Bacon and the Neighbour

Oh bacon…. smoky, salty, crispy, greasy and delectable… but so bad?! I have a love/hate relationship with it. Growing up, bacon was neutral, something to slather maple syrup over on weekend mornings when my dad lovingly made me bunny-eared pancakes with juicy blueberry eyes. It was in my teens when I latched onto a new identity as a vegetarian and gave it up. Then it was gross, inhumane, unhealthy; a perfect symbol of cultural excess and environmental destruction. I craved it for more than 10 years without ever giving in. I was proud of my control, my morals, and my unwavering dedication to my values.

Then something happened to me. I entered what I like to call the “lightening up” stage of my life, where tightly-defined rules gave way to something more dynamic and ‘context’ relevant. I started to make exceptions. I began to occasionally eat “bad foods” when I didn’t want to miss out on something culturally significant or connecting to someone dear to me. I’d eat my grandma’s borscht made with beef stock, or have the chicken smothered in mole verde on that trip to Mexico City. It felt right in those moments, but was followed by a sense of guilt or “selling out” that I couldn’t quite rectify.

The summer before I began my education at Bastyr University, I started dating my next-door neighbour: a French-Canadian musician from Montreal. He just didn’t get the “English” approach to food and health. For him, food was food. You ate it because it was good. You didn’t eat too much and you enjoyed a lot of different things, but most of all you never felt guilty about it. There was so much pressure to be ‘healthy’ in Vancouver. Where was the pleasure? It was curious and refreshing to hear such a seemingly non-obsessive relationship to food.

It was with him that my relationship with bacon changed. Every weekend (and occasional weekday mornings when we skived off work for a few hours) we would walk to the store and buy bacon. It wasn’t free range, grass fed, hormone or nitrate free. It was generic Safeway brand or sometimes as an extra treat, “Lazy Maple” with the maple “flavour” built right in. I waited for the voices in my head to tell me this was wrong. “I can’t believe you are going to eat this! All that saturated fat and toxic nitrates! What about the environment!?” But they never came. After we ate I expected the queasiness of guilt and fatty meat to set in. I waited to feel disgusting and full. But I never did. I felt energetic and light. I felt nourished.

Bacon gained immense importance in our relationship. It was a common bond. It had Rock Star status. It represented precious shared moments of hedonistic pleasure when climate change and heart disease didn’t matter. We would even close text messages with “bacon,” like “hugs and kisses,” only much more delicious.

On a trip to Montreal with the neighbour, I set aside my judgments and was surprised at how amazing I felt eating the ridiculously rich local delicacy – Poutine: French fries with fresh cheese curds slathered in gravy. Not exactly ‘heart smart’ fare. It was everywhere, and came in countless varieties. Sometimes it was topped with mounds of Montreal-style smoked meat. Of course there was one with bacon. I ate more than my usual year’s share of meat and heavy foods on that trip but I felt great. Even my pants were looser than when I stepped off the plane.

But when I came to study at Bastyr amidst the vegans and the socially responsible, I worried that someone would find out about my bacon habit. I felt like a fraud as a nutrition student. On lonely mornings when I turned to bacon for a dose of home, I felt heavy and full, my stomach churning from the salty grease, my thighs expanding from the fat. Something was definitely missing.

We learned about that something in my Psychology of Nourishment class. Eating a meal is more than just eating food. It is the entire experience of the meal that nourishes us: the care and attention that went into making it, the social nourishment of being with friends and family, our emotional state when we eat and the meaning we ascribe to the food. It makes sense.

Times with the neighbour nourished me on a level beyond the nutritional value of bacon. There was nowhere to rush to. I was relaxed and where I wanted to be. I ate with incredible sensual awareness, noting every detail of the crisp ruffled edges of the bacon. I savored every bite. I felt completely satisfied. I ate the whole experience: my mood, the company, the atmosphere, and most importantly the connection the meal created between us.

Eating provides us with more than just nutrients. Eating with awareness and curiosity can give us a hint about how the entire eating experience affects us and what we need to feel nourished and fulfilled, such as a sexy French-Canadian neighbour at the table.

Although my pancakes are rarely bunny-eared these days, I have returned to positive eating experiences. The neighbour has since moved back to Montreal, but he and bacon will always have a special place in my heart.

Vitamin Burps

It seems like everything I had heard, read and watched about nutrition in the media before coming to Bastyr focused on the battle between carbs, fats and protein. It's all about the struggle to lose weight and diets are all about the big 3 (in fancy nutrition lingo the “macronutrients”). But food gives us much much more than just those 3 things. That is very apparent from the strange paradox we are seeing around the globe today: an epidemic of obese people with malnutrition.

What's going on? People are getting a lot of the big 3, but very little of the other nutrients… the ‘micro nutrients’. The water soluble (Vitamins B and C) and fat soluble vitamins (Vitamin A, D, E, & K) not to mention the plethora of phytonutrients (as in plant compounds) such as antioxidants and the insanely large number of beneficial plant compounds we have yet to name, or even identify.

