vegetablealchemy

Thoughts on Modern Eating

2012-01-19T14:18:00.004-06:00

I'm walking the aisle of a major bookstore, searching for answers on my new modern cuisine. With what must be hundreds of thousands of books, my eye seems to beeline.! " Be What You Are", the book title says. Be What You Are,! I say to myself. I did not know I was in the self help section, but why not? I need help. I need answers.

I skim the book and speed through the tests. What am I? Right now what I am is developing a modern way to eat, to enjoy cooking and understand how the right food for each of us makes a huge difference biologically without calling out food and medicine or reactive food. Sure, this may not be for mainstream guy on the street at this time. But who knows, maybe it is, maybe it will be. It combines my interest in science, my background as a chef, my love for fitness, the body and a lifestyle of low impact, plant based food with a modern approach.

I see the kitchen design magazines on shelves. Close by are groupings of food as entertainment, food as health and wellness. food as living, food as social, food as cultural, food as travel, food for growing and food for showing. Weight watchers, weight losers, weight gainers, Food, Food, Food. Food is everywhere and oddly enough, right around the corner are more magazines that are reactions on food: food for diabetes, gluten free food, cancer and heart disease food, homeopathic food and EAT Right Food, I guess to responding to so many eating wrong food. The list of those magazines wraps itself nicely into magazines on pharmaceuticals and cosmetics using isolated food nutrients in suppliment and cosmetic ways. It is all about food and food extensions. Food as Entertaining runs that full monty extending reversal reality from wrongful eating to Food as Medicine. But still, I cannot find my food magazine nitche yet. What am I? What is my cuisine?

I am looking for a way to recipe ideas that start with ingredients paired to the body, true biology based eating matching me and food. I want to have fun and food and science every day. I want cell matching, digitally presented reasoning behind what I eat and enjoy with fresh forward thinking thoughts. I want a personal teaching cuisine. So, What am I? Suddenly I am a developer of a new modern food style: plant based, low impact, body smart, Vegetable Alchemy, cell smart. I want you to be interested. Start building your link to recipes of a purposeful modern cuisine, fresh flavorful, fun blended with a nod to your biology whenever we eat. This mole below is great for your insides! What does that mean? More on that when I figure out how to tell you in a way that is upbeat without the medicinal flavor of Food as Medicine. Give me feedback or just be patient. We will get there. We cannot do this overnight. Use with pastas, vegetables. seared tofu, seitan, pork and chicken. This is Who I am, my human biology driven teaching cuisine.

The Purpose of Pumpkin Seed Green Mole

Ingredients

1 cup pumpkin seeds, hulled, lightly toasted

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon oregano leaf, crushed

1/4 teaspoon dried thyme

6 red chiles, seeded

1 cup chopped onions

2 cloves garlic

2 romaine lettuce leaves

1/2 cup cilantro, fresh, stems and leaves

2 cups vegetable stock or chicken

sea salt

Method

Place first four ingredients into a spice grinder. Crush and place into a food processor. Add all ingredients, blend. Store refrigerated. Use hot as a sauce or cold as a spread.

Please Sir, Can I Have Some More?

2012-01-18T10:48:00.010-06:00

A weekend full of sports and workout. Super Sunday approaches. Winters in Chi-town get exciting on the tube as channels compete for viewing tennis, basketball, snowboarding, soccer and golf. I watch and think more and more about ideas on how to grow out Vegetable Alchemy changing the world for low impact living. As sports commercials tout burgers, pork and chicken, I settle into examining my stash of home-styled new misos and start chopping away. Quick Winter Vegetable Soup takes shape. What miso will it be? barley, chickpea, brown rice, white bean or red? Miso, miso on the wall.....barley gets the call.

A friend sends a note on f/b....' Check it out.... from a diary of sayings from Albert Einstein! ' " I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious." Well, so am I right now, about Miso and how great it is in a low impact world. Planet Minded, Body Smart. I find it 'curious' that with decades of food and beverage experiences, cooking in all types of cuisine, all over the world, now after all that background, I just feel more comfortable moving my lifestyle to plant based and low impact, sports to food and living. As for those of you reading, grab a beer and check it out. Call a friend over as this easily makes two hefty bowls. Knife practice makes perfect. Vary the veggies as you like. It's fun filled cheap!

Miso and Vegetable Soup, spoons of savory satifaction.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 cup onion, chopped 1/2 dice

1 cup celery, chopped into 1/2 inch dice

1 cup Idaho potato, peeled, cut into 1/2 dice

1/2 cup green pepper, seeded, cut into 1/2 inch dice

1 cup kale, stems intact, washed and cut into thin strips

2 cloves, garlic, chopped fine

2 tablespoons barley miso

1 cup firm tofu, cut into 1/2 inch dice

2 quarts vegetable stock, divided

1/2 cup cilantro, coarsely chopped

1 teaspoon oregano leaf

1/2 teas red pepper flakes

sea salt and fresh pepper to taste

Method

Heat a three quart wok or stock pot. Add the olive oil. Stir in the vegetables up to and including the garlic. Cook over medium heat until the kale starts to wilt. Stir 1/4 cup of the vegetable stock with the miso. Add the remaining stock to the vegetables and bring to light boil. Cook about 3-4 minutes until the potatoes are soft. Stir in the tofu, cilantro, oregano, red pepper flakes and season lightly. Simmer one minute. Stir in the barley miso mixture. Simmer one minute and enjoy!

RA TA Toooo Eeee

2011-12-26T11:04:00.007-06:00

Ratatoutille

Ra Ta Toooo EEEe! Flexibile and versatility, this dish ups the cooking ante with a way to learn and use knife skills as you test your flavor buds on a colorful recipe wrapped as a burrito filling, roll in crepes or omelettes, made as a side, a snack, an entree, lunch or dinner . Just don't forget it on the midnight run to the fridg!

When I set out to write this blog this morning I was psyched about returning to yesterday, making this dish inspiring about cooking and fun. As I multi-tasked between computer screens, reading the news and piles of magazine articles, I typed away rhapsodically about the French country side and my experiences cooking. Suddenly I became aggravated with what I was seeing. The harmony took a different direction to annoying dissonance.

The last decade plus has seen Americans and many parts of the world exchange cooking for other ways to occupy that time. To some with agendas on selling marked down versions of cooking backed by worthless products, they accuse cooking and decent fresh food enthusiasts of becoming 'elitist!'Beware the hidden agendas! I am the first to understand if one does not like to cook, but remember others do. To each his fair choice. Often music, travel, the web, workouts, family or business needs supplant our interests, especially if you approach cooking with glum or as a meaningless task. Realize though that today with terrific information, cooking can offer an awareness of how the correct food can make you and your body a living ball of great health. When you do not cook you lose that connection. Turn it over to manufacturers, marketers and restaurants without personal knowledge of how to make choices that keep you in great shape and you might as well set aside a whole lot more of your harder earned money to piss away soon on paid calls to 'Consult your practioner' when you order!

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/12/23/can-fast-food-really-make-america-healthier/

Vegetable Alchemy holds a way of eating that says: long life, even weight, feeling great. It's obvious the day has only 24 hours with loads of demands that take us from a kitchen designed five hundred hears ago, with recipes scribed when life was far, far more simple. But I can see in this conundrum an opportunity I will soon share, whether you cook or not. For many of us, low impact, smart food offers the finest way to live fantastically, enjoyably, reasonably regardless if economies come or go. Think of knowledge earned as savings invested, your annuity to healthy living.

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/12/22/u-s-retirement-assets-declined-by-1-4-trillion/

Part of that is Ratatoutille, a playful, plate of great tasty health. While this is one example of many versions on the web, if you're not into cooking, why do it? Call a spot where get a quart size of this wonder dish and enjoy eating in or for portable fun!

Ingredients

1/4 cup olive oil, plus more as needed

1 1/2 cups small diced yellow onion

1 teaspoon minced garlic

2 cups medium diced eggplant, skin on

1/2 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves

1 cup diced green bell peppers

1 cup diced red bell peppers

1 cup diced zucchini squash

1 cup diced yellow squash

1 1/2 cups peeled, seeded and chopped tomatoes

1 tablespoon thinly sliced fresh basil leaves

1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley leaves

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

Set a large 12-inch saute pan over medium heat and add a tablespoon of olive oil. Once hot, toss the onions and garlic in the pan. Cook, stirring occasionally, until they are wilted and lightly caramelized, about 5 to 7 minutes. Remove to a large bowl. Repeat warming the pan and adding a little oil for each of the vegetables in the ingredient list, cooking each individually and adding to the bowl. When you have finished with the squash, repeat with a litte olive oil, add the tomatoes, then basil, parsley, and salt and pepper, to taste. Cook for a final 5 minutes. Return all the vegetables from the bowl to warm together with the tomato mix and serve either hot or at room temperature. Cooking the vegetables individually helps retain the freshness which will be evident in your first to last mouthful!

Low Impact Living

2011-12-25T08:51:00.006-06:00

Today is Christmas and with only a week away to the New Year, it's a perfect time to step back and think about how to make Vegetable Alchemy, Oscar and my interest in plant based living a business in 2012. In 2011 I aligned my interest with Oscar, a parrot image I love who to me represents ecologically and body smart food. The last month I took this image to the marketplace, asking people around me if they understood why I loved the graphic icon. Many said, they did, but there was a disconnect with a parrot as their mascot. While they thought him fun and he drew their attention, I needed to give him a tag until the image conjured by his presence is clear in the minds of those who follow the brand, just as other icons make a statement. Wise thoughts and very well appreciated.

Yesterday, one man in particular, a successful businessman with global ties, loved Oscar in his hat, but was forth coming suggesting that I morph my interests into a movement called, 'low impact living.' http://www.lowimpact.org/ He understood my focus for a better quality of life with plant based food. He had already experienced many of the terrific tasting dishes that were designed for today's eating which I have been showcasing on the blog and in demonstrations as well as in restaurants. He loved the idea of a less costly home kitchen and eating with quick, smartly organized redesigned casual recipes for a modern age regardless of less demand for home cooking at present. His point was to reach out with Oscar and the idea of 'low impact living' for the body and the planet as a daily way of life. Point well taken. Low impact living becomes part of our mantra for a quality of life in earth sustainable ways. Until we meet again......Merry Christmas to all!

Focusing on my Marketplace

2011-12-23T16:40:00.003-06:00

Setting out to turn Vegetable Alchemy into a commercial venture the first most obvious path seems to be a restaurant. But then, sometimes when I see the amount of new spots on the streets I wonder, does the world really need another restaurant, even if it is plant base, but not plant only. For the time spent, could I not find some other way of reaching a much broader group of people? Facts, I needed facts on the market in order to define a space I could succeed. I confirmed with my planet smart mascot, Oscar who immediately checked for current details from great sources like The Hartman Group:

1) there is a changing food culture with mass scale meal fragmentation;

2) almost 44% of adults eat alone;

3) we have become a 'snack' culture;

4) whimsy and immediate delivery is critical: turn the retail experience on its head;

5) the Modern family is here: intertergenerational, non-traditional, single parent, unmarried, multi-ethnic, in spite of what marketers say;

6) healthier means having a better quality of life, and fun with it;

7) food culture: way beyond personal preference: value, ideas, practices, ingredients,

preparations, tools and techniques, players;

8) nutrition education move over: show help in daily life inspiring food and cooking;

9) traditional daypart meals are surpassed by 150 additionally cateloged eating occasions;

10) regardless of claim by innovator's it is today the victim of today's marketing mix for money.

