitement that happens when you figure out how to recreate depth of flavor using plant-based ingredients. I also very much enjoy creating recipes that people rave about while mentioning that they never would have thought it was vegan. I am always watching cooking videos by chefs and cooks of all kinds, oftentimes that are not vegan, to better understand how they season and layer flavors and also create textures. It is then my job to figure out how I can do the same thing but while also keeping things completely vegan because that is what makes me oh so happy!

MY INTENTIONS FOR THIS BLOG

I truly feel as though I was put on this earth to share recipes, and publishing them here on this blog is a direct extension of that. This website is a huge part of my brand and it is such a fantastic and powerful way to share exactly what I’m cooking in my very own kitchen. My desire for this blog is to inspire you. My greatest hope is that the recipes you see here will make you want to cook delicious, vegan cuisine and share it with your friends and family. I think this is quite magical.

Well, there you have it folks, that’s the scoop on me and the history of my cooking journey and this blog! If you ever have any questions and would like to connect, please feel free to reach out to me directly at mississippivegan(@)gmail.com. I would love to hear from you. And please consider joining my mailing list so you can stay in the know.

Thanks for being here and, as always, happy cooking.

-Timothy