Happy Thanksgiving!

So, somehow it got to be November and the middle of November at that. I am three quarters of the way through my third semester of my second masters (and hopefully the start of my PhD!) and I have a few new cooking clients. I feel blessed, challenged and that everything in my life is coming together. It has been a ton of work, but I’m finally starting to see the blossoms of all the bulbs I planted long ago.

Where are you in your life?

Every year when thanksgiving comes around, I get a ton of questions, concerns, anxiety, tears and rants from my clients and my community. People ask me what should I make? How do I change this recipe to make it healthier? How do I avoid this person at the holiday table? How do I get through dinner sober? Yes, I am sure that many of us have these same concerns.

Being a foodie, chef and nutritionist, I will answer the food questions first, because they are my favorites! The best way to enjoy Thankgiving is to not go into dinner hungry! Eat breakfast. Be it, two eggs soft boiled with a slice of whole grain toast, steelcut oatmeal with berries, a berry/greens smoothie and sprouts (what I had this morning, but I know, not for all of you!) or something a bit more decadent? A muffin and coffee, your favorite cereal and milk with coffee…just have breakfast, whatever it is. If you can make a healthier choice, its better, but no breakfast is better than none at all. Same goes for lunch. Usually Thanksgiving dinner doesn’t start until 4pm, many of us don’t sit down at the table until after 6pm. That’s a long day to not eat. Eat lunch. You don’t have to have a large lunch, but have something simple: a salad, a piece of quiche, a hard boiled egg if you didn’t have one for breakfast, salmon, gefilte fish (I’m Jewish, its my go to snack or lunch on a day when I know I am having a big meal – might not be yours – but seriously its pretty good – 5 grams of fat, a little carb from the matzo meal, lots of protein – perfectly balanced – and have with a bit of green salad and lemon and you are good to go) or something like that. Again, lunch is better than no lunch and a healthier choice is better than an unhealthy one…but whatever you do…eat breakfast and lunch.

Now we get to dinner, if you are cooking – use butter, just use 1/4 of what the recipe calls for. Use sugar, but use 1/2 of what the recipe calls for or do what I do – use agave nectar, brown rice syrup or another natural sweetener. This whole year I have been learning about Splenda. So far what I have learned is there is no evidence that Splenda causes cancer, birth defects, neurotoxicity etc…but the reason there is no evidence is that there have been no studies! Splenda has simply not been on the market long enough. So as a good scientist I cannot advise against Splenda, as a concientious and cautious skeptic, I’m not advising or myself using a lot of splenda. Like with everything, use a little.

I saw fresh cranberries at the farmers market this weekend. Try using them in your cranberry sauce or try using unsweetened canned cranberries and sweeten them yourself using 1/2 the amount of sugar the recipe calls for or use honey, agave or brown rice syrup in 1/2 the amount. I use whole grain pie crusts in my sweet potato pie or I forgo the pie crust altogether…especially if I know I want one slice of pie for dessert.

The best way to make turkey is to brine it. There are many recipes out there. But this one is a favorite of mine. I might go with slightly less salt and ignore what they say about kosher salt (don’t use more). I’d say 1/4 cup heaving is enough salt. I’d use a fleur del sel or a celtic sea salt (or a natural sea salt gathered from maine or anywhere else in the northeast if you are in the northeast or somewhere local to you if there’s oceans nearby!) Any healthfood store or whole foods will carry it. Many farmers markets sell local sea salt too. Bake that Turkey in a bag with some vegetables (carrots, onions, apples, oranges) at 500 degrees F (260 C – Thanks Eitan!) for about 2 hours or until a meat thermometer in the thigh reads 170 degrees F (sorry celsius folks – but the formula is Tc = (5/9)*(Tf-32)).

As for side dishes, let’s have some green vegetables! and lots of them, because our plates should be 1/2 vegetables, 1/4 starch and 1/4 protein. And eat enough to fill one plate. The best thing I do at Thanksgiving is fill my plate only halfway so I can go back for seconds! I try a bit of this and a bit of that – keeping to the proportions above. I make the vegetables at my Thanksgiving feast – so I know what’s in them and I know there’s something for me to feast on and then I can try the other things. I suggest you do this too. Also if you are asked to bring an appetizer – bring a tasty tray of vegetables with a homeade dip. Here’s a great recipe for a homemade tahini based tip that is delicious and not super high fat or high calorie!

