Don't Cook Your Spinach, Drink It: Here's Why

The benefits of eating spinach are related to its role as an antioxidant compound which serves to reduce inflammation in our body, chiefly in our blood vessels. It also contains valuable nutrients and minerals including iron. The antioxidant, lutein, is responsible for these beneficial anti-inflammatory effects.

Yet, it's the way food is prepared that ultimately determines the net absorption and availability of valuable compounds from foods such as spinach, which we have commonly been taught is a nutritious and beneficial food in our diet.

Now, new research from Linköping University in Sweden reveals that eating spinach in the form of a smoothie or juice, combined with some fat, is actually the most efficient way to absorb lutein from spinach in our diet. Chopping the spinach, before preparing the smoothie, was found to release the greatest amount of lutein .

The findings were published in the journal, Food Chemistry.

Since elevated levels of fat-soluble lutein are found in dark green vegetables, researchers decided to compare various ways of preparing fresh spinach to maximize the lutein content in the finished food product.

We know that people with coronary artery disease (CAD) (narrowing of the arteries caused by fatty plaques) have chronic, low-grade inflammation that can be measured in the bloodstream.  Measuring this degree of inflammation is important since it is linked to an increased risk of heart attack and stroke.

Previously, researchers at Linköping University had studied the role of lutein in reducing inflammation in blood vessels, particularly in the immune cells of patients with CAD. Their research demonstrated that that lutein can be stored in immune cells, allowing the body to build up a reserve of lutein.  Increasing dietary intake of lutein would therefore be a reasonable approach to increasing lutein levels.

In the new study, the researchers decided to figure out the most effective food preparation method to maximize lutein, using spinach since it contains relatively high levels of lutein and is widely consumed. But similar to many other nutrients, lutein is also degraded by heat.

"What is unique about this study is that we have used preparation methods that are often used when cooking food at home, and we have compared several temperatures and heating times. We have also investigated methods of preparation in which the spinach is eaten cold, such as in salads and smoothies", said Lena Jonasson, professor in the Department of Medical and Health Sciences and consultant in cardiology.

The researchers embarked on various methods of food preparation to figure out the most efficient way to retain the highest levels of lutein from spinach. Using fresh baby spinach, they used steaming, frying, or boiling it up to 90 minutes. They then proceeded to measure the lutein content at different times of food preparation.

Researchers compared different temperatures and heating times in food preparation, since spinach cooked in a soup or stew is not heated to as high a temperature or for as long as spinach in a casserole.

The study revealed that heating time is crucial, especially when spinach is boiled. Spinach retains less lutein, the longer duration of boiling. But the method of preparation is also critical:  when spinach is fried at high temperature a large amount of the lutein is degraded after only 2 minutes.

Since warming up meals in a microwave oven is obviously quite common, the researchers discovered that reheating the food in a microwave, to some extent, compensated for the loss of lutein in cooked food. It turns out that lutein is released from the spinach as the plant structure is degraded by the microwave. But the researchers found that it's better not to heat spinach, if you can avoid it .

They noted that one of the best ways to maximize the amount of lutein is to make a smoothie and add healthy types of fat from dairy products.

"Best is not to heat the spinach at all. And even better is to make a smoothie and add fat from dairy products, such as cream, milk or yogurt. When the spinach is chopped into small pieces, more lutein is released from the leaves, and the fat increases the solubility of the lutein in the fluid", said Rosanna Chung, lead  author of the study.

The Historians Cooking Up Mythical Beasts

Built in the 16th century, Hampton Court Palace is the largest surviving palace of the time. Notable for being able to fit the entire royal court of its owner, Henry VIII, it's also a mix of two styles (Tudor and Baroque), a legacy of a partial renovation. But its main kitchen, once the largest in Tudor England, was left unremodeled. In these frozen-in-time rooms, a team of historian-cooks still turns out food fit for royalty, including a roasted mythical beast, the cokentryce.

While the cokentryce never existed, many Europeans once believed it was a real animal. According to Historic Kitchens manager Richard Fitch, "it has the body of a rooster and the back of a pig." The cokentryce was said to be a relative of the scaly, deadly basilisk, so some depictions included a snake's tail. From a 15th-century perspective, Fitch says, "These animals truly exist. They might not exist in their country, but they exist somewhere in the world." Medieval European writers and artists described and sketched many a cokentryce, and the beast is even mentioned several times in the King James version of the Bible as a venomous creature.

Their nonexistence didn't stop people from trying to eat them. Multiple recipes from the period describe how to make your very own cokentryce. Cooks who wanted to present a mythical creature on their lord's table sewed together pigs and chickens. With clever stitches, careful roasting, and disguising garnishes, medieval and perhaps even Tudor cooks created surprisingly realistic cokentryces, which they presented with the intent to awe.

At least, that's what Fitch thinks. His Historic Kitchens team made nine cokentryces last month, appropriately on the week before Halloween. It was their latest foray in years of making mythical roasts from 15th-century medieval recipes, and their guiding principle is realism: The cokentryce should look as if it walked and breathed before being butchered. The team succeeded—guests walking through the Hampton Court Palace kitchen asked about the unfamiliar animal roasting on the spit.

