Lucid Food: Cooking for an Eco-Conscious Life

By Margaret Gilmour

Be sure to go: Lucid Food Book Signing and Tasting

Terrain at Styers, Glen Mills

Saturday, January 16, 12:00 – 2:00 p.m.

Learn tips and techniques for making easy and affordable eco-friendly food choices while sampling a few Louisa Shafia’s selections. Free and open to the public.

Has eating fresh food become complicated?

It doesn’t need to be. As food writer and cookbook author Louisa Shafia points out in her new cookbook Lucid Food, Cooking For An Eco-Conscious Life, without too much effort we can integrate affordable, local, earth-friendly food choices into our daily lives to cook up delicious, healthy meals.

This just-published (November, 2009) cookbook is filled with mouth-watering photographs and simple, tasty meals, and features a lengthy section on eco-kitchen basics you’ll want to curl up and read.

If you’ve seen FRESH or Food, Inc. you know there are options to an industrialized food system, and you’re not eating fast food burgers anymore. And with all the books about 100-mile diets and the life of a locavore (Plenty + Animal, Vegetable Miracle + Food Rules), much of the information Louisa shares is not new. So, with an ample supply of cookbooks emphasizing seasonal menus, do we really need another?

Louisa’s Lucid Food shows us that we do.

What’ gives Lucid Food new life is Louisa’s approach to important details, like the simple reasoning behind the choices she makes, and a few eco-terms and definitions you may not have picked up yet. Thrown into each section is a little surprise, such as an introduction to an ingredient you may have passed by in the past but become inspired to try. Examples: Dungeness Crab, a sustainable seafood choice, or the many alternatives to white sugar.

Then, of course, there are the spicy flavors and multi-cultural recipes all made with ingredients you can actually find locally throughout the year.

Louisa grew up near Germantown, PA before relocating to New York City to pursue an acting career. After five years in the city and one grueling on-stage tour around the country, she switched gears, choosing to slow down and purse her other passion: cooking.

She began by cooking vegetarian meals for a summer in Maine at a yoga retreat, then completed a five-month cooking school program before interning in San Francisco. “California being the local food mecca,” she says, “exposed me to using seasonal, local ingredients I now use in all my meals.”

Back in New York City, she cooked in a variety of restaurants, including Aquavit, where she went from relaxed California-style, to a more precise method of food prep and presentation. By 2004 Louisa started her own catering company combining all the styles she experienced, but never swayed from using fresh, local ingredients.

I talked with her this week about her new book:

What is your favorite book about environmental issues or any food/industrial agriculture?

Anything by Michael Pollan.

How do you stay connected to the food issues?

I read the New York Times daily, especially the Wednesday dining section. It’s the best way for me to keep up with the world of food.

What’s the one thing you would suggest that someone do if they want to make a change and begin eating more healthy food?

I recommend investing in a high-speed blender, a food processor, or a Crockpot. Any of these 3 items will drastically reduce cooking and prep time, and vastly increase the variety of dishes that you can make.

Do you have a favorite winter dish that you feature in the cookbook?

My favorite cold weather menu from the cookbook includes a Persian Chicken Stew (p. 91): Fesenjan (Chicken in Pomegranate Walnut Sauce, served with:

• Cucumber Pomegranate Salad (p. 85)
• Green Rice (p.190) and
• Cucumber Yogurt (p.184)

Where do you get your local ingredients?

I usually get on the train and go straight to the Union Square Farmer’s Market in Manhattan, the biggest market in the area, and where lots of restaurant chefs shop for interesting produce. They pretty much sell everything I need.

What keeps you busy these days?

Right now I am promoting my cookbook, teaching cooking classes, food writing and spreading the word on how to change your kitchen habits.

What inspires you?

Walking through the farmer’s market. I love going to the market with no idea what I want to make for dinner, and then having the elements jump out at me all at once. For instance, if I see nettles, I think pesto. Well, what would pesto be good with? Maybe brushed on fish that gets roasted in the oven. Potatoes would be a nice starchy complement to the fish, with a green salad on the side for something raw. Done. It would be a lot harder to come up with that at home.

Photos courtesy of  TEN SPEED PRESS,   an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.