Month: October 2010

Nourishing Hero: Rebecca Katz

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This is the latest installment in our Nourishing Heroes series, in which we feature the individuals and organizations who inspire us with food that nourishes body, soul and planet. Do you know a Nourishing Hero we should feature on NOURISH Evolution? Let us know who inspires you!

When my mom was dying from lung cancer, I responded like anyone who has a loved one battling a major illness. I cooked whatever I thought might tempt her to eat–oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, homemade pizza, soups of all kinds and anything with her favorite ingredient: bacon. One of my last memories is of her propped up in bed happily tucking into a bacon-wrapped scallop.

Of course, we all need nourishment every day. It’s even more crucial, more elemental when we’re sick and need food to bolster our bodies, lift our spirits and soothe our souls. But that can be tricky when someone is undergoing chemotherapy and radiation for cancer treatment.

“It’s like demolishing the whole house to renovate the bathroom,” says Rebecca Katz, M.S., author of The Cancer-Fighting Kitchen: Nourishing, Big-Flavor Recipes for Cancer Treatment and Recovery (Celestial Arts). The treatment weakens patients and kills appetites at a time when they most need the healing power of food. That’s why, she says, 80% of cancer patients are malnourished.

“The biggest issues, by far, are nausea and taste changes–those are the two culprits that keep people from experiencing food,” she says. “If they disconnect from food, they’re disconnecting from life.”

Katz is the senior chef-in-residence and nutritional educator at Commonweal Cancer Help Program, which offers weeklong retreats for cancer patients at its oceanfront facility in Bolinas, Calif. She’s also the executive chef for the Center for Mind-Body Medicine’s Food as Medicine and CancerGuides® Professional Training Programs to train doctors and other health-care pros about nutrition.

Her journey learning about the healing power of food for cancer patients began when her father battled cancer. Although she’d trained as a chef at New York’s Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts, she says, “I didn’t have a clue how to cook for someone with cancer.” So she started doing some research, out of which came her first book, One Bite at Time: Nourishing Recipes for Cancer Survivors and Their Friends (Celestial Arts).

“That was the beginning of my exploration in this area,” she says. “The longer I was involved with it, the more studies that came out about how food can help us fight disease, particularly cancer.” She estimates that 5,000 new studies about the healing power of food were published between the time One Bite was first released in 2004 and when The Cancer-Fighting Kitchen was published last year.

She offers advice for what to eat before, during and after chemotherapy, as well as suggests specific recipes to counteract common side effects like anemia, nausea, fatigue and weight loss. Since cancer treatment often messes with a patient’s taste buds, she has tips for how to balance flavors accordingly. Everything tastes like cardboard? Add a dash of sea salt or a spritz of lemon juice–both enhance flavor and move it forward to the front of the mouth. Food tastes metallic? Balance it with maple syrup or agave nectar for sweetness or a touch of fat from nut butter.

Her “culinary pharmacy” is stocked with healthy, whole foods–all manner of whole grains, fruits, vegetables, organic poultry, sustainable fish, spices, oils and nuts. Although The Cancer-Fighting Kitchen focuses on the healing aspects of these foods–what Katz calls the “culinary Rx”–it’s anything but medicinal. Colorful, tantalizing recipes like Triple-Citrus Black Cod, Shredded Carrot and Beet Salad, and Emerald Greens with Orange leap off the page.

That’s the key, she explains. “The nutrition is great, but the taste is what’s really going to make the difference between whether someone is going to eat or not. Great taste and great nutrition have to sit together on the same side of the table.”

Meet our other Nourishing Heroes:

Creamy Millet with Blueberry Compote

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If you haven’t tried millet, this recipe from Rebecca Katz’s The Cancer-Fighting Kitchen (Celestial Arts) is a great introduction. As she notes, it looks very similar to quinoa, and it’s also gluten-free and a good source of protein. Millet and orange have anti-inflammatory properties, while spices like allspice, cardamom, ginger and cinnamon aid digestion. Coconut oil has antibiotic properties (you can find it with the other oils in health-food stores), and blueberries are rich in cancer-fighting phytochemicals. This is a nice make-ahead breakfast–just stir in a little extra almond milk and warm it up in a saucepan over gentle heat. It’s a powerfully nourishing start to your day.

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Win a Free Messermeister Swivel Peeler!

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When Lia and I opened the online NOURISH Evolution Market, we stocked it with our very favorite tools. And I knew I wanted to add one of the best tools from my culinary school knife kit: the Messermeister Pro-Touch Swivel Peeler.

This week, we’re giving away a free Messermeister Pro-Touch Swivel Peeler!