As for dessert, don’t skip it! Just don’t eat dessert Today, Tuesday or tomorrow, Wednesday and certainly not on Friday. Feel free to have dessert again on Saturday!!!! On Thursday, have 3 small slices or portions of dessert that would equate to one full slice. Imagine that dessert will be 500 calories and that you have that budget. Dinner is about 750 and you had about 750 calories between breakfast and lunch. If you want to proportion it differently do so, but still aim for about 2000 for the day. Get up, move around, help in the kitchen, enjoy Cousin Susie’s new baby and have an amazing time! Just remember Thanksgiving is about family, friends, love and joy! Food is secondary, but you should feel free to celebrate as well! Just don’t overdo it. Also, get a walk in there, either before or after dinner! With the wonderful mild weather we’ve been having, I’d plan a long one either before or after dinner – especially if there’s family you haven’t seen in a while, its a great way to catch up! Wishing you a wonderful holiday! Thanks for reading.

beverages pushing up our diabetes risk?

Hello everyone,

I’ve just started doing some research on blood sugar and diabetes. I did a little quiz the other day in a gym I had a promotional table at – for 20 ounces of vitamin water, coke and snapple (16 ounces) iced tea – which has the most sugar? Most people don’t realize…let me all know what you think.

8 ounces is one serving. Typical bottles are 16-20 ounces. We never drink just one serving.

What about diet? its better right?

not really aspartame has been associated with many different health problems from headaches to fatigue, but aspartame is hardly the problem…diet coke – whether its caffeine free or not has phospohoric acid in it – part of the “cola” and this substance competes for calcium in the bones. Drinking diet coke can actually increase your changes of osteoporosis and throw off the calcium balance in your blood. Not good girls or boys.

The best drink is water. The next best is to make your own slightly sweet sodas from grapefruit juice or 100% pomegranate juice, a drop of agave nectar and pure mineral water such as pellegrino or perrier. Plain old seltzer water works too. Club soda has all sorts of funky preservatives in it – so stay away.

Keep your blood sugar constant by avoiding white, refined foods including pasta. Instead enjoy whole grains – like quinoa. lots of dark leafy green vegetables and high quality lean protein, low sugar fruits like apples and berries.

When you eat fresh garden vegetables – you’ll taste the difference. For more info check out my website and sign up for my newsletter.

good to meet all of you.

best,

meredith sobel

sobel wellness

www.sobelwellness.com

quinoa and lentils

I love Indian Dal. I don’t have patience to make it. I want to share a recipe I made up last night which is my variation on Dal complete with greens to even out the meal:

1 cup (1/3 cup red, 1/3 cup green and 1/3 cup french) lentils (soaked 12 hours will reduce gas factor)

3/4 cup of Quinoa (not neccesary to soak)

2-3 handfuls mesculun salad greens or dark leafy greens of choice (braising greens best) in bite size pieces

1/3 cup of chicken or vegetable broth

2 cap fulls of yellow curry powder (roughly two tablespoons)

a few shakes of garam masala

1/2 inch slice of butter (omit if  not consuming dairy)

1/4 teaspoon of sesame oil

Boil 2.5 cups of water. when boiling add lentils and cook 15 min on medium. Add quinoa and cook 10 minutes more until quinoa puffs up. In last 2 minutes of quinoa cooking add curry powder, greens and chicken broth. Stir a few times to incorporate flavors. Cover pot and let steam cook greens. After 2 minutes, stir again, add butter and/or sesame oil, remaining spices, salt and pepper to your taste and melt in butter. Simmer on low until all liquid absorbed or moist. Add more broth if starting to dry out.  Serve immediately with lemon and chopped parsley or cilantro.

makes 2-3 servings

this week’s greenmarket finds – blue potatoes

I’ve never before seen a blue potato. A few weeks back I saw them at the union square greenmarket. I fell in love with them. First of all they taste nothing like a potato. Not a white potato or a sweet potato. They are unique in flavor, like nothing I can describe. They are also blue. Incredibly blue. I guess I’ve seen blue potato chips, so they can’t be a complete mystery to me, but these potatoes – small in size and decadent to nibble are quite different than even the chips I’ve sampled so many years ago.