We take foods that are naturally spilling over with these powerful, essential compounds. We strip them, refine them, bleach them, sanitize them and pretty them up. Then we take what we took out and pop it into pills to be sold back to us as supplements. I can’t remember where I read this but it really struck me… Kind of strange- no? Those vitamins were ours. They were in our food and we have to pay to get them back. We shoudln't have to think about how to mix and match and meet all our needs from pills. Well there's an easy way to fix that... and it's delicious. Eat real, whole food.

I’ll take my vitamins as a juicy, fresh pear please. Or how about some garlic marinated roasted chicken with rosemary yams, edges crispy from olive oil and good old time in the oven? Or a pie, golden and steaming, with pounds of crisp local apples cooked down into sweet little sugary buttery coated pillows of love... sound a little more appealing than washing down a handful of chalky or gelatinous pills? wondering if it's the right formulation or the right time to take it (with a meal? empty stomach?) hoping that you don't taste fish oil all day, or that a ghostly cloud of white powder doesn't whisp from your nose as you exhale, carrying up, on a little burp, the contents from the burst gel cap lodged in your esophagus? (yes that happened to me).

When you eat, whatever you eat, eat real food. Think about getting your money's worth. Aim for nutrient density (more nutrients for the calories). Even when you eat a chocolate chip cookie... think about how it can have a few more nutrients in it (get the extra delicious one from the bakery with the real butter, rolled oats and walnuts). Add a handful of something green or red or orange to your meal - throw a bit of spinach or mushrooms into your spaghetti sauce or soup - grate an apple into your instant oatmeal and use real maple syrup instead of Aunt Jemimah maple flavour high fructose corn syrup on your pancakes, drink sparkling, real juice drinks instead of pop once in a while. Food is more than just fat, protein and carbs. Do little things to add the vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals you need. Even if its just a trace because Small Acts Add Up.

It's my favourite saying and it's true. No matter what you do, it matters. Little changes make a difference over time.

Nourishing Nettle

I took a fabulous class last year called Therapeutic Whole Foods Cooking. One spring class we went into the woods around Bastyr and did some wild foraging. This was something I'd always been curious about, but in my usual 'all or nothing' way, I managed to turn wild foraging into something only really experienced and learned folks who want to live in sod houses and make their own soap would do. Walking the 50 feet from the campus into a patch of nettle, cleavers and miner's lettuce ready for eating, quickly showed me that I was wrong. There is SO MUCH FOOD growing in the Pacific Northwest. We gathered up enough for lunch and made nettle soufflé. It was seriously delicious.

Yes that's nettle as in Stinging Nettle. The evil stuff I was terrified of as a kid playing at the end of my street. We have a new relationship now.

I am, I admit, addicted to nettle. There is more nutritional value in that stingy thing than even kale - the so-called powerhouse of the green kingdom. Nettle has a ridiculous amount of calcium (10x that of kale) and many other minerals (such as iron and magnesium) as well as anti-inflammatory and immune system modulating (balancing) compounds. I have a bag of dried nettle the size of a small child stashed in an unused corner of my kitchen that I make a daily infusion from (1 oz dried nettle steeped overnight in 1 liter boiling water – strain and drink). I think of it as my multi-vitamin and overall tonic. Nettle contains quercetin, which some believe makes it useful for treating seasonal allergies. It is especially supportive to the adrenal glands, which pump out the hormones we need to deal with stress. They tend to be a little overused in our culture. Everyone can use a little support, no? The stinging part of the nettle is deactivated by drying and cooking and then it just becomes another delicious green vegetable.

Last year, the transition to Seattle and full time school (and full time caffeine overload) was a little trying on my stomach and my nerves. After sipping nettle infusion in a Therapeutic Whole Foods tea tasting I became enamored. The inky emerald brew was faintly milky and sweet. It's not surprising to me that it's so high in calcium. I find nettle calming but energizing at the same time. Ok, get the sod ready... I could go on forever about nettles!

Here's a link to a recent nettle foraging trip by Seattle chef and localvore Becky Selengut (whose cooking classes I assist in the hopes of absorbing some of her effortless, inspiring teaching style). She harvests nettles for purely gastronomic purposes paired with a healthy respect for this mineral laden local gem.

Best news yet... it's nettle season, which means - they're FREE! I think I’ll take my gloves to school, go for a walk in the trails and grab myself some nourishment.


Nettle Soufflé
Serves 2-4
Preparation time: 1 hour

1 ½ cups water
4 cups young nettle tops
2 tablespoons olive oil or butter
1 onion or leek, minced
2 tablespoons flour (Gluten free try 1 tablespoon rice flour, 2 tablespoons arrowroot powder)
1/2 cup milk, soy milk or nettle broth
1-2 egg yolks, beaten
2 egg whites, stiffly beaten

Cook nettle in boiling water for 5-10 minutes. Drain well; save broth. Puree nettle in blender or food processor; set aside. Sauté onion in oil until golden. Add flour and cook, stirring for 2 minutes. Slowly add ½ cup of nettle broth or milk and cook, stirring often until dry and thick. Add a little of this at a time to the beaten egg yolk, until they are well mixed. Now stir in nettle puree and salt to taste. Last, carefully fold in egg whites. Put in a soufflé dish, bake at 350 degrees until firm, 30-40 minutes.