Information is only as good as one reads it. I see Time Magazine in front of me: ;What to Eat Now' on a November cover. I skim an article in Town and Country on The Quantum Kitchen which I know. I love both but to me what is important is to address the food chain, the outdate production and product and to the guy on the street, the one who is in for a surprise if we do not adapt. And while I admire a recent spot on TED:

http://www.ted.com/talks/roger_doiron_my_subversive_garden_plot.html

I think the idea that someone in an apartment with kids or solo will have the space and the inclination to have a vegetable garden may be a bit out of synche with the reality of the design, although admirable. Glossy press is fun and informative, but what we need is a new system. Disruptive keeps coming to mind but before I say more, Vegetable Alchemy has to dig deeper for a way to significantly alter daily eating to the betterment of people and planet. It is clear the body needs fresh food, mostly plants. Like Holmes did to Watson, I sent Oscar in his best duds back back to find insights and numbers while I work on the new biology of the kitchen. Until then......

Nothing Says Vegetable Alchemy More than a GREAT Burger

2011-12-23T13:25:00.004-06:00

I am looking for a way to bring my views on plant based eating to market as a commercial venture. In addition to background in restaurants and hotels, I am very familiar with food production, manufacturing, teaching, and media. I consult for small to enormous companies. I found myself in a dream last night doing an ideation on Vegetable Alchemy! How about that! I kept asking a circle of people, what do they think about a plant based diet, looking at them for comments. Almost ALL said they did not get it; that they liked how they ate now; that other people will take care of the planet; that even if we are going to 8 billion people there are those paid to figure it out; that they do not want to cook. Most said it was not worth adding more vegetables or a plant based lifestyle to their day when other foods were cheaper. Clearly to me this is very short sided, especially not taking into account the health care costs later in life from a damage eating model.

In the dream I kept asking more questions but slowly one by one, half of them left! Half, not bad. All I can keep thinking now is how to turn this love for plant based eating into an economic opportunity and a platform to attract others to follow. The platform means educating people on eating, and helping them to rethink for many reasons. When in doubt, ask true friends for opinion. One returned my thoughts with and email saying, "Too many people in the present system benefit from the way food and cooking are now addressed. They have no motivation to change. But it doesn't mean it won't happen. If you start reframing our thinking under a new basic premise, that a plant based diet is best, we have so much to gain just as other industries have reframe consumer thinking from communications and clothing to architecture and social media."

Present ways are causing many health challenges. Present ways have a food chain and production seeded with environmental issues that many are shading. We live under a false pattern. We have to change that pattern. In a world of 1 or 2 billion people missing evidence was not as apparent as it is now becoming at 7 billion and growing. Economic Opportunity is there and I know I can find it. For now, back to putting on the thinking cap while I make a little dinner for friends. I give you one of my favorite's burgers from Vegetable Alchemy, in honor of a great place to start!

Farm Styled Wild Rice Burgers

Ingredients

1 medium onion, cut into fine dice

4 tablespoon olive oil, divided

3 tablespoons parsley, freshly chopped

2 tablespoons rosemary, freshly chopped

2 tablespoons sage, freshly chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped fine

1/2 teaspoon chili powder

1 cup wild rice, cooked

1 cup brown rice, cooked

2 acorn squash, peeled, diced into 1/2 inch cubes, steamed

2 medium eggs

2 tablespoons yogurt

1 teaspoon sea salt

fresh ground white pepper to taste

1/4 cup fine bread crumbs, or as needed

6 pieces of boston or iceburg lettuce

6 slices of ripe or oven dried tomato

1 jalapeno, sliced into thin pieces

6 (2 oz.) slices of pepper jack cheese

6 sesame or other favorite burger bun

Method

Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a 10 inch saute pan. Add the onion and cook until soft. Add the parsley, rosemary, sage and garlic. Cook on medium-low heat for about 5 minutes. Turn off heat and cool. Mash half the acorn squash in a 2 quart bowl with the back of a spoon. Add the rice, the cubed squash and the chili powder. Stir. Whisk the eggs with the yogurt and add to the bowl. Add just enough bread crumbs to make the mixture workable. Wet your hands with water and form the mixture into patties. If the mixture is still too sticky, you can add a little more breadcrumb..

Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil in a medium skillet. Cook the patties for 3 to 5 minutes on each side, or until they start to brown. Serve on toasted buns garnishing with any or all on the list.

The Vegetable Alchemist

2011-12-13T15:24:00.007-06:00

There are three simple reasons that the world needs The Vegetable Alchemist.

1) Because The Vegetable Alchemist and Vegetable Alchemy represent more than just recipes that are plant based but not plant only. They are organized as a lifestyle in today's smart living that has a much lighter burden on the planet as a whole. Modern science and super wonderful easy flavors are the center of Vegetable Alchemy, ecologically minded for the effect ingredients have on the planet with a clear eye on cost from start to finish, farm to table refined and expanded. The purpose of The Vegetable Alchemist is to teach a new way of modern eating from home kitchens to retail, fast food to fine dining. It takes into account ALL the fantastic information we can integrate now in a world growing past 7 billion;

2) Far increasing numbers are showing that Sports, Fashion, and Everyday Consumers are finally paying attention to smart honest research. We have known for decades that the effects of eating a plant based diet clearly are supported in healthy looks, terrific body, wellness, longevity, and for sure, the pocket book! The Vegetable Alchemist responds by bringing this uber appeal style and lifestyle to a broad based audience;

3) The Modern Kitchen is way behind the times. For centuries, across the globe historic recipes have dictated equipment, kitchenwares, high overhead, lengthy cooking and classical preparations now outdated. History defines them by the country of origin in cuisine. Those consumption driven kitchen's might be great for those recipes but hundreds of years later, today, they result in unnecessary overhead and ecological CHAOS, a true kitchen CONUNDRUM with nothing confidential about it! Most often recipes have NOTHING to do with modern research demonstrating the body's need for more proactive foods rooted in a whole new world of cooking, facts. The last 50 years a routine American kitchen has grown in too many complicated ways. It has been novel but now cluttered rom the effects of trying to sell hundreds of ingredients and thousands of pots and pans. It is time for a change. Everyday meals are not rooted in good health but in marketing. Time to fill your thoughts, your kitchen, your purpose with the VOGUE of The Vegetable Alchemist, practical, fun, real and in the spirit and of a new ecologically minded culture.

Next: the emerging kitchen design for The Vegetable Alchemist.

7 Billion Footprints and Counting

2011-12-09T17:12:00.011-06:00

After 35 years of working in the trillion dollar food and beverage industry, I turned my layers of experience into helping companies of all sizes, the tiniest locally to some of the very largest globally. It is a great use of my experience having connections in an industry of such magnitude with multi-talented exceptionals to help. In the last four years I have worked with a fantastic brain trust team in a range of challenges that have had great practical success: product research and development; strategic marketing directives; packaging teams; consumer testing; ingredient sourcing; operational issues; equipment design; start-ups; creative ideation for new ventures; menu and recipe development; manufacturing and distribution, at home and abroad.

A few days ago, early in the evening clients had left and my friend Oscar shook up a couple of tasty chilly cold ones. A bunch of us gathered to discuss a plan to consider business in 2012. The Cocktails...Pure Blue Parrot Perfection! Moments later we had to start to address work in 2012 and our role effecting a planet about to hit 8 billion people. How will that impact clients? At a now crispy compounding birth rate of one per 7 seconds against a death rate of one every 11 seconds, numbers are showing a net gain of 1 person every 14 seconds! In 1950 we had just hit about 2.5 billion people. Almost unbelievably by the 1990's we humans grew to 6 billion! Records show it took humans 150,000 years to get to the first billion by 1850. That means in my lifetime we will hit 2 billion more. And......that last billion took only 12 years!

All during 2011 client issues centered around sales, ' what consumers want ' were the most popular topics. ' You can't stay in business unless you do business.' But NOW how much and how it is done is certainly THE factor we have to help companies add as a factor. We can keep that information under our pillow, hide it fearfully in vaults, or use it with wisdom and integrity. Without exception there is NO WAY we can possibly do business the same way we did when the planet was even 5 billion in this rapidly changing population and ecology. Oscar and I see that companies have to start working at opening their to ideations to foster opportunities that help change the consumption effect by designing products around a future of 8 to 9 billion consuming people. This is not the call for drama but honest proaction! Planet numbers are evident at...

http://jamesjoe.com/joe-taylor/articles/how-many-people-are-there-in-the-world.asp

Oscar and I are adding a plan, a vision, a team to drive the next global economy in more ecologically sensible ways. We know that while we work in the medium of food and beverage, it will take a lot more than integrating a plant based but not plant only diet into the United States, even at a yearly slow growth rate of 1% of the 321 million population to make big impact. OUR PLANET PLAN will take looking at what other big businesses do too. Energy, housing, clothing, water, 'security'....BASIC needs for humans.

Oscar suggests we engage big business: Wall Street, Pharmaceutical Companies, Energy, Social Media to produce sustainable plans. One of us suggests Oscar get some organizational, interactive power point help and share his point of view. Present the ideas of The Green Planet Project on TED bringing the vision to the marketplace. We know that a new collectively positive attitude, no matter how hard it is economically for many at present, could turn the focus to from woes to more positive solutions and jobs that fit a new sustainable lifestyle. Starting on TED with insights into food would be a great way others industries can add their thoughts and get more proactive.

As a food blog we leave you recipes. This time Oscar and I give you food in a different more important way. Taste: FOOD for thought! We can give you 7 Billion reasons to get involved while you count, and that includes, one very important planet. Ours!

Farm Animals Globally are Talking: ' Ingest More Cauliflower! '

2011-12-07T14:21:00.019-06:00

Not long ago I found myself being interviewed on a live television broadcast after winning a national chefs’ challenge. About 300 people participated in the process of elimination over a number of months. The final cook off with 12 of us was rough but worth it. When the media asked what was one of the biggest factors to help make the dish succeed? I said, ‘Vegetables, Herbs and Spices. I got to combine them in a way that rocked the dish.’

Next day the stories centered around me as winning, but as a vegetarian, vegan, flexitarian and more. Nothing wrong with any of that, but nothing to do with the win.

