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When you stand and share your story in an empowering way, your story will heal you and your story will heal somebody else.
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Iyanla Vanzant
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My meal arrived. It was a bowl of tepid, green curried water with two spinach leaves floating in it. The waiter called it 'vegetable soup'. I called it inedible slop.
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Frank Kusy (Kevin and I in India (Frank's Travel Memoirs))
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The model stripped down naked and stood with her arms out to her sides while genderless cohorts sprayed her body with large silver canisters of foundation. They wore masks over there faces and sprayed her from head to toe like they were putting out a fire. They airbrushed her into a mono-toned six-foot-two column of a human being with no visible veins, nipples, nails, lips, or eyelashes. When every single thing that was real about the model was gone, the make up artist fug through a suite case of brushes and plowed through hundreds of tubes of flesh colored colors and began to draw human features onto her face. At the same time, the hair stylist meticulously sewed with a needle and thread strand after strand of long blond hairs onto her thin light brown locks, creating a thick full mane of shimmering gold. The model had brought her own chef, who cooked her spinach soup from scratch. The soup was fed to her by one of her lackeys, who existed solely for this purpose. The blond boy stood in front of her, blowing on the soup and then feeding it to her from a small silver child's spoon, just big enough to fit between her lips. the model's mouth was barely open, maybe a quarter of an inch wide, so that she would not crack the flesh colored paint.
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Margot Berwin (Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire)
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Fifteen is an appropriate age to test for seasoning. It is not a complicated ritual, but it is an unusual rite of passage and not for the fastidious. It's a prick of a finger. It's five drops of blood. It's drizzling the blood onto sinigang- a heady soup of tamarind broth, with a savory sourness enhanced by spinach and okra, tomatoes and corms, green peppers for zest. Lola Simeon prefers stewed pork, and so that was chopped into the broth, a perfect medley of lean meat and fat.
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Rin Chupeco (Hungry Hearts: 13 Tales of Food & Love)
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Integrate at least three of these items into your daily diet to be sure you are eating plenty of whole food. 1. Beans—all kinds: black beans, pinto beans, garbanzo beans, black-eyed peas, lentils 2. Greens—spinach, kale, chards, beet tops, fennel tops 3. Sweet potatoes—don’t confuse with yams. 4. Nuts—all kinds: almonds, peanuts, walnuts, sunflower seeds, Brazil nuts, cashews 5. Olive oil—green, extra-virgin is usually the best. Note that olive oil decomposes quickly, so buy no more than a month’s supply at a time. 6. Oats—slow-cook or Irish steel-cut are best. 7. Barley—either in soups, as a hot cereal, or
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Dan Buettner (The Blue Zones Solution: Eating and Living Like the World's Healthiest People (Blue Zones, The))
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My favorite of all was still the place on Vermont, the French cafe, La Lyonnaise, that had given me the best onion soup on that night with George and my father. The two owners hailed from France, from Lyon, before the city had boomed into a culinary sibling of Paris. Inside, it had only a few tables, and the waiters served everything out of order, and it had a B rating in the window, and they usually sat me right by the swinging kitchen door, but I didn't care about any of it.
There, I ordered chicken Dijon, or beef Bourguignon, or a simple green salad, or a pate sandwich, and when it came to the table, I melted into whatever arrived. I lavished in a forkful of spinach gratin on the side, at how delighted the chef had clearly been over the balance of spinach and cheese, like she was conducting a meeting of spinach and cheese, like a matchmaker who knew they would shortly fall in love. Sure, there were small distractions and preoccupations in it all, but I could find the food in there, the food was the center, and the person making the food was so connected with the food that I could really, for once, enjoy it.
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Aimee Bender (The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake)
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Look, I fetched some Fat Hen for you.' Jem offered me a bunch of wilting greens.
I reached for the plants, rubbed the leaves with a snap of my finger and thumb and sniffed. They were as fresh as spinach but not so peppery and warm. And wasn't that a faint whiff of cat's piss? Mrs G always said I could sniff a drop of honey in a pail of milk. I used my nose then and saved us all from a night of gripes.
'That's not Fat Hen, you noddle. That's Dog's Mercury. Once I knew a band of tinkers that made a soup of it and near died. If I serve that up to the new mistress I could be hanged for murder.'
'God help us. Give it back here. It's ill-omened.' He hurled the plants towards the hog's trough.
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Martine Bailey (An Appetite for Violets)
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Because this tea kaiseki would be served so soon after breakfast, it would be considerably smaller than a traditional one. As a result, Stephen had decided to serve each mini tea kaiseki in a round stacking bento box, which looked like two miso soup bowls whose rims had been glued together. After lifting off the top dome-shaped cover the women would behold a little round tray sporting a tangle of raw squid strips and blanched scallions bound in a tahini-miso sauce pepped up with mustard. Underneath this seafood "salad" they would find a slightly deeper "tray" packed with pearly white rice garnished with a pink salted cherry blossom. Finally, under the rice would be their soup bowl containing the wanmori, the apex of the tea kaiseki. Inside the dashi base we had placed a large ball of fu (wheat gluten) shaped and colored to resemble a peach. Spongy and soft, it had a savory center of ground duck and sweet lily bulb. A cluster of fresh spinach leaves, to symbolize the budding of spring, accented the "peach," along with a shiitake mushroom cap simmered in mirin, sake, and soy.