Adapted by Jennifer Adler from Healing Wise by Susan Weed.


Nettle Pesto
1/2 pound nettles
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup toasted pecans
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
1/2 to 1 cup extra virgin olive oil
about 1/4 cup parmesan cheese
(or for the dairy free -some chopped sundried Moroccan olives - that can have an almost cheesy taste...)

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the nettles (keep them in the bag and don't handle them too much) and cook for 2 minutes.
Drain in a colander, allow to cool and press out the excess water. This yields about a cup of cooked nettles.

2. Grind the garlic, pecans, salt, and black pepper in a food processor until finely chopped. Add the nettles, breaking them up. Add the lemon juice and whirl until the nettles are finely chopped. With the machine running, drizzle in the olive oil in a slow, steady stream. Add the cheese or olives, pulse a few times, and add salt, pepper or lemon to taste.

Inspired by Anna Macnak, adapted from Vegetarian Cooking by Paul Gayler.

Enjoy!

Spring.... with Peanut Sauce.

It's definitely Spring. I know that most of all because I have fantastic, fizzy energy (despite the brain drain of school) and a potent desire to be outside and moving as much as possible.

I also feel a big shift because I'm no longer craving hearty stews, beans and root vegetables! For the first time in ages I actually craved a SALAD.

I really appreciate this. It is pretty amazing to me that my body can pick up on how everything around me is changing and shift my cravings to whatever I need most at this time. Think about that. Pretty neat.

I came home from my shift at the farmer's market this week and I was surprised that I wasn't craving my usual post-standing-outside-all-day meal... spaghetti and meat sauce piled high with vegetables. I have had some pretty much transcendental moments over the last few chilly, wet Seattle months - parked on the couch post market hugging a steaming bowl of noodles to my chest, all snuggled in a puddle of oregano and marjoram and free-range beef spiked tomato sauce... sigh. It was made even better by the fact that my roomies and I took turns making it each week. The lure of that bowl got me through many of those final damp, winter market hours.

This time though all I wanted was... a salad. I actually stood there a moment in slight disbelief. Really? A salad? I searched for the familiar meat craving, but there was none. Just an incredibly strong urge to eat the kale and cabbage rabe I'd picked up from Nash's (sounds like "raab". It's the tender, sweet flowering heads that pop up in the spring). Strange, but I figured it was best to listen.

It got me thinking about eating seasonal and local foods. If you are eating locally then you pretty much end up eating what’s in season. I love being reconnected to that cycle. Who doesn’t get excited at the first summer strawberries - or fresh, sun-warmed, drip down your arm Okanagan peaches. That’s when you KNOW its summer. Well it's Spring now and that means asparagus season! (see What's in Season and Seasonal Cornucopia).

And then that got me thinking some more- those plants are living in the same conditions we are and going through the same daylight and temperature changes. Eating them gives us a pretty good chance we'll get the nutrients we need to adapt to those conditions too. It's hard to believe sometimes when we are boxed up in our cars and closed off in our houses with our hand sanitizer at the ready but we are part of this ecosystem too.

So my craving for spring greens, which in many traditional medicines are considered detoxifying and rejuvenating, is perfect for shedding a bit of that winter insulation we don’t really need now that it's warmer.

Spring does a pretty good job of reminding us that we aren't static, our diets change (and need to) and our cravings might just be the best information we can get about ‘what to eat’. I'd highly recommend listening... you might be surprised.


Here's my post market salad...

Purple kale rabe – roughly chopped
Cabbage rabe –roughly chopped
Asparagus, roasted, chopped - from the other night (see here for recipe)
Young swiss chard leaves torn into bite sized pieces
Some fennel bulb – sliced
A raw sunchoke (Jerusalem artichoke), sliced
Some leftover cooked, brown rice
Some Red cabbage, thinly shredded
Some raw beets, grated fine (try it! So juicy and sweet)
Toasted pumpkin seeds
1 free range, hard boiled egg, sliced (or some grilled salmon)


Pile all the greens into a bowl on top of the rice. Scatter with the remaining ingredients and drizzle dressing (recipe below) on top. Sit in the warm spring sun and check out all the incredible colour in that bowl. Take a deep breath, take a bite and enjoy.


Rebar’s Intensely Fresh Peanut Sauce/Dressing

makes 3/4 cup

1/4 cup smooth peanut butter (try cashew butter, almond butter or a mix)
1 clove garlic
About a 2 inch piece of ginger, minced or grated, (try using the back of a spoon to scrape off the skin – SO easy)
1 or 2 tbsp. honey (to taste)
a handful of cilantro leaves
juice of 1 lime
1 tbsp. sesame oil
1 tsp. sambal olek (or any hot sauce or dried chilies)
1/4 cup soy sauce (try naturally fermented tamari)
2 tbsp. brown rice vinegar

Whiz it all together in blender, with a hand blender or by hand with a little elbow grease (chopping fine and gently heating the nut butter will help).


Adapted from the Rebar Modern Foods Cookbook