Whole Days Worth

I grew up eating my salad last.  After I was satisfied with my dinner, I would munch on raw veggies until I was full.  I thought people on a raw diet ate salads all day and since I'd never got full on a salad, I was sure they were always starving.  My son who is a carnivore and who rarely ate salad said to me today, "this is the best salad in the world.  I never thought the day would come where I craved salad, but I crave this stuff."
Our salad is called Whole Days Worth because you get your full 5 servings in every portion but I affectionately call it "I am Splendid."  Let's discover how you can transform the salad afterthought into a nourishing entree that leaves you satiated.
The most important thing about Salad is you don't want it to wilt immediately after you make it, rendering it useless for the next day.  Naomi taught us that if you start with hearty greens like Kale, Collards or Chard, your salad stays fresh in the fridge for 3 days or more!  I start by stripping the green from the stem.  You want just the leafy part and not the hard stem.  I ribbon the greens vertically and then horizontally so they're bite size pieces.  You then squeeze a lemon over the greens and add pink himalayan sea salt.  Massage these with both hands until they turn a deep green, as though you had lightly steamed them.
Then I grate or food process all the veggies I have on hand.  I peel and grate carrots, turnips, daikon radish, beets, rutabaga, parsnips, cauliflower, broccolli etc.  The rainbow of colors that unfold before your eyes, is almost breathtaking.  Don't use potatoes or winter squash or onions.  After you mix all the shredded veggies into the salad, add salt, black pepper, turmeric and olive oil.  Also add sacha inchi oil, flax seed oil or avocado oil so you have your omega 3.  Massage all this together and inhale.  Your whole body will start to relax as you anticipate the nourishment before you.  Put it in a bowl and top with hemp seed for your protein.
You may start off thinking, there is no way I'm going to get full on this. But I have yet to meet someone who isn't completely satiated both in mind and body after they have eaten the salad.  Trust me you'll hear your salad whispering, I am splendid, move over steak and potatoes, here I come! 

Yours in food and health,
Tara Hamilton
559.497-5085, tarahamilton@me.com wholefarmsonline.org

Fresno, a place to revive?

When we were going to move to Fresno from San Diego, we discovered Fresno was the butt of many jokes.  It was too hot here, everyone’s brains were roasted.  Pesticides made everyone mental etc. etc.  We chose to move here despite that and focused on the positives-- Fresno was the only county at the base of 3 national parks, it was affordable, the population was ethnically diverse and we would enjoy a stronger sense of community. For some reason, unlike Toronto where I spent most of my life, Fresno doesn’t celebrate its ethnic diversity and we are lacking a strong sense of community.  In the last few years with the American Dream of owning a home being shattered for so many with foreclosures and job losses, we see the Pass it On billboards. You know the ones that say Susan Boyle She dreamed a dream, live your dreams - pass it on.  That message infuriates me a little bit.  Why tout someone from a different country as a hero when we have so many local ones here.

Some people may define heroism as different things but the Bible says that he that is faithful in little is faithful also in much.  If you act in a heroic way in little things, when you get the opportunity to do something big, I believe you will.  Today I want to recognize the many local heroes that make Fresno my home of choice.  I hope that whether you moved here or whether you were born here, you too can reflect on why we can celebrate the place we live in and the people we live with.  

I want to laud the owner of Latino Market in Fresno who stocks fresh fruits and veggies so residents have access to healthy food.  The pediatrician who teaches the importance of nursing as the vital first step to long term heatlh.  The seventh and eighth graders who started Stay Alive, Stay Healthy. Central California Regional Obesity Prevention Program and the Fresno County Health Department workers like Edie Jessup, Rosemarie Amarral and Reyna Villalobos who work diligently to make farm stands at schools possible and teach farmers how to start farmers markets etc. We sold $15 in produce at Jane Adams Elementary but I want to laud our two volunteers who made sure people had access to healthy food and donated their wages to the I am Grateful fund that enables people to purchase up to $5 worth of produce at our store.  Cindy Kilgour and her husband who officially started the fund and want to start a gleaning association.  The people who donated money so we can pay the studio fees to start "Making Love in the Kitchen" on t.v. in March. The community gardeners who pick up our compost daily.  The folks who wake up at night to take care of sick children.  The foster parents who lovingly raise our future, our children. The single parents who sacrifice their own needs trying to be mom and dad for their children.  The parents who stick to their vows and make their family a stable environment for their children. The single people who assist others by donating some time for worthwhile ventures. The farmers who grow food sustainably considering their communities health. The Walking School Bus volunteers.  The parents who garden at home or at a community garden with their kids. The people with chronic sickness who educate themselves on their disease and make healthy choices.  Cancer patients who smile because they’re doing what they can to ensure they get rid of the disease now and to make sure it doesn’t return.

To all teachers at public and private schools, at home schools and everyone on the planet because we can all teach others how to fill our two most basic needs - the need to be loved and our need for healthy food.  Whether you are healthy or sick, happy or sad, may we all consider how we can revive physically and emotionally in Fresno, our home community. May that be our dream - pass it on.

 

Making Love in the Kitchen

Some people have been wondering why modest me chose to name my blog “Making Love in the Kitchen.” For those of us who live in Fresno, we are blessed to live in the county that produces 12.2% of California’s agricultural exports.  However we consume the least fruits and veggies, we have the highest rates of obesity and highest food insecurity in our state.  I think this is largely due to the lack of food culture here in the valley.  People are so busy that they consume large amounts of fast food and processed food in restaurants and pre-packaged at grocery stores.  

