Cheer

One of my guilty pleasures is playing Words with Friends with my grandma. We play a word or two most days, so our games last a few weeks, but it's fun to stay connected in that way! The latest version of WWF includes a "word of the day," and today's word is "cheer." (I guess we're getting into the holiday spirit!)

Last night I taught a little class on nutrition and brain health. It was a new experience for me--it was a "cooking" class, and I'm used to teaching in a classroom, not a kitchen! I tried to keep my teaching material brief so that we could focus on the hands-on piece, but I'll admit to being thrown by a room full of people all standing around the perimeter of a worksite kitchen/breakroom, waiting for me to finish talking so that they could move in around the tables and start making food! In that moment I wasn't feeling much cheer--I was rushing through the important messages I wanted to share, wondering how I could have better prepared for this environment and better integrated my teaching with our food prep so that people would be actively engaged throughout the entire experience. (I'm reminding myself that part of "good living" is "good learning"--and everything is a learning experience!)

But the evening was about FOOD--so the magic still happened. As everyone split into teams to make plant-based dishes that integrate foods from the MIND diet (a brain-supportive diet), the laughter began. It was fun to watch these colleagues read recipes together, set the measuring spoons aside and use their judgement on what the recipes needed, share utensils across the teams, test and remark on the flavors of the individual ingredients and how they tasted as they came together, tell stories about their own cooking experiences and knowledge of nutrition, ask questions about modifying recipes and choosing ingredients for substitutions, and demonstrate their personal styles of working while taking into consideration those of others. We very quickly had a table full of healthy food, and about fifteen participants who were all excited about how good everything tasted. (Whew...mission accomplished!) At that point, we were ALL feeling more cheerful! And I was feeling very grateful for the ways that food brings people together and teaches us more about ourselves and others.

Want to try our recipes? We made black sesame noodles with 100% buckwheat soba noodles (https://www.thugkitchen.com/sesame_noodles) and sweet potato hummus (https://cookieandkate.com/2011/spicy-sweet-potato-hummus/). We split our hummus into two batches, and seasoned one as the recipe suggested, while seasoning the other with lime juice and curry powder. We dipped whole wheat naan and slices of red pepper into our hummus. Both recipes are gluten- and dairy-free (minus the naan), and can be made in your workplace breakroom with no more equipment than a microwave and a blender, food processor, or NutriBullet (and the usual knife and some measuring spoons). Hope this food brings you as much cheer as it brought us!