ON SEASONAL & LOCAL COOKING

It seems to me natural that eating, and cooking, and diet, follow the rhythm of the seasons. In the early summer, when the lettuce is prolific in the garden, it seems logical to have meals which center around salads. When the cold Colorado winters settle in, and the days shorten, I yearn for slow-cooked foods – stews and casseroles, soups and sautéed vegetables.

It’s not a hard and fast rule. I certainly have the occasional salad in the winter – although I find I have lost interest in non-local, out of season tomatoes flown in from who knows where – after a summer of picking them out of our garden, an imported winter tomato has no taste or texture. 

In no way am I a 'local' or 'seasonal' fanatic, although I admire Barbara Kingsolver's experiment. ("Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" is certainly a good read; she shares her  family's attempt to eat local with humor and insight).  Human beings have been storing and preserving food, as well as trading for non-local goods, as long as there has been history.  I love many imported food items - chocolate, coffee, and spices being absolute essentials of life.  And there's no way that you could ever get 'local' rice in Colorado - but what would the dinner table be without risottos or Chinese food?  My freezer is stocked with summer tomatoes reduced to sauce, blanched beans, sliced peaches, grated zucchini - all summer produce waiting to be enjoyed in the depths of winter.

But following the seasons – looking at what’s fresh in the garden or the farmers market, and listening to what my body tells me about what it wants to eat – results in incredible pleasure. Using good quality in season produce, prepared simply, it is easy to have wonderful meals, with great taste and great nutrition and great fun, with very little work.

Women, Health, and Awesome Eating

I'm currently writing a book about women and health.  An interesting thing has been happening.  I've found that the chapters I have most enjoyed writing have been the ones about cooking and food.  I have discussions with myself about recipes and techniques.  I wonder about how to impart the love of food and cooking with an understanding of how eating well, and eating with pleasure, can promote our own healing.

The book is a project. A long project, as these things go - fitting in writing and research with a busy practice and family and life.  In the meantime, I though I'd go online with some food thoughts.

I'm hoping to combine two interests in this blog - my passion for good, creative cooking and eating, and my deep concern about women and health.

As a health profession, I answer people's questions about health - most often about food - all the time.  People are always interested in the latest diet trend - the Blood Type diet, the South Beach diet, the Atkins diet (yes, I know this isn't new, but high protein/low carb protocols are certainly back in fashion), the Biblical diet, the low glycemic index diet, the paleolithic diet, the Fit for Life diet - the list goes on and on.  All of these diets are geared primarily towards weight loss, but some also make claims for being 'healthy.' Many of these systems have some benefits.  However, they all have faults because of their extreme limitations - limitations not of 'junk' or processed food, but of normal real food that does not fit the rules of the regime.  In addition, many of these systems rely on processed or altered food.  It seems wrong to say that one should never eat a mango.  It seems wrong to prescribe a  product that began as milk, and then has been reduced in fat and altered and added to in such a way that it doesn't seem right to call it cheese.

In addition, these regimes all play into the American woman's uneasy relationship with food by creating serious restrictions on what to eat and when to eat it.  Aside from people with serious disorders such as anorexia or morbid obesity,  there is a general anxiety over what to eat - is there too much fat, are there too many carbs, am I eating enough protein, am I eating too much protein.

It was with incredible relief that I read Michael Pollan’s words:  “Eat food.  Not too much.  Mostly plants.”  Here, finally, was a man who shared my belief.  A belief in simple foods.

So, rather than focus on rules of diets, I focus on the quality of the food.  The question is not  - to eat protein or not to eat protein, am I having too many carbohydrates or not enough carbohydrates, should I be a vegetarian or do I need to eat meat.  The question is – what is the quality of the food I am eating?

An egg, in itself, isn’t bad or good.  But an egg that comes from a chicken that has had free access to water, food, and fresh air is going to be a completely different nutritional experience for our body than an egg that comes from a chicken that never moved and was fed antibiotic-laden food made from genetically modified crops.  The fat that comes from a free-range cow is completely different nutritionally than that from feedlot beef.  Even a simple vegetable – a leaf of lettuce – has way more nutrition, way more vitamins and minerals, way less carcinogenic chemical residue, not to mention way more taste - if it is grown organically in healthy soil than if has been fed a steady diet of oil-based fertilizer and chemical pesiticides.

Rather than looking at food as potential danger, I prefer to look at food as the source of life - without it, after all, we would in fact be dead.  Food provides our energy needs, the building blocks of all our cells and all our metabolic processes.  It provides the nutrition necessary to move and think and grow and evolve and heal.   

I love many aspects of food.  I love walking in the garden my husband grows, looking at what's just beginning to grow, what's ready to pick, what needs immediate harvest.  I like wondering around food stores, although large grocery stores overwhelm me.  I love reading cookbooks and cooking magazines. I love to cook - I find it peaceful and relaxing and creative.  I love to feed people.  So, for me, food is not about restrictions in order to be healthy - it is about nourishment from food that helps support our own healing.  It is about pleasure and love and taste and fun.