Don’t just eat your veggies, eat them early
CORNWALL COOKBOOK AUTHOR LOOKS AT BREAKFAST A LITTLE DIFFERENTLY
“E verything we feed our body matters,” says Cornwall resident Nancy Wolfson-Moche, author of a new cookbook that invites us to transform ourselves, “breakfast by breakfast, meal by meal.”
“Vegetables for Breakfast from A to Z: Change your breakfast, Change your life,” couldn’t have come out at a better time. It’s no secret people have been cooking at home more because of the pandemic. There’s also more concern about strong immune systems and health, in general.
But the pandemic isn’t what led to this recipe book, which is filled with beautiful pictures and details on everything from where certain vegetables come from to how their nutrients fuel our bodies.
“The book was inspired by the truly miraculous transformation in my own life,” says Wolfson-Moche, who married in her early 40s and tried, unsuccessfully, to have children. When specialists told her she had “almost zero chance of getting pregnant,” what seemed like awful news “was actually a blessing in disguise.”
Her research led her to Denny Waxman, a macrobiotic counselor. “He told me he wasn’t sure he could help me make my eggs viable, but he could help me get stronger and turn back my biological clock. I began following his recommendations which were as much about how to eat and live as what to eat; I watched my hormone levels change each month.”
Part of the plan was to eat a separate vegetable dish and whole grain dish with each meal. “Eating vegetables for breakfast was the biggest challenge for me, having spent a good part of my life in Italy and loving the cornetto (Italian croissant) with cappuccino breakfast! After a full year of eating vegetables for breakfast, as well as sitting down to three regular meals daily and having a regular sleep schedule, I conceived my first daughter.”
Wolfson-Moche wanted to understand how her body had been able to change so effectively, so she became a certified macrobiotic counselor and a teacher. That led to an online blog and this cookbook ($19.95, Pomegranate Gallery Press).
“I thought about what change in my own diet had affected me the most, and I realized it was probably eating a vegetable for breakfast each morning. In the book I dig deep into each vegetable, including its nutrients, botanical history and folklore.” Now a mother of two, she shared more via email.
Q: Some people go to a market, look around and think, “I have no idea what some of these vegetables are, or how to prepare them.” If you could get inside their head for a minute, what would you say?
A: I would say go to a farmers market and ask lots of questions. Farmers generally know a lot about the vegetables they’re growing, and have tried cooking and eating them in many different ways.
I have created some of my best dishes by being adventurous and substituting one veggie for another. For example, I used to make a winter squash soup from onions, carrots, winter squash and potatoes. One day I was cooking it and realized I didn’t have potatoes. I mean the soup was on the stove and I had a baby sleeping. So I looked in my fridge and found some cauliflower. It’s white and somewhat dense like a potato. I tried it and it took the soup to a whole new level of deliciousness!
If you’re using a recipe, remember it’s a guide. If you go to the market and find the ingredient you’re looking for looking sad and wilted, don’t buy it. Substitute something similar.
Q: We’ve all heard breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but many still skip it. What do these folks need to hear?
A: Breakfast is literally that: You break the longest fast in your 24hour eating cycle. The nutrients you eat enter an emptier, cleaner environment than your other meals; you’re creating the foundation for the rest of the meals you eat that day. So, you want the content to be good quality, absorbable and nutrient-dense. When setting the foundation, you’re prepping your palate for the day. If you eat a sweet breakfast, your palate will expect more sweets. If your breakfast includes a range of flavors, your palate will expect and be satisfied with a range of flavors...
Q: You’ve said, “Every seven to 10 years the cells replace themselves, and we are changed.” So, clearly what we eat IS important. To those who say, “Yeah, but I don’t really like most vegetables,” what might change their mind?
A: I have two answers and approaches here. First, start with foolproof, crowd-pleaser kinds of veggie dishes. I’ve never served the parsnip curls to anyone who didn’t love them. Ditto the (ruta)baga chips. Both of these dishes taste like potato chips, yet are more more nutrient-rich; they’re a way of introducing a new veggie with new flavor in a more familiar way (a chip). This is a way to acclimate the palate to new foods. This is perhaps why kale chips became so popular: People felt good about eating kale, and loved the crispy chips.
I actually prefer a more straightforward approach for people who say they don’t really like most vegetables. I offer them a deep green, unmistakably vegetable dish and see how surprised they are by its delicious taste. Water-sauteed mustard greens is a simple, quick dish that may be highly underrated. First, many think you need to saute in oil. Not. Sauteeing in water is lighter and cleaner in the morning.
Q: What is most surprising or important about this book?
A: It’s a new approach to eating breakfast. Rather than thinking about it as what to eat with your coffee, I encourage readers to see breakfast as an opportunity to frame or set the tone for the day, both physically/digestively and spiritually.