That morning at this studio I sat there in front of the camera. The show host suddenly asked……’So..... I heard you won this contest. Certainly you have a great reputation around the United States, but what made you so into vegetables?’ Not thinking there could be a developing plot in his line of interview I said….’Well, I like vegetables and with herbs and spice a great cook can do something with them that many cannot. I think vegetables need a much higher place in the food world.’ Well that seemed to be all it took to get him a sly smile, next asking me, unbelievably, if I thought people might think I was ‘soft, a tree hugger, light in the loafers, or against meat and poultry, fish and game?’ I was stunned….’a tree hugger, light in the loafers?’ What the hell. Did he actually just say that?

A sense of humor is paramount. But I realized that maybe I had said something or suggested something DISRUPTIVE! It might be almost as disruptive as the corporate challenge in the 'Eat More Kale' issue! http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/05/us/eat-more-kale-t-shirts-challenged-by-chick-fil-a.html

Maybe he thinks of a burly image of a chef, male or female, as slaughtering and eating meats, butchering chickens, fishing or hunting game as center of plate. Maybe vegetables shattered it! lol! Maybe my thoughts on celery, onions and carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, tomatoes, cabbage, grains, herbs, and spices were dismantling the rough and tough image of America! I had no reason to respond aggressively. His comments surprised me on live camera. I sat there looking at this guy in his snake tall cowboy boots and thought.... I think he is offended by the image of what someone who eats vegetables might suggest. Not vegetables only mind you, but just vegetables in general. After all, I am on his show and maybe he wants me to be some way as a chef he sees as acceptable. There could be a perception problem about people who like vegetables. Maybe part of that was the J. Edgar Hoover mentality that anything that challenged the status quo was done by subversives or freaks. What he probably was remembering were who he saw as hippies, animal rights activists, religious zealots and others, part of a changing culture and a good part.

Reality is, eating a balanced diet with smart food is just plain common sense that most people continue to reject. No matter who we are: omnivore, carnivore, herbivore or whatavore… taste and preparations kill good basic ingredients at home or in restaurants. It is not brain surgery to see the time has come to make vegetables and lots of other fantastic enriching foods part of mainstream menus. What you take in for your fuel makes a difference in how you look, how you feel and in your health. And it makes a difference for the planet. Research and common sense, no matter how uncommon it often seems to be, align veggies with better health for the smarter who get it.

Vegetables are truly maligned by just plain bad cooking. Americans are not exactly known for their reverence on the vegetable trail history. However, things are changing and you don't have to hug a tree to say thanks. Thank the Chinese, the Italians, Japanese and others who show some R-E-S-P-E-C-T for dishes that sing of mainstream wonderfulness. So let the throwdown begin.....

Viva la Vegetable! Viva los herbs and spice! I share with you a recent pasta dish that rocks veggies big time. Enjoy it for four as a snack or generous two of your for lunch or dinner.

Pan Roasted Cauliflower with Orecchiette

Ingredients

1 head cauliflower, broken into florets and cut in half lengthwise

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons butter

3 cloves of garlic chopped fine

1 medium onion, chopped fine

12 ounces cooked whole wheat orecchitte, 1 cup of pasta water reserved

¼ cup Italian parsley, chopped coarsely

1 lemon, seeded and juiced

½ cup Pecorino Romano, grated or parmesan, grated

½ teaspoon sea salt

¼ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

Method

1. Head a 10 inch skillet or wok to medium and add olive oil and butter. When melted add the cauliflower, smooth sides down. Brown 4-5 minutes slowly on both sides. Add the garlic and onion. Continue to cook slowly about 3 minutes.

2. Toss in the pasta and stir. Add the pasta water, the lemon juice, parsley and seasonings. Mix.

3. Serve in deep bowls, sprinkling the grated cheese evenly on top.

Eco Minded, Body Smart

2011-12-06T13:03:00.015-06:00

My life as a chef keeps taking me more and more to flavorful ways to eat with light ingredients. I want to not only taste combinations that are exciting, I want to cook them. If the world wants to head out for fast fake food or terrible eating, let them. Cooking is one of the best rewards you can find in the day. What is the sense of having great ingredients and a body that needs mental and physical nutrition if you don't take a minute to experience and appreciate how to make quick easy dishes.

It's definitely Winter. Fall passed a few days ago. The half hour run outdoors gets replaced by an early skate on Chicago's ice rinks just opened. Early morning stretching with floor mat pilates and an occasional swim at a club keeps my weight, skin and insides energized. No dry skin for this guy. Gotta keep that body motor purrring. This sexy hot pot recipe is part of what does it for me. Eco-minded with low cost to market for the simple fresh ingredients. Rewarding, body smart, Why? Well, if you want to know......you'll just have to make it! The answer is in each taste and the beauty of digestible lusciousness. A little extra jalapeno never hurt your senses. Grinding the black pepper at the last moment keeps the aroma. And, as you see it has a world of healthy notes.

http://www.organicfacts.net/health-benefits/herbs-and-spices/health-benefits-of-black-pepper.html

Winter Vegetable Hot Pot
Ingredients
10 ounces (firm) tofu
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup broccoli, stems and fleurettes
½ cup red bell pepper, cut into 1 inch strips
¼ cup celery, stalks and leaves, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 tablespoon fresh jalapeno, seeded and chopped fine
4 garlic cloves, chopped fine
½ cup of peas (frozen are fine)
2 medium tomatoes, cored, quartered
4 cups vegetable stock or chicken stock
¼ cup fresh cilantro
¼ cup fresh basil leaves
½ teas sea salt
½ teas fresh ground black pepper

Method
1) Cut tofu into one inch cubes. Place the cubes on a paper towel. Top with another sheet of paper towel, then a sheet pan or baking dish on top. This weight will work to remove some of the excess water from the tofu. Set aside.

2) Cut the broccoli stems in half lengthwise so they cook evenly. Heat a non-stick skillet or wok over medium heat. Add the olive oil. While shaking the pan, gently toss in the broccoli, red pepper, celery and garlic. Stir and cook 3-4 minutes. Add the peas and tomato quarters. Cook 2 minutes. Add the stock.

3) Bring vegetable liquid to slow simmer. Add the tofu, cilantro and basil leaves. Season with
salt and pepper. Continue cooking at a slow simmer 3-4 minutes occasionally shaking the pan so the tofu picks up the aromatic flavors of the vegetables, herbs and spice.

4) Ladel vegetable mixture into soup plates . Enjoy the YUM!

May We Suggest.......

2011-12-05T16:55:00.005-06:00

Monday, 4:30 am. and the week starts as usual, updating myself on the last of weekend news while looking at upcoming events in finance, politics, health and wellness, food, beverage and sports. Having gotten through an hour of global posts my eye turns attention to 'sports' and the Tiger Woods win at the Chevron Tournament. Bravo, bravo, bravo and happiness to him all! In an interview Woods makes a clean statement that people do not see how hard it is to win, let alone stay in shape mentally and physically winning back to back tournaments. I play the video and watch that nine iron careen over the bunker and with the right spin drop six feet from the hole. Gutsy and great, that shot and the final putt makes him the Winner. Fitness comes to mind in that shot, fitness and fit food. http://www.smh.com.au/sport/golf/hes-back-tiger-woods-wins-again-20111205-1oe20.html

I keep watching that shot. I start to remember the feeling of the countless hours to learn to keep at it when you want to be competitive. As an amateur player, I use to work at it just like most athletes, until you cramp or just can't hit even another ball. Desire to be good, no, desire to be great was the only way. I was a lot younger, I had no coach. No one told me how to cross train, what to eat, how to improve my game. But I aspired to be a sportsman, particularly in golf. Early in the goal, by a freak accident I injured my right hand and spent three and a half years in casts with operations, pins and bone graphs. With aggrivating reluctance, and over a course of five years trying to reclaim what I had lost, golf became a different sport to me. I sideline my passion, making a self contract agreement to turn my already heady knowledge of restaurants into a full time career. After a time, you just have to say, 'Don't hang on, don't look back. Forward, forward, forward.' Can't head back to play that way now, but the love for fitness, and fitness through food remains.

Chefs are not known to be the fittest of people. We might think fit and want fit and try to respond to fit but long hours, consumer demands, classical recipes, tradition, an often weak discipline more prone to reward, and the ever demanding workday set a different course. One would think that food knowledgable chefs would be Top Fit@, not just Top Chefs. But another look says, Selling Food is the business, not fitness. Fitness seems to be the controlled business of sports. I differ! This is the time to change and blend both. If we leave it that way we deny in daily life what we really need to be healthy, smart food and a little fitness. There is a whole new world of food out there in combining the two at the everyday level. It is not about foam and smoking glass and mirrors or sensational networks from media. It is not about short term trends. It is about how you can interact with YOU, you and that body you live in every day. A recent look at TED's spells it all on health message. The information is out there. http://blog.ted.com/2011/09/29/teaching-science-by-bad-example-qa-with-ben-goldacre/

Ahead of me is a huge fit future. When you feel the difference in eating what makes the body flexible and the mind alert, you see the notion of what I see as fit food. Take a look at global cuisines and you will easily understand that when many recipes were created no one knew of what could be the impact of diet and disease or think the world would move to longevity issues let alone have a computer to assist with modern insights. Centuries of work can now be applied to food and I am not talking about GMO's but cell driven nutrition.

Not long ago I introduced Oscar, my way of representing a new world of eco minded, body smart foods. With his help, and a clean slate on Fit Food from Foley, a whole new look at how to eat and cook with applications of Vegetable Alchemy are defining a fresh road to what is truly 'Healthy' and why. Keep joining in and take a peak. Oscar's Kitchen is not far away. May We Suggest.......

May We Introduce......

2011-11-22T12:07:00.009-06:00

Vegetable Alchemy meet Oscar! We welcome you to our mission of revamping traditional recipes to better balance through the addition of more vegetables, herbs and spice. It is this parrot alongside, Jovan Tryboyevic, proprietor of the famed Mobile 5 star restaurant Le Perroquet who helped me hone my skills in the art and lifestyle of food and beverage. Enriched already with an incredible base from my restaurant family background, this bird, the man and the place> Le Perroquet inspired me to focus on the ability of a recipe to produce colorful, flavorful, satisfying healthful results.

I am fascinated with the healthy integrity of vegetables, herbs and spice, and gave Vegetable Alchemy definition, ' the art and science of combining vegetables, herbs and spices with other ingredients for body smart food and a better ecological future.

The form and function of what was fine dining style now shifts to a casual approach for day to day eating. Body strategic recipes combine with a little fitness to offer a lifestyle of overall body balance, anti-aging, health and longevity. One would think that after the advent of nutrition, enriched body sciences and the scores of websites detailing the increase in diet related diseases such as diabetes ( 285 mil, 2011 to 440 mil 2030), gluten intolerance, heart disease, cancer and others, we would start to overhaul recipes for a modern way of eating. Proactive….....one day at a time with changes that show that the modern way of life needs a modern diet.

Vegetable Alchemy: vegetable based; but not vegetable only, body minded, ecologically smart.

A Chili in Every Pot!

2011-11-21T14:04:00.004-06:00

Tis the season upon us. Hockey, football, skiing, ice skating. a brisk run and more.

The Vegetable Alchemist at your service.......