Of course, my culinary school knife kit was filled with all kinds of tools–uh, knives, for starters–but I quickly became enamored of this humble peeler. Why? It’s light, nimble and sharp. I reach for it to peel delicate tomato skins and to handle tough butternut squash hides. Of course, mine is too-serious cheffy black, but you have a chance to win it in zippy red! It’s just what you need to make quick work of prepping ingredients for our Roasted Beet Wedges with Champagne Vinegar or Roasted Winter Veggies.

But, friends, you have to play to win this indispensable kitchen tool.

So here’s the deal. Only NOURISH Evolution members are eligible to win, so now’s the time to join if you haven’t already! Then, head on over to the Thursday Giveaway group in our community area and leave a comment to be entered to win (important: be sure you’re signed in to NOURISH Evolution so we can find you).

Lia will announce the winner in next Friday’s Friday Digest!

Happy peelin’, peeps!

Our Gridiron Menu

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If autumn Saturdays mean football, this menu is for you. Even if your favorite team doesn’t fare so well on Saturday, you can console yourself with a warm bowl of chili and all the fixin’s.

NOURISH Evolution’s Gridiron Menu

Kickoff:

Traditional spinach dip can be an overly heavy/creamy goo. Lia’s Spanish Leaning Spinach and Chickpea Dip has rich texture and vibrant flavor that’s inspired by hummus.

Main event:

Fresh hot peppers add zip to Kurt’s Iowa City Chili. You can make it a day ahead and reheat it, or start it on Saturday and let it gently simmer until it’s time to eat.

On the side:

Our BLT Bread Salad with Creamy Buttermilk Dressing is a lovely creamy, crunchy foil for the chili. Prep the ingredients a day ahead, then toss the salad when you’re ready to serve. Whip up our Skillet Corn Bread with Tomatoes and Sage while the chili simmers on the stove.

Sweet touchdown:

Since it’s a pigskin day, we figure you can’t have too much bacon, can you? Nah! Settle the score with a batch of Chocolate Chip Cookies with Candied Bacon.

To pour:

Kurt calls for adding a bock or stout to the chili. Stock up on plenty to sip as well. Try a Shiner Bock from Texas.

Chipotle’s Halloween Costume Idea!

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Richard and I are going to a Halloween party, so we need some inspiration for costumes. Advocates of healthy food say processed fare is pretty darn horrifying!

That’s why Chipotle, the fast-food chain that serves Mexican fare made with organic and humanely raised ingredients, has teamed up with Food Revolution creator Chef Jamie Oliver for the Boorito 2010 Halloween promotion. (Anyone who caught Oliver’s ABC series knows he has no qualms about wearing goofy food-themed costumes!)

On Halloween evening, just show up at a Chipotle restaurant dressed as your “favorite” scary processed food and you can buy a burrito, bowl, salad or tacos for just 2 bucks. Up to $1 million in proceeds from the promotion will go to Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, which is dedicated to changing the way America eats.

Crispy Duck Breasts with Maple-Bourbon Sauce

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We’ve adapted this tasty maple-bourbon sauce from Hank Shaw’s award-winning blog Hunter Angler Gardener Cook. This sauce also works nicely with wild turkey, boar or pheasant. The duck breasts will render quite a bit of flavorful fat, which many chefs consider to be the platinum standard of cooking fats. Don’t throw it away! Instead, strain the fat through a fine-mesh sieve and use it in place of other fats (butter, oil) in other recipes. It will keep for up to a week in the refrigerator.

4 boneless duck breast halves, skin on
Sea salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 teaspoons sugar
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons bourbon
1/4 cup chicken stock
1-1/2 tablespoons maple syrup
1/4 teaspoon Sriracha hot sauce
1 tablespoon heavy cream
Sage sprigs, for garnish

Preheat oven to 400 F. Place a foil-lined baking sheet in oven.

Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Trim any excess fat from edges of duck breast halves; set aside. Score the duck skin and fat in a diamond pattern. Season duck with salt and pepper. Place duck skin-side-down in pan, and cook 5 minutes. Reduce heat to low, add reserved trimmings of duck fat to the pan, and continue to cook 15 minutes until the skin crisps and the fat renders out.

Remove the duck to a work surface; dust the skin side of duck with sugar. Place duck skin-side-down on preheated baking sheet. Bake 7 minutes or until meat is medium-rare. Remove from oven, turn duck skin-side-up, and cover with foil. Let stand 10 minutes.

Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of the rendered duck fat (strain and reserve remaining fat for another use).

While duck stands, heat the skillet over medium heat. Whisk in the flour, and cook 5 minutes or until dark golden-brown. Stir often and keep an eye on it so it doesn’t burn.

Take the pan off the heat and whisk in the bourbon, then return it over medium-high heat. It will thicken and sputter. Stir well, and start adding the stock, whisking constantly. When the sauce boils, whisk in the maple syrup and Sririacha. Let this simmer over medium heat for 1 minute. Turn off the heat and let the sauce stop bubbling. Whisk in the cream. Adjust seasoning as needed.