In my love affair with color I got some yellow and orange carrots (I was hoping for purple ones, but alas could not find any), burdock root – which is wonderfully cleansing for the liver, salsify (which is black, but white on the inside), celeraic and some chicken pieces. On my stove now simmers: the roots, chicken pieces, some lamb stock from a previous night’s dinner, dried figs and a melange of spices. I can’t wait for it to be done. I’m sure its going to be delish.

Your mouth watering yet? A recipe you demand?

Here’s the best I can do:

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 white onion – local if possible, chopped

1 large orange carrot, chopped

2 stalks of local celery (hard to find in these rough NY winters – can skip), chopped

about 1 pound of chicken parts (I used breast and thigh meat, just a personal preference)

1 cup stock (chicken, beef, lamb, whatever tickles your fancy – I used half chicken (boxed) and half lamb – homemade)

1 yellow carrot

2 blue potatoes (small, the size of fingerlings, each quartered)

1 white turnip (quartered)

6-8 Brussels Sprouts, halved – little stem chopped off

2-3 tablespoons of fresh dill

black pepper

curry powder about 1 tsp

lots of love

Directions:

Heat olive oil in a cast iron stock pot. When smoking add mire poix (carrots, onion and celery) and stir 5 minutes until softened. Add chicken and sear on both sides until slightly browned (2-3 minutes). Add stock, root veggies, spices and other ingredients. Cover and cook 45 minutes to one hour until cooked through, roots are soft and your kitchen smells unbelievable. You will just know. I don’t cook with salt, but if you like salt, you can add some when you add the pepper. If you need a bit more spice – add some more curry powder. The dill and the black pepper and the taste of fresh vegetables in the stocks usually do it for me. I also added just a touch of butter when I put the vegetables in before I set the simmer.

Enjoy with someone you love!

visit www.sobelwellness.com to learn how you too could have meals prepared like these in your kitchen!

my vision for the world if money were no object

Someone asked me this question in an email a month ago and I just reread the email. I think its brilliant if I do say so myself and being the time of new years resolutions, here are mine for 2009…and it will happen!

If money were no object, I would want to prepare healthy food for people in their homes as a personal chef and also teach healthy cooking classes in people’s homes [for whatever they could pay] and lead classes as well as seminars on the health benefits of certain foods. I would maybe want a very
small cafe that I would hire a staff to cook at and I would design the menu.  I see myself more as a designer and a consultant. I’d love to consult to restaurants so that they use healthier ingredients -such as changing the oils, maybe that is something I should mention at BNI – does anyone here
know a restaurant owner or a caterer who needs a consultant to make their
menu or offerings healthier. Go from top down instead of individuals.

I’d love to transform entire organizations and corporate cafeterias as well as schools to only have healthy foods and make sure every airport had a healthy option for travelers.

I’d want to design some sort of healthy hot dog stand – like the dessert truck (http://www.desserttruck.com/) but with bowls of green vegetables and grains that were delicious, flavorful soups that were also healthy, an explosion of flavor – lots of ginger, garlic, tumeric, cilantro, lime, a bit of butter, coconut oil etc. Food that tasted GOOD but was also good for you…and get people excited about eating it because of how it is going to make them feel versus how they may feel now.

Eventually I’d like to be a partner (or two or six or 100) in a sit down restaurant like Alice Water’s Chez Panisse. A restaurant started by Alice and 100 of her closest friends. Who is with me. Let’s bring some Berkeley to New York City or at least to Long Island. I know just the place!

At the same time I’d want to design neighborhood healthy tours – to show people all the resources in their neighborhood to buy healthy foods and also the restaurants that have it. As well, even in a restaurant that is “not so healthy” there’s always a healthy option, but its a lot of pressure to go to a place and read a menu.  Its much easier to just know what to eat without looking at the menu. Something like – I’ll have whatever fresh fish is available, broiled with lemon and herbs, brown rice or wild rice if you have
it and any serving of steamed or lightly sauteed vegetables. For dessert – have the darkest, richest chocolate dessert and share it with 4 people, just don’t do it every day.