Mushroom Chili with Beans and Barley
Cook Time: 30-40 minutes
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Yield: 12
servings (1 ½ cup each)

Ingredients
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 pounds cremini mushroom, quartered
1 medium green bell pepper, seeded and diced
1 medium red bell pepper, seeded and diced
2 cups frozen corn, thawed
3 cups cooked barley
1 (16ounce) can chili beans, undrained
1 (16ounce) can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1 (15ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 (8ounce) can tomato sauce
1 (14.5ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained
3 cups vegetable broth
1 (4 ounce) can chopped green chilies
3 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon Mexican oregano
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons dried basil
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Directions
1. Heat olive oil in a 1-gallon thick bottom saucepot over medium heat. Add onion and
garlic; cook 2 minutes. Add mushrooms and continue to cook 4 - 5 minutes. Stir
in peppers; cook for an additional 3 - 4 minutes or until vegetables are
tender.

2. Stir in all remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer
for 20-25 minutes or until flavors are melded, stirring after 15 minutes to
prevent sticking.

3. YUMMMMMM!

May All Your Fish Come True !

2011-08-22T15:55:00.004-05:00

Fish: Fabulous, Interesting, Sexy with a Halo to eat, this protein is the magic ingredient to some of the finest food I have ever appreciated to cook as Chef or consumer. Forgiving to all when understanding its needs; mercilessly bland, boring, and odiferous when not. Spend a quarter for a lemon, or fifty bucks for a sauce, fish can deliver on taste, whether investment or not. Fish, a protein with opportunity so clear that dollar per dollar on growing and yield, it outperforms poultry, pork, and meat. Lean for weight watching, rich for culinary expansion, fast for the home meal dilemma, fish favors those who want to learn its secrets. Pay attention to the market source of your fish purchases and the knowledge takes you on world tour envious of all including Marco Polo. Salty cold water, inland streams or mountain rivers, each source teaches an understanding of why ' fish are what they eat' from firm to soft texture, white or darker color, strong or subtle aroma. With each fish is a self contained statement of origin that cleanly defines a preference for preparations particular and rewarding. The adventure of learning is all yours for the fishing.

With that mini salute to fish and is shellfish brethren I hereby introduce my lifetime love and ventures with ' fish'. I have enthusiastically cooked and fantasticly enjoy while supporting in full form as a true a fishionado! I bring you my favorite thoughts in a blog you will love: May All Your Fish Come True! I will take away your agony and forward you the ecstacy to love my Fabously Intersting Sexy Halo of Fish.

The Cooking Dilemma

2011-08-12T09:14:00.012-05:00

Is this you to the left in your perfect kitchen happily being your version of Julia Child, cooking meals for you, your family and friends on a daily basis in a neat organized high end kitchen? No?

Not exactly...I hate to cook....cooking is far too hard.....I have so much stress I cannot make time to cook....my kids are too demanding.....surviving is more important!

Ancient cultures have a saying: "when you go to war, dig two graves, one for your opponents and one for you।!" As I write I see a war going on between the inherited historic kitchen and its system and our present need to cook day to day. It looks like we are digging our own graves stressing over producing daily home meals. Time for some disruptive thinking on a more efficient productive space with support right down to groceries.

Early one Sunday when I was a six year old kid I accompanied my father to a restaurant we owned so he could review the previous night's receipts. With him in the office I stationed myself in the dark kitchen. Loving food, I just had to have something to eat. But what? It was so dark in the non window kitchen I could not even see a refrigerator door! Where there is that will, there is that way, and carefully I smelled my way to chilled wrapped deliciously cooked vegetables, meats and stews, true heaven on earth for a hungry kid. Mangia I did, and in those moments I found my own first fast food. Great food I could get fast! Fabulously tasty, classical food that came from the kitchen of true gourmet cooks well verse in traditional recipes of many cultures.

Where are we today? Is that great food our food today? Do we need it, want it, crave it? Do we cook for the same results in appearance, umami, satiation and price, with the time and lifestyle that came with the recipes or the system set up to support them? For the first time in hundreds of years, no matter how media stars and food writers, manufacturers and bloggers adjust a recipe in scale and scope, changing prep time, cook and eat- in time one can rarely deliver a plate that the consumer can actually execute that way. And even if they do, there are all those recipes that do not. Low fat, low salt, gluten free, altered foods, unreal timetables.... we are trying, but we need to succeed. Time to rethink the kitchen and system just as horse transportation took on a new norm that became the car. We are underdelivering to ourselves, by overdelivering on false reality. Something that use to be such a beautiful daily effort, to cook, has become a dilemma.

Seven years ago I was on a televised international committee ideation with designers, equipment manufacturers, chef's, growers, writers, marketers, family advocates and social media folk all throwing our ideas into a kitchen design pot of the future. As we continued we consistently queried the food savvy, varied age and experienced family audience for questions adding their imput to our emerging platforms. The end result was, that everyone got what THEY wanted and the kitchen is now an audio visual cooking center almost double in size with this endless stream of equipment, pots and pans that are used infrequently, a pantry with ready food prep, canned and frozen for convenience, a refrigerator with a list of take out or order in phone numbers or links to same and a the list goes on and on and on, close to being a family center.....but the evidence is clear....the cooking dilemma stills grows and I can solve it with your help!

Let's take a step back and think. Did consumers know they needed the car, the air conditioner, computer, itunes, iphones and ipads? No, but someone thought through a real not just temporary improvement and we moved forward. New goods improve our lifestyles and become integrated into our daily lives. Just as with other technologies we are hitting a new era in the kitchen It is time to talk and rebuild/build a more practical kitchen style. While no one including cooking sites, magazines, food companies and manufacturers want a change, it has to come.

Pretty kitchen above, nice tunic and hat. However, they may demonstrate a pazzazz that is costly to buy and questionable to execute. Some say a cooking dilemma. I say, The Cooking Conundrum!@, disruptive thinking, and with your help, coming to you soon.

Farm to table meets Fish!

2011-07-19T08:54:00.003-05:00

Vegetable Alchemy takes a focus: fun, fit food through the eyes of a chef! Attached: tilapia with baby tomatoes and Vitamin K....the onion family: garlic onion, leeks and scallions and a touch of herb. 5 minute prep, 5 minute cook, 15 minutes even with cleanup. Farm to table takes on a new norm, Vegetable Alchemy, body wise food. Salut!

Science and Food Common Sense

2011-06-03T08:15:00.003-05:00

Spring Farmers Markets. Get out there!

One wise person once said, 'Common Sense, if it was so common, more people would have more of it.' This injected comment is not about being critical. It demonstrates that we are in a new age for body and biology and sometimes like when the computer hit the world, you just have to wise up and see the handwriting on the wall before your nose touches it.

Enter the food pyramid changes this last month. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/la-he-food-pyramid-20110602,0,3746868.story

Enter the comments and critics on the food pyramid changes. http://www.hartman-group.com/hartbeat/of-triangles-circles-and-other-children-shapes-the-food-pyramid-changes-again?utm_content=folexcchef@aol.com&utm_medium=HartBeat%3a+T. But to what end.

The most important is to redesign recipes for what science and the computer has offered the last years and start to be honest about how to educate great body care. http://www.vegetablealchemy.com/cellcuisine.html Quality care in life no matter the year. Fun, flavorful, colorful strategic recipes made from a new modern cuisine rooted in science and wise food prepartations meant for a happy diner.

More to come soon: A Fish in your Medicine Cabinet!? There is a better way. Omega 3 Fish Stories from the Deep. Meanwhile, head to the new Summer veggie markets and with a touch of seasoning, olive oil and garlic, grill those new fresh onions for burgers pastas, snacks and best of all, to enrich your body! Tasty, too!

Cell Cuisine Gets a Look

2011-04-16T09:13:00.008-05:00

No question that the body is one amazing mass of molecules. Molecules make parts. And part by part they make us. They need nourishment. It is essential to know more on a daily basis how we work and what we need. Before you from this Vegetable Alchemist is another update for

Cell Cuisine tm .

This concept and graphics are an entirely new original take on how to focus on self care. Never underestimate the slogan ' You are what you eat.' Cell Cuisine tm is much more than just food. It is about viewing fun things that happen at the molecular level in each of us, that is part food and part body care. Recipes have flavor, color, balance and practical cost, but with a redefined central purpose. This education into self care at every age is the present new norm we all need. Viva la Cell Cuisine tm: vegetables, herbs and spices, alone or added carefully with more ingredients but for a purpose, making a better place for anti-aging, lasting cell care.

My Cellular Junk

2011-03-01T10:14:00.002-06:00

I have been a businessman, chef and restaurateur all my life, but always wanted to be an athlete. Regardless of 50 plus, two months ago I decided to head back and become competitive learning to ride dressage or jumping at various heights on horses. It takes stamina, attentiveness, being in good shape and a sensible attitude to always be prepared like a boy scout....or girl scout! Always.

Got a trainer, started to cross train: run, swim, pilates, bike and various tai chi stretching for the mind, a little each day. Loving the horse and the fun workouts! But as they say....no pain, no gain. And until I get up to speed and even staying there, after a month my body felt like a punching bag. So... of course....one has to head to the bar, see and laugh with ladies, roust his buddies and yuk it up to remember he is still human and have some social networking fun!

Meanwhile, training mindset returns to say, 'time to see this is hard work.' To do this you have to not only change what you eat, but your life, and a lot! Even get rid of some of your CELLULAR JUNK, the stuff left over in your body and cells from day to day living as time goes on regardless of how hard you try to eat well. We all have it. And it cloaks you inside and out! Young can do, but cellular junk has to go! I made a long term plan.

Vegetable Alchemy with its vegetables, herbs and spices again to the rescue. A bevy of enzymes, minerals and vitamins to help me degrade my 'cellular junk'...best part about it..yummy too! homemade curry with a veggies quick stirfry and mussels..hmmmmm, good! I can feel the scrubbies at work. Happy Vegetable Alchemy day!

Prediction: End of the ' Tug of War '

2011-01-01T12:11:00.005-06:00

The year is 1962. I was ten! I pleaded with my Dad to work in the kitchen at one of our restaurants. He finally agreed. Off I went. The rest....fun history.

Salad station question to the cooks at 10 years old....'wow, what's behind here? (moving the refrigerator....)..YUK! does my Dad know all that's back there?' many heads turn, many heads say....' no, but let's just put it back and keep it a secret!' Ten year old response....' no way, he'll kill me if he knows I was working and did not clean...' end of story.....suddenly three cooks helped and we were a team on a mission.....

The year is 2011. Horoscope fun:

1) You have wisdom to impart. Whether it lands well is not your responsibility. You will do your best to show someone the way, but ultimately, every person must decide what is best for him or herself.

2) Throw procrastination out the door. Start the year off fresh by getting all the odds and ends tied up. Wipe your slate clean so you can focus on the exciting goals you set. Not everyone will be happy with your choices. 4 stars!

3) Great day for study, writing, editing, or proofing something. You won't overlook details. Your powers of concentration are excellent. This is a very good day to think about your future, the rest of the year, and what you're long-range expectations are. Lief has a curious way of fulfilling our expectations, have you noticed?