To Fitch, these reactions reflect the purpose of the original cokentryce. For rulers, they demonstrated power, even at dinner. In many sources, cokentryces are described as a meat for royalty. "You are quite literally providing fiction for people," says Fitch. "You're providing a myth that people can consume." The time and artistry needed to create a cokentryce also displayed wealth and social status.

Since the Historic Kitchens team uses traditional techniques to demonstrate vintage cuisine, their cokentryces called for just as much effort, if not more. Fitch relates years of trial and error: The team first made cokentryces more than 20 years ago. Many historical recipes provide limited explanation, and the team strives to interpret them as accurately as possible.

Still, certain allowances for modernity had to be made. Fitch and his team made their cokentryces with turkeys, not chickens. Royal chefs used the large, meaty capon: a castrated rooster. But while the castration results in a larger, fatter bird, the practice is considered inhumane under modern British law. Plus, Fitch notes, modern rearing practices mean many chickens have weak bones and thin skin, making them bad material for a meat sculpture.

With a turkey and a suckling pig from the local butcher, the assembly of a cokentryce can begin. Typically, Fitch says, the cooks divide the pig and the turkey into two parts, a front and hindquarters. The division is done carefully. The two halves need to be of similar dimension, with plenty of skin left over for sewing the sections together with a blanket stitch: the front of the pig to the bird, or vice-versa. The two halves of the cokentryce are connected with a metal wire in the spinal columns of both animals (this also makes them more pose-able). Then, the cooks stuff the cokentryce with bread, and arrange it on the spit carefully: Once it's roasted, it can't be re-posed. Once paper is tied to the appendages of the cokentryce to keep them from burning, someone must laboriously turn the spit until it's fully cooked.

But there's one final step that really ups the realism factor. Just before it's taken off the spit, the cokentryce is covered in colorful batter. Whether red, green, or gold, the batter creates a skin-like tone and disguises the stitching. Finally, the cokentryces are decorated with care. The team gave one dual-headed cokentryce feathery wings, while they posed another with an adversary: a weasel made of beef, since weasels were supposedly the cokentryce's natural enemy.

Throughout the process, visitors to Hampton Court Palace watched the team work. "They are asked to look at the different ways that people viewed animals in the past," Fitch says. When The Atlantic reported on the Hampton Court Palace cokentryce in 2013, it resulted in protests that the practice was gruesome. Fitch puts that down to the cokentryce retaining its head, unlike a chicken cutlet or pork chop. "When it's got a head and face on, it's very difficult to disconnect the thought process of eating a piece of chicken from eating an animal," he says.

But Fitch notes that there's always an element of surprise to their cooking demonstrations, no matter what is prepared. "The fact that we have costumed staff who are cooking real food using real ingredients in front of people is still a shock."

The best way to cook rice, according to my Korean mom

Growing up in the suburbs, my family and I would go to steakhouses often, our Friday night ritual at the end of the workweek. Think: ABC's Fresh Off the Boat, Louis Huang's Cattleman's Ranch Steakhouse. As soon as we'd come home from dinner, even after that huge meal, my dad would head straight to the kitchen and eat a spoonful or two of cold leftover white rice (the gonggi bap) straight out of the rice cooker. Maybe with some ice-cold kimchi from the fridge, a sheet or two of gim (roasted seaweed snack). Dinner was never dinner unless there was white rice to round everything out. It was as if he couldn't feel fully satiated without it.

I wonder if other Koreans can identify with this longing for rice to complete a meal. It signifies for me a long-lasting lore I've always felt that white rice is food, and food is white rice.

It is significant, isn't it, how the word for "rice" in so many cultures is synonymous with the one for "food"? In Korean, bap means both "rice" and "food," or "meal." In Mandarin, it's fàn. In Japanese, gohan. I'm no linguist or historian, but it makes sense to me that this would be the case for cuisines where white rice is at the center, always the starch on the table, the prized crop in the agricultural makeup of all these cultures' food economies.

I think there's also a lot of mystification out there about how to cook white rice. Maybe because everyone does it differently: It's likely that your way of making it is different from your friend's or from Tejal Rao's, from mine. Indeed, how we cook food differently will always be an indication of the variability of culture, and the notion that there is no one right way.

That said, there is a right way in my life, and in my brother's, and in my dad's. I thought it was high time that I share some wisdom from my own mother Jean, whose rice is quite famous for being perfectly fluffy, never mushy, and exactly right. She's been making it for 50 years and, as far as I know, hasn't changed her method since. It comes out immaculate every time, so there's got to be something to it right?

 I have to say here: This method uses an electric rice cooker, which is prevalent in every Korean household like an electric kettle might be in every British household. If you're looking for the stovetop method, proceed here.

Otherwise, here's my mother's method, which, I've learned in recent years, is a little different.

 How To Make Perfect White Rice In A Rice Cooker

First, Jean rinses short-grain white rice (the sticky kind you get at Korean and Japanese restaurants, not jasmine nor basmati, not Uncle Ben's, but this one) straight in the rice cooker. That is, she fills the removable inner pot with rice (never measures), takes it over to the sink, fills it with water, stirs with her hands, and pours the cloudy water out—and repeats this process, say, three or four times until the water runs clearer. She used to make me do this when I was little while she prepped dinner, and I'd get rice all over the sink (which is why now I always rinse my