I know personally that for the past three months I have been neglecting my own diet and been so busy that I actually ate pizza a few weeks back. I am lactose and gluten intolerant and I ate pizza. I don’t know what I was thinking…but my body is so attuned to junky food that I actually have gotten sick again with my ADHD out of control. A few days of eating healthy again – eating only gluten free grains, no bread and as little cheese/dairy as possible (except last night) and no alcohol and I feel amazing…or at
least my digestion and my brain feel amazing.

One night in early December I made the following for dinner:
venison with coconut, peanut butter sauce with orange champagne vinegar (I just made it up, I don’t have a recipe, one day I will make it again and come up with a recipe to share with you all)
steamed asparagus, broccoli and cauliflower with a touch of herb butter
and quinoa/brown rice with mustard seed and a bit of curry
I had 3 squares of dark chocolate for dessert.

it was fantastic. not a drop of fat on the venison. the sauce was just the
right amount and mostly spices with a touch of coconut, stock and 1 tsp of
peanut butter for flavor, maybe I put an 1/4 of tsp of sesame oil in as well.

Last night I made grass fed lamb stew with sweet potatoes and carrots from the 4th street co-op.  The lamb was from whole foods…but I am starting to think that I want to get my meat from Dickson’s Farms which sells meat at Morningside Farmers Market. http://dicksonsfarmstand.com/ I am going to see if I can get some sort of account for the restaurant once I open it. There was some complicated recipe I didn’t have time for – so I modified it slightly slow cooking lamb with onions in water for 1 hour (boiling and slow cooking until the water evaporating and repeating this process) and then adding beef stock (2 1/2 cups) the rind of one blood orange, allspice and anise seeds (about 1 tsp each). I cooked the lamb for 1 hour and then added the carrots and sweet potatoes and some little blue potatoes at the end for 20 min – they got all soft and just incorporated into the stew. Best thing I ever tasted…delish!

These are the recipes I want to share with people and what I want to bring into their lives that healthy food is not boring and one doesn’t need to think of a diet as deprivation. Food should be good, strengthening, delicious but at the same time filling so that a smaller portion leaves you
just as satisfied. I had about 4 ounces of venison. Half the fat of a dry grilled chicken breast with a lot less of the cancer causing substances from the grilling time.

I am still struggling with how to work this into a 20 second elevator pitch.  If anyone has any suggestions I am open to them.  I just want anyone struggling with a food issue, intolerance or just simply wants to be healthier in 2009 to be excited about food and food that’s not only tasty but health supportive with all the great qualities that will keep me strong, lean, with high immunity and energy. This is the message I want to transmit.

I hope you are all having a great 2009 so far!

Notes from the healthy snob…

So two snobby snob observations for this evening.  On my way home from taping life coaches tv (go to www.mnn.org and check it out. I was on tonight at 8pm) I saw a “smart” car…one of those electric golf cart like vehicles that is hardly a car. This smart car really was smart because it went to princeton. It had a princeton sticker in the rear window. I wondered if someone was just trying to be cute or really did go to Princeton. Nevertheless, it made me giggle on the way home.

On the train, I was reading in Harvard magazine (I know, snobby snob, I warned you) about Diabetes and all the facts I needed to back up the television appearance I just made. The summary of the article basically goes like this: While there is a genetic component to diabetes, the vast changes in our diets and the rate at which the disease has grown says that there is something far greater than changes in our DNA. Well said, Mr. Harvard Researcher. I’m so glad I went there and that they are finally catching up with things I’ve known all along. But, yay Harvard. They also had wonderful pictures of mice who had low levels of leptin due to genetic mutations. Just like when we eat too much sugar we become insulin resistant, we make insulin, but our cells can’t use it. Too much sugar and too much fat in our bodies can cause us to become leptin resistant, same thing, we produce too much leptin, as opposed to not enough and we grow fatter.

So just some interesting observations…and marvelous photos of really fat mice. http://harvardmagazine.com/web/extras/diabetes-a-looming-epidemic – doesn’t show the mice pictures though, I think those are only available in the magazine probably for another month until the new issue comes out.

