Frances Largeman-Roth - Eating in color : delicious, healthy recipes for you and your family

DEDICATION

To Jon, for giving me the freedom to chase my dreams, and for your patience and ever-ready appetite.

To Willa, for inspiring me to write this book, and for asking so many good questions.

To Leo, for trying everything on your plate, and for always being there with a smile.

I love you all.

Published in 2014 by Stewart, Tabori & Chang

An imprint of ABRAMS

Copyright 2014 Frances Largeman-Roth

Photographs on the 2014 Lucy Schaeffer. All other photographs copyright 2014 Quentin Bacon

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013935968

ISBN: 978-1-61769-029-7

Design: Modern Good, Matthew Bouloutian & Christine Mikus

Production Manager: True Sims

Stewart, Tabori & Chang books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact specialsales@abramsbooks.com or the address below.

This book is not intended as a substitute for medical advice from a qualified physician. The intent of this book is to provide accurate general information in regard to the subject matter covered. If medical advice or other expert help is needed, the services of an appropriate medical professional should be sought.

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Acknowledgments

If a book is a labor of love, then it can only be as good as the relationships that formed to create it. I am extremely lucky to have so many smart, talented people to draw on for their expertise and friendship.

Huge thanks to my dream teamQuentin Bacon, Stephana Bottom, and Philippa Brathwaite. Without them this book would just be a nice, but visually boring assortment of printed words. You understood my vision from day one and worked your tails off (without proper lunch breaks!) to help me achieve it. Quentinyour eye is so well trained that your shots all appear effortless. And who knew you were a baby wrangler! Stephana and Paige, thank you for making my food look so mouthwatering and for helping everyone keep their ducks in a row. Philippa, I loved having my bed covered with plates, cutlery, and glasses from ABC Carpet & Home, Canvas, Ochre, Aero, and Dean & Deluca.

A big merci beaucoup to Mary Drennen for her tireless nutritional number crunching.

Thanks to Ray Guh at Christo salon for making me look my very best. And Doug McIntosh at Sahag for making my hair match my daughters. And to Karen Shapiro for keeping our shirts tucked in and making sure we didnt clash.

Thanks to the following companies for sending their wonderful fresh produce and other products that helped make the recipes come together and kept the crew alert: California figs, Chobani, Driscolls, Earthbound Farm, Keurig, Madhava Natural Sweeteners, Melissas Produce, Niman Ranch, Ocean Spray, Peeled Snacks, and TruRoots.

Thank you to my friends and family (especially Ann Sheffield) for believing in me and going to the mat to spread the word about Eating in Color.

To Jessica at Dystel & Goderich. Thanks for weathering my false starts and helping me find my voice. Your cheerleading went a long way.

Thanks to the entire Flutie team: Hilary, Robert, Danielle, and the rest of the crew. Your creative guidance, support, encouragement, and BIG picture view helped me see the light at the end of the tunnel.

To all the folks at Cooking Lightyou have been amazing to work with and I so appreciate your support!

Thanks to Claire Bamundo, publicity director extraordinaire, for getting the word out about this book in just the right way. Everyone else at Stewart, Tabori & ChangI so appreciate you trusting me enough to create a book that was both nutritious and delicious. To my publicist, Danielle Zaria Praport, thank you for working so hard to get the Eating in Color message out!

And finally, thank you to Leslie Stoker, for believing in my vision of creating a book that celebrates both the fun and healthy attributes of all those amazingly colorful foods.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

I wa s not born a fo o die. My l o ve of, r e spect for, a n d fascin a tion w i th foo d and it s health-giv i ng p r op e rti e s are s o mething I had to co m e arou n d toor ba c k to.

I grew up in an odd setting. I was born to a German mother and a Jewish, Brooklyn-raised military father, who somehow decided to raise their brood of five children in a small town on a Native American reservation in western New York.

For as long as I can remember, I always had a strong passion for animals and science, and from the age of five, I was hell-bent on becoming a veterinarian. I had little interest in food or cooking, but luckily this didnt deter my mother from teaching me about it from a young age. Mom grew up in the restaurant business in a small spa town in Germany and learned the finer points of hospitality while she was still in diapers. These were skills I wouldnt come to appreciate until college, when I was forced to learn how to cook and shop for the residents of the vegetarian co-op I lived in during my sophomore and junior years at Cornell University. But learn I did, and a nascent interest in food and all that it can do for us became a full-fledged obsession by my fourth year of college, leading me to stay an extra year and switch my major from animal science to human nutrition.

The hippie co-op may have piqued my interest in nutrition, but once I dug into it, I realized, for very personal reasons, I would make it not just a career choice but a life path. My father had type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and central adiposity. (The latter is science-speak for excess fat in the belly. Im sure he would have preferred being called barrel-chested.) He had also loved food, but leaned toward fatty and cured meats, like pastrami and corned beef. And while my mother loved fruits and vegetables, her cooking style involved a fair amount of butter and was not what Id call light.

Though Dad had been a dentist and had a general understanding of nutrition, he hadnt ever applied it to his daily life. He didnt manage his diabetes well through diet and he didnt take time out of his busy work and home life for exercise and stress reduction. All of these factors led him to die of a massive heart attack at the age of sixty-two. I was twelve years old.

Later, my classes at Cornell taught me the basics about human nutrition, and the pieces to the puzzle of why I lost my dad came together. I realized that he didnt have to die so younghis multiple health issues were a result of his diet and lifestyle. I wanted to turn the clock back and teach him everything I had learned; ultimately, I put those energies toward teaching other people about how to eat right and live healthy, active lifestyles.