When the women had finished their meals, we served them tiny pink azuki bean paste sweets. David whipped them a bowl of thick green tea. For the dry sweets eaten before his thin tea, we served them flower-shaped refined sugar candies tinted pink.
After all the women had left, Stephen, his helper, Mark, and I sat down to enjoy our own "Girl's Day" meal. And even though I was sitting in the corner of Stephen's dish-strewn kitchen in my T-shirt and rumpled khakis, that soft peach dumpling really did taste feminine and delicate.
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Victoria Abbott Riccardi (Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto)
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Hemingway, pulling up to the Ritz with two truckloads of his French irregulars, told the bartender, “How about seventy-three dry martinis?” Later, after he and several companions had dined on soup, creamed spinach, raspberries in liqueur, and Perrier-Jouët champagne, the waiter added the Vichy tax to the bill, explaining, “It’s the law.” No matter: “We drank. We ate. We glowed,” one of Hemingway’s comrades reported. Private Irwin Shaw of the 12th Infantry, who later won fame as a writer, believed that August 25 was “the day the war should have ended.” To Ernie Pyle, ensconced in a hotel room with a soft bed though no hot water or electricity, “Paris seems to have all the beautiful girls we have always heard it had.… They dress in riotous colors.” The liberation, he concluded, was “the loveliest, brightest story of our time.” *
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Rick Atkinson (The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe 1944-1945 (The Liberation Trilogy))
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Irie serves me three ramens, including a bowl made with a rich dashi and head-on shrimp and another studded with spicy ground pork and wilted spinach and lashed with chili oil. Both are exceptionally delicious, sophisticated creations, but it's his interpretation of tonkotsu that leaves me muttering softly to myself. The noodles are firm and chewy, the roast pork is striped with soft deposits of warm fat, and the toppings- white curls of shredded spring onion, chewy strips of bamboo, a perfect square of toasted seaweed- are skillfully applied. Here it is the combination of tare, the culmination of years of careful tinkering, and broth, made from whole pig heads and knots of ginger, that defies the laws of tonkotsu: a soup with the savory, meaty intensity of a broth made from a thousand pigs that's light enough to leave you wanting more. And more. And more.
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Matt Goulding (Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture)
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Next, I drink a few more glasses of water containing liquid chlorophyll to build my blood. If I’m stressed, I’ll have some diluted black currant juice for an antioxidant boost to the adrenals. Once I’m hungry, I sip my way through a big green alkaline smoothie (a combination of spinach, cucumber, coconut, avocado, lime, and stevia is a favorite) or tuck into a fruit salad or parfait. And tomatoes, cucumbers, and avocados are fruits, too; a morning salad is a good breakfast and keeps the sugar down. But, this kind of morning regime isn’t for everyone. You can get really hungry, particularly when you first start eating this way. And some people need to start the day with foods that deliver more heat and sustenance. If that’s how you roll, try having fruit or a green smoothie and then waiting for 30 minutes (if your breakfast includes bananas, pears, or avocados, make it 45) before eating something more. As a general rule, sour or acidic fruits (grapefruits, kiwis, and strawberries) can be combined with “protein fats” such as avocado, coconut, coconut kefir, and sprouted nuts and seeds. Both acid fruits and sub-acid fruits like apples, grapes, and pears can be eaten with cheeses; and vegetable fruits (avocados, cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers) can be eaten with fruits, vegetables, starches, and proteins. I’ve also found that apples combine well with raw vegetables. Leafy greens (spinach, kale, collard greens), along with the vegetable fruits noted above, are my go-to staples. They are the magic foods that combine well with every food on the planet. I blend them together in green smoothies, cold soups, and salads.
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Tess Masters (The Blender Girl: Super-Easy, Super-Healthy Meals, Snacks, Desserts, and Drinks--100 Gluten-Free, Vegan Recipes!)
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Chicken Francese, or lamb chops, or plump spinach gnocchi that she'd roll out by hand and drop into boiling salt water. When her brothers came home for the holidays, she'd spend days in the kitchen, preparing airy latkes and sweet and sour brisket; roast turkey with chestnut stuffing; elaborately iced layer cakes. She'd stay in the kitchen for hours, cooking dish after dish, hoping that all the food would somehow conceal their father's absence; hoping that the meals would take the taste of grief out of their mouths.
"After my father died, I think cooking saved me. It was the only thing that made me happy. Everything else felt so out of control. But if I followed a recipe, if I used the right amounts of the right ingredients and did everything I was supposed to do..."
She tried to explain it- how repetitive motions of peeling and chopping felt like a meditation, the comfort of knowing that flour and yeast, oil and salt, combined in the correct proportions, would always yield a loaf of bread; the way that making a shopping list could refocus her mind, and how much she enjoyed the smells of fresh rosemary, of roasting chicken or baking cookies, the velvety feel of a ball of dough at the precise moment when it reached its proper elasticity and could be put into an oiled bowl, under a clean cloth, to rise in a warm spot in the kitchen, the same step that her mother's mother's mother would have followed to make the same kind of bread. She liked to watch popovers rising to lofty heights in the oven's heat, blooming out of their tins. She liked the sound of a hearty soup or grain-thickened stew, simmering gently on a low flame, the look of a beautifully set table, with place cards and candles and fine china. All of it pleased her.
