What is (your) Kitchen Culture?

My Happy Place

I believe that the culture of the kitchen can provide the single most important structural foundation for a healthy, happy life. The relationship you have with your kitchen says a lot about the relationship you have with food, your body, mother nature, and even your family. It also reveals your values, beliefs and attitudes about quality versus quantity, convenience versus effort, innovation versus tradition, creativity versus method, and simplicity versus complexity. So what exactly does "Kitchen Culture" mean, and why would you want to understand yours?

Let's break it down. 

• Kitchen - a room or area where food is prepared, cooked and consumed. 

Seems obvious, but it's not to some. Picture the dude (or dudette) whose only concept of "kitchen" is as a storage place for beer and chips.

• Culture - the collection of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, rituals, notions of time, roles, and material objects acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group existence.

"Culture" is a bit more complex by definition, but simply put, it's how we collectively tend to think, act, and feel.

• Kitchen Culture - the skills, wisdom, habits, tools, rituals, roles, values, and attitudes that characterize the place in your home where food is prepared, cooked, and consumed. Translation...What you think, do, and feel in your kitchen. Even more simplified...Your relationship with your kitchen.

Who cares? Why is your Kitchen Culture even worth thinking about?

Making a Big Deal of Dining Out!

First, there are the physical health implications. I LOVE eating out. But this I've learned...according to data released in 2015 by the U.S. Department of Commerce, restaurant spending has, for the first time in history, overtaken grocery spending. A 2013 LivingSocial Dining Out Survey revealed that Americans ate out, on average, four to five times each week and that patterns continues to rise. There is a correlating rise in diabetes, heart disease, and other serious illnesses. 

Here's why it makes sense that these two increases may be related: Food prepared at most American restaurants is generally more processed and is served in much higher quantities than single servings. Food prepared for us in most restaurants has more processed salt, sugar, wheat, food coloring, preservatives and saturated fats than we could ever replicate in our own kitchens...plus it is served to us in double or even triple quantity. 

Nevertheless, I propose that those of us who enjoy the restaurant experience continue to eat out, but that we select and support more local cafe's where the ingredient selection is more conscientious and intentional. This will be more expensive, so do it less often. That way, eating out becomes more of a treat and less of a compromise that may cost you and your family their health in the long-run. 

Kitchens aren't just for cooking food!

What about how spending time in our kitchens influences our social, emotional, and mental health? More time in your own kitchen not only means better physical health for you and your family, it also means more peaceful and purposeful bonding time with those you love. This can impact your social, emotional, and even mental health. We've gotten away from being together in the kitchen...oddly reserving that joy only for holiday meals. The tasks involved in daily food preparation and consumption are communal in nature.  I also support getting the pleasure of "someone else's cooking" by having more dinner gatherings at the homes of nearby friends, neighbors, and family. The most beautiful memories and relationships form over sharing food. Plus, it saves money.

For some people, the kitchen can become a sanctuary for getting centered and grounded, especially after a stressful day. Types of kitchen meditations vary, but the idea of using time in the kitchen to practice mindfulness is universal. Approaching your time in the kitchen this way to nurture and nourish your body and spirit also can have a positive impact on your emotional and mental health. Read Kitchen Mindfulness if you are curious for more about this idea.

Hello Kitty's Kitchen at Epcot...I wanna explore!

And still for others, the kitchen is a place of exploration and creativity! I personally lose my mind in the kitchen and it is fantastic. It's that thing artists and athletes tend to describe as being in the zone or losing track of time because they are so engaged in the present moment activity. I simply stop thinking and start doing when I step into my kitchen, and having that as a daily outlet hugely impacts and stimulates my creativity. 

These approaches to our time in the kitchen decreases stress and anxiety, which we all know is crucial for maintaining wellness. They also increase the quality of our nutrition, given that the groceries brought into the kitchen are generally fresh, natural, whole, real foods. It doesn't take much to improve the quality of nutrition when the alternative is restaurant and other convenience food.

Is your kitchen already your happy place? Or do you want to experience more ease and pleasure in your kitchen...more often? Good news: healthy kitchen behaviors can be learned, cultivated, and integrated so that anyone can improve their improve their kitchen culture, if desired. But to know if you desire any changes in your kitchen culture, you have to know what you have going on now!

SO...what is your Kitchen Culture type?