Somewhere the idea has been lost that when we prepare a meal for our family, we aren’t just creating a meal, we’re creating love.  The family gathered for a meal and this bonded people.  The subject “whats for dinner” was eagerly discussed amongst us seven kids and sometimes became a source of contention as we all preferred different things and would try to sway what was on the menu.  I learned how to make many of the dishes my mom prepared except two.  These were my favorite dishes.  When my mother made them for me it was because she loved me.  I could taste the love in every bite and her eyes would sparkle as she watched me eat until I couldn’t breathe.  

Indians are hospitable by nature, but early on my mother taught us that we were never to eat food from people we didn’t know.  She said that food must only be eaten when someone who loves you prepares a meal with your health and welfare in mind.  Working as a chef, she claimed that restauranteurs only cared about their bottom line and would entice your taste buds but your body would pay for it later. If we were having company over, she picked the veggies from her garden and labored for hours to prepare the meal so they would know how much she loved them.  If we invited her over and ordered pizza or if we took her to a restaurant she viewed that as a lack of love.  “Do you think they won’t serve me at the restaurant or I can’t pay for my own food?” she’d ask.  There was no replacement for the love that went into a home made meal.

Today, we’ve gotten away from that.  We eat what is fast, what is convenient.  We generally have no idea who grows or prepares our food.  We don’t know what half the items on the labels are.  For example I thought citric acid was a good thing.  I figured they were using lemon and orange juice for citric acid to preserve the freshness of food.  Citric acid is a chemical that is created to preserve our food.  Nothing natural about it.  

So my blog and my goal is to create a local food culture where we embrace the slow food movement.  We connect to the farmers who are growing our food and the business people that care enough to prepare it in a healthful way. We limit our imported food to what we can’t grow here like mango, pineapple, coconut, cashew etc.  We don’t import grapes in January when we have grape farmers who can’t make a living here locally.  We look forward with anticipation to eating local fruit in season.  We reject the businesses who are making a buck by enticing our taste buds without delivering the nutrition our body needs.  We embrace and support farmers and responsible cooks and elevate them to the healers they are and can be, because we believe that an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure.

If you don't know how to make tasty dishes or you don't know what to make, invest the time needed to learn.  It's fun and so rewarding!  I love feeding people, I love being able to take care of their health as my full time job.  You too can experience the satisfaction of having your family revive because of the food you prepare for them.  I'll do my part to share everything I know with you. Naomi Hendrix the "Raw Food Queen" of Fresno has weekly classes where you learn how to prepare an appetizer, entree and dessert and you get to eat it for only $20.  Instead of having celebrity chefs showing how to make rich, opulent dishes, we want to televise how to make delicious healthy dishes from locally grown ingredients.  We'd like to showcase farmers, moms and local home cooks that are making love in the kitchen.  So as parents let's pass on the gift of home made meals.  Let's make "real" food from wholesome ingredients, grown by people who care, made by us for people we care about.  Let's Make Love in the Kitchen.

Making Love in the Kitchen

Pasta the mother of comfort

Since this is the first day of my blog, allow me to introduce myself to those who don’t know me.  I’m a mother of six, wife to the man who still makes my heart skip a beat and sister to three brothers and three sisters (I am right in the middle of the line up).  I was raised by strict, devoted east indian parents from a long line of farmers in Punjab, India.  My father was a Sikh priest and mother was a chef in Canada, they are both retired now. 

My blog is about food.  I’ve had a love affair with food since I was born.  My mother taught me that cooking is an expression of love and more recently I believe with the opening of our raw food cafe and organic market that I make love and health in the kitchen.  The thought that everything I make is good for you is still mind boggling, especially as I prepare dessert!

In the Bible it says that it is better to eat vegetables where there is love, than to eat meat where there is contention.  Everyday, before I start preparing the dishes, I make sure I’m in a happy mood.  I feel the taste of the dishes will improve if I’m making them with love.  Lots of times I’m not quite sure what I’m going to make but I know I’m going to make love that you can taste in every bite.

Today I was motivated to make the most comforting and loving of dishes, pasta!  Now that can be a challenge raw food style.  I find kelp noodles replace pasta beautifully because they taste like firm pasta--but the sauce is another story.  How do you make your dish taste like love when you can’t smell tomatoes cooking on the stove and you can’t integrate cheese because you don’t cook food past 118 degrees and you are a vegan?

In my vitamix I started with luxury -- soaked "truly raw cashews" hand cracked in Indonesia.  2 cups cashews and 2 cups purified water.  To that I added garlic, black pepper, pink himalayan sea salt and garam masala to give it body.  This tasted like a rich cream sauce but what about all my other favorite pasta ingredients like olives, sun dried tomatoes and parsley?  I knew I needed a pesto for color and depth.  I chopped the curly and flat parsley stems off the bottom and put the parsley in my food processor.  I used soaked and peeled almonds instead of pine nuts for the base of my pesto.  Lemon juice, cold pressed extra virgin olive oil and the himalayan salt gave us a regular pesto.  I soaked the sun dried tomatoes and added them along with some of the soak water.  1 package of truly raw pitted black olives and crushed fresh garlic kicked it up to a deep blend of flavors.  I thinly julienned green bell pepper and diced some shitake mushrooms for garnish.

I washed my kelp noodles in hot water and cut them so they weren’t long and stringy.  I mixed the white cheddar alfredo sauce in the noodles.  I teaspoon of pesto in the centre of the dish and green bell peppers like petals and mushrooms accenting it. 

Satisfied with my creation I relaxed knowing that I had truly made love in the kitchen.  A dish your body will love and that will whisper comfort in every bite.

Looking forward to what tommorrow will bring, I remain 

Yours in food and health,
Tara 

T: 559-284-4803  E-mail: wholefarms@me.com   Website: Whole Farms Online  
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Pasta the mother of comfort