Nealy Fischer - Food you want: for the life you crave

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One day, after leafing through my 300th cookbook, I realized I was hungry for more than just another recipe for chicken or chocolate cake, or another collection of 110 dishes and someone elses formula for success. I wanted more out of those pagesI was hungry for flexible food that satisfied the robust lifestyle I craved.

I wished a recipe would tell me what is most essential, what is absolutely necessary to create the best dish, upfront, to set me up for success. I also yearned for options. What do I do if I dont have an ingredient or the right equipment that a recipe calls for? How do I put gorgeous food on the table without slaving all day in the kitchen? I longed for a cookbook that would help feed me and my family achievable meals, our way.

So I set out to write that book. Im not interested in just teaching you how to be a cook who can follow my recipes. These pages are designed to help you obtain a simpler recipe for success, both in and out of the kitchen. Youll emerge skilled, confident, and armed with newfound creativity that honors your tastes, your dietary needs, and the preferences of those youre looking to nurture and feed.

Many of us feel bound by the standards we impose on ourselves. The unrelenting pressures of todays world can leave us desperate for a secret ingredient to change all of that. My hope is for this book to serve as a blueprint if youre tired of needing to have it allbut still desire a taste of it. After years of trial and error, Ive honed a system (and a way of cooking) that helps make each day less harried and more enjoyable. The key? Flexibility.

Flexibility is about compromisehow to give yourself a break and still come out on topin the kitchen and beyond. Theres a path available to each of us where excellence (not perfection!) is more readily achieved.

But its all easier said than done. I know. Ive been overweight, overworked, and overwhelmed by the intensity of my own life. Starving for perfection and the notion that I needed to fix myself, I went on my first diet when I was just eleven years old. I spent subsequent years following rules: adhering to strict diets and crazy workout regimens to carve a body and lifestyle that were as close to flawless as possible. If I wasnt sipping my way through the Lemonade Diet then I was crunching my way to perfection on the Carrot Diet (yes, all I ate were carrots until my palms turned orange). Ive been macrobiotic, pescatarian, vegetarian, vegan, and iterations in between. And if I fell off a diet, it was into a vat of cookie dough. Sound familiar? After years of bouncing between extremes, I had finally had enough.

My turning point toward a gentler, more constructive path came during my years of practicing and teaching yoga. (Where else do you think the term flexible came from?) The practice taught me to slow down, worry less, and appreciate more. While teaching my students how to bend, I came to understand that strength is the foundation of flexibility. We first have to be skilled in the rules, and become strong in them, in order to bend. The same principles apply to cooking.

When you think about it, the deep fulfillment we get from our day-to-day routine is intensified in those moments when were confident enough in our course to veer from it. Thats the essence of flexibility, and thats when we are truly free.

If your family is anything like mine, understanding how to swap key ingredients and throw meals together with limited time and resources is a lifesaver. Im a kale-eating woman married to a burger-loving man. I cook for four kids whose tastes range from white food only, with nothing touching anything else on the plate, to daily doses of cereals and sweets, and their preferences change as often as they change their muddy soccer shoes. Their dietary needs have been the catalyst for innovative meal planning.

When we entertain, we cater to guests with diverse tastes and dietary restrictions. If I didnt have my organized but flexible road map down pat (more on that in ), I would not feel confident enough to customize and improvise as I go. I apply years of trial and error in that realm, and have lived through and triumphed over some pretty crazy food challenges, including ingredient swapping across continents, raising four children in Asia, and keeping myself and my family healthy while juggling business, motherhood, and marriage.

These pages are infused with craveable global recipes inspired by our life in Asia and Israel, summertime on a ranch in Montana, my Jewish heritage, as well as my curiosity and culinary travels. Recipes often include complementary opposites that combine to create something thats uniquely yours (think Thai spring rolls dipped in Mediterranean tahiniwhy not?). Youll find the food in this book mostly healthy, sometimes indulgent, and always flexibly delicious.