1. "My what?"
2. "Freezer, hot pockets, microwave, check!"
3. "I need you; I need to want you, but I hate you."
4. "Follow the directions!"
5. "This is my family center."
6. "Let's collaborate. You do what I say."
7. "Get OUT and don't come back until I ring the dinner bell."
8. "Sweet Jesus, this is my guilty place."
9. "My creative place to experiment!"



Green, the taste of home.

10. "Don't drop crumbs in my showroom."

I could (and may, some fine day) write a book to fully explore these ideas and how they are illustrated across various cultures, but for now I just want to offer you a taste. I'll be expanding on the 10 types of Kitchen Cultures in my next post. Until then...happy health!

Kombucha on Command!

Kombucha brew with my pet scoby named Selkie!

We, the general collective, have been buying kombucha (a healthy fermented tea that uses a particular kind of culture called a scoby) at the health food store for a few years now...you and me...or a neighbor of yours or a hippy dippy friend. Anyway, it's a bit pricey and not always convenient. This popular drink is alive and very good for our gut health because of the probiotics, so it's worth starting a brew at home that will sustain you, fill your happy-hour glass when you want an alternative that looks and feels a bit like champagne, and entertain you and your visitors with the way it grows like a pet and changes as a live culture in your kitchen.

Today, I loved helping a fellow teacher with the awesome North Florida School for Holistic Living, establish her new brew and routines with a sweet visit to her kitchen. We collaborated on the following instructions that I hope you will find helpful when you get ready for your own kombucha...

What you need:

• A large glass container with a dispenser spout
• Two large glass mason jars
• Organic black and/or green tea bags
• Organic, high quality sugar from sugar cane. (I like sucanat.)
• A scoby, transferred to you in a glass jar with enough of its previous brew (familiar environment) to cover the scoby. 

What you do:

• Clean your large glass container with hot water and soap.
• Clean your mason jars with hot water and soap.
• Put one cup of sugar in one of the mason jars
• Put four tea bags in the other mason jar (2 black & two green or 4 black)
• Pour boiling water into each mason jar, filling them to the top.
• Stir the sugar water with a wooden spoon to ensure that it dissolves.
• Give several hours for the two jars of liquid time to cool completely to room temperature. Leave the tea bags in the jar until cool.
• While the tea and sugar water are cooling, prepare the new environment by dipping the edge of a clean paper towel into the existing scoby brew then wiping the inside of the large glass container (your scoby’s new home) down with it to “cure” it.
• Then dump the scoby and it’s existing brew into your large glass jar to get comfy while it’s new brew is cooling.
• Once completely cool, remove the tea bags and pour both the sugar water and tea directly into the large glass container over your scoby.

In a few days, start taste-testing your brew. When the flavor suits you (tartness, fizz, balance), jar and refrigerate your kombucha. You may also enjoy your kombucha at room temperature straight from your tap, which is in alignment with the principle’s of traditional Chinese medicine.

When your brew is depleted approximately to the spout level, brew more tea and sugar to replenish. You can add as frequently as you need to, because your scoby will grow stronger and continue to eat the sugar faster and faster. As it grows stronger, you can increase the amount of tea and sugar for larger brews. The taste will always vary all the way from simply sweet tea to very tart kombucha, pending environment and feeding routines. Experimenting with this alive culture will teach you the subtleties of how to nurture it. Once you get to know your scoby, I suggest naming it! Mine is named Selkie, after a lovable and talented acoustic musician we met on a Disney cruise.

A healthy scoby will not only provide you many delicious and probiotic-rich drinks. It will also grow scoby babies! New layers of scoby will appear, which can be peeled off and given to friends, added to smoothies, dehydrated for snacks or simply donated to a compost pile!

If you'd like a bit of supportive hand-holding, I have scobies to share and will provide a 30 minute tutorial in your kitchen or mine, by Skype or in person, for $30.00 to get you started. Drop me a line at heatherdiamondhealth@gmail.com if you're interested.

Happy health to you and yours!

But really, it's all about you! Complete your personal Health Profile and send it to heatherdiamondhealth@gmail.com to initiate a Health Consultation, which will include a comprehensive written report with an analysis of your health profile, a proposed action plan and personalized resources. Learn more, preview and download the Health Profile here.

What are freezers for?

(Let’s assume “dead bodies” was not the first thought that came to your mind.)

Burrrrrrr!

At a gathering in my home recently, I noticed a group of tipsy guests congregating around my freezer. They had apparently gone in for cocktail ice refills and were distracted by the contents of my cold box. They were touching things and asking questions as if they had just landed on a strange and confounding planet. I found this very amusing and was intrigued by the idea of exploring how different households stock their freezers.

