Daily Archives: April 25, 2011

Holidays, yearly celebrations, any and all gatherings and functions. what do they have in common?  Food.  Food that binds and brings together friends, family and strangers to a common cause.  It becomes the catalyst to promote, support and create conversations, dialogues with any two or more people.  It is amazingly powerful, not only does it nurish and feed the body, but also is paramount to the soul.  If any two or more gather, an underlying question or thought might be ” will there be something to eat”, or “I wonder what food will there be?” It is a total pleasure to the point of salivating at the anticipation of the actual act of eating the food.

From river side fishing trips, grand weddings, business meetings to memorials, and first dates, food will be present, the common thread. Food also is the velcro to our own cultures, family rituals and generational stories.  Its the adhesive that brings the past generations alive to the present.  What stories and rituals are we creating for our families of today and tomorrow? What a wondrous gift. 

How is it that baked goods; cookies, cakes, ice-cream and pies take on a friendly face for holidays, then turn around and almost become the enemy for us in relation to the diet war.  Does it have to be looked at as bad or good.  I think moderation is the key, but it appears that this simple one word is so difficult to attain.  Can we just have one piece of cake or cookie once in a while?  Diet foods prove not to work in replacement of our own judgement to quantity control.  Lets enjoy food for what it is and what its meant to be, lets keep it real with no substitutions or replacements.  It doesn’t work!  Looking forward to a Sunday dinner, holiday meal, leisure weekend brunch or a picnic can always be a constant positive in our lives.  Why not extend this celebration to our everyday living?

When did we start “trying to eat healthy?”  When did we start realizing that the American diet wasn’t so healthy after-all (despite the all the low-fat, low-carb, no hydrogenated oils, processed foods)?  When did families start wanting to make dinner easy and convenient and effortless?  How did food take on a different identity other than nutrition for the body, and pleasure for the pallet?

Why do children have “their own special diet” as they graduate from month to month or year to year?  How and when did chicken nuggets contain the highly needed nutrition of a toddler or child?    It appears as time goes on that our high-paced society is continuously looking for the fast and easy answer for dinner time.

Endless recipes, cookbooks and cooking shows may have the answer, but why do we still default to our learned rituals of fast foods or packaged, boxed or frozen substitutes for feeding our families.  Are food labels, advertisers and processed food companies become our bible for dinner time?

Are we chasing our tails seeking and searching for the perfect answer to such a basic and fundamental need of feeding ourselves?

I guess the bottom line is asking ourselves, “what do I want?”  Do I want to invest in myself and family by eating healthy, great tasting food or am I looking for the convenient substitute from processed, already prepared so called food?

You can have your cake and eat it too.  The food revolution does demand a change of thinking, a different approach and respect to real  whole food, its preparation and integration into our hectic, crazy paced lives. We can’t afford not to adopt this change. What are we afraid of?  The pendulum is moving slowly to a more simpler time ironically when things appear to become more complex with and overload of the high-tech world.  Whey are we trying to migrate to a more simpler way?  Are we aiming towards ” the more simpler times” of our ancestors.  Is there a dissonance between the basic needs of us humans vs the complexity and huge variety of today’s progressive and confusing times.

I would like to share my experiences and knowledge of how to feed our families with healthy food and yet make it a doable process even for the busiest families.  We had a family restaurant for over 30 years.  I am first generation Armenian.  These two facts combined have provided me a library of recipes with such diversity and richness of culture.  Old style cooking lends its self to ingredients that are simple, rich in flavor and easy on the budget.  What a generational gift to pass on to the next generation.  It is all very possible!

I will share my kitchen, my cooking and shopping and ideas from years of experience and gained wisdom.

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