Whole Grain Cookies

On the episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay that I went to see taped yesterday, I stood next to a woman in the studio audience discussing cookies.  I discussed with her that I was a specialist in making not only foods, but also desserts safe for diabetics but not using artificial sweeteners. She mentioned that she used whole grain flours instead of white flours when preparing cookies.

Being nearly gluten free and mostly wheat free myself I’ve experimented with quite a few cookie ideas. I pretty much gave up the idea of eating cookies or resolved to feeling like crap when I decided to have one. I discovered some interesting Kashi brand cookies – they are ok, but I think they still contain wheat. Dr. Cracker makes spelt crackers and I’ve seen spelt cookies which have not bothered me…but the other day I found an interesting cookie in the health food store. It is called “World of Grains”.  They have whole wheat which sort of stinks for the gluten free bunch – but they are also made with quinoa – great for diabetics and anyone else looking to increase whole grains in the diet. I absolutely adore quinoa and I am so glad its made its way into cookies. The World of Grains cookies really need to make a gluten free variety, but until they do, if you are diabetic, the blueberry ones have 8 grams of sugars (evaporated cane juice) in 6-8 cookies that come in a single serving pack. Multigrain only has 6 grams which is pretty good. They have 3 grams of fiber per serving which is good too.

I still prefer to bake my own. I like oatmeal cookies and I like to use almond flour with agave. I can’t say I’ve baked a lot of cookies in recent years – but with grain free chocolate chips, butter and almond flour one might be able to do something interesting. I’ve definitely done a great peach crisp with those ingredients and trust me, no one in my cooking class knew it wasn’t white flour and brown sugar. The pastured raw butter probably didn’t hurt

Educating the Food Network about Diabetes

So I just came back from a taping of what I thought was a food network show where Francois Payard, owner  of one of my most favorite dessert (and also restaurant) places in New York, was giving a class on the traditional buche de Noel. So, I was trying to figure out if it was really worth taking half a day off from networking, returning phone calls and other work to further my business…and go to a food network TV taping for a show based entirely on sugar and fat. I was basically going to go on Nationwide TV (and let’s face it worldwide, this is the network that brought us Iron Chef) eating cake. A bit of irony, right?

The afternoon started with some basic networking. There were a few interesting people there. In the spirit of my networking group, Business Networking International and the great Neo-Sage, Larry Sharpe, I was determined to stay out of the box and when people asked me what I did, I said clients used me to make it possible to live in the real world and manage their diabetes. People were interested, they asked more questions. I collected a few cards. Mostly why I was there. I said I wanted to find out about what it took to shoot a cooking show and learn about the production aspects (which I did) and also just ask some basic questions to Francois about whether he’d ever used agave nectar. It so happens the person I was talking to, his first name was Javier, says, “Agave nectar…isn’t that the same stuff from the cactus plant…what they use to make Tequila.” I reply, “Yes it is and its also a great nutritive sweetener that is safe for diabetics. My new friend Javier replies and tells me his father is an Agave farmer and raises agave for Tequila. Super nifty if I am ever to need Agave in bulk. I’ll definitely keep Javier’s info on file.

So I thought I would be bold and ask some questions when they asked us if we wanted to ask Francois any questions. So I asked a basic question – how did he come up with chocolate for the Buche, when traditionally it was a sponge cake, of course I knew he is the MASTER chocolate cake guy (or whatever the French equivalent to that phrase is). He answered something to the effect that Americans love chocolate and it went over really well here – but that he actually makes 4 different kinds of Buche (not sure if there’s a plural of this word) and about 5,000 of them for only the 4 days around Christmas. That is a lot of Buche. So he starts demonstrating how to make the Buche and people ask a bunch of other questions. We are standing. I am getting a bit bored…and hungry. I decide to ask another question…this time the one I really wanted to ask. Francois – what do you think about making some of these Buche friendly to diabetics? He makes a comment how they don’t really taste good without sugar and he’s trying to make them low fat instead. To which I counter – have you ever heard of agave nectar. He says he hasn’t and he’s not really trying to reach a diabetic market. Next he walks us through the recipe where he says he’s not using sugar, he’s using corn syrup – something that really surprises me considering he’s French. I didn’t know French chefs used corn syrup – something I learned and he’s also using non-fat dried milk, which causes the cholesterol to be oxidated and therefore more sticky. So this glorious cake from a famous high end bakery is actually fairly processed.  He kept talking about the pasteurized egg yolks and cooking them in a saboyan to which he made a chocolate mousse with cream that probably wasn’t from a grass fed cow. Slightly defeated, but way more informed about what’s in Payard’s cakes and wishing I could sit down at this point, I turn to the person next to me who was extremely curious as to what agave was as were the other three people to her left.  We start whispering about it and I make a comment about how Bobby Flay loves Agave Nectar and how he had this woman making an avocado based chocolate mousse with agave on his grill it show from earlier this year. A show I tried out for.  He would know what to do with agave, but then again, he’s not a pastry chef.