When you start to embrace the ideals of eating whole, real, natural, fresh food you might find that the contents of your freezer change significantly from colorfully packaged convenience foods to glass jars and well-used zip-lock bags. I suppose the contents of my freezer do look a bit mysterious. But guess what…my freezer is definitely still for convenience.

So reach down deep and awaken your inner voyeur for this reality rummage through my freezer to see if you can find an idea or two that brings more ease and pleasure to your kitchen. Here’s my inventory:

• A bag of U-pick local organic blueberries – perfect for:
• adding to smoothies (checkout this example)
• blending thickly with any kind of creamy milk for ice cream
• super-hot-day quick snacks for kids served in bowl
• adding to drinks like tiny ice cubes only much fancier
• thawing and adding to sweet treats when baking (see this example)
• A bag of too-brown bananas – peeled & perfect for:
• adding to smoothies for creamier texture
• A bag of chopped fresh greens (mustards, collards, kale, chard) collected in season and cheap – perfect for:
• adding to smoothies 
• adding to soups (whoa look at this example)
• making fast stirfry meals in the wok (feast the eyes here)
• adding to omelets and other breakfast scrambles (read more about this here)
• chopping fine to make Indian paneer dishes to serve with rice (Indian Bliss information here!)
• adding to beans
• A bag of peeled and diced mango surplus – perfect for:
• adding to smoothies
• blending thick with any kind of creamy milk for ice cream
• blending thin with water to make mango juice
• A bag of lemons and limes – whole & perfect for:
• grating frozen into any dish while it’s cooking for extra nutrients and a pop of flavor
• grating frozen into water and other drinks
• Note: don’t be afraid; use the whole lemon/lime; just grate it until it’s gone, and it will keep in the freezer, serving your zesty flavor needs for longer than you can imagine.
• A bag of avocado pits – you read that correctly – whole and perfect for:
• grating into smoothies
• grating into baked goods
• grating over oatmeal or cream of wheat dishes
• Note: again, don’t be afraid; use the whole thing. They last forever and just a bit adds a nice nutty flavor packed FULL of nutrients.
• A glass jar half full of sofrito (minced mixture of onion, ginger, garlic, peppers, cilantro – read more about sofrito here) and a glass jar half full of mineral/bone broth (read more about how I make my stock here) perfectly put on HOLD for:
• adventures away from the kitchen any longer than a weekend.
• Note: nothing goes to waste; it will save in the freezer until I get back when it will return to the fridge for continued use.
• A bag full of bones - YIKES dead bodies! -  (and all the unmentionable meat stuff left on plates after bone-in meats are consumed) perfect for:
• boiling and straining to make a bone stock/broth (here’s how made super easy)
• keeping smelly stuff out of the garbage can
• A bag of herb and root vegetable scraps - perfect for:
• boiling and straining to make vegetable stock, which I am loving for making creamy risotto lately
• adding to the boiling bone broth to increase the mineral content and healing properties (courtesy tip from my friend and your local herbalist, the fabulous Mrs. Phoenix Fermin, of Sacred Tree Herbals)
• boiling, straining, and adding to chicken soup to heal a sick neighbor
• Glass jars of bulk-bought brown rice, whole wheat flour and tea that we are simply not consuming fast enough to leave out in the summer months
• Full Disclosure: a ridiculously colorful package of fully cooked chicken nuggets (hey but they are organic!) because my daughter has developed middle-school-lunch pickiness, but willingly packs these in her lunch to thaw all morning and eat at room temp by midday.
• A lavender eye-pillow stored in a small zip lock bag to stay dry. The notorious pillow is granted like a special treat to anyone in the house with a headache.
• And finally…frosty pint glasses for sharing beer. Cheers!

Lemons, Limes, Avocado Pits, and Eye Pillow (of course)!

That’s what freezers are for…in good times…in bad times…

Don’t be perfect. Don’t be strict. Don’t be judgie. Be experimental, curious, intentional, healthy, happy, brave, tasty and wild!

Food is my friend and yours.  Enjoy it!

Finding FUNgi in Tortola

My family recently went on a Disney cruise. I never thought we would do that! It happened to be a spectacularly luxurious experience complete with a sexy-as-hell acoustic vocalist named Selkie playing our requests late night, a tall and beautiful Indian server named Sugith who made a magical Indian dinner appear special for us, daily head chef cooking classes with samples and wine tastings, and a super lavenous magician named Mike Super. We set out to make the kiddo happy on her summer vacation, and ended up being mighty pleased adults.