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Jennifer Weiner (That Summer)
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The menu is spectacular. Passed hors d'oeuvres include caramelized shallot tartlets topped with Gorgonzola, cubes of crispy pork belly skewered with fresh fig, espresso cups of chilled corn soup topped with spicy popcorn, mini arepas filled with rare skirt steak and chimichurri and pickle onions, and prawn dumplings with a mango serrano salsa. There is a raw bar set up with three kinds of oysters, and a raclette station where we have a whole wheel of the nutty cheese being melted to order, with baby potatoes, chunks of garlic sausage, spears of fresh fennel, lightly pickled Brussels sprouts, and hunks of sourdough bread to pour it over. When we head up for dinner, we will start with a classic Dover sole amandine with a featherlight spinach flan, followed by a choice of seared veal chops or duck breast, both served with creamy polenta, roasted mushrooms, and lacinato kale. Next is a light salad of butter lettuce with a sharp lemon Dijon vinaigrette, then a cheese course with each table receiving a platter of five cheeses with dried fruits and nuts and three kinds of bread, followed by the panna cottas. Then the cake, and coffee and sweets. And at midnight, chorizo tamales served with scrambled eggs, waffle sticks with chicken fingers and spicy maple butter, candied bacon strips, sausage biscuit sandwiches, and vanilla Greek yogurt parfaits with granola and berries on the "breakfast" buffet, plus cheeseburger sliders, mini Chicago hot dogs, little Chinese take-out containers of pork fried rice and spicy sesame noodles, a macaroni-and-cheese bar, and little stuffed pizzas on the "snack food" buffet. There will also be tiny four-ounce milk bottles filled with either vanilla malted milk shakes, root beer floats made with hard root beer, Bloody Marys, or mimosas.
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Stacey Ballis (Wedding Girl)
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We start with a next-generation miso soup: Kyoto's famous sweet white miso whisked with dashi made from lobster shells, with large chunks of tender claw meat and wilted spinach bobbing on the soup's surface.
The son takes a cube of topflight Wagyu off the grill, charred on the outside, rare in the center, and swaddles it with green onions and a scoop of melting sea urchin- a surf-and-turf to end all others.
The father lays down a gorgeous ceramic plate with a poem painted on its surface. "From the sixteenth century," he tells us, then goes about constructing the dish with his son, piece by piece: First, a chunk of tilefish wrapped around a grilled matsutake mushroom stem. Then a thick triangle of grilled mushroom cap, plus another grilled stem the size of a D-sized battery, topped with mushroom miso. A pickled ginger shoot, a few tender soybeans, and the crowning touch, the tilefish skin, separated from its body and fried into a ripple wave of crunch.
The rice course arrives in a small bamboo steamer. The young chef works quickly. He slices curtains of tuna belly from a massive, fat-streaked block, dips it briefly in house-made soy sauce, then lays it on the rice. Over the top he spoons a sauce of seaweed and crushed sesame seeds just as the tuna fat begins to melt into the grains below.
A round of tempura comes next: a harvest moon of creamy pumpkin, a gold nugget of blowfish capped with a translucent daikon sauce, and finally a soft, custardy chunk of salmon liver, intensely fatty with a bitter edge, a flavor that I've never tasted before.
The last savory course comes in a large ice block carved into the shape of a bowl. Inside, a nest of soba noodles tinted green with powdered matcha floating in a dashi charged with citrus and topped with a false quail egg, the white fashioned from grated daikon.
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Matt Goulding (Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture)
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Like families all over Japan, that morning we tucked into a special New Year's breakfast soup called ozoni. Although recipes vary from region to region, they all contain mochi because the pounded rice dumplings symbolize the breaking of "bread" with the New Year's deity Toshigami-sama. The rest of the ingredients in the soup, aside from the dashi base, vary according to what is fresh and regionally available. So around Hiroshima, for example, cooks add oysters, prawns, and saltwater eel caught from the nearby Inland Sea to their ozoni, while natives of Tokyo toss in nubbins of chicken, sliced fish cake, and spinach-like greens. For those living in Kyoto, the ozoni always includes lots of sweet white miso.