Slice each duck breast half across the grain. Garnish each plate evenly with the sauce. Garnish with sage.

Serves 4

Hunting Down the Meaning of Food

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A few days ago, I opened up my box freezer. I was looking for some bones to make a soup stock. Couldn’t find them on top, so I dug through the crush of vacuum-sealed packages: Pheasants, a goose, some venison loin. No, that’s not it. Deeper. Mallard, mallard, a package of doves, a big bag of rockfish fillets…ah, there they were! My wild boar bones. The stock turned out wonderfully. I was making a Chinese soup and wanted to use pork broth, which would be closer to the original recipe.

The next day I told someone about this little adventure, and she looked at me like I had eight heads. “You realize you’re psychotic, right? I mean, who the hell has all that weird stuff in their freezer. Don’t you ever eat beef or chicken?”

Well, no. At least not at home. With a handful of exceptions, it has been five years since I’ve cooked store-bought meat in my kitchen. Venison has replaced beef, pheasant supplanted chicken, and salmon caught in the river down the road has pushed aside the farmed stuff entirely.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Why do I do this? Why spend hours and hours, often fruitlessly, hiding in marshes with a shotgun, scouring the forest floor or casting a line? Couldn’t I spend my time better in other pursuits? Maybe. But what I gain from my life outdoors goes far beyond nutrition or even the glories of a meal well-prepared. When I am free from concrete and computers, searching for my supper, I get to retake the place on Nature’s stage our ancestors left when they came in from the wild and first built their cities. It is a heady feeling.

To me, it is not enough to merely walk in the woods. Being an observer is not the same as being a participant in Nature. If you hike, you are free to be as casual or as chatty as you wish. If you hunt, you know you must move silently or not at all. You strain to hear the slightest crackle of hoof on fallen leaf. You lift your nose to the wind to catch the faint scent of a rutting buck.

The great Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset once said that you must kill in order to have hunted. What he meant was that to truly be alive to Nature, you must have purpose – and no purpose sharpens the mind like the pursuit of sustenance. I would add to Ortega y Gasset’s maxim that you must eat in order to earn the right to hunt again. Eating the game you kill closes the loop. Besides, food just tastes better when you have to work for it.

I like looking into my box freezer. Every loin or shank or liver or breast is a story, an adventure – a glorious meal, waiting to happen.

Hank Shaw’s blog, Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, won the 2010 Bert Greene Award for Best Food Blog from the International Association of Culinary Professionals and has been twice nominated for a James Beard Award. He’s hard at work on his first cookbook, Hunt, Gather, Cook: Finding the Forgotten Feast, which will be published next spring by Rodale.

Iron Chef: Cast Iron Is the Original Nonstick Surface

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Devotees of cast-iron cookware are fond of calling it “the original” nonstick pan. But it wasn’t until I lived in Alabama that I came to appreciate the hardworking charms of a humble cast-iron skillet. Southern home cooks are particularly attached to their cast iron, which is often passed down from their mamas and which years of cooking have endowed with a gorgeous dark seasoned patina that’s an amazing stick-resistant surface.

cast-iron-cookwareCooks prize cast iron because it heats slowly and evenly and retains heat better than just about any other material. It’s great for high-heat cooking, to sear a steak or scallops, for instance. A deep skillet is ideal for frying chicken.

If you happen to have a cast-iron skillet languishing in the back of your cupboard, now’s the time to rescue it form obscurity and re-season it. If your mom didn’t pass along a family skillet, get one now. It’s a small investment (about $20) for an heirloom-quality piece of cookware. You can find cast-iron pots and pans at any housewares store and many hardware stores, or online. Most new cast-iron pans come preseasoned and ready to cook. But even those will need occasional re-seasoning when you notice  food starts sticking to the pan.

There are nearly as many ways to season cast-iron cookware as there are cooks, and everyone swears theirs  is the One True Method. Some cooks swear by animal fat (i.e., lard) for seasoning; others say you should never use animal fat. Some sources say you must bake the oiled pot in a high oven; others advocate a low oven. This is the method an Alabama friend shared with me:

  • Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
  • Generously coat a clean skillet with fat (I like canola oil, which has a neutral flavor). Rub the pan with a paper towel to blot up any excess oil.
  • Bake the pan the oven for about an hour.
  • Remove the pan from the oven. Let it stand until it’s cool enough to handle. Reapply oil and bake again. You can repeat the oiling/baking process several times, if you like.

