Kirsten Buck - Buck naked kitchen : radiant and nourishing recipes to fuel your health journey

Copyright 2020 by Kirsten Buck

Foreword copyright 2020 by Melissa Urban

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

hmhbooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-328-58992-7 (hbk)

ISBN 978-1-328-59239-2 (ebk)

Cover and book design by Shubhani Sarkar, sarkardesignstudio.com

Cover photography by Kirsten Buck

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For my mom & dad, it's impossible to thank you for everything you've done, from loving me unconditionally, teaching me life's lessons with patience and kindness, and always giving me the freedom to be my own person. I could not have asked for better parents or role models in this lifetime.

The saying is usually it takes a village to raise a child, but this could also go for it takes a village to write a manuscript and edit, design, style, and photograph a cookbook. Living in a small city in Canada, this book was a community effort. My family and friends were always enthusiastic about taking time to help out in any way, for which Im so grateful.

Mom, you were my right hand woman throughout this whole process, from beginning to end. Thank you for your incredible amount of patience and for dedicating so much of your time to testing and photographing 100 recipes with me. Thank you for running to the store whenever I forgot ingredients (sometimes multiple times a day), for the hours upon hours of chopping and prepping, for the 12-hour days of editing, and for catching all my spelling errors with your hawk eyes. Thank you for always holding the light reflector so I could get the perfect shot, and for always sharing your honest opinion about every aspect so I could be a better creator. Last but not least, thank you for coming to my rescue last minute to photograph the cookbook cover (for the American edition). You did such a great job, even with no photography experience, but Im not surprised because Im fairly certain everything you touch turns to gold. Im so proud to call you my momma and my best friend. Love you.

Dad, thank you for giving me the gift of creativity and for being the most supportive, loving dad us girls could ever ask for. Knowing we can always count on you to help us when were in need is such a blessing, and we will never take that for granted. Thank you for building and hand painting all of my food photography backgrounds for the book, and for creating the coziest kitchen space for me to cook and feel at home in. Thank you for taste-testing the recipes and making sure we didnt have too much food go to waste. Thank you for being my dad, youre a true constant in my life and someone I admire so very much. Love you.

My sisters, Nicole & Dayna, thank you for being my hand models when I wanted a human element for photos, and for keeping me company and making me laugh in the kitchen. Thank you for testing my recipes to make sure they work, and for filling in as my lifestyle photographers for unplanned last-minute photoshoots. Thank you both for being so sweet while still maintaining your wildly inappropriately dark humor. Its a balance I love about you two.

Kat Willson & Monique Pantel, thank you for working with me and for sharing your wonderful lifestyle photography throughout this book, it was such a dream working with the both of you, and Im so happy to call you my friends. Kat, thank you for forever inspiring me with your soft, angelic photography style. You have an amazing eye for detail and are so incredibly gifted. Monique, you are such a ray of light and Im so happy we crossed paths. Your work is beyond stunning, and Im so grateful that you were able to shoot the (Canadian) cover. Thank you for breaking out into random burst of laughter to try and get me to smile, and for the mini hip-hop dance parties in my kitchen. Love you, soul sister.

Homa, thank you for being my best friend and #1 hype girl. Thank you for making my recipes, and for always holding space for me in difficult times. I appreciate your endless support and love you very much.

Justin Schwartz and the team from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, thank you for giving me this opportunity and believing in me, for the creative freedom, and for bringing my vision to life.

Thank you for your patience and guidance throughout the entire process. Andrea Magyar my editor from Penguin Random House Canada, thank you for welcoming me with open arms into the Penguin family.

Thank you to my literary agent, Lisa Grubka, for your incredible guidance and for answering my late night emails, phone calls, and random questions.

Melissa Urban, thank you for creating the program that gave me the tools to start turning my life around. The Whole30 is every reason why Im in the position Im in today doing what I do. Thank you for your trust, support, and for forever inspiring my wellness journey.

by Melissa Urban

Kirsten Buck loves through her food. She loves us: her readers, followers, and fans. Shes been sharing her vibrant, lively, plant-rich recipes with the Whole30 community for years, showing us how to nurture our bodies and our taste buds through real, whole foods. She reminds us through her meals and stories that food tastes best when its prepared by hand, eaten with those we care about, and preserved through our own families traditions.

Shes shown me love, too, though I doubt she even knows how much shes influenced my cooking and made my time in the kitchen happier. Thanks to Kirsten, I seek brighter, bolder colors in my foodpurple asparagus, rainbow carrots, and a sprinkling of pomegranate seeds that please my eyes as much as my palate. Ive become almost comically generous with fresh herbs, and now firmly believe there is no such thing as too much dill. Im also more adventurous with combinationsthanks to Kirsten, I now know that a little tahini, mint, and the aforementioned pomegranate seeds could turn plain old roasted carrots into a company-worthy side dish. The joy I feel in the kitchen after making one of Kirstens recipes... that feels like love, too.

But the thing that has filled me up the most when watching Kirstens journey is how she so clearly loves herself through her food. It wasnt always like that, as youll read shortly. As is the case with so many of us, food was sometimes used as punishment, to numb, or to create distance from those she cared about. But the way Kirsten has transformed her relationship with food, used cooking to heal, and brought her lessons and gifts so bravely into the world is one of the most inspiring things about her.

What I see in this book is a woman showing up as her truest, most authentic self, using food to speak to us, to connect with us, and to show us