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Victoria Abbott Riccardi (Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto)
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Chickpea Mulligatawny Stew Serves: 6 ¾ cup unsweetened flaked coconut 4 cups low-sodium or no-salt-added vegetable broth, divided 3 Medjool dates or 6 regular dates, pitted 1 onion, chopped ¼ cup garlic cloves, chopped 1 carrot, peeled and diced 1 stalk celery, chopped 2 tablespoons white wine 4 ounces cremini mushrooms, chopped 1 Granny Smith apple, peeled and diced 2 tablespoons curry powder 3 cups cooked chickpeas or 2 (15-ounce) cans low-sodium or no-salt-added chickpeas, drained 3 cups no-salt-added diced tomatoes, in BPA-free packaging Cayenne pepper, to taste 1 pound chopped fresh or frozen spinach (or greens of your choice) ½ pound steamed broccoli florets ½ pound steamed cauliflower florets Purée the flaked coconut, 2 cups of the broth, and the dates in a high-powered blender until smooth. Set aside. In a large soup pot, sauté the onion, garlic, carrot, and celery in the white wine until the onions are translucent and lightly browned. Add the mushrooms and apple and continue to cook until the mushrooms release their juices. Add the curry powder and sauté for another minute. Add the chickpeas, tomatoes, coconut purée, and the remaining broth and bring to a boil. Simmer for 10 minutes, taste and adjust with more curry powder and cayenne if desired. Then, stir in the spinach, broccoli, and cauliflower and continue cooking until the spinach is wilted. PER SERVING: CALORIES 362; PROTEIN 15g; CARBOHYDRATE 57g; TOTAL FAT 10.8g; SATURATED FAT 6.9g; SODIUM 202mg; FIBER 16.2g; BETA-CAROTENE 6771mcg; VITAMIN C 75mg; CALCIUM 232mg; IRON 6.2mg; FOLATE 328mcg; MAGNESIUM 150mg; ZINC 2.7mg; SELENIUM 13.9mcg
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Joel Fuhrman (The End of Heart Disease: The Eat to Live Plan to Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease (Eat for Life))
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French Minted Pea Soup Serves: 3 10 ounces frozen green peas 1 small onion, chopped 1 clove garlic, chopped 3 tablespoons VegiZest*, or other no-salt seasoning, adjusted to taste 3 cups water 1 bunch fresh mint leaves (save a few leaves for garnish) 3 regular dates, pitted ½ cup raw cashews ½ tablespoon Spike no-salt seasoning, or other no-salt seasoning, to taste 4 teaspoons fresh lemon juice 4 cups shredded romaine lettuce or chopped baby spinach 2 tablespoons fresh snipped chives Simmer peas, onions, garlic, and seasonings in water for about 7 minutes. Pour pea mixture into a high-powered blender or food processor. Add remaining ingredients except for the lettuce and chives. Blend until smooth and creamy. Add lettuce or spinach and let it wilt in hot liquid. Pour into bowls and garnish with chives and mint leaves. PER SERVING: CALORIES 313; PROTEIN 14g; CARBOHYDRATE 45g; TOTAL FAT 11.4g; SATURATED FAT 1.9g; SODIUM 153mg; FIBER 11.6g; BETA-CAROTENE 4496mcg; VITAMIN C 39mg; CALCIUM 192mg; IRON 9mg; FOLATE 210mcg; MAGNESIUM 156mg; ZINC 3mg; SELENIUM 8.1mcg
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Joel Fuhrman (The End of Heart Disease: The Eat to Live Plan to Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease (Eat for Life))
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Golden Austrian Cauliflower Cream Soup Serves: 4 1 head cauliflower, cut into pieces 3 carrots, coarsely chopped 1 cup coarsely chopped celery 2 leeks, coarsely chopped 2 cloves garlic, minced 2 tablespoons VegiZest* or other no-salt seasoning blend, adjusted to taste 2 cups carrot juice 4 cups water ½ teaspoon nutmeg 1 cup raw cashews 5 cups chopped kale leaves or baby spinach Place all ingredients except cashews and kale in a pot. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes or until the vegetables are just tender. In a food processor or high-powered blender, blend half of the soup liquid and vegetables with the cashews until smooth and creamy and return to the pot. Finely chop the kale or spinach and add to the pot; simmer for 10 more minutes. PER SERVING: CALORIES 369; PROTEIN 15g; CARBOHYDRATE 48g; TOTAL FAT 16.7g; SATURATED FAT 1.6g; SODIUM 238mg; FIBER 18.1g; BETA-CAROTENE 17,409mcg; VITAMIN C 104mg; CALCIUM 359mg; IRON 4.5mg; FOLATE 233mcg; MAGNESIUM 149mg; ZINC 2.4mg; SELENIUM 3.5mcg
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Joel Fuhrman (The End of Heart Disease: The Eat to Live Plan to Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease (Eat for Life))
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I didn’t want anything that would stink up the small space. No feta cheese or heavy garlic. We wouldn’t have a table, so nothing that required silverware. Soup was out of the question. I didn’t want anything crunchy since it would be amplified in the tiny room. No apples or chips. I finally decided on a sandwich—no onions and no spinach in case it got stuck in my teeth—with a fruit cup.
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Abby Jimenez (Yours Truly (Part of Your World, #2))
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This diet of Elizabeth Arden is very good. I have gone down between 5 and 7 pounds already living on salads, egg at night, meat once a day, fish if I want, spinach and soup. Wait to [sic] you see me. I will be thin when Jack sees me.” In spite of the pressure from home to conform both physically and intellectually, Rosemary flourished under the Assumption school’s individual instruction, constant reinforcement, repetitious exercises, and emotional support, a program better suited to Rosemary’s needs than that of any other institution she had attended.
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Kate Clifford Larson (Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter)
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HEARTY MINESTRONE SOUP SERVES 3 1 tablespoon olive oil 1 small yellow onion, chopped 1 cup diced carrots 1 cup diced celery 1 cup diced zucchini 2 garlic cloves, minced 1 teaspoon minced fresh thyme 1 (14-ounce) can chopped tomatoes 3 to 4 cups chicken stock 1 bay leaf 1½ teaspoons salt, plus more to taste ½ teaspoon pepper ½ can white beans, drained and rinsed 2 to 3 large handfuls of fresh baby spinach 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice In a large pan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onion, carrots, and celery and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, until the veggies begin to soften. Add the zucchini, garlic, and thyme and cook for another 3 to 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes, 3 cups of the stock, the bay leaf, 1½ teaspoons salt, and the pepper and stir to combine. Bring the soup to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer uncovered for 20 minutes. Discard the bay leaf. Add the beans and heat through. Add more stock if needed. Just before serving, add the spinach and stir until wilted. Stir in the lemon juice and add salt to taste. Ladle into a bowl and serve.
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Jen Widerstrom (Diet Right for Your Personality Type: The Revolutionary 4-Week Weight-Loss Plan That Works for You)
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Day 5 BREAKFAST Banana Cashew Lettuce Wrap* LUNCH Huge salad with assorted vegetables and bottled low-sodium/ no-oil dressing, flavored vinegar, or Orange Sesame Dressing* Leftover White Bean and Kale Soup* or low-sodium purchased vegetable bean soup One fresh or frozen fruit. Try apples or peaches dipped in Ceylon cinnamon. Ceylon cinnamon doesn’t have the high levels of potentially liver-damaging coumarin that cassia cinnamon has. DINNER Raw vegetables with Super Simple Hummus* or bottled low-sodium/ no-oil dressing Portobellos and Beans* Fresh or frozen cooked spinach or other vegetable One fresh or frozen fruit. Try semi-defrosted frozen mango. It’s fantastic!
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Joel Fuhrman (The End of Dieting: How to Live for Life (Eat for Life))
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In ten minutes I am at the massive Whole Foods on Kingsbury. I go to the salad bar. I fill containers with carrots, celery, sliced onions, shredded cabbage, chopped tomatoes. Garbanzo beans and corn. Shredded chicken, peas, chopped cauliflower, and broccoli. Baby spinach leaves. Cooked barley. I check out, with my three salad bar containers, and head back toward home. I stop at La Boulangerie and pick up a baguette. I get home and don't even take my coat off. I get out one of my big stock pots, and dump all three containers into the pot. From the pantry, a jar of Rao's marinara. From the freezer, a container of homemade chicken stock. I don't even bother to thaw it, I just plop it like an iceberg into the pot. Salt, pepper, and pepper flakes for heat. I crank the heat to medium, give it a stir and leave it.
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Stacey Ballis (Out to Lunch)
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LOW-HISTAMINE SUBSTITUTES Instead of . . . Choose . . . Refined sugar Maple sugar or maple syrup Vinegar-based salad dressing Olive oil with sea salt Cheese Macadamia-nut butter Wheat Rice, oats, or corn (yeast-free) Coffee Chamomile tea Alcohol Smoothies Pepper or chili Seasoning with sea salt and oregano, garlic, sage, or rosemary Wheat cereal Oatmeal with maple syrup Wheat pasta Brown-rice pasta or brown rice Processed milks that contain pesticides, carrageenan, and other additives Macadamia milk (in a blender, blend macadamia nuts or macadamia-nut butter with water; oat milk and rice milk are also healthful and low in histamine, provided they are free of preservatives, carrageenan, and other additives) Spinach or arugula Kale or other lettuces Eggplant Squash A candy bar A brown-rice cake with maple syrup and macadamia-nut butter Canned soups Fresh vegetable soup, made with filtered water, pureed vegetables, garlic, and salt
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Doreen Virtue (Don't Let Anything Dull Your Sparkle: How to Break free of Negativity and Drama)
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She decided to make salmon baked in a touch of olive oil, topped with pine nuts, and served over spinach flash-fried in the salmon-and-olive-oil drippings. She added brown rice that she had slow-boiled with the herb hawthorn. Just as she finished, Cordelia arrived with a woman she had found standing in the sidewalk out front.
"My husband has high blood pressure," she explained, negotiating the stairs down into Portia's apartment with care. "He's never happy with anything I make for supper, so I should tell you that you probably don't have anything that will work for me."
Cordelia took a look at the meal, raised an eyebrow at Portia, and then turned to the woman. "This is the perfect meal for your husband's high blood pressure. Fish oil, nuts, hawthorn, whole grains."
Next, a pumpkin pie went to a woman who couldn't sleep.
"Pie?" she asked in a doubtful tone.
"Pumpkin," Portia clarified, "is good for insomnia."
An apricot crumble spiced with cloves and topped with oats and brown sugar went to a woman drawn with stress. Then a man walked through the door, shoulders slumped. Cordelia and Olivia eyed him for a second.
"I know the feeling," Olivia said, and fetched him a half gallon of the celery and cabbage soup Portia had found herself preparing earlier.
The man peered into the container, grew a tad queasier, and said, "No thanks."
"Do you or don't you have a hangover?" Olivia demanded, then drew a breath. "Really," she added more kindly. "Eat this and you'll feel better."
He came back the next day for more.
"Cabbage is no cure for drinking too much," Cordelia told him.
He just shrugged and slapped down his money for two quarts of soup instead of one.
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Linda Francis Lee (The Glass Kitchen)
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All that preamble out of way, here’s what Big Dom eats. Keep in mind that he weighs roughly 100 kg (220 lbs), so scale as needed: Breakfast 4 eggs (cooked in a combo of butter and coconut oil) 1 can of sardines packed in olive oil (such as Wild Planet brand) ½ can oysters (Crown Prince brand. Note: Carbs on the label are from non-glycemic phytoplankton) Some asparagus or other vegetable TF: Both Dom and I travel with boxes of sardines, oysters, and bulk macadamia nuts. “Lunch” Instead of lunch, Dom will consume a lot of MCT throughout the day via Quest Nutrition MCT Oil Powder. He will also make a Thermos of coffee with a half stick of butter and 1 to 2 scoops of MCT powder, which he sips throughout the day, totaling about 3 cups of coffee. Dinner “One trick I’ve learned is that before dinner, which is my main meal of the day, I’ll have a bowl of soup, usually broccoli cream soup or cream of mushroom soup. I use concentrated coconut milk in place of the dairy cream. I thin it out [with a bit of water] so it’s not super dense in calories. After eating that, the amount of food that I want to consume is cut in half.” Dom’s dinner is always some kind of large salad, typically made up of: Mixed greens and spinach together Extra-virgin olive oil Artichokes Avocado MCT oil A little bit of Parmesan or feta cheese A moderate amount—about 50 g—of chicken, beef, or fish. He uses the fattiest versions he can get and increases the protein in the salad to 70 to 80 g if he had a workout that day. In addition to the salad, Dom will make some other vegetable like Brussels sprouts, asparagus, collard greens, etc., cooked in butter and coconut oil. He views vegetables as “fat delivery systems.
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Timothy Ferriss (Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers)
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The menu was full of classic American cuisine—bone-in ribeyes with garlic mashed potatoes, cedar plank salmon served with risotto and drizzled with lemon butter, smoked sausage, venison medallions, and game hens served with grilled vegetables and wild rice. Free-range herb roasted chicken with roasted potatoes. Porterhouse steaks, seared and served with steak fries and creamed spinach. Sweet corn soup topped with fresh herbs. To finish it off, dark chocolate cake layered with velvety ganache and served with a side of vanilla ice cream. Rustic wood beams
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Tripp Ellis (Wild Alpine: A Coastal Caribbean Adventure (Tyson Wild Thriller Book 61))
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Phase I Shopping List For smoothies: 5 red apples 5 small bananas 3 medium oranges 1 bag red or green grapes 5 pears 3 avocados (can use for soups, too) 1 bunch fresh spinach 3 limes 4 (10- or 12-ounce) bags frozen raspberries 2 (10- or 12-ounce) bags frozen blueberries 2 (16-ounce) bags frozen strawberries 1 (16-ounce) bag almonds (can also use for snacking) Ground cinnamon Almonds or 1 (16-ounce) bag almond meal, depending on the strength of your blender Plain or vanilla protein powder (see this page for a complete guide to buying protein powder) 1 (12-ounce) bag ground or whole flaxseeds or chia seeds, depending on the strength of your blender (Some, like the blenders I describe on this page, will be able to grind the seeds themselves. Less powerful machines might require ground seeds.) ½ gallon fat-free, 1 percent, or 2 percent organic milk (or unsweetened nondairy milk of your preference) 1 quart fat-free, 1 percent, or 2 percent plain Greek yogurt (Chobani, Oikos, Fage, Trader Joe’s, Siggi’s, or Icelandic Skyr) For soups: 1 head broccoli 2 medium zucchini 1 pound carrots (can be used for snacking, too) 1 box bouillon cubes (I prefer Knorr’s) Garlic powder Onion powder For snacks: 1 pint fresh blackberries or raspberries 1 small package high-fiber crackers, like Ryvita ½ pound low-fat cheese of your choice 1 (5-or-so-ounce) bag air-popped, low-cal popcorn 1 pound sliced turkey 1 (12-ounce) package frozen or fresh peeled edamame
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Harley Pasternak (The Body Reset Diet: Power Your Metabolism, Blast Fat, and Shed Pounds in Just 15 Days)
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After a meal of yogurt soup, duck with pomegranate and walnut sauce over barley, stewed spinach, and baked apples, they could move to her receiving room and enjoy wine in the comfort of a more private setting.
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Jill Eileen Smith (Star of Persia: (An Inspirational Retelling about Queen Esther))
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Gus took a deep breath, taking in the wondrous scent of fresh herbs, ran her eyes over the stalls of red and yellow tulips and the tables mounded with ramps, asparagus, sorrel, chives, and mushrooms. Farther along she could make out the crisp spring lettuces, the romaine and spinach and what was known as a merlot, with its wonderful ruffled edges and bright green ribs. Gus longed to crunch on a few baby carrots, dreamed of giving them a quick blanch and a dab of butter and parsley. Yum!
She wanted a chance to wander through the crowd, imagining how she'd put together an early spring vegetable soup, and savor a cup of tea as she people-watched the comings and goings of the green market.
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Kate Jacobs (Comfort Food)
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To our surprise and delight, dinner was stupendous. Served in our room at the low polished wood table, it exuded a freshness and artistry we had not seen since leaving Kyoto. The sashimi- sea bream, squid, and skipjack- tasted as clean as a freshly sliced apple. Rusty-red miso soup had a meaty fortifying flavor enhanced with cubes of tofu and slithery ribbons of seaweed. The tempura, served in a basket of woven bamboo, shattered to pieces like a well-made croissant. Hiding inside the golden shell was a slice of Japanese pumpkin, a chunk of tender white fish, an okra pod, a shiitake mushroom cap, and a zingy shiso leaf.
Pale yellow chawan-mushi also appeared in a lidded glass custard cup. With a tiny wooden spoon we scooped up the ethereal egg and dashi custard cradling chunks of shrimp, sweet lily buds, and waxy-green ginkgo nuts.
In a black lacquer bowl came a superb seafood consommé, along with a knuckle of white fish, tuft of spinach, mushroom cap, and a tiny yellow diamond of yuzu zest. A small lacquer bucket held several servings of sticky white rice to eat with crunchy radish pickles and shredded pressed cabbage. A small wedge of honeydew melon concluded the meal.
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Victoria Abbott Riccardi (Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto)
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Every day, I eat a bowl of veggie soup, drink veggie juice, and eat pâté made out of the post-juicing pulp mixed with garlic, lemon juice, kale, spinach, and avocado. I serve it on bananas and other fruits so it looks like sushi. But my favorite concoction, which I created three years ago, is a medley of cabbage, onion, avocado, and pear. It’s incredibly delicious, extremely healthy, and fast to prepare. This dish also gave me a deep insight about eating: there was no way to make food better than this. I felt pride and a surge of energy, realizing that I actually ate the best in the world.
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Timothy Ferriss (Tribe Of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World)
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This is Giselda’s recipe: Acquacotta from the Maremma Ingredients: Two or three large onions; green vegetables (like cabbage or spinach); tomatoes; one egg per person, toasted bread, some grated pecorino cheese. Put a generous amount of good olive oil from the Maremma into a big pan. Add two or three large onions sliced up and gently fry them. Then turn down the heat and cook until the onions almost go mushy. Add tomatoes cut into pieces and continue to cook, adding herbs such as basil, and some chopped-up celery. When this has all cooked add water (but if there is good broth available, this is better). Boil for fifteen minutes. Fry some toasted slices of bread in a frying pan and sprinkle grated pecorino cheese on top. Add one egg per person (making sure they don’t all join together, so break them into the pan gently). After about one or two minutes, when the eggs begin to set, remove the pan from the fire. Pour the soup into dishes and put the bread and egg on top. We all LOVED the scrummy sweet Fritelle di San Giuseppe that we finished off supper with. Ingredients: Two glasses of water; two dessert spoons of very good olive oil; three dessert spoons of sugar; 250 grams of wheat flour; two whole eggs; one sachet of vanilla sugar (one gram); a pinch of salt; half a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda, the grated zest of one lemon. In a pan, heat up water, sugar, salt, grated lemon zest and the oil. When it is boiling, remove from the heat and add all the flour immediately and all in one go. Stir very well and until well mixed (this will take about ten minutes). Leave the mix to cool down and then add both eggs one at a time. Mix well. ONLY AT THIS STAGE, add the bicarbonate of soda and vanilla and mix again for another two or three minutes. Pour plenty of oil into a frying pan and heat to boiling point and throw in the mix little by little (about the size of a large walnut). Fry – if the mixture has been properly prepared, it will swell in size immediately – and turn it with a fork so it cooks evenly. Remove from the heat and toss it in sugar immediately and then put on a cloth (to absorb extra fat) and eat when still warm and never cold!
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Angela Petch (A Tuscan Memory)
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Dr. Cabot’s Liver Healing Soup Recipe Serves 6 - 8 8 cups water miso and/or tamari to taste 3 tablespoons of cold pressed olive oil 2 sweet potatoes, chopped 3 tomatoes, chopped 2 carrots, chopped 2 leeks, washed and sliced 1 bunch spinach (fresh or frozen), chopped 2 stalks of celery (including the tops), chopped 2 large brown onions, chopped 1 inch (2.5cm) finely chopped and peeled ginger root 2 cloves garlic, minced (optional) 1 bunch sliced kale or beet greens 1 cup cooked beans or lentils Add small amounts of celery seed, turmeric, pepper and miso (or tamari) to taste optional added extra ingredients: 2 - 3 fresh artichoke hearts 2 cups shiitake mushrooms fresh or reconstituted sliced 1 whole reishi mushroom (remove when cooked) ¼ cup arame or wakame seaweed chopped Although these 4 ingredients are traditionally very good for the liver and the immune system, not everyone likes these things, so if they really do not appeal to you, leave some or all of them out. In a large saucepan add the oil and bring to a moderate to high heat. Add the celery (plus tops), ginger root, turmeric, tomato, potato, carrots, onions, celery seed and garlic and some pepper. Stir continuously so the vegetables do not stick to the bottom. When the vegetables begin to brown, carefully add the water with miso/tamari to taste. Bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer. Add the lentils/beans and stir. If using these, add the seaweed, mushrooms and artichoke hearts. Simmer for about 2 hours. Add the kale and beet greens 15 minutes before you serve. If present, remove the reishi mushrooms. Stir in the miso/tamari to taste. Serve alone or with a side salad and one slice crusty wholemeal bread.
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Thomas Eanelli (Fatty Liver: You Can Reverse It)
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L'AMUSE-BOUCHE
Strawberry Gazpacho served in Chinese Spoons, garnished with Deep-Fried Goat Cheese and Basil
L'ENTRÉE
Zucchini Cakes with Lemon Prawns and Braised Wild Asparagus, garnished with Edible Flowers
OU
Cream of Wild Asparagus Soup
OU
Roasted Cauliflower and Beets with Capers, served over Spinach in a White Wine Lemon Sauce
LE PLAT PRINCIPAL
Drunk Shrimp, Flambéed in Cognac, served over a Terrine of Tomatoes, Avocado, Strawberries, and Creamy Lemon Risotto
OU
Confit du Canard, served with Roasted Baby Carrots and Sweet Sautéed Radishes
OU
Bœuf en Croute with Foie Gras and Mushrooms, served with Grilled Wild Asparagus and Sweet Sautéed Radishes
LA SALADE ET LE FROMAGE
Strawberries and Wild Asparagus, served over Arugula with a White Wine Vinaigrette
Selection of the Château's Cheeses
LE DESSERT
Crème Brûlée with a Trio of Strawberries and Cognac
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Samantha Verant (The Secret French Recipes of Sophie Valroux (Sophie Valroux #1))
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SPINACH-ARTICHOKE HUMMUS Creamy texture, pretty green color, and assertive taste—this dip has it all! SERVES 8 | ¼ cup per serving 2 ounces spinach (about 2 cups) 1 cup canned no-salt-added chickpeas, rinsed and drained 4 medium canned artichoke hearts, rinsed, squeezed dry, and quartered ¼ cup Chicken Broth or commercial fat-free, low-sodium chicken broth 2 tablespoons shredded or grated Parmesan cheese ½ teaspoon grated lemon zest 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice 2 tablespoons tahini 1 to 2 medium garlic cloves, minced ¼ teaspoon pepper In a food processor or blender, process all the ingredients until the desired consistency. Serve at room temperature or cover and refrigerate until needed. COOK’S TIP ON TAHINI Tahini is a thick paste made from ground sesame seeds. Add small amounts to enhance salad dressings, marinades, soups, stuffings, and other dips and spreads. Look for tahini in the condiment or ethnic sections in the grocery store. PER SERVING calories 101 total fat 3.5 g saturated 0.5 g trans 0.0 g polyunsaturated 1.5 g monounsaturated 1.5 g cholesterol 1 mg sodium 89 mg carbohydrates 13 g fiber 4 g sugars 2 g protein 5 g calcium 40 mg potassium 188 mg dietary exchanges 1 starch ½ lean meat
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American Heart Association (American Heart Association Low-Salt Cookbook: A Complete Guide to Reducing Sodium and Fat in Your Diet)
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Acqua cotta from the Maremma Ingredients: Two or three large onions; green vegetables (like cabbage or spinach); tomatoes; one egg per person, toasted bread, some grated pecorino cheese. Put a generous amount of good olive oil from the Maremma into a big pan. Add 2 or 3 large onions sliced up and gently fry them. Then turn down the heat and cook until the onions almost go mushy. Add tomatoes cut into pieces and continue to cook, adding herbs such as basil, and some chopped up celery. When this has all cooked add water (but if there is good broth available, this is better). Boil for 15 minutes. Fry some toasted slices of bread in a frying pan and sprinkle grated Pecorino cheese on top. Add one egg per person (making sure they don’t all join together, so break them into the pan gently). After about one or two minutes, when the eggs begin to set, remove the pan from the fire. Pour the soup into dishes and put the bread and egg on top.
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Angela Petch (A Tuscan Memory: Italian journeys)
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What is it?" Her interest piqued by the heavenly aroma.
"Delicious," I said. I could have told her it was soup made up of parsley, spinach, dill, sautéed onions, thin noodles, chickpeas, kidney beans, dried yogurt, dried mint, garlic, oil, and salt, but why spoil the surprise?
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Sara Farizan (Hungry Hearts: 13 Tales of Food & Love)
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butternut squash soup Serves 2 Prep Time: 15 minutes Cook Time: 30 minutes Total Time: 45 minutes 3 tablespoons clarified butter, ghee, or coconut oil ½ cup diced onion 3 cups diced seeded peeled butternut squash 2 cloves garlic, minced ½ teaspoon ground ginger 4 cups chicken broth 1 teaspoon salt ½ teaspoon black pepper Not sure how much squash to buy for this recipe? Generally, a 2-pound butternut squash yields 3 cups once the seeds are removed, but don’t stress about having slightly more or less squash than the recipe calls for—this one is pretty forgiving. You can also buy pre-cut butternut squash and save yourself the guess work and 10 minutes of prep time, but that’ll definitely add to your grocery bill. In a large pot, melt the cooking fat over medium heat, swirling to coat the bottom of the pot. When the fat is hot, add the onion and cook, stirring, until translucent, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the squash, garlic, and ginger and stir until the garlic becomes aromatic, about 1 minute. Add the chicken broth and bring to a boil over high heat. Boil until the butternut squash is soft, about 10 minutes. Remove the pot from the heat. In one or two batches, transfer the soup to a food processor or blender and blend on high speed until smooth in texture. Return the pureed soup to the pot. Heat the soup over medium-high heat until it thickens enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon, 7 to 10 minutes. Season with the salt and pepper. Make It a Meal: To make this a complete meal, add cooked chicken, scallops, or hard-boiled eggs when returning the soup to the pot for the last 7 to 10 minutes of cooking. For extra greens, add two generous handfuls of spinach or kale in the last 3 minutes of cooking. ✪Prepping Squash Peeling and dicing squash isn’t that tough if you have the right
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Melissa Urban (The Whole30: The 30-Day Guide to Total Health and Food Freedom)