The Summer Beet

Chioggia Beet Salad & Red Beet Pesto There’s a good argument to be made that summer cooking is more about not cooking or cooking as little as possible. Why heat up the kitchen, or work up a sweat? Chioggia beets fit right in with the no-heat approach to summer eating. Sometimes called candy cane or […]

How Do you Define Healthy Food?

Puntarelle and Radicchio Rosa del Veneto Salad Americans are more positive about defining “healthy food” according to 2021 research by the International Food and Information Council (1) which showed that 27% of Americans say “healthy food” means the presence of components such as fruits, veggies, and nutrients (compared to 17% in 2016).  People are on […]

Preoccupied with Protein?

We chatter about fat and carbohydrate, but Americans are preoccupied with protein. It’s no surprise – protein is associated with positive outcomes like health, strength and performance (2). The word “protein” comes from the Greek “proteios” which means “first place.” (1). Plant protein is a hot sub-category of the protein craze, driven by interest in […]

It’s Grill Season

Grilled Caesar Salad with Aquafaba Dressing and Parmesan Chickpea “Croutons” I’d say chickpeas are having a moment, but anyone from Turkey, South Asia, the Middle East or Africa, where they’ve long been a staple food, would laugh (1).  In “How Did Chickpea Flour, A Staple of Indian Cuisine, Become A Health Food Sensation? ”  (2 […]

Invite This Salad to your Holiday Table

Christmas Slaw with Farro, Pomegranates, Cherries and Pistachios Every feast needs something fresh and crunchy to balance rich holiday foods.  Here it is.  Call it a slaw, since it has purple cabbage, but that’s where ordinary ends. This slaw is powered with super-food status foods with histories of nourishing people since ancient times. Farro, an […]

Bean Cuisine

Margarita-Style Layered Black Beans with Homemade Tortilla Chips If you’re sold on the benefits of beans, summarized in  The Power of Pulses, but not sure about cooking them yourself, here a quick guide. (Canned beans are convenient, but cooking your own is easy, economical and creates less waste.) Select Fresh Dry Beans Shop for dried […]

How Many Plants Do You Eat in a Week?

Broccoli Ceviche with Avocado & Sweet Onion “I’m sick of kale!” Those were my daughter Allegra’s words. I wondered when she’d need a break from the kale she was eating – sometimes twice daily.    It’s easy to fall into routines of eating the same foods – because we like them, it’s easy, or we’ve […]

Too Hot to Cook

Pandalus Jordani Make the Meal I love summer. In Seattle it’s rarely too hot to cook, but when it is, I enjoy the challenge of eating well with little to no cooking. When the weather forecast a week of temps in the toasty high 80s, I did some thinking.  Heat can rob you of energy […]

The New “Wedge Salad”

Dare to EAT Different Just this week my daughter, Allegra, asked if I wanted to have a container of her “overnight oats” for breakfast. After eating the same breakfast for a few months – she’d had enough. Good timing – I’d just read a Harvard Health Letter article, Dietary Rut? 5 Ways to Snap Out […]

Riding the Sweet Potato Moment

Moroccan-Spiced Roasted Sweet Potato Salad The sweet potato moment has stretched into an hour. No longer the stuff of Thanksgiving casseroles and sweet potato pie, sweet potatoes are the new French fry and the new breakfast toast. Nudging out white spuds, they’re baked, tucked into burritos and noodled through spiralizers. For fall, I created a […]