Well here we go. It's a Tug of War. Classical fresh food, plant based, but not plant only, made properly and honestly integrated into modern lifestyle has a positive effect on happy me. Classical recipes adapted to manufactured practices, processed and leaving me with no real nutritive digestible happy health are incorrect for the body.

Fun things happen at the molecular level and, like moving the refrigerator to clean, it is time to clean up the last decades of overly processed food and tie one on for fit, fresh food that integrates the recipes of Cell Cuisine http://www.vegetablealchemy.com/cellcuisine2011.html

Since 2011 horoscopes seem to be offering me wise thoughts, let's use them. I predict....

THE END

The Tug of War

self care is the future.

The Body goes digital, 2011. Cell Cuisine by michael foley

Yahoo!

Happy New Year!

Happy www.vegetablealchemy.com

Ya Gotta Luv a Fresh Start

2010-12-31T07:59:00.002-06:00

Nothing says it like a fresh year! Happy 2011 in 16 more hours. Thanks for 2010 and onward and upward with all things forward and positive.

2010

THE

END

of a good hard time learning

2011

A WHOLE BEGINNING

to learn anew

Yahoo!

New Year, New You......

2010-12-30T06:57:00.001-06:00

2011's a moment away. The last five years, I redefined what and how I ate. Though a year more, my mind and body seemed to restart a decade younger. Now tackling a whole new way of writing a recipe comes at a time when I am moving companies in the direction of more vegetable centric fare.

In 2010 some folks claimed me a 'tree hugger' putting vegetables, herbs and spice as center of my eating! I say 'Nuts to them! Awaken from your passe ways!' Who wouldn't want tasty, fun flavor chocked full of digestible energy in the center of a plate. Move over food pyramid. Get lost old time bad eating. Enter the year of the body.

2011 Vegetable Alchemy claims premium center stage. A thoughtful diagram below for your thoughts. Today, December 29, 2010. 2 days and counting.

Midnight, January 1, 2011. A New Year, a New You! Vegetable Alchemy onward!

2010-12-25T11:07:00.007-06:00

2010-2011

Nothing better than knowing what is ahead.

But one very important trend that will turn

into a world focus:

vegetable alchemy.....add it to your

New Year's Eve Resolution:

food with flavor, fun, fitness and fame!....

Enjoy

Daikon, fresh and fun!

2010-12-10T12:03:00.007-06:00

In adding a new page, WHAT IS? to my website, Vegetable Alchemy I kept thinking of how I best explain the wealth of health in self care with the the right, fresh fun food. Taking a minute to grab a copy of Jean Carper’s Food Pharmacy, you will be amazed at the scads of fab reading. A couple of her key statements from years of research are:

1) Foods are full of pharmacological agents

2) Foods do act as drugs in the body

3) Which foods you eat do make a health difference at the cellular level.

4) You can direct your own health taking advantage of the new scientific information about the therapeutic powers of food.

5) By making small changes in your diet---by deliberately eating more of foods known to have positive health effects, you may prevent and alleviate both acute and chronic maladies.

Now HOW GOOD IS THAT! I don't understand why we don't just start at life day one and change the way we eat from the start! Let’s put it to task with this fabulous daikon soup of Chinese origin I urged from my friend, The Web Goddess! Care free, easy cooking.

Daikon Soup

1 ½ lb white daikon, peeled, and cut into 1-1 ½ inch cubes

2 qts. vegetable or chicken stock, could be low sodium stock in the box

½ cup dry rice cooking wine (a very lightly flavored wine)

2 (4 oz) pork shoulder or blade, on the bone, (could be optional)

1 teas sea salt

¼ cup cilantro, chopped coarsely, leaves only, save stems for other uses

Method

Place stock in three quart sauce pan. Add pork and bring to simmer. Skim.

Add wine, daikon salt. Cook slowly until meat is tender, about 50 minutes, slowly.

Turn off the heat. Remove meat and cool slightly, covered. Cut meat from bone into 1 inch cubes and return to daikon broth. Bring back to light simmer. Reseason if necessary adding a little finish of fresh black pepper. Ladel into bowls topping with fresh cilantro.

Voila VegetableAlchemy! Hello Winter! Hello good body! Good bye opportunity for sniffles!

The Nano Kitchen

2010-11-03T11:44:00.003-05:00

What does a veghead spring roll have to do with the nano kitchen? Everything. But more importantly WHAT is the nano kitchen? Imagine those chopsticks saying: 'michael foley's nano kitchen at your service!' The nano kitchen, it is you, it is me. We are this wonderful place inside of us where food makes its most compelling impact. Inside out, or from the outside in, we see it everyday in the mirror. We are what we eat, and I have always said, 'FUN things happen at the molecular level.'

Nano, a smaller form of molecular. So next time you step up to order or make your favorite spring roll, consider the nano kitchen where eating for a purpose gets you the best kind of 'self care' you can enjoy. Add those herbs you love, in this case it is mint.

Mint, comes in many varieties where Spearmint is probably the most popular. Added to sauces, dressings, cakes, toothpaste or simply as a garnish it probably originated in the Asian or Mediterranean close areas as often represents a sign of friendship in history. Rich in Vitamin A and C it also has smaller amounts of B2. Vitamin C is an important antioxidant. I love it in spring rolls because FRESH is the name of the game. Cook it and it changes and loses potency. For those of you who might be allergic to mint, replace it with basil, same family, different face! 'Fun things happen at the molecular level.' Vegetable Alchemy at your service!

75 trillion Pixel/Cells and Counting

2010-10-28T12:45:00.003-05:00

Spice, Spice, my Kingdom full of Spice

Let me live happy, let me live wise

Make mine a long journey

That this fit body does guise.

Spice, Spice, my Kingdom for that Spice

An ode to the maker for code does he have

To me comes the potient

A mix for the salve!

EVERY day I wake or head off to sleep I think of myself the same way: I am an organized mass of just about 75 trillion cells, give or take a billion or so, just like a computer screen is awash with pixels. Each cell has color and frequency, dimension and an application. HOW amazing we are. That thought sends me thinking of how, when I eat, I add the right, tasty nourishment to each of those tiny bright lights that make and shape me into how I look and feel.

Think about it. Each of us is our own Human Web@. Keep the light shining bright. For me, a little exercise, sleep to restart, balance with fun food that functions in a colorful tasty way keeps that frequency free, clear and running smooth. Enter the world of Vegetable, Herbs, Spice. The new VHS for the body@.

Roasted Cauliflower with Tumerica and Ginger*

Ingredients

2 tbl blended olive oil

1 tbl black mustard seed

1 jalapeno, finely diced

1 tbl fresh ginger, grated

1 teas tumeric

1 head cauliflower, broken into large pieces

Method

Heat oven or toaster oven to 425 degrees. Toss all the ingredients with a touch of fresh sea salt and coarse ground pepper to taste. Toss onto 12 X 12 inch piece of aluminum foil. Bring up sides lightly an put into oven Roast until just crisp, about 20 minutes. Serve as snack, side or entree.

* I love this adapted from the Food Network and roast it whole with a touch of added olive oil to keep it moist turning the oven to slow roast at 350 for about an hour, then serving whole with fondue forks.

A True Pharmacopeia of Rockin' Health

2010-10-25T10:42:00.006-05:00

Depend more on food and less on drugs to preserve health. Here is a food pharmacopeia of goodness in my stirfry salad with a touch of oyster sauce and soy. The cut, stirfry and flavor is what a good cook is all about. Simple, clean, healthy and fun.

Ingredients

1/2 cup of you favorite fresh vegetables cut into 2 inch pieces, such as cabbage, peapod, pepper, onion, scallion, tomato, celery, carrot, bamboo shoots

2 cl garlic, slivered

1 tbl ginger, slivered

1 tbl mixed olive oil

1 teas soy*

1 tbl oyster sauce

1/4 cup water

Method

Heat a cast iron pan, wok or your favorite saute pan. Add the oil and then starting with heavier veggies, start to stirfry adding more as you go, tossing and grabbing a sip of wine in between!

As the veggies cook combine the soy, oyster sauce and water. Add the ginger and garlic. Stirfry again. DO NOT OVERCOOK. Let veggies be crisp!

When all is tossed and glistening, add the liquid mix, toss and serve. Enjoy with a friend, or eat it all by yourself!

* for those who want an alternative to soy, use a pinch or so of coarse sea salt.

EAT ME!

2010-10-19T08:03:00.005-05:00

Eat Me!

Burger, Burger on the Wall,

Who’s the finest of them all?

Could be beef, might be pork

Maybe chicken says

that bite with fork!

Is it turkey, Is it ham ?

What would make all

fine for man?

We know bacon, we know spam

But all excluded, this ain’t no can.

Open minded, spiced and fresh

Cook is quick, so fine a trick!

Black Bean’s the one!

Black Bean’s the pick!

With skill and toil, and blend of kind,

This protein rocks, a welcome find.

A Variation on this Theme*, highly digestible vegetable protein! Yahoo!

Ingredients

2 (14 oz) cans black beans, drained

3 Tbsp mayonnaise

¼ cup dried bread crumbs

¼ cup dried panko crumbs

2 tsp cumen

1 tsp oregano

¾ tsp cayenne pepper

¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro

vegetable oil

hamburger buns

Method

Using a knife or coupe, chop coarsely half of the black beans. Remove and reserve. Add the balance back to the bowl and work lightly to a smooth paste. Stir in other ingredients.

Stir in reserved black beans, reseason and cook on grill pan, grill or in your favorite sauté pan. Garnish to preference and serve on you favorite hamburger bun.

* component idea forwarded from Gourmet

' Evacuate the Dance Floor '

2010-10-06T12:33:00.007-05:00

Make that workspace kitchen of yours a dance floor. Here, Wednesday in Chicago, and the 'Music is Taken me Underground' . Natalie Horler and Cascada has got me goin' and my kitchen's rockin'! Web waves have scored Jason du Rulo cuz 'Whatcha Say' translates today to this:

In the last month Vanity Fair ran a piece on Ferran Adria, London Times on Alain Ducasse. Grant Achatz, Charlie Trotter, Thomas Keller, and Chicago, new on the street, Girl and the Goat, Stephanie Izard have all been claiming media lines for reasons particular to their passions.

Reading, learning and thinking, I almost forgot I was a cook too! My career has taken a different twist than my fine dining, farm to table or consulting past. It keeps creeping more and more to my favorite cuisine, Vegetable Alchemy, casual, tasty, sexy and healthy colorful with hardly any money down!