And then someone walks into the studio and the woman next to me says, speaking of the devil…and there he is, Bobby Flay, and little did I know (or any of us) that this was an episode of Throw Down with Bobby Flay. How awesome! Now I don’t regret taking off half a day of work.  So here’s the good news: Francois talks about Bobby’s Buche which looks like it contains far more sugar and cream and looks straight at me and says – this cake is not for your diabetic clients. Awesome! National TV and its getting exposure – tip of the iceberg. Too bad I couldn’t (or didn’t!) say my name or website. Next time…and there will be a next time.

After the initial and taping during the tasting, a woman comes up to me. She says, “What was the name of that sweetener, I will show him. I’ve shown him Stevia. I will see if he will use it.” Thoroughly confused, I ask,  “show him?”  She replies, “I will show Francois the Agave Nectar you mentioned, he liked your question, and see if he will use it.” She turns out to be Francois’ assistant. So I ask for a card and believe me I will be following up with her. Wow, I was kvelling. At this point, I feel very powerful, and I see Bobby Flay talking with a few of the guests, so I go over. I stand around waiting through other people’s questions which were all very interesting and a woman next to me mentions the Next Food Network Star…another show I tried out for a few weeks ago. She mentions she got a call back and since he is one of the hosts, I guess she’s trying to get a good word in or something. I mention I tried out and didn’t get a call back because I am a healthy chef. He says, oh no – they should have called you back. That would be interesting, he says. So I ask him about Agave Nectar. He says he is not a pastry chef. Yet, the irony of this taping continues…but that he loves Agave in savory dishes and uses it all the time. I mention the restaurant, Tocqueville I used to work in, which is across the street from Mesa Grill and how I have been a fan of Mesa for a while. I don’t mention that I stayed up until 3am to watch him on the first and second appearance of Iron Chef and how huge a fan I am. He says he knows the Chef of that restaurant, Marco and we chat for a bit about it. I am chatting, with Bobby Flay. Wow, because this happens every day! At this point, I just feel like I am having a conversation with a friend. We talk about Miracle Grill where he first worked after visiting the Southwest. I remember going on one of my first dates in New York when I graduated college to Miracle Grill, I mention that. Mesa Grill was already open at that point, but only for a few years…and Miracle grill was pretty damn good, even without Bobby working there. I chat with his wife and his assistant about tuille cookies and how I used to make them. His wife makes a comment about what a pain in the behind they are. I concur, remembering a time when my pastry chef told me he wouldn’t feed the tuille cookies I made to his cat because they were too dark. This was all very cool indeed. I think I’m “MEMORABLE” which is what I need. They didn’t know my name, but I’m pretty sure they will remember my face. Let’s hope when I stop by the restaurant next week they still will. Maybe I’ll stop by tomorrow or over the weekend. Looks like he’s at Bar Americain these days – since he was wearing the “whites” with that label. Thinking strategy for what I can do for Mesa Grill or Bar. I’ve never looked at the menu for that place – so might be interesting to see what he’s doing over there.

I have been wanting to get into restaurant consulting for some time. Today was a fairly bold day for me, I walked into La Bonne Soupe and asked to speak to the chef and see if I could help with the menu to make it more friendly to diabetics. I feel a revolution coming on.

Anyway, I can’t give any more details on the show. I wonder if Payard will start using Agave and I’ll definitely have quite a bit of footage for a video reel to submit with my video press kit. Food Network – watch out. Meredith Sobel is here to stay!