A Comforting Cookbook The Pinewood Kitchen

These are the times for comfort food , that's both soothing and comforting. A new cookbook, My Pinewood Kitchen: A Southern Culinary Cure (Health Communications 2020) may be the small antidote we need right now. There are some tasty dishes that can help us cope.

Mee MCCormick wrote this fascinating book which offers all sorts of recipes that can help with boosting the immune system. She herself has had an interesting life full of highs and lows. In th e meanwhile she wound up with such debilitating conditions as Hashimoto's disease , celiac disease and rheumatoid arthritis. Her recipes for Pinewood Kitchens, part of a farm, started by Samuel Graham, a free thinking farmer in the 1830. He created a kind of utopia where all men and women were equal in rural Tennessee. Chef McCormack brings her health background into her cooking and into the book. There are sections on the importance of adding berries and nuts into the diet and how they can help the body . another section, which many cooks and chefs ignore, is devoted to seaweed. She also emphasizes the importance of probiotic foods such as kimchi and sauerkraut and how they're very important in a diet. The many recipes reflect this.Chef McCormick also weighs in on sugar and what you can use in it's place - namely honey or coconut sugar , the last contains such nutrients as  zinc, iron , and calcium. She also recommends  monk fruit sugar It 's an all natural sugar first made by Buddhist monks in Southeast Asia and has no calories or carbs.

I like this cookbook a lot. There are sections from breakfasts (which comes later in the book) along ones on soups, main courses, sides and dips. The vegetarian ones are great for those cooking in a meat free home kitchen. The tempeh bacon is especially appealing , because it can also be made into a crunchy snack. It'll would also work well with Chef McCormick's falafel burger recipe. Since this is a Southern cookbook, there is a recipe for fried chicken. It's a healthier version sans the flour, being dipped in cornstarch for the crispiness. Cayenne and paprika give it color and bite. There are also collard greens along with black eyed pea croquettes, a different spin on the Southern classic. Okra is also here in fritter, roasted and pickled forms. She celebrates her Italian heritage with a tomato free (!) sauce for pasta. Miso or tamari along with kuzo root and umbeboshi vinegar give it that rich taste. Chef Mc Cormick does like tomatoes and she has an excellent tomato soup recipe, a perfect balm for these times. The breakfast recipes are interesting too, especially the breakfast tacos, made with scallions and zucchini along with bacon and eggs. Her breakfast smoothies  are rich with fruits and berries along with mushroom powder used to boost the immune system. I like the gluten free desserts, which are her family's pignoli  or pine nut cookies to a spin on the Southern classic pecan pie. She also had a healthier version of pumpkin pie too.

We need  healthy comfort food during these troubling and crazy times. Mee McCormick's My Pinewood Kitchen : A Southern Culinary Cure is just that. She provides us with great recipes that are good for our bodies and souls.

Can Food Unite Us?

Today is Martin Luther King Day, a day for unity and inclusiveness. Unfortunately we don't have that thanks to a racist and divisive administration. That task now falls to us. How do we unite? Over a good meal or even just a coffee.

Now , more than ever we have to sit down with neighbors, coworkers, and our kids" classmates and teachers. Churches, synagogues and mosques have to gather together as well. The best way is through a meal or even a bake sale. Schools should offer Saturday luncheons or dinners where parents and kids can get together and bring up topics from bullying to prejudice. The meals don't have to be elaborate. A pot luck menu can be arranged with everyone following religious dietary laws  as well as being sensitive to vegans and those prone to food allergies.Another great food idea is that the families bring their traditional dishes so others can expand their palates. Kids can experience dal or kimchi as well as understanding why going meatless is so important to vegetarian classmates.It's also a good time to bring out the fruits and veggies and have parents start a dialog about healthier school lunches.The same idea can be applied to places of worship.It's an important  idea to expand not only the palates  of older members but  also broaden their horizons. The more they know about a religion, the less they are to judge and pigeonhole.

This same idea can be applied to the town's police forces as well.Many throughout inner cities and even some suburban towns regard the police with suspicion. It's time to come together with a lunch or dinner at a community center or school. Again, this creates an open dialog for all sorts of subjects. It also gives kids a chance to see cops not as their enemy, but as people  just like them. Towns can definitely give this a try , especially during the warmer months.Many municipalities do have a Memorial Day or Fourth of July picnic where everyone gathers over hot dogs and soda. They should have this once or twice a month  from May to October. These would  unite a town. Again volunteers can make various foods from their backgrounds to create an all inclusive internationally driven get together.A forgotten group of our society is our elderly. Nursing homes would welcome the community to come and share a meal with their residents. It also is a boost for the young because they get a first hand look at people who have made history and lived during some of its' most memorable times.

Can a meal help unite us? Most assuredly yes. It's just a question of planning an all inclusive lunch or dinner where all are invited.

Be Your Most Adventurous Self This New Year

What advice can be given to home chefs and bakers on this New Year's Eve?. Be bold. Be daring in the New Year! Broaden your culinary horizons. I know I will and it's going to be a wild, fun trip into the culinary unknown.

This is the year to be bold. Experiment. The worst thing that can happen is that the dish doesn;t come out well. Then tweak it. Don't be afraid. Dare. If you want to try meringues , then do so. Yearning to make that pineapple upside down cake or Dr. Pepper ribs, then do it. If there's a cuisine that you've longed to study in a cooking class , then go for the classes. They're not only informational, they're fun and you'll meet like-minded home chefs that will be instant friends. Turn your kitchen into a lap where you can mix and match different and diverse flavors. Who knows? You make come up with the next hit fo the new year.

The same ideology applies to gadgets too. If you want a mandoline, then buy it. A fryer? Or that frying pan that can cook and bake anything. Definitely add them to your arsenal of kitchen tools. Invest in meat and candy thermometers. These are must haves in any kitchen. They'll even inspire you to try bigger roasts and different forms of candy.If you want that cotton candy machine, go for it. It's not just as a fun party treat, Use it to decorate cakes and cupcakes. Try to make a bacon flavored one  to test your limits.Get the apparatuses to cure bacon at home or create  kimchee  and  sauerkraut. Have your significant other build a smokehouse or curing room for your foray into cold cuts.

The New Year is your oyster. Crack it open. Serve it with hot sauce or baked spinach. Turn it into your signature dish!