While Alain Ducasse calls for a new 'gold standard' and simplicity at Plaza Athenee, and Ferran heralds work on cuisine now at Harvard, you and me have to take a look at the home kitchen and how we cook. We need a NEW recipe our day to day food. We have to know what to eat, and eat well, for simple money that brings healthy fun to muscles, mind and bones. A start might be setting your web dial Pandora Radio to CHOSE YOUR ATTITUDE! Mine's on Replay by Iyaz. Back up the rap that opens your soul to cookin, rockin and learn'. Let no man come knockin' when your cookin' tent's rockin'. Chose a sound for the mood and dish that you do. Sound brings frequency and frequency will soon bring you fabulous fla'vor! 'Cook to the tune' tm with T.I on Paper Trail, Live Your Life! cuz YOU Are Beautiful, Akon. High on cooking is a good thing and sound brings it forward!

The dish I am sending takes a little more time, but where do you want to go when the music's rockin? Chop, slice and dice your way to color, flavor, and a fan finish. Wield your knife to the beat but only on the cutting board! Learn your mind to the sound of form and function in peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes and homemade touch of ricotta. Pull down a simple web eggplant roll up recipe. Top that scoop of fresh ricotta with olive oil, lemon, cracked black and chile pepper. What you don't use keeps for another two to three days of salad, sandwich, entree or dessert. Yours will be no comparison to store bought. Who knows, while you're getting your cookin' grove on, you might meet that 'Sexy Bitch' in One Love by David Guetta.....Of course, please excuse me ladies, but I know you will make that 'sexy' your way!

For the ricotta take time to measure the salt and vinegar. As the L.A. Times shares, get the temp close to right or you might find the ricotta dry. Vegetable Alchemy, vegetable centric, but not vegetable only. Vegetable Alchemy for a new kind of food sound. The food, I claim, sings like Cobra Starship blasts: it makes some Good Girls Go Bad!

Your Homemade Ricotta

Ingredients

4 1/2 cups whole milk (1 qt)

1/2 cup buttermilk

1/2 teas salt

1 1/4 teas distilled vinegar

Method

Heat the milk and the buttermilk to 185 degrees in a heavy bottom pot. Turn off or remove from the heat. Stir in the salt and the vinegar. Stir gently. Let stand

5 minutes. The curds will form as it stands. Using a slotted spoon pull the curds slowly to one side of the pot. Let stand again an additional 5 minutes.

Line a strainer with paper towel or cheesecloth if you have it. Slowly scoop the cheese curds to the cloth. Let drain one minute and bring up the sides. The ricotta will form a ball. Tighten the cloth slightly. Remove the ricotta to a container and refrigerate until ready to use.

The whole process takes about 20 minutes, 10 of which are cooking time. Do not boil. Medium heat is find until you reach that 185 temp.

Don't worry, it won't Break Your Heart, Taio Cruz, or your budget, Right Round, Fio Rida! Do It!

The New Norm

2010-09-22T16:00:00.006-05:00

Love the term, The New Norm. Not often do I get a chance to use it. When it starts a 'new norm' needs followers. So I know in order to grow this norm, I should remind you of what Vegetable Alchemy is all about. How did I come up with the idea.? What are the design notes? Try to remember this.

For many years I have been cooking food, visiting and working in other countries with food and at many levels of the food chain: farm to table, manufacturing to retail, earth, sea, land and sky. I hit this idea that if a certain food made me feel light and kept my body science even and healthy, then I needed to investigate. I did. Vegetables, herbs and spices really moved on my food design board from garnish to center of plate recipes.

Am I a vegan, a vegetarian, a Chef non- loving of meat, fish, poultry or proteins other than vegetable? NO! No, I am not. I am saying that I found out more about what makes me feel so great, want to work out, do pilates, swim, bike, ride, jump horses, skate and run no matter the season.

The road to Vegetable Alchemy became clear. It took its path came from my hobby, architecture and design. Reading Form, Function and Design, a favorite of Jacques Grillo, the author, squared my thoughts. As an enthusiast for those design ideas shared, I found my recipes shifting in ingredients do new principles and discoveries in food and lifestyle. The recipes are now based on the end user first. I see it like this.

The form (end user) = my body; the function = my lifestyle today, far different than generations beforehand; the design = a chef's need for health, wellness and longevity.

And so Vegetable Alchemy was born. Coupled with dishes centered in Vegetable Alchemy, I add other proteins as key to garnish and flavor so a new recipe style, a better recipe style is born. Weekly dishes are coming. Safe and secure are why we love to eat, umami (that fifth sense in taste) satiation (that feeling of eating to just full) and the best of course, deliciousness. Try them. You will become a friend. We love our friends, we love the followers, we grow from fans. Join us! Vegetable Alchemy is 'the new norm.'

Eggplant Chili

2010-09-22T13:51:00.002-05:00

Eggplant Chili Chow

Never under estimate the power of a terrific bowl of chili! With a farmer's load of eggplant, I discovered ecstasy in both chili and a partner jump in cuisine to Italy, using the same idea in an unbelievable bolognese. How did that happen? Just one of those fun filled dreams that I adapted from the plot! While I slept my thoughts were of Fall and eating chowder. I woke humming, 'Chowder, Chowder, Chowder.' The term 'chowder' comes from the French Chaudiere, or 'stew pot'. Since I like one dish meals, I thought, what an application for a classical technique and dish stew. But, Alert to self! Chowder no matter what the content, is secured in definition with cream. Exit 'chowder'. Enter 'chow' to my title! Suddenly chili is my new chow. Adjusting the recipe to a bolognese and you take on new 'chow' applications. Make both in a thick bottom cast iron pot. For the chili bring it to the table with serving bowls, a couple of beers and/or fabuloso not too pricey Zinfandel. 'Chow' down, chow down with vim and vigor!

Don't spend time worrying about bitterness in the eggplant. Since it is diced and seared buy mid size and spend time with more careful cooking. Try the dish one time with the skin on, the next time with skin off. Experiments brought me to using green pepper with skin off and the sweeter red pepper with the skin on the eggplant. I also tried a variety of beans but settled into the white northerns when others were too tannic or too demonstrative against the eggplant, skin on or off. Where you want to spend time is on the chiles! I suggest a great chile powder in both usages for convenience but nothing better than using 2 each whole ancho and chipotle wiped clean and going on a spice adventure.

As you heard them say if you've ever have been campin, "Don't come a knockin' if the trailer's rockin'!" Well, If you don't like what you cooked, don't knock on my wall.....do it again, and adjust to your likin' . Viva la Vegetable Alchemy, my fun, fit food with flavor!

My second favorite recipe for Eggplant Chili*

2 teas ancho chile powder

2 teas chipotle chile powder2 teas cumin seeds, toasted

1 tsp dried oregano, crushed

pinch of cinnamon powder

3 tbl olive oil1 lb, medium size eggplant, 1/4 inch dice, skin on

2 medium onions, chopped evenly

1 medium red pepper, chopped evenly

2 cloves garlic, chopped finely

1 14 oz can whole tomatoes in juice

white northern beans, 4 c. home cooked or canned, or 2 (15oz) cans, drain with retaining 1/2 cup of canning sauce

2 c. water or 1 3/4 c. vegetable stock with 1/4 c. water

garnish highlights: chopped cilantro, sour cream or queso fresca, chopped scallion and maybe a little rice if you want to savory it more, fontina is tangy but shredded white cheddar fits too

kitchenware: 1 (2 qt) heavy bottom pot

*chef's note: As a vegetable, Eggplant has the reputation for brain food. If you want to add other proteins, feel free. adjust seasoning. add a half a pound of protein or so with the onions when cooking. then add the veggies as directed after the protein is almost cooked.

How To Do> Heat the pot to medium temperature. Add the olive oil and eggplant. Stir and stir again until the eggplant starts to slightly brown. Add the onions. Stir. Add the peppers and garlic. Stir. Add the seasonings including your own take on salt and or pepper. Cook until peppers are wilted. Add beans and water and/or stock. Bring all to simmer with top partially on the pot. Cook slowly stirring occasionally to prevent sticking. Taste. Adjust all seasoning including chiles to your taste.
Bring to table with smiles, a few bowls and spoons, the garnishes and bevs of your choice. Bravo! You are now entering the world of Vegetable Alchemy!

2010-06-14T11:01:00.002-05:00

This month Vegetable Alchemy takes on a new image.

Time to add a little fresh look!

Stay tuned for new ideas on food, fun and fitness.

Happy Spring!

The Place to Start

2010-03-01T11:57:00.018-06:00

On Friday, February 26, 2010 I was invited by a client to a luncheon at the Palmer House in Chicago. The theme of the event, 2010 Go Red For Women, was about raising awareness and money to battle heart disease through funding research on how to rid ourselves of this killer at almost any age. Whether congenital or not, this disease hits women at a higher ratio than men. Seven Lifestyle Simple suggestions listed on the table setting individual place card menus include: 1) Get Active; 2) Eat Better; 3) Lose Weight; 4) Stop Smoking; 5) Control Cholesterol; 6) Manage Blood Pressure; 7) Reduce Blood Sugar. The Recipe Collection compiled by Merck, noted themselves on the back page as working 'hard to discover and develop innovative medicines and vaccines not just for the sake of the company and our shareholders, but also-and most importantly- for patients!' Nice of them to include the reason they exist, the patients! But nothing was said about the primary source of the disease for most women (and people): the Western diet!

This is what we should be funding: new recipes that do not cause or worsen heart disease. Let’s unravel disease to find the real cause.

Take a look at the primary killers of Americans: heart disease, cancer and diabetes. ALL of these diseases are primarily rooted in the American Western diet. And yet as I sat there thinking about all the conversation on the need to raise funds to find CURES for heart disease. I kept returning to one thought, a thought that was not unknown to me, a thought that is the core of why Vegetable Alchemy is so important as the new architecture of food: since the most common causes of disease are for the most part caused by the Western diet and lack of fitness, WHY are we funding cures through medicine? Why are we not FUNDING cures through developing new recipes that will change the Western diet, that can be applied to manufacturing and today's demand for lifestyle-centric frozen, shelf stable and fast food? According to Body and Soul, a Martha Stewart publication, February, 2010, “95 percent of U.S. health-care funds go towards treating illness. 5 percent goes to prevention.” THIS is a call for CHANGE!

Why are we funding research to battle the disease when we SHOULD BE funding the research to MAKE food for our bodies, for our cells that are more nutritious and more heathful. This is the food of longevity and positive proactive living. The best defense is a strong offense.

Lee Iacocca in his book, Where Have All the Leaders Gone?, talks about politics, but I want to use that context and say....with the EARTH at a Crossroads (Hartmut Bossel), is it not time to fund new thoughts on the human diet so that these diseases caused by foods that conflict with human anatomy are updated for cell nutrition and not bioengineered for profit? Almost all food we eat is based on a system steeped in industrial farming, manufacturing ease, marketing tags, 100 year old generationally suggestive recipes rooted in old cuisine. It is time to take notice from the countless books that have appeared in the last four decades--such as Paul Roberts, End of Food and Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food--and bring research to the forefront that is based on what the human cell needsand NOT on age old adapted templates now used in manufacturing that cause these diseases.

