Cooking with Friends
October 19, 2008
This afternoon, for the second time this month, I learned -- re-learned -- the point of cooking. About nine members of Dinner Grrls -- a networking group with women ranging from architects to naturopathic physicians, journalists to jewelry-makers -- gathered at Dr Reba Akin's gorgeous sun-lit condo in Portland, Oregon.
Two points to cooking, actually. The first is to enjoy the fresh talk of friendship -- with hundreds of women in the group, there are always old friends and new faces. The second, is to cook healthfully, with nothing out of a box unless it's the most pure version of that ingredient.
A few weeks ago my friend Dr Lisa Shaver popped over to my house with a bagful of groceries totalling a few bucks, and cooked up a storm with just vegetables, buffalo meat, and other raw foods. I ate off that adventure for a week, froze some, and am enjoying the new knowledge that it is possible to cook without opening a bunch of bags of pre-cooked, chemically-altered foods.
Those points in mind, realizing that both Dr Lisa and Dr Reba created their own recipes, I pulled the American Heart Association LOW-FAT, LOW-CHOLESTEROL COOKBOOK from the shelves when I got home. Yes, I feel the need for a little more guidance before I start grabbing ingredients from the shelf, cutting, pouring and stirring. There's a chicken-veggie stir-fry and Sirloin with Portobello Mushrooms and even Triple-Chocolate Brownies. Can do.
Reba asked us each why we chose to come to her event today. I had signed up as soon as I saw the listing. And, I gave the reason that I used to cook a lot, really enjoying it, when I first got married, but he started working a five to midnight shift, and then I had babies and when they grew older, I still was cooking "kid" food. Then, I was single again, and now, with Lisa's encouragement, I want to revert to cooking.
What I didn't answer was...my mother was a great cook. Well, her friends say so. She would begin cooking dinner around five, and do enormous damage to a full jug of Gallo wine. And, while she was on the phone, cooking and drinking, we kids would sneak bites of whatever she was cooking, because dinner never seemed to be done before midnight. All too soon, it was go-to-bed-kids, and I don't remember very many sit-down dinners. Oh but Christmas time, she would always make spaghetti sauce from my step-father's Italian mother's recipe, a sauce-splotched list of ingredients that I copied, typing it out before I left for college, and still have. Mine is now also splotched with decades of Christmas spaghetti sauce. A few neighbors would knock on the door a day or so before Christmas, asking if the lasagna I made from the sauce was ready yet. Divine!
Today, I expanded my horizons with Reba's Gluten-Free Pumpkin Muffins -- rich and tasty; roasted cauliflower -- roasting, Reba says, brings out the sweetness in vegetables; spicy orange chicken -- totally yum -- everything's organic; she mentions baking sweet potatoes in egg white to make the fries crunchy; she chops up kale, onion, garlic and sautes -- don't toss in the garlic until the end, so it keeps its nutritional properties -- and top with sugarless rice vinegar and toasted sesame seed oil; dessert chocolate coconut balls -- low in sugar, high in fiber. Find Reba's recipes at www.inurmagazine.com.
Suddenly, the recipes I see in the LOW-FAT, LOW-CHOLESTEROL COOKBOOK look appealing. The two doctors have made their point -- that cooking healthfully can be very tasty -- and emotionally-rewarding.
This afternoon, for the second time this month, I learned -- re-learned -- the point of cooking. About nine members of Dinner Grrls -- a networking group with women ranging from architects to naturopathic physicians, journalists to jewelry-makers -- gathered at Dr Reba Akin's gorgeous sun-lit condo in Portland, Oregon.
Two points to cooking, actually. The first is to enjoy the fresh talk of friendship -- with hundreds of women in the group, there are always old friends and new faces. The second, is to cook healthfully, with nothing out of a box unless it's the most pure version of that ingredient.
A few weeks ago my friend Dr Lisa Shaver popped over to my house with a bagful of groceries totalling a few bucks, and cooked up a storm with just vegetables, buffalo meat, and other raw foods. I ate off that adventure for a week, froze some, and am enjoying the new knowledge that it is possible to cook without opening a bunch of bags of pre-cooked, chemically-altered foods.
Those points in mind, realizing that both Dr Lisa and Dr Reba created their own recipes, I pulled the American Heart Association LOW-FAT, LOW-CHOLESTEROL COOKBOOK from the shelves when I got home. Yes, I feel the need for a little more guidance before I start grabbing ingredients from the shelf, cutting, pouring and stirring. There's a chicken-veggie stir-fry and Sirloin with Portobello Mushrooms and even Triple-Chocolate Brownies. Can do.
Reba asked us each why we chose to come to her event today. I had signed up as soon as I saw the listing. And, I gave the reason that I used to cook a lot, really enjoying it, when I first got married, but he started working a five to midnight shift, and then I had babies and when they grew older, I still was cooking "kid" food. Then, I was single again, and now, with Lisa's encouragement, I want to revert to cooking.
What I didn't answer was...my mother was a great cook. Well, her friends say so. She would begin cooking dinner around five, and do enormous damage to a full jug of Gallo wine. And, while she was on the phone, cooking and drinking, we kids would sneak bites of whatever she was cooking, because dinner never seemed to be done before midnight. All too soon, it was go-to-bed-kids, and I don't remember very many sit-down dinners. Oh but Christmas time, she would always make spaghetti sauce from my step-father's Italian mother's recipe, a sauce-splotched list of ingredients that I copied, typing it out before I left for college, and still have. Mine is now also splotched with decades of Christmas spaghetti sauce. A few neighbors would knock on the door a day or so before Christmas, asking if the lasagna I made from the sauce was ready yet. Divine!
Today, I expanded my horizons with Reba's Gluten-Free Pumpkin Muffins -- rich and tasty; roasted cauliflower -- roasting, Reba says, brings out the sweetness in vegetables; spicy orange chicken -- totally yum -- everything's organic; she mentions baking sweet potatoes in egg white to make the fries crunchy; she chops up kale, onion, garlic and sautes -- don't toss in the garlic until the end, so it keeps its nutritional properties -- and top with sugarless rice vinegar and toasted sesame seed oil; dessert chocolate coconut balls -- low in sugar, high in fiber. Find Reba's recipes at www.inurmagazine.com.
Suddenly, the recipes I see in the LOW-FAT, LOW-CHOLESTEROL COOKBOOK look appealing. The two doctors have made their point -- that cooking healthfully can be very tasty -- and emotionally-rewarding.
Labels: American Heart Association, cooking, Dinner Grrls, Dr Lisa Shaver, Dr Reba Akin, LOW-CHOLESTEROL COOKBOOK, LOW-FAT, mothers, transcending the trauma
posted by Diana Page Jordan @ 8:28 PM
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