Shafia Louisa - Lucid food: cooking for an eco-conscious life

Copyright 2009 by Louisa Shafia
Photographs copyright 2009 by Jennifer Martin
Photographs on pages Photographs copyright 2009 by Louisa Shafia

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.tenspeed.com

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Shafia, Louisa.
Lucid food : cooking for an eco-conscious life / Louisa Shafia; photography by Jennifer Martin.
p. cm.
Includes index.
Summary: A collection of healthy, seasonal, eco-conscious recipes, plus sustainable cooking, lifestyle, and entertaining tipsProvided by publisher.
1. Cookery (Natural foods) 2. Sustainable living. I. Title.
TX741.S493 2010
641.5636dc22
2009012404

eISBN: 978-1-60774-238-8

Cover design by Toni Tajima
Photography assistance by Stacy Ventura
Food styling by Karen Shinto
Food styling assistance by Jeffrey Larsen and Fanny Pan

v3.1

I would like to thank my mother, Georgia Shafia, for teaching me how to cook and entertain with style and originality. Thank you to all the Shafias, Schafiyhas, and Shafiihas, especially Ammeh Melih, for your unconditional love and for exposing me to Persian food and culture.

My heartfelt thanks to Brie Mazurek; Im happy my proposal fell into the hands of an editor who cares deeply about the issues covered here. Im grateful to Sara Golski, Aaron Wehner, Debra Matsumoto, Patricia Kelly, Kristin Casemore, and everyone at Ten Speed Press for their enthusiastic support. Special thanks to art director Toni Tajima for incorporating a variety of viewpoints and ideas into one beautiful vision.

Thanks are due to my three muses, whose superior senses of taste and style Ive been lucky to have at my disposal: Jennifer Revit, for her golden palate and honest opinions; Julie Byun, for her willingness to advise even from across the country; and Olga Naiman, for going above and beyond in her generosity as a friend and collaborator. My thanks to Eric Tucker of Millennium Restaurant for setting an indelible example of what a good chef should be. I am also grateful to Michael Psaltis, my agent, for guiding me through the writing process with patience and humor. My army of recipe testers provided invaluable insights: thank you all for your spirit of adventure. A big round of applause goes to the hardworking chefs and servers who helped to pull off all of the wonderful Lucid Food events. I raise a glass of sambuca to Rachael Ray and John Cusimano for their generosity and support.

Finally, my gratitude goes to James Rotondi for in-house editing, endless comic distractions, and for whisking me away on vacation when I didnt know how badly I needed it.

On a sunny summer afternoon in 2003 I was taking the subway from Brooklyn to Manhattan when suddenly the lights and air-conditioning went out and the train, thankfully still in the station, came to an abrupt halt. After an announcement that a power outage had taken place, the doors opened and everyone exited the train and went back out to the street. Little did we know that this was the beginning of a now-legendary two-day multistate blackout, which tangled public transportation, made life difficult for many elderly people, and inconvenienced millions.

Ironically, it was anything but a dark evening for many New Yorkers. Instead, as twilight fell, there was tangible excitement in the air, with countless people getting an unexpected night off and pouring out onto the streets to share a sense of wonder and adventure. Because my phone was out, I walked to my nearest friends house and called up to his window. He ran down and together we excitedly explored the impromptu street party that was taking place on the sidewalks.

Neighbors were chatting with neighbors; restaurants had set up grills out front and were selling cold beer from tubs of ice; bars and stores were lit with candles; and later there was a marching band parading through the crowds, and even fireworks! It was one of the best nights Ive ever spent in New York, a special evening when the modern world of bright lights, cable TV, and fast food took a backseat to genuine face-to-face interaction, simple pleasures, and the rediscovery of a true community spirit. And, for the first time in years, a near-full moon was the only big, bright light shining in New York City.

With this book, Id like to convey the essence of what I learned that evening. Something truly magical emerges when we slow down, turn off our modern gadgets, and approach the shared rituals of foodprocuring, preparing, cooking, and even cleaning upwith an appreciation for its timeless role in our daily lives and its relevance to our community and our planet. Lucid Food is about enjoying the sensuousness of food, while cooking and shopping with an eye toward conservation and social conscience. This book includes more than eighty-five healthful, seasonal recipes that will guide you toward making earth-friendly choices about what you prepare for mealsand, just as importantly, how you prepare them.

As we watch our economyone based largely on cheap energyreach its breaking point and we begin to reexamine the foundation of the so-called American way of life, our habits will have to change. Although many of the luxuries weve come to take for granted in the past fifty years have been wonderful, there has also been a downsidenamely, the ease with which were now able to isolate ourselves in our individual homes, and to insulate ourselves from friends and neighbors, through the use of air-conditioning, television, and the Internet. While such modern conveniences certainly provide us with many benefits, one could argue that an overreliance on technological advances may actually be making our lives less fulfilling, not more.

There are those who will counter that the act of going greencutting back sharply on cheap fossil fuels and taking serious steps to conserve in our daily liveswill require a joyless rejection of the twenty-first-century good life, but thats not supported by what many of us experienced when the lights went off in New York City. Quite the opposite: By practicing conservation, returning to a waste not, want not mindset, and savoring both our food and our free time, we enrich our lives through a greater sense of connection and responsibility to other people.