In February, an international kitchen design company demonstrated at a conference in Europe their idea of the 'kitchen of the future.' While the ideas are smart, what I wanted to hear and see were ideas based on recipes for human 'cell cuisine' of the future, one that eliminates disease from the process of growing to manufacturing. That is not what I saw, although I love the stove top.

http://newsroom.electrolux.com/uk/2010/02/16/electrolux-presents-the-kitchen-of-the-future/

What I want is a statement that we need to design for the cell. That is why it appears is MY statement: Design recipes NOT on historic styles but on a new "Cell Cuisine." Then design the equipment around it. All for this, say 'AYE!' All opposed....please 'wake up as you will soon be part of the reaction instead of the revolution!'

Bar Food Needs an Overhaul

2010-02-15T07:20:00.006-06:00

Everyone's weekday starts and ends at different times. But somewhere in between, those that care spend some time working out. It just makes sense. No matter if it is walking, hiking, biking, skating, lifting weights, running, swimming or one of a hundred plus other choices we all have, it is just damn good for the body.

For some of us who get that after work or after workout thirst, Chicago has an almost non-stop variety of bars, brew pubs, gastropubs and fun wine bars. However, having a bite at these places can be a challenge. I am just wanting something veggie based, even the most sacred of bars. I want more than a salad, more than hummus and veggies and something that has some culinariessence to it, fully respecting the burger and fry tradition!

I have looked at probably 25 menus or so and couple with weekly specials. I think a fully recognizable dish could be your friendly neighborhood pad thai, full of fun ingredients and sexy with all the slurping. Throw on any protein you love, but give me pad thai, bartender, PLEEZE!

Well, NO was the answer, but no problem, we all headed back to make our own!

Time out while we count the minutes and stirfry!!!

Time in while we eat.......

In case you want a recipe....here is one from Epicurious....don't worry about the list. It is simple, straight forward and not expensive. Cooking goes fast, especially over a couple of beers or a glass of a favorite wine. Enjoy!

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Vegetarian-Pad-Thai-240960

Fun Times, Fun Flavor

2010-01-31T16:31:00.002-06:00

‘Skating Rocks!’ First time on hockey skates. So fun!. Twenty days later with a new opportunity to work out with a skate hybrid called Softec and humbling is the only word for catching the figure skate blade toepick on the ice. All cocky confidence comes down when your face suddenly finds itself ONE with the ice!. However, the figure skate blade for balance with the sturdiness of the hockey boot is not to be chastised. A new humility pushes its way into the learning curve. I ain't no Tinker Bell on the ice but I have respect for working on your core balance and strength. I could never skate as a chubby kid and washed my face on the rink many, many times! Practice makes perfect, and practice and practice and practice. Just like cooking, make it work. There is a new order of the day: fitness and food. Try out the post skating workout soup, flavorful fun that says, ‘food and fitness are one!!’.

Winter Vegetable Soup with Thai Pesto*

Ingredients

Winter Vegetable Soup
1 cup each peel sweet potato, carrot and acorn or butternut squash
1 red onion, cut into slivers
2 cups vegetable stock
1 cup water
1 tbl Thai Red Chile Paste
2 cups coconut water

Thai Pesto
½ cup unsalted peanuts
2 garlic cloves,
2 teas finely grated ginger
2 large green chiles, seeded and chopped
1 small bunch of fresh cilantro
1 large handful of mint leaves
1 small handful of basil leaves
2 tbl light soy sauce
2 tbl fresh squeezed lime juice
1 tbl light brown sugar

Method
For the soup, cut all the vegetables in 1 inch dice. Add to a 2 quart pot and cover with stock and water. Simmer until cooked through. Add the Thai chile paste, the coconut water and blend. If necessary, add additional salt and pepper to your taste. Keep warm.

For the pesto, combine all ingredients in a bowl. Chop by hand or in a food processor.

Ladel soup into large cups or bowls. Top with tablespoons of the Thai Pesto.
Serves 4.

*adapted from market vegetarian, Ross Dobson, Ryland, Peters and Small, 2009

The State of American Cuisine !

2010-01-27T11:15:00.023-06:00

As you can see, at my studio we are getting ready to start filming my new tv.blog for Vegetable Alchemy. Weekly we meet to work up topics and dishes so I can proceed to tell you all about this direction I want to share. It just happens to coincide with the bigger stage national debate on health care politics. Almost monthly I find new exciting information on my route following what I see as the Evolution of Nutritional Intelligence. In July, 2008 the editorial staff of The James Beard House issued a 'paper' on The State of American Cuisine. It's content was a summary of surveys conducted on food trends from a national food festival, Taste America @. I do not have the hyperlink but you have the title and can access it from the foundation website. In reading it, I remember the effort for millions of us to build American Cooking into a passionate, global opportunity for investment: media, products, distribution, food channels and much, so much more. It was a fun dedicated ride, up and down like a Riverview roller coaster. Yet never will it be even close to the NEXT chapter in food, the clear theme of my new career to focus my way of life on LONGEVITY.

Working with a team of insightful, extraordinary cell biology folk it is obvious that life cannot succeed and extend on dead calories. Our now 7 trillion dollar food business we label the 'food chain' owned inside and out by maybe 6 or 7 companies, has to improve with active healthful honest nutrition. While you are waiting to see if that is really going to happen, I suggest you take it upon yourself as I am, to learn and pattern your own way of life around what the body needs and become versed in the ways of 'self care.' In my studio kitchen I set myself up to develop a new style of recipe from the soil and sea to the plate ! In each case that recipe is enriched with discoveries of techniques to hold on to enzymes and use more digestible proteins for nutritional density, not just counting calories. The end result is less complicated simple food and more energy for me in every way. I balance my food with an hour of fitness at least four times a week. It is hard to explain my passion to move to a new style of recipe over the traditional I have cooked, but it is easy to see the results are a much happier and livelier me.

Life is about the living! From cells to smiles, from skin to stomach. If we want to live, and live bright and long, we have to change. We have to effect a change. The present food system offers generally empty calories in coffin boxes of refrigerated and shelf stable cases. Nutrients are gone. Obesity has come. Life as we want it is not possible . But we have new biology. We have information and physics. Best of all I am able to bring forward a new paradigm, a new NORM, a new cuisine, a CELL CUISINE tm. I want to give it to the world like Steve Jobs gave Apple, Bill Gates gave Microsoft, Warren Buffet give Berkshire Hathaway. There are those that create trends in life, then then those who rally paradigms and finally those that can create a 'New Norm'. CELL CUISINE tm is the new norm. Each week I will write and offer a dish steeped in the research. Stay tuned!

The road to American Cuisine was fun, but it is over. A new road opened. Never look back! The gift of a body cuisine that is plant centric but not plant only is pure enlightenment, a cell cuisine tm destined to offer longevity. Time to design a new Koolaid for life! The plan is already on my drawing board! Back at you later in the week. CELL CUISINE tm rocks! happy wednesday!

A Case for Cell Cuisine

2010-01-17T22:07:00.000-06:00

I know I could age much slower if I change the way I eat and overhaul my lifestyle to be far more active. While I love classical, traditional and even contemporary to fusion food, I have been looking for something more out of food and not a diet. I want a lifestyle. I want the food I eat to have more of an impact on my energy and longevity. I want to understand food and its relationship with my body on a biological level. So I decided to make this the new stage in my career as well as a business in itself.

I realized that while all the cuisines I cooked were exciting and the countries intriguing to visit, I see a disconnect between those recipes and what I want today. I want food that makes me feel younger not older. I feel a need for a new kind of recipe that is all about the body, so I set out to create my own cuisine.

In his book, Ending Aging, Aubrey de Grey says, “The most realistic way to combat aging is to rejuvenate the body at the molecular and cellular level, removing accumulated damage and restoring us to a biologically younger state.” What Aubrey suggests is a marriage of biology, information technology and quantum physics. While it will take the next decade to create new technology to prevent aging, I have a need for that now! NOW is the time to act from a food point of view. Now is my time to design a cuisine that will do as Aubrey is saying…..rejuvenate the body at the molecular and cellular level!

In the book, The Anatomy of the Spirit, Caroline Myss mentions “your biography is your biology” or, translated, you look as you live. I believe that, but I also believe you have to be conscious of how you are aging and reverse that idiom. At that point, make your “biology become your new biography.” Take a look at you in the mirror and decide to change your biology through food and fitness with a new set of rules that will offer a better biology.

With that realization in mind, nine years ago I set out to research, starting with books like Jean Carter’s Food Pharmacy and hundreds more like it that were steeped in a New Biology of thinking towards health and longevity. Together they started me on a new lifestyle. I call this lifestyle, Vegetable Alchemy: Vegetable because I apply a plant based diet, though not plant-only diet-- as the core for recipes, and Alchemy because these recipes offer a new kind of ‘elixir’ to the body. Coupled with a little minor fitness, the principles of Vegetable Alchemy offer a kind of rejuvenation needed to rebuild energy in a most realistic way.

Now, the only cuisine I want to cook is a cuisine that is centered on the body with flavor-filled recipes that offer better cell nutrition. That is why I subtitled Vegetable Alchemy, “the new architecture of food.” The recipes are motivated by the cell, not the geographically-centric regional foods that are the basis of centuries old cuisine.

The January/February Harvard Business Review has an article called,

“Wanted: A First National Bank of Innovation!”

I want that title changed to say. “Wanted: A First National Bank of Innovative Recipes for Cell Longevity. Recipes That Restore Accumulated Damage to the Body at the Molecular Level!” That could be the title of my work. Cell Cuisine ™ and Michael Foley are a now the new metaphor.

This is what Vegetable Alchemy and I am about. I want to take 50-plus age and turn it into being younger--at what you now call 35! I am tying together my food and fitness with research to push for longevity at the molecular level. This CELL CUISINE is both good for the body and good for the EARTH. It provides nutrition, satiation and umami, the Japanese notion of full essence of taste! Vegetable Alchemy with Cell Cuisine ™ has many goals, but clearly the mission is longevity.

WE all will age. Whether you are 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 or more, it is how you take care of your cells that makes a difference. In Vegetable Alchemy I define cell nutrition as much more than food. Look for the updates. But clearly after spending 37 years of my life cooking in kitchens and in business around the world, I have said to myself, “I want those years back.”

I would love your support for what I am doing. There is an entirely new healthy life and business in my Cell Cuisine™: A life that offers longevity of the mind, the body and the earth. It’s all about longevity. Stop by again and see how!

My motto: FUN THINGS HAPPEN AT THE MOLECULAR LEVEL.

Simmering a New Cuisine

2010-01-11T10:05:00.001-06:00

Last night after hours of working on Cell Cuisine Software and ideas that will help in flow charting, I was all up for something fun and full of my love to cook. In the midst of the cold and snow I raided the refrigerator for leftovers. The principles of simple good cooking make jewels out the the tiniest ingredients. Spending not a dime, and sipping a little Oregon Pinot Noir all along the way I was on to steaming chicken wings with spices all meant for a larger idea. It is the kind of dish you want to enjoy, so if you are in a hurry, save it for a time that gets you some music and chop, slice and dice moments.

