Dear Friends,

Flavor needs not fall into any one genre of cooking. In fact, it needs to be infused wholeheartedly and distinctly into every genre. I remember a friend from the Midwest telling me that growing up, his mom would take a chicken out of the package and put it in the oven, straight from the package. No seasoning, no attention, just in the oven. This bothered me on many levels, and haunts me to this day. Meanwhile, in my house, my mom was busy putting every spice in the house, on every item of food in the house – so we had am overkill yet nondescript flavor to everything. Too little vs. too much.

It makes me wish I could go back in time and tell our mothers that the most important aspect of flavor is the balance between the 5 tastes (salty, sweet, sour, bitter, umami) and the textures. Sometimes also the temperature. A concept that would have been difficult to explain, and difficult to attain. But we here in NY don’t suffer the limitations of the Midwest. We have been exposed to new flavors/preparations and spices and the stores where we can find them. From Turkish spices like Aleppo pepper, to Asian aromatics like lemongrass, Italian standards like capers to French treatments like confit – we have it all in NY.

This week, as you taste your food, try to remember how lucky we are to have a passion for food, a sophisticated enough palate to differentiate between flavors, and the means to enjoy it all. After all, isn’t variety the spice of life?

With love, respect, and other nutrients,

Ella

Dear Friends,

In honor of Valentine’s day, i thought I would talk a little about love. If you go back and think about why you love, who you love, it’s often about the way they make you feel. It’s the same thing with food. If you love ice cream, then you feel good when you eat it. But we all know the ideal relationships are those where you feel love back, and continue to feel it even in their absence. I suspect ice cream is just too cold to feel love.

But what about blueberries? Pomegranates? Do they love you? I would venture to say that once they are picked, fruits no longer have the capacity to feel or react, however, the nutrition profile of fruits and vegetables is such that the love goes on long after the food has been digested. Food becomes you – your tissues, your blood, your cells even your thoughts. The relationship lasts long after the food has been digested. The anti-oxidants continue to fight free radicals, the energy is boosted for significant periods of time, and the other benefits are the kind that shape your eyesight, your immune system, and your overall well-being.

So, the next time you go for food you love, make sure it loves you too.

With love, respect, and other nutrients,

El”love”a

Dear Friends,

Think for a moment of a food from your past, one that makes you feel great after you eat it for no specific reason. Maybe it is macaroni and cheese, slow-simmered tomato sauce, ice cream cones or potato pancakes. Eating comfort foods (every now and then) can be incredibly healing, even though your rational brain might not consider it highly nutritious.

Food has the power to impact us on a level deeper than just our physical well-being. What we eat can reconnect us to precious memories, like childhood playtimes, first dates, holidays, our grandmother’s cooking or our country of ancestry. Our bodies remember foods from the past on an emotional and cellular level. Eating this food connects us to our roots and has youthening and nurturing effects that go far beyond the food’s biochemical make-up.

Acknowledging what different foods mean to us is an important part of cultivating a good relationship with food. This month when we celebrate lovers and relationships, it’s important to notice that we each have a relationship with food—and that this relationship is often far from loving. Many of us restrict food, attempting to control our weight. We often abuse food, substituting it for emotional well-being. Others ignore food, swallowing it whole before we’ve even tasted it.

What would your life be like if you treated food and your body as you would treat your beloved – with gentleness, playfulness, communication, honesty, respect and love? The next time you eat your soul food, do so with awareness and without guilt, and enjoy all the healing and nourishment it brings you.

With love, respect, and other nutrients,

Ella

Dear Friends,

As your resident good food advocate, I should tell you that already, in the first three weeks of 2010, there have been six U.S. recalls of tainted meats and this week and Russia banned U.S. imports of chicken out of concern about the disinfecting chemicals. While alarming, this doesn’t even begin to address the problem that is lurking at large in our food supply.

Infertility. Allergies. Toxins. New diseases. Immune Dysfunction. Stunted growth. Antibiotic resistance. These are just some of the side effects linked to Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO). If you only look at the influx of fertility clinics post-baby boomers you may realize that something is off. Didn’t women have to try not to get pregnant? Fertility rates in the US declined sharply between the 1950s to today. So, while GM foods stir up their share of controversy, it appears to be much more dire than the debate even allows.

The company that brings us 90% of the GM seed in the U.S. is the Monsanto Corporation – which not only pushes this altered seed on struggling farmers, but is responsible for bringing the world DDT (pesticide), Agent Orange (humanicide?), bovine growth hormone and aspartame. Quite a toxic resume, n’est pas? The really bad news is that Monsanto has its employees, past, present, and future in Top Brass positions within the FDA. Hmmm.

What many people don’t know about GM foods, and especially vegans, is that much of this Frankenstein food is created by mixing the genes of plants with those of animals. So you could be biting into a tomato that is made with fish genes. And I promise you, the fish were not party to this experiment. What’s worse, the mice and rats used to test the “safety” of this food often avoid GM foods! And when they are force fed them, they develop cancers, ulcers, and a whole slew of other disorders.

There are many reasons to buy organic, and one of them is definitely taste, for me. I have done the taste-testing, and by and large organic produce tastes much, much better. (As in – there is still taste.) But avoiding massive collateral damage is another good reason, as in, avoiding GMO’s. Organic food cannot contain GMO’s. Check your labels, please. Contact our representatives, tell them labeling GM foods should be mandatory! The top 4 genetically modified foods in the world are corn, soybeans, canola and cotton. And as corn is in nearly everything these days, checking labels is more important than ever.

As always, I strive to bring you the freshest, healthiest food available. I encourage you to do the same for yourself, your family, and the planet.

With love, respect, and other nutrients,
Ella