Vegetarian singer/songwriter Flip Grater reaped more than audiences on her album promotional tour.

Last year, Christchurch-based songwriter Flip Grater loaded her Lada with a guitar, laptop and soundtrack and headed for Oamaru. She had a gig at the Penguin Club there and the town was the first stop on a promotional tour for her debut album, Cage for a Song.

Three months and 2824km later, the tour was in the bag, there was a new and enthusiastic audience for her music and Grater had discovered handed-on recipes were wonderful mementoes of people and places.

As a keen cook with thoughts of putting together a recipe book of vegan and vegetarian dishes, she made a point of collecting recipes from those she met "on the road" - new hosts, old friends, acquaintances and audience members.

Grater has been a vegetarian since she was 15. In the foreword to The Cookbook Tour she describes her progression from environmentalism to animal rights and veganism as "looking for a cause to fight society".
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She has noticed many people become aggressive when questioned on their dietary choice ... "In a way it's like your lifestyle you are defending.

"I stepped away from the aggression of animal-rights activism because it conflicted with my compassion for humans, and I don't want to get defensive about being vegan."
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The Cookbook Tour: Travels in New Zealand Food and Music by Flip Grater is available online at www.thecookbooktour.com and at selected bookstores, $29.99.

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full story:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4216996a7773.html

For interviews, photos, and ORDERS: or for more info visit, www.MySpace.com/thecookbooktour

Find out more about Flip Grater:
www.flipgrater.com  | www.myspace.com/flipgrater
Buy Flip's album at iTunes New Zealand

JOHN KIRK-ANDERSON/The Press
 FLIP GRATER: ``When I first became vegan I spent a lot
 of time looking for recipes that weren't simply meat
 and three veges without the meat.''