Category Archives: Mindful Meals

This Thanksgiving, Slow Down and Savor the Feast

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My Thanksgiving planning started a few weeks ago with an email from our friend, John, asking if we wanted to join him and his wife for dinner. We could eat out, he suggested, or stay in. “My preference is hosting here so we can drink a bunch of wine and enjoy some leftovers,” he noted.

slow-down-savor-thanksgivingMine, too, but I knew I’d have to bring my A game to the kitchen. John makes every gathering special, and as a certified wine pro studying to become a master sommelier, he has a particular knack for matching wine and food. So we spent some time putting together a menu of a dozen dishes for which he’ll be opening seven bottles of wine. To add to the fun, he’s even printed a menu for our “event.” By design, ours will be a long, leisurely Thanksgiving feast.

And that’s just as it should be.

I recently wrote a freelance piece about making the Thanksgiving meal a healthy one. I interviewed dietitians and chefs who all had great ideas for how to trim calories and fat without sacrificing flavor. One of my favorite tips, though, doesn’t require changing a thing about how you cook: Slow down the pace of the meal.

One of my favorite tips for creating a nourishing Thanksgiving doesn’t require changing a thing about how you cook: Simply slow down the pace of the meal.

You know how it goes: You spend weeks planning, shopping and cooking, set everything out on the buffet, and everyone loads up their plates and gobbles it all down in 20 minutes. “People tend to shovel it in, and then they’re in that turkey coma,” NOURISH Evolution advisor Rebecca Katz, M.S., told me.

Slowing the pace is good for the cook and for the guests. People will take time to really savor the meal you’ve spent so much time preparing and cooking. And they’ll probably eat less, since it takes at least 15 minutes for your brain to get the message that you’re getting full. “The longer the meal lasts, the more time there is for digestion,” Katz reminded me. Everyone will leave the table satisfied but not stuffed.

Slowing down the meal is easy. Here are three strategies you can employ tomorrow.

  • Don’t serve everything at once. Offer appetizer items first and let people nibble, then move on to the turkey and trimmings, followed by dessert.
  • Use smaller plates. Oversize dinner plates just invite people to overload. Instead, use smaller plates; guests can take seconds of what they really want. There has been intriguing research finding that plate (or bowl or glass) size really does influence how much we eat.
  • Offer visual cues for smart portion sizes. You can prepare individual-size servings of items like desserts. For dishes like mashed potatoes or stuffing, put out an ice cream scooper instead of giant spoon so people can easily serve themselves moderate-sized portions.

Katz recommends starting the meal with little cups of soup. Her advice inspired this creamy mushroom soup, which is rich and luscious and gets Thanksgiving off to a relaxed start.

This Thanksgiving, give yourself and your loved ones the gift of a leisurely feast. They’ll be thankful for it!

On Thanksgiving, Thanks for the Culinary Memories

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When Thanksgiving rolls around, I react like many cooks and start digging around for those must-have recipes. In my case, I’m searching for my mom’s kick-ass stuffing recipe.

thanksgiving-culinary-memoriesWhile I imagine other cooks riffling through cute little vintage boxes filled with beloved family recipes neatly handwritten onto 3 x 5 index cards, my own journey is less clearly mapped out. Instead, I find myself pawing through cookbooks in search of random bits of paper like an archeologist hunting for ancient Egyptian papyri.

Our little trove of Thanksgiving family treasures is stuffed inside the pages of Volume 12 of the circa-1966 Woman’s Day Encyclopedia of Cookery (“T” for turkey, duh). That’s where I find a magazine article about turkey, my mom’s handwritten stuffing recipe, and other cobbled-together guideposts to making the annual feast our way. I always chuckle at the the version of the stuffing recipe that was clearly addressed to me. There’s a little note in the margin: “Pepperidge Farm Herb Crumbs,” underlined twice so I wouldn’t–God forbid–buy the bread cubes instead.

Beyond Volume 12, scribbled recipes, newspaper clippings and other “Mad Men”-era ephemera are stashed into the pockets of a red, generic Cooking Clips Recipe File. But these don’t represent a passion for cooking so much as a middle-class woman’s obligation to, dammit, get dinner on the table. Mom was a reluctant cook, more Betty Friedan than Betty Draper, and mid-‘60s domestic ambivalence wafts from the pages with the scent of old newspaper.

