Pamela Salzman - Kitchen Matters: More than 100 Recipes and Tips to Transform the Way You Cook and Eat--Wholesome, Nourishing, Unforgettable

Pamela makes healthy cooking accessible, easy, and most importantly delicious! She takes your favorite dishes (and ones that are sure to become new favorites) and infuses them with everything your body wants and needs. This is a cookbook that every family needs.

NIKKI DINKI, COOKING CHANNEL HOST, AUTHOR OF MEAT ON THE SIDE

Pamela Salzman is the guru when it comes to all things healthy cooking! Her recipes are modern, fresh, and full of organic and nutritionally dense foods that nourish the body and taste beyond delicious. Anyone whos looking to up their kitchen game, for better nutrition, more flavor, or just a dose of something new, shes got you covered. Whether youre feeding yourself or your whole family her meals will be a HUGE hit with everyone, even the pickiest of eaters.

LORI BREGMAN, AUTHOR OF THE MINDFUL MOM-TO-BE

One of the first questions I ask a group of new cooking class students is, What do you want to be? And most of them have the same response: they want to feel positive, happy, sharp, energetic, light on their feet. Some of them want to return to their ideal weight, and pretty much everyone wants to have bright eyes and clear skin. Thats all reasonableand doable, if we can eat to support that and not eat foods that work against how we all want to be.

Unfortunately, heres the reality check: food and nutrition have become very complicated; there are so many experts touting conflicting ideas and lifestyles. And we have strayed so far away from simple, nutritious food that we dont even know what that means anymore! Almost three-quarters of the country is overweight and junk food is the largest source of calories in the American diet. But its no fault of the average person that there is so much confusion around what is healthful and what isnt, what to eat and what to avoid. Food manufacturers use deceptive advertising to dupe us into thinking their products are natural or wholesome when theyre anything but. Junk food is subsidized by the government to make it artificially cheap. Cooking is not a skill that is taught at home the way it used to be. Our lives are incredibly busy and hectic, leaving us with less free time.

I get it. I work full-time and I have three busy kids. But I had a pretty amazing foundation: my parents believed in cooking simple meals from scratch, growing organic vegetables in the backyard, and insisting on dinner together every night. We spent our Sundays surrounded by extended family and bright, vibrant platters of vegetables cooked straight from the garden, warm bowls of rustic pasta with homemade sauce, fork-tender meats, and crisp, colorful salads. I couldnt stay out of the kitchen, whether it was helping with dinner prep or wearing out the pages of the latest Gourmet magazine. I taught myself how to cook by observing closely, reading everything I could get my hands on, and getting really messy in the kitchen. Everything we cooked was very simple, but always homemade. But we were certainly not perfect and ate our fair share of (not whole-grain) pasta, bread, and (a lot of) cheese. We had normal (sugar-laden) birthday cakes and soda on special occasions. We didnt overthink food.

Getting married and having children was when I changed the way I looked at food. Once I had other human beings to feed, I started to connect the dots between food and nutrition. I went back to school to learn as much as I could about more healthful eating and slowly began to make changes in our pantry, how I cooked, and what we ate. The majority of my friends werent on the same journey; they had the idea that cookingbe it for one person or twentywas intimidating. But they were curious, eager to learn, and wanted me to share some of my recipes. Soon, I was giving tips on how to sweeten with dates, swap unhealthy fats for coconut oil, and use lentils in place of ground meat; I shared how I organized my pantry and navigated the farmers market.

I knew then that I wanted to give other parents a fresh start in the kitchen and to help get their families eating well. My prospective students had one wishto teach them how I did it. It was making three nutritious meals a day for my family, including a very picky son, without a lot of stress. This became the foundation for my cooking classes and my blog and eventually turned into a full-time business.

Over the last decade, I have taught people from all walks of life. I have been in hundreds of home kitchens. I talk to dozens of (mostly) parents every day, fielding questions about everything from picky eaters to allergies to how to boil water (really!). What has become very clear to me is that we all basically want the same thing: we want to live our best lives, be healthy, feel happy, connect with our children and one another.

My students have come to my cooking classes wanting to learn and do better. I have never criticized anyone for what was in her pantry or how many meals she cooked last week. Perfection is stressful, overrated, and unattainable. So, you made a frozen pizza for dinner last night? No big deal. So, you made a frozen pizza every night last month? Then Im glad you have this book! The important point is that its what you do most of the time that really matters.

Every individual and every family is unique. Theres no judgment anywhere in this book, so dont ever feel bad about doing your best.