As I cut up vegetables, my mind shot to a recent issue from the science section of The New York Times. It focused on Calorie Reduction (CR) for longevity as a way to turn on certain genes, called sirt genes that produce a protein called, sirtuins. The article went on to say that sirtuins can detect energy reserves in a cell and there is a method to activate through this idea of Calorie Restriction. For me at that moment, my stomach was far more important but subconsciously sirtuin success is on my mind. I shifted to the art of cook but with careful execution of a lean low calorie finished dish. I am head to research that sirtuin idea to a fuller extent this weekend. On the other side of fun, I am also out to use this cold and snow to skate and learn to ski! Love those Winter sports!

Enjoy my rendition of a Chinese Borscht! Even the beautiful Chinese lady who had a chance to experience the alchemy was amazed at the depth of flavor and mystery of raising a savory sort out of what looked like mindless mass of parts and pieces. Never underestimate the powder of leftovers and the CHARM of a good cook’s talent! While the recipe is rough a trip to a web site or cookbook for a guildeline on Borscht might help. I leave out the sour cream and garnishes. There is more than enough flavor, at least for me. Viva la Cell Cuisine!

Ingredients
2 oz. sausage of any kind, cut into 1 inch pieces
4-5 raw, rinsed and dried chicken wings
3-4 oz pork carnitas
4-5 red radish, slice thinly
1-2 heads baby bokchoy, cut lengthwise into quarters, or chunks of cabbage
4-5 scallions, whites and greens in two piles, cut into 3” pieces
4-5 mushrooms of your choice, ¼ if large, ½ if medium
3-4 beets, roasted and peeled separate or peeled and steamed in the stock
1 nugget of fresh ginger, peeled and julienne
½ bag, washed and stemmed spinach
¼ cup of parsley stems
1 teas chinese sichuan pepperrorns
½ tbl black pepper corns
1 qt water
2 tbl whey powder
2 tbl soy sauce of your choice
freshly ground salt and pepper

Method
Fir a steam rack into a pan. Add the chicken wings. Pour over half the water. Top with the scallion greens, parsley stems, chinese peppercorns, and half the ginger. Salt and pepper to taste. Cover and steam slowly, turning about in ten minutes. Cooked through. Remove and cool. Reserve the stock. Do not strain.

Pull the chicken meat from the bones. Place the bones back in the original pot and add the other half of the water. Simmer gently reducing the liquid by ¼. Strain.

To finish the dish, put the liquid back on a medium heat. Add the beats, quartered. Simmer until almost cooked. Add the mushrooms and balance of the ginger and simmer. Next drop in the bokchoy and simmer until cooked. Remove the cooked bokchoy and plate to each of two deep soup plates or bowls. Add the sausage, the pork carnitas, the scallion whites and soy sauce.

While gently cooking drop in the spinach carefully. When it is cooked fully, remove half to each of the bowls with the bokchoy. Remove the carnitas, the pork sausage and arrange each of the ingredients neatly in the bowls. Simmer the broth. Remove two tablespoons of the broth to a bowl and make a paste with the whey. Turn off the heat and mix into the broth. Adjust the broth with fresh salt and pepper and pour over the neatly arranged bowl ingredients. Top with the slivered radish. ENJOY!

Planning to Grow Younger

2010-01-04T20:44:00.000-06:00

I sat up today, about 20 minutes into my pilates workout and said, I just have to make a post. The day has a half hour of pilates, a ½ mile swim, 2 mile run, tai chi for an hour with a great master and then off to skate. I get up early and while this is an exceptional day with fitness, the rest of the week follows with at least two sports and could include, rowing, a half hour of basketball at a favorite spot, a little time with weights and hopefully my first spin class--something I’ve been a chicken shit on attacking. It is an ‘unknown’ element and that first day you just have to suck it up! I hung up the bike for a while, too much ice outside, although I do not mind the cold. When I get my weight down a little, I am heading out to dance! That could be ugly, but got to learn sometime. Confidence, confidence, confidence.

But I want to tell you why I am doing this. I want you to know more about my blog and what I truly believe is an opportunity for me. As for you reading, that is up to you. Take from it what makes sense, but hopefully you will see that there truly is something behind my return to fitness.

Thirty years ago I had it in my head to do anything but cook. I came from two generations of the restaurant business and I wanted a life of sports. My initial thought on going to train in Florida instead of heading to Georgetown University was not exactly popular. In fact, it met with laughs in my house and with a lot of my golfing buddies. I was small, wiry, not too aggressive and easily psyched out. A big drive for me was 275 yards--not far by today standards. But I loved the sport. Something about hitting and hitting and hitting that made my life enriched. I ran and hit thousands of balls a week. I was only an above average golfer but my heart said: “Go for it! This could be your life.”

I ended up at Georgetown, and on the golf team. Each night we hit, played and then worked on building endurance. One of the ways we did that for wrists and arms was using a heavy medicine ball. By some freak accident, one night passing it back and forth, harder and harder, it flicked off my thumb. I heard a small snap! But I kept at it. A later whirlpool reduced swelling. But it was sore, very sore. Three series of x-rays at Georgetown Medical kept saying no break. Shots of cortisone before I played promised relief. At least initially, until one day my wrist would not longer flex, and all the cortisone would not liven the motion. I was out. Out for the season. I returned home for more x-rays, calling Georgetown for the initial films. Unbelievable! Right in front of two specialists, THERE it was! The BREAK! It had been there all along and I had been hitting thousands of balls and at least a hundred rounds of golf under cortisone gritting my teeth and all along it was just plain broken!

There rest, as they say, became history. Three and a half years of casts with three operations fitting in pins, taking them out, and refitting. When it was all over, the result was a mostly immobilized right wrist, a lot of anger and a choice: forget golf and find a new career or stay angry. I became a well-trained cook, then a Chef, then a Chef/Restaurateur. For over thirty years with the same energy, I attacked cooking. I became famous. I made money and lost money. I got married and unmarried. I made a name and then stopped. I am a good, sometimes a fabulous cook. But my heart 30 years later is still into that golf ball!

And one more thing…..I have absolutely no interest in growing older. I can see the way to being younger is to drop my weight and my style of living to a place where I want to be. I want the body and life of a 35-year-old. I spent 37 years from the moment that wrist broke to now growing my career as a chef. Now I want at least 15 of those back. And I aim to get it. So I designed Vegetable Alchemy and my Cell Cuisine™ to get me there. I believe in my goal.

As for you? Only you can answer. But to go with me, you have to believe, it is all in the BIOLOGY of BELIEF .* Stay tuned. Buddha once said, “Your work is to discover yourself and then with all your heart, give yourself to it.” That puts my web site in perfect harmony with where I am: I am all about getting younger! Happy Monday!

*The Biology of Belief, by Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D.

Next up: Thoughts from the science happening around ‘Senescence’.

Fitness at Fifty, Experiment # 1.01

2010-01-02T12:10:00.001-06:00

At 50, is the glass half full or is the glass less than half empty? I firmly vote for the latter. Thirty seven years in kitchens with a body that needs major reconditioning! I went back to working out. But the food I eat based on all things good from classical, fusion and contemporary just isn't helping.

I want to be fit. Not just for a month but for a lifetime. Wikipedia defines 'Fitness' as the state of being physically active on a regular basis to maintain good physical condition.

But what does that mean, “Good Physical Condition?” I hardly know myself. What kind of food balances a body in 'good physical condition' for a chef? What kind of workout will that be to get there? And actually, I am not interested in anything less than getting back a portion of those years I spent building my trade and reputation. I want to grow younger@. Fitness and food have become my new passion. Long life, fun and friends with a business to back it up. Fitness and food.

I started a web site, Vegetable Alchemy, after thinking about the body and what kind of whole food really sends it into happy states. There is a huge disconnect between new and old recipes and what really fuels and regenerates my body. For me it is time to create a new cuisine, one completely focused on healthy cells, not the traditional regional cuisines driven by the local soil, sea and air. However, I am not saying I will eliminate meat and dairy and the inventory I have worked with from organic to traditional.

But I am saying it is time to 'experiment' on what a cell needs--my cells. I am saying that it is time to get out of the pool, get up from pilates or down from the bike, come in from the run and actually focus on what will regenerate my cells once I workout and add the oxygen. What makes the body sound? Recipes enhanced with digestible 'discoveries' that enhance my cells. I am talking about food, from a chef, with a 'cell cuisine™' in mind, with flavor and colors.

Unlike other trades and professions, our view of food is still in the dark ages. Medicine has moved into imaging and nano culture; music has iTunes; architecture has design software; money had a global correction with returns to the rich; clothing has seen massive new styles; web technology keeps growing. Doctors seem to be welcoming aging for the profit. Fast food speaks to cheap convenience food and results in high health care costs; The Food Channels speak only to entertainment. While we seem to have reconnected in small ways with the soil and the sea, what we really need is to connect with what the body needs, then, grow it. The American Cooking Scene opened the way to think and discover American Food.

But it's time to change the focus from local cuisine to body-centric cuisine: food that offers longevity and renewal of the cells, allowing us to expand our lives to a whole new world of fun and add decades of great healthy time. What we eat has to change. The smart ones who can see the old ways have to start to see it is time to make a better recipe, to make way for the new. We age so fast, because we repeat the past. NO NEW THINKING!

We live with a couch potato mindset with marketing as it driver. By the time the body hits a certain age, we feel beat up and tired and we ignore new information that says, 50 is way too young to be feeling this way. We ignore the obvious. We continue to eat traditional, fusion and contemporary food that puts on weight, causes challenges at each decade of our lives and just does not spell fun or longevity.

Self care is in. Time to rip a new road in food. I want my career and my future to challenge food at the cell level. I want longevity. I want flexibility, healthful fun and a life that only can come from a new style of eating with an eye to youthfulness at 50 and more. I call my quest Vegetable Alchemy, my “new architecture in food” for reasons you will soon find out from my blog. I want to learn from and incorporate but set aside all recipes of past cuisine. I want my body to have highly nutritional, easily digestible, energetically easy to make food that I design to be focused to a particular part of my body that needs it, not just as yummy general over-developed recipes from the agriculture driven past!'

Today, I share a little experiment. An hour of running and pilates had made me hungry. I went to look at what parts of my body took from pilates and running. I wanted taste without bulk. With that in mind, without looking to buy anything, I raided the frig. Simple vegetables and spices that refresh demanded the lions share of the mix, with some pulled pork carnitas all tossed with a little omega-3 seed. Crisped in the pan with a tiny chopped salad, it brought flavor, lightness and satiation. I still might add a few corrections with an addition of chopped nori instead of salt and a touch of lemon. But for what I needed, the dish was ready to publish.

I want a kitchen of purpose, the purpose of Cell Cuisine tm, highly digestible, nutritional dense, flavorful, simple snack style foods that have fashion and function for me. Sure I rounded it with a glass of Cote du Rhone and a sampling of Pinot Noir, but that is the whole point! Something better for the body and something better for the chef!

Time for a change! Time for Vegetable Alchemy, the new architecture of food. Enter my new 'Cell Cuisine.'