Tortola views...but where's the food?

One of our ports of call was Tortola, British Virgin Islands. Now, I prefer to take new places and cultures by foot with an appetite and a keen interest in what the locals have to share. In this case, I was resigned to cheerfully tour the island in an open-air bus with a group from the cruise ship, but I simply did not have that satisfied feeling when it was over. So I dragged-my love bug husband and cutie tween around making up excuses to banter and chit chat with a few locals, from whom I learned about a local dish they pronounced “foonjee.” Apparently, it was something of a staple in household kitchens, but not typically offered in restaurants for the tourists. Though, I felt sure that I must see, smell and taste this thing, so I kept asking around for where to find this real taste of Tortola. Eventually someone told me that we should go and see Gloria. Just that. Ok. Gloria, the “foonjee” dealer. So with the next few folks we came across, I followed this crumb by explaining that I was looking for Gloria to taste her “foonjee.”

The reactions I got to this were priceless! First of all, everyone who I name-dropped with knew  Gloria and immediately stopped talking to us as if we were tourists; it was traveler-heaven to me.  So they kind of pointed and directed us until we found this place with the name Midtown above the door. We went inside to discover a diner atmosphere with a couple of no-nonsense women who were quietly cooking and cleaning, a few tired looking locals eating or having a cool drink, and a few barefoot children roaming and sometimes helping. One of the ladies behind the counter was sitting comfortably while washing bottles…seeming maybe like the person in charge. I asked her if she was Gloria, to which she quietly uttered “yeah” without making eye contact. Oi! Ok, a tiny challenge. I searched the wall-posted menu, but saw nothing that indicated this local dish pronounced “foonjee.” My daughter ordered a soda and my husband ordered something called chicken roti (both endearingly patient with my determination) as I tried and tried to build a quick rapport with Gloria by proving that I wasn’t interested in the usual tourist experiences. I explained that I wanted to taste this dish called “foonjee” because several local people with whom I had spoken had said it was their favorite. Without verbally acknowledging me, she sent the other lady into the kitchen and nodded her head at me in a way that felt like a big win.

Gloria's Place

My husband got his chicken roti first, and seriously it was amazing. I took one bite just to taste, but had a hard time restraining myself! He agreed it was exceptionally good, but my focus was laser-like on the “foonjee.” Then my taste of Tortola arrived as a rounded scoop in a small dish without much ado…quite a contrast to the meals I was being presented with on the cruise ship. I was delighted, though. The flavor was sort of creamy and corn-sweet. It was very smooth and had a flavor that could easily accompany any meat or other protein. I understood immediately why it was a household staple. It was simple and elegant and very homey…an easy choice for comfort food. Also, given one secret trick, it is very easy to make. I declared to Gloria that I loved it and that I was going to travel back to my kitchen and make it straight-away. That (finally) got a big smile and a chuckle, as well as the secret tip. Back home, I also learned that Gloria’s diner, Midtown, is Island-famous for her special chicken roti (no surprise), and that the dish pronounced “foonjee” is spelled fungi. The star ingredient is okra rather than mushrooms, so don’t be fooled by the name. Being a bit adverse to okra in general, I am thrilled by a tasty new way to get okra’s superhero nutrients!

Fungi Ingredients:

• handful of frozen or fresh cut okra
• 3⁄4 cup fine yellow cornmeal
• 1 1⁄4 cups boiling water
• 1 tablespoon butter
• dash of salt to taste
• dash of pepper to taste

Method:

1. Bring the water to a boil and add the okra and a bit of diced onion.
2. In a separate bowl, blend 2 tbsp of the cornmeal with about 6 tbsp water. This is the secret tip: Get it wet first so that it won’t clump when you put it into the boiling water. Pour into the pot with the boiling water and okra and let cook for one minute.
3. Slowly pour the rest of the cornmeal into the pan, stirring constantly. Add the butter and salt and pepper, continuing to cook for 5 minutes.

Add a piece of boiled fish to the top and you have just taken a prepared an imaginary trip to a typical Tortola household for dinner.

Special thanks to my long-time friend and amazing travel agent, Korrine Johnson, with Journey Travel Company for setting us up on this trip.

Cheers to ease and pleasure and something new now and again to keep things yummy in the kitchen! 

Next up: 

• The Beauty of Minimalist Coffee
• What the Freezer For?!
• Kitchen Sun Salutations