If you use, clean and store your cast-iron properly, you’ll rarely need to re-season it:

  • Always preheat the pan and add a little fat to it before adding any food.
  • While the pan is still warm, but cool enough to handle, clean it by rinsing it with hot water (no soap necessary) and (if needed) scrubbing it with a stiff brush. If any food does cling to the surface, sprinkle it with coarse salt, and scrub it off. Some people say you should never use dish soap, though the folks at Lodge say it’s OK. In any case, never put a cast-iron pan in the dishwasher. Dry the pan immediately and thoroughly to prevent rust.
  • Apply a thin layer of oil to the pan’s interior, and store it uncovered. If you need to store a lid with it, or stack other pans on top of it, place a clean folded paper towel in the pan to allow a little air to circulate.

If you’ve got an old cast-iron pan that needs restoring, here’s an easy method from Lodge (yes, it’s not exactly the same as the method above, but remember, there’s room for variation):

And don’t forget to use your pan often. The more you cook with it, the better seasoned it will be and the less often you’ll need to re-season it!

Skillet Corn Bread with Tomatoes and Sage

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When I think of cast-iron skillets, corn bread immediately comes to mind. In the Deep South, many home cooks have a skillet handed down from their mamas that they use just for corn bread. This version is inspired by James Beard Award-nominated Birmingham, Ala., chef Frank Stitt, author of Frank Stitt’s Southern Table (Artisan). He says corn bread should be a savory side dish and dismisses sweetened versions as a “Yankee invention.” Our rendition includes No Work Slow Roasted Tomatoes,* fresh corn and sage for extra flavor and texture. Try it with Kurt’s Iowa City Chili.

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Nourishing Hero: Ana Sofia Joanes

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In our Nourishing Heroes series, we feature the individuals and organizations who inspire us with food that nourishes body, soul and planet. Do you know a Nourishing Hero we should feature on NOURISH Evolution? Let us know who inspires you!

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Jamie Yuenger of FRESH: The Movie as part of their Women Nourish Us blog series. This week, the tables turned and I spoke with Ana Sofia Joanes, the woman who directed and produced the movie.

FRESH focuses on America’s food system in a way that’s a bit more approachable and positive than a film like Food, Inc. I found it to be a great introduction to the main issues and opportunities on our plate today and was thrilled to see that FRESH is offering home screening licenses; a revolutionary concept in the indie film world. (And … the FRESH folks are offering a generous special for NOURISH Evolution members – get 20% off by entering the code ‘nourishnetwork’ — click here to host a home screening)

Ana’s worldview was first cast when she was eighteen on a trip around the world to study, first hand, the impacts of globalization. “It was an eye opening trip in that we not only learned an alternative perspective, but also got to see our own preconceptions.” The experience taught Ana to read between the lines of what we’re told and what’s really happening.

She developed that critical mindset further in law school, but tipped towards the creative when she founded Reel Youth, Inc., a video production company dedicated to underserved youth. “I’d come to find that it was hard to share ideas. I found that I could be sitting around the table with people and we could agree intellectually, but it didn’t change behavior. I got to feeling that telling stories could be central to changing people’s perspective.”

Ana eventually stepped into the role of filmmaker herself, first with a documentary on mental illness and medication, and then with FRESH. But she bristles at the thought of preaching through her films. “I want people to be open, to connect to the story emotionally where it hits them.” Which is one of the reasons FRESH has such a varied cast of characters. “We all come to the food movement for different reasons. As a filmmaker, I look for characters to tell the narrative.”

In that way, the messages we hear in the media take shape and form in the film. “Organic farming” becomes bucolic moments on Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm. “Buy locally” looks like David Ball, owner of a small supermarket who sources from local farms. “Sustainably-raised meat” is the gripping story of Russ Kremer, a former industrial hog farmer who has changed his ways and now raises hogs naturally, with no antibiotics. And “making food accessible” becomes the charismatic Will Allen of Growing Power and his mission to teach city folk how to farm (you should see people’s faces when he urges them to play with worms).

All these stories weave together a rich depiction of our food system—where it’s failing and where there’s hope. “Yes, I wanted FRESH to have facts. But even more so I wanted to reach people’s hearts.”

But Ana doesn’t consider her job done just because the movie’s complete. “I think it’s important to link my work with the end result.” So she and her team developed a way to turn inspiration into action and help people connect with their communities. They pioneered a licensing model that allows people to purchase the film for $29.95 and host a screening in their own home.

“What FRESH does is get people inspired, hopeful and ready to do something. We wanted to find a way to galvanize that energy.” The hope is that the film will spark conversation and action (join a CSA anyone?) amongst small groups, with a ripple effect into communities and, ideally, society at large. FRESH is about food, yes, but it’s also about “revitalizing local economies. These conversations are central to our society and economic well-being.”

Click here to order a copy of FRESH and host a screening in your own home. Enter ‘nourishnetwork’ as the discount code and get 20% off!

Here’s a question for you … would you like us to put together a FRESH menu you could make for your get-togethers? Leave a comment here and let us know.

Meet our other Nourishing Heroes: