Scheintaub Leda - The whole bowl : gluten-free, dairy-free soups & stews

To Nash, my husband and stock-making partner

LS

For the intention and well-being of

Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche

May all beings, as far as are the limits of the sky, be well nourished.

RW

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Introduction:
IM HUNGRY

P eople often ask me what motivated me to write The New Whole Foods Encyclopedia, the book Im most known for. I might say that it goes back to the days on my grandparents farm in Utah, where we ate with the seasons and made our bread, jams, and just about everything else from scratch. I might say it was because years back I was one of the first Westerners to write about the healing properties of whole foods and then-exotic grains, such as quinoa, Kamut, and teff. This all may be true, but the main reason I wrote the encyclopedia was that I was hungry. While I loved sharing important food wisdom and creating recipes, my underlying motivation was that I wanted everyonemyself includedto be well nourished. Thats because I was never truly satisfied with what I ateI grew up a long time before gluten and dairy sensitivities were on the radar, so it took years before I understood just why I was so hungry.

While I was growing up, Mom did all the cooking from scratch, meals cooked with love and care. But when everyone else was pleasantly full, I would still have the nibbles and be picking at the cookies while we cleaned up. This continued throughout my childhood and up into collegeI was always hungry and constantly feeding what I would later realize were wheat and dairy cravings. I stayed hungry through various dietary forays, getting high on brown rice with the hippies in the late 1960s and studying macrobiotics with Michio Kushi in Boston. Getting cancer after twenty years of macrobiotics, I returned meat to my diet as part of my natural cure. I was still hungry while I wrote The Splendid Grain working on this project, it was easy to convince myself that for professional reasons I had to keep eating wheat!

Finally, many meals and years away from my mothers table, I figured it out: I was gluten and dairy intolerantthat my intolerances had led to a whole host of symptoms, first and foremost an insatiable hunger. The other symptoms, including severe bloating, excruciatingly painful joints, bowel irregularity, and aphasia (the inability to remember words), had gotten so bad that I had no choice but to say good-bye to gluten in 1995 and, a few years later, to all dairy. And now that Ive figured it out, today I delight in satisfying meals, even-keeled mental and physical energy, and being free of the munchies! Its my pleasure to help other people restore or maintain their health the gluten- and dairy-free wayand thats why it pleases me to offer this book.

While I was working on the second edition of The New Whole Foods Encyclopedia, I was living in a town in Colorado with a year-round population of fewer than three hundred people. My publishers were sophisticated New Yorkers; they were all cordial but down to business. At one point I was given the phone number of my books managing editor, Leda Scheintaub. I remember my first, and a little nervous, call to Leda. I immediately felt at ease as she shared with me that just that morning she had made the Ginger Carrots and Hiziki recipe from my manuscript and she liked it! She was enthusiastic about my book, and I was just delighted. I soon asked her to edit articles for my website, www.RebeccaWood.com, and our friendship continues to blossom. She tells me that auspicious phone meetingthat glimpse into the world of traditional and medicinal foods and the possibility of taking her love for food to a deeper levelwas her initial inspiration to enroll in cooking school and ultimately become a cookbook author herself.

Making Stock a Habit

Our book begins with three stock recipes, which are the basis for most of our soups and stews. While any of our recipes may be made with water, we invite you to consider a stock-making habit. A good stock can be the single most important ingredient in your soup, and the health benefits of homemade stock based on bones are immense (see to learn more), something you wont want to pass up on. Making your own is really more about organization than time, as a simmering pot of stock requires but minutes of actual preparation. You may substitute a prepared stock, but before you do so, taste it. Then reconsider. Were yet to find a commercial stock that truly enhances the flavor of good ingredients. And from an energetic vantage, a canned or shelf-stable product does not impart vigor, as do fresh whole foods.

If making your own stock seems a stretch, not to worry; we generously use ingredients high in umami flavor, such as mushrooms, tomatoes, fermented foods, kombu seaweed, and lard, which act as an instant stock by adding a noticeably hearty flavor. A bonus: Recipes that call for meat on the bone, such as our very first soup recipe, Easy Chicken Soup with Spinach and Dill (), make their own stock as they cook.

Leda and I have feasted in each others homes and over a burner that we backpacked deep into the Sangre de Cristo wilderness. We explore ideas and share cooking insights, and she challenges my culinary assumptions. Leda has taken ownership of my whole food philosophy to share it with her generation. What an incalculable gift is that? In coauthoring our first book together we culled our personal favorite soup and stew recipes and then Leda managed the detailed process of turning them into a book. We share our profound wish for you to be nourished and satisfied and to delight in your kitchen creativity.

The Whole Bowl contains fifty great soup, stew, and accompaniment recipes to feed you throughout the year. It is about delighting in your daily food, and finding your way to good health as you do so. Its what fills the soup bowl every day of the gluten- and dairy-free week.

Some of the recipes have a targeted healing mission, such as the Cold Quell Soup (), and others can easily be expanded into a meal with a few simple tweaks.

Our recipes reflect our commitment to health, healing, and good taste; all are made with real food: no ersatz ingredients to try to make you feel youre eating something youre not. They are not replacements for gluten- and dairy-containing dishes, as so many current books on the subject are; they are exceptional recipes in their own right that will please lovers of good food. Theres something for everyone, from die-hard meat and potatoes people to ethnic food aficionados to the vegans among us. So pull up a spoon and dig insoups on!

RW

T heres good reason why traditional chicken soup is fondly dubbed Grandmas penicillin. Stock made of bones not only combats the flu by fortifying the immune system; it is also a classic protein-rich energy tonic that increases endurance. Bone stock also strengthens the gastrointestinal tract, veins, arteries, muscles, tendons, skin, and bones. Cooks worldwide and through the centuries have regarded silky, gelatinous bone stock as an essential ingredient for savory dishes.

How does purchased stock compare to homemade? Like cut glass to a diamond. Todays commercial gelatin is derived only from hides and skin; it is not an energy tonic. In contrast, gelatin extracted from bones is a nutritious source of protein as well as collagen, calcium, minerals, and the amino acids proline and glycine. Bone stock is a remarkably healing food.