Her culinary repertoire was limited, but we liked it, and those pages yield warm memories of the simple dishes we loved: London broil, the Yorkshire pudding we had every Christmas Eve, a wine-marinated flank steak that I’m tempted to make this week. It’s straightforward fare that seems quaint and comforting in this time of precious foodie-ism. Though, in all fairness, flank steak marinated in Burgundy wine was upscale stuff back then.

Given that I write about food for a living, you’d think I’d make an effort to organize this stuff. My sister-in-law Julie did a few years ago, gathering favorite recipes from family and friends, along with the stories that go with them, into a tasteful little Tastebook. It’s a charming, gently irreverent heirloom that she’ll no doubt save for my niece. But I’m not tempted to follow her example.

No, instead I’ll continue to hunt down Mom’s recipes, then tuck them back into their respective books, right where they belong.

Happy Birthday, NOURISH Evolution!

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Wow. We’re one! What a year it’s been. What started out as a little “nibble to noodle” e-mail and a splash page has grown into what I’d always hoped it would be.

A place where we can celebrate food that nourishes our bodies, our families, our communities, our planet. A place where we can jump off the see saw of guilt and deprivation and enjoy food, where each and every recipe puts the principles we talk about into (delicious) practice.

Sure, we’ve had our bumps (remember the white screens and load time long enough to brew tea?). But they’re outweighed every single time you tell us we made a difference in your day or the way you look at food.

Thank you, all of you, for your support … your enthusiasm … your PATIENCE this year.

Here’s to the next one being even better.

All the best,
Lia

PS – We were lucky enough to get Linda West Eckhardt to bake our birthday cake for us (which is perfect, since Noemi picked her Praline Caramel cake for her birthday cake next weekend). Enjoy!

6 Halloween Treats to Nourish Your Favorite Goblins

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As I’ve noted here before, things were different when I was a kid. It was the era of Space Age food, Tang and TV dinners. Come to think of it, thanks to Tang, I can’t stand to drink fresh orange juice with pulp to this day. Halloween was no exception. By the time we were 5, my friends and I were skipping up the block unsupervised to demand candy from the neighbors.

homemade-halloween-treatsI knew to bring my haul home for Mom to inspect before I opened even one little Tootsie Roll or package of Smarties. We’d dump the contents of my trick-or-treating bag onto the dining room table and she’d paw through it, pulling out anything that looked vaguely suspicious. It was, after all, the age of urban legends about razor blades in apples and poisoned candy. That meant any unpackaged goodies were discarded–pieces of fruit and homemade treats (unless I could absolutely, positively recall who had given to me).

Looking back, I think that concern was really an excuse for Mom to set aside her favorite treats to nibble when I wasn’t looking. I was OK with that, as long as she didn’t swipe my Clark bars.

Times have changed, though. Kids still go trick-or-treating, of course, but little ghouls and goblins are just as likely to gather for a party at a friend’s house. In that case, homemade Halloween treats will trump the store-bought kind every time. With that in mind, here are 6 treats from the NOURISH Evolution kitchens. Happy Halloween, my little fiends!

Noe’s Remixed Party Mix. Unlike me and my mom, not everyone has a raging sweet tooth. Put out bowls of this savory, updated version of Chex mix to help counteract the holiday sugar high.

No-Bake Peanut Butter Treats. Little ghosts will gobble up these these chocolate-topped popcorn squares no time. If you want to enjoy any yourself, take my mom’s cue and set aside a couple of them before the party starts.

Salted Pistachio Brittle. Crunchy, salty and sweet, this brittle is delightful on its own or sprinkled over vanilla ice cream.

Ruby-Studded Meringue Buttons. For Halloween, you can use candy corn in place of  the dried fruit and almonds called for in this recipe. Boo!

Fair-Trade Chocolate Earthquake Cookies. Made with dark chocolate, these cookies are full of deep-flavored goodness that will appeal to grown-up ghouls who haven’t figured out that they’ve outgrown trick-or-treating. (No, you’re never really too old.)

Maple Caramel Popcorn. This goody is mildly addictive, but because it’s based on fiber-rich popcorn it’s also filling so you can’t overindulge. Well, not too much, anyway…

Body. Soul. Planet. Part 2

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This series was inspired by the blockbuster book Eat Pray Love. Like the book’s author Elizabeth Gilbert, we all have our journeys, and we all have our epiphanies along the way. Here are some postcards from mine that led me here. Now. Nourished. This is Part 2 of 3. Click here for Part I: Body.

body-soul-planet-in-greeceMemories of Greece … and a lingering memento of a rockin’ good tzatziki recipe

Soul

My soulful awakening around food happened during a year abroad in Europe. The reverberations, though, lasted decades.

One would think, when I say that I lived in Paris, that I could credit that country with my first food epiphanies. Not so. While there were many high points during my year at the Sorbonne, food, for the most part, wasn’t involved in most of them. I was a student on a tight budget living on cafeteria food (as uninspiring in France as it was in the U.S.). The impressions that did get through were more observational than participatory. Walking through open markets on the way to class and having my senses rattled awake by pigs heads, spice bins and cheese that smelled like dirty barn stalls. And the relaxed, unselfconscious way people savored coffee or a meal, rather than the obligatory rush I was used to in America.

But it wasn’t until I landed semi-permanently in Greece that my paradigms were really jarred. Friends and I had stopped in Corfu on our summer travels and I (does this sound like a Nora Ephron movie or what?) fell in love. Alexi and his family owned a souvlaki joint a few blocks off the main beach. I ended up living with the family over the summer and working in the restaurant.

One of my first realizations that all food was not created equal was a simple breakfast … What I didn’t get until later was that it was an egg that had been laid by a neighbor’s chicken no more than a few hours earlier and fried in olive oil pressed from their own olives at the local mill.

One of my first realizations that all food was not created equal was a simple breakfast. Mama fried eggs and I literally swooned at first bite, it was so rich and crisp and oozy and delicious. I thought she’d done something to make those eggs taste so incredible, so I blurted, “How did you do this?” To which she responded (with a suspicious glance), “I fried an egg in olive oil.” What I didn’t get until later was that it was an egg that had been laid by a neighbor’s chicken no more than a few hours earlier and fried in olive oil pressed from their own olives at the local mill.

Everything there was simple and real and over-the-top delicious. Wine was fizzy and fresh and kept in an old Coke bottle in the fridge. The olive oil, stored in the ouzo bottle by the stove, was cloudy and pungent. Whole lambs hung flayed by the roadside, waiting to be spit-roasted for one summer festival or another … and I’d actually find myself looking forward to the butcher hacking off a chunk for me. (When I later returned to the States I remember being repulsed by all the Styrofoam packages of meat and chicken. It felt disrespectful to eat meat so removed from what it had been.)

There were guitars and bouzoukis and chortles and cheers and messy fingers and greasy chins. What there wasn’t amongst that crowd was guilt or fat gram counting.

But I was also realizing that food did more than just taste good. In Greece, it was the centerpiece to the experience, the glue between people. After work at the souvlaki stand, at midnight or so most nights, we’d gather with Alexi’s friends at someone’s house or restaurant for dinner. There would be platters of lamb or fish stew, always a big salad, hearty bread and feta, and a big bowl of tzatziki. There were guitars and bouzoukis and chortles and cheers and messy fingers and greasy chins. What there wasn’t amongst that crowd was guilt or fat gram counting—it was just pure joy.

During that time food took on a language of its own. Alexi’s father, Spiros, had a heart attack while I was there and I was put in charge of caring for him at home. There was a total language barrier. But he took it upon himself to teach me vocabulary by showing me how to cook. I still remember scalding my hands on hot potatoes as we (he) peeled them for skordalia. We pounded them with so much garlic that when I snuck a taste it was like someone had socked me in the nose (Spiros just laughed).

We’d never spoken more than “this is a potato” and “this is a table,” but we’d come to know and trust and love one another during our time in the kitchen, and both of us read it in the others eyes.

When he had a second heart attack and had to be moved to Athens, I sat with him at his bedside as the family conferred in the hallway with the physician. We squeezed each others hands until they were white and stared at each other with tears streaming down our cheeks. We’d never spoken more than “this is a potato” and “this is a table,” but we’d come to know and trust and love one another during our time in the kitchen, and both of us read it in the others eyes.

All of these experiences lay somewhat dormant once I returned to America, still in full-swing fat phobia, until the double-whammy with my own health. As I grasped for ways to heal, something in me went, “Wait … you’ve seen how food can nourish not just your body, but your soul. You know food is about more than just food.”

In Europe, I’d unwittingly discovered a different kind of emotional eating; one that, rather than being a crutch for tuning out, was a tool for connecting and reflecting several times a day.

In America, emotional eating connotes mindless binges—an attempt to soothe, or cover up, hurts rather than face them. In Europe, I’d unwittingly discovered a different kind of emotional eating; one that, rather than being a crutch for tuning out, was a tool for connecting and reflecting several times a day.

The woman nibbling a croissant and sipping a café au lait at a sidewalk café was giving herself the luxury to let her mind wander where it may. The friends gathered over feasts laughed and sang together, yes, but they also comforted, celebrated and encouraged one another during their time around the table. The simple family meals made and shared in love brought sustenance and space for disagreements to be aired and opinions to be shared.

By being soulfully nurtured through food several times a day, people seemed to have less of a need to go overboard and more of a propensity to come away from a meal balanced and content.

As all of this swirled about my psyche during the years of healing, how I ate became as important to me as what I ate, which is why mindfulness plays such a big part in the Nourish message. I discovered that if I was at war with my food—because made me feel fat, or sick, or it tasted awful—then I’d never be truly fed. In the end, as it is with most people, my food journey was more about making peace with food as it was learning what to eat.

Stay Tuned for Part 3: Planet, where I realize that the choices I was making about food not only nourished or depleted my body and soul … but the planet as well.

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.

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:

Nourishing Hero: Chris Guillebeau

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We began our Nourishing Heroes series to feature individuals and organizations who inspire us by nourishing body, soul and planet. For this installment, we’re shining the spotlight on Chris Guillebeau, creator of the Art of Non-Conformity Website and author of the brand new book by the same name. Chris gives both inspiration and a soft-yet-pragmatic kick-in-the-butt to people (including me) looking to live life a bit differently. If you don’t know Chris yet, do yourself a favor and check out his website, buy his book, learn through his Unconventional Guides or join him for a meetup on his tour. You’ll be glad you did.

Do you know a Nourishing Hero we should feature on NOURISH Evolution? Let us know who inspires you!

LH – When did the light bulb go off in you that you had a ‘big message’ to share?

CG – It was after I moved back to the U.S. following four years of volunteering in West Africa. In addition to the experience of working in post-conflict settings, I had also been self-employed for most of my life, and I was beginning a new personal project to visit every country in the world. All of those things were fine and well, but I felt like I didn’t have a good convergence point to everything. I wanted to create a platform to help other people live their own unconventional lives, and I wanted to be a writer.

While I was in grad school in Seattle, I thought about it for the better part of two years before actually starting. Then it took me a while after that to find my writing voice, but I kept at it and made sure I never missed a scheduled post. Sometimes the message comes as you work at a project over time, so I always tell people not to wait unless they have a good reason.

Did any ‘gremlins’ try to tell you otherwise, and how did you overcome them?

Most definitely. I think the most powerful gremlins are the internal challenges of fear, insecurity, and anxiety. I wondered if what I had to say would be relevant. I looked around at other people who had been blogging for a long time — would I still be able to grow an audience? Would I be able to stick with it? And so on.

Thankfully, in the end I was able to prevent fear from making my decisions, and I pressed onward. I’m so glad I did! The past two years have been fun, challenging, and meaningful — all good things, I think.

You’ve obviously inspired boatloads of people through your site and, now, your book. Can you give me a story of someone whose life has changed because of what you’ve written?

I want to be careful when talking about change and my influence, because I think people often come to AONC when they are already discontented with the status quo and ready to make changes in their life. So I see myself more as an amplifier than a catalyst in that way.

That said, every day I hear numerous stories, all of which are fun and unique. There is a guy who took his wife to Paris for their 10th wedding anniversary as a result of the travel hacking tips I write about. They had never been out of the country before and were previously planning to go to Georgia — I thought that was a good story.

There are also a number of people who have quit their job and become self-employed (in various ways, from starting a whole business to freelancing) out of their engagement with AONC. Sean Ogle, whom I wrote about in the book, is one of them.

Finally, there are also a lot of fun little-and-big projects that were inspired through the site. In New York last week I met Amy Cao from Stupidly Simple Snacks, who told me about reading AONC and deciding to create a video series of her making easy snacks from her home kitchen. These and many other stories serve as very effective motivation to keep going, and also to keep thinking about how we can make things better and more accessible.

I’ve long believed—and I love that you hold this philosophy too—that in many ways our biggest effect on people comes from simply living authentically and being who we’re meant to be. Can you comment on how you’ve seen that ripple effect build in your life? Can you look back to a single point when you realized this power?

Yes, I agree. I think in my case it started to come in the early point of the blog when I began to hear from readers about the connections that had come about just while I was writing about my own travels. Then I hosted my first group meetup on a visit to New York. I thought maybe 5-10 people would come out; instead, 50 people came, all with interesting stories about how they had connected with the project. That’s when I realized, you know, I think we’ve got something very significant here, so we need to make sure we have a long-term plan.

Do you see food as a way to connect to a culture when you visit? If so, how do you use food to plug in?

Sure! Or at least I should say, I have done that — these days I have a few restrictions in terms of the workload I attempt to manage when on the road and the meetups I do in many cities. I’m also vegetarian, which is almost always workable but does limit me in terms of trying new things. But despite the limits, I do usually meet at least one of my readers and we go on some kind of city tour in more than 20 countries each year, which usually involves food.

In some cases it involves markets; in others it may be more of a cafe culture. In Kuwait it involved a trip to a shopping mall, which may sound odd, but that’s where Kuwaitis go to hang out. I just go along for the ride and try to learn something.

This is a tough one … What’s your favorite dish—from anywhere?

You’re right, that is a tough choice! Wow. Indian food is my favorite overall cuisine, in many different countries, because I can almost always find good options. I’ve had some really great falafel plates in Jordan and Greece. I can always count on good noodles in Hong Kong and apple strudel in Vienna.

But if I had to pick one single dish, my favorite Thai dish is phad kee mao, and the best place I’ve ever had it is from Jhan Jay in my old Seattle neighborhood. I’ve had it for post-marathon food, weekend nights out, and even for takeout lunch during the week. Highly recommended!

Chris … these Veggie-Laden Drunken Noodles are a version of Phad Kee Mao just for you!

Meet our other Nourishing Heroes:

Embrace a Not-So-Flat Belly

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I don’t know about you all, but I am bombarded by ‘flat belly’ ads. On Facebook, online, in magazines. Honestly, enough already. There’s nothing wrong with a sound approach to eating that amps up healthy whole grains and monounsaturated fats, like some of the diets do. But there is something wrong with trying to fit into an image that’s just not yours and pitting yourself against your body in the process.

A few years ago, I was struggling with fibromyalgia—I was always exhausted, always sore and always way too lethargic to go to the gym. I hated my body. But then I realized that I couldn’t change what my body was; I could only change how I treated it. So when I’d catch myself berating my butt or lamenting my tummy I’d try to shift focus onto the great things my body could do that I simply took for granted.

Eventually, my fitness goals morphed from “work out at the gym five times a week” to things like “able to garden without getting sore” and “able to walk as far as I want to.” I also began to eat differently. These shifts may sound subtle, but the impact was profound both internally and externally. Food became not a diet to fight with and fail at, but a means of nourishing myself; fitness turned from a to-do on an overcrowded list to a walk with a friend; and my body became not a thing to be loathed, but the way the world perceived me.

And I’ll tell you what, I’ve never felt as comfortable in my skin . . . despite the fact that I don’t have a six-pack belly.

NOURISH Evolution Serves Up a Taste of Sonoma

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Serving food to 2,500 hungry people is lots of fun–especially if you do it on a perfect September Saturday in the heart of Northern California’s Wine Country. That’s what we did at last weekend’s Taste of Sonoma at the historic MacMurray Ranch in Healdsburg. The sell-out crowd came to spend the day sipping Sonoma County’s best wines, watching chef demonstrations and sampling tasty treats.

Healdsburg is Lia’s home turf, so of course NOURISH Evolution Partnership Director Mary Beth Burner and I gussied up to join the fun (that’s us with Lia in the lower right-hand photo).

We spent two days cooking up Corn & Quinoa Pasta Salad, Asian Pesto and Hot-Smoked Sablefish (the recipe is below). People relished tasting new-to-them foods, such as quinoa and Jovial einkorn whole grain pasta (it’s rolling out at Whole Foods nationwide in coming months) or the zippy pesto with Asian flare.

“I love this sablefish!” said one new fan. “I’m sick of salmon, it’s nice to have something new.”

“This is food I live for,” raved another.

Hungry festival-goers gobbled it up, and lots of peeps came back for seconds–with friends in tow. Many lined up to watch Lia demo the pasta salad, pesto and our Sauteed Sablefish Ginger-Soy Glaze. She also demonstrated a cumin-crusted grilled scallop recipe at the Alaska Seafood station.

The most fun for us was meeting NOURISH Evolution fans in person and making lots of new friends. If we didn’t see you there, you can enjoy your own Taste of Sonoma with the recipes on our site (they’re exactly what we served on Saturday). And we hope to see you at next year’s event. It’s a delightful way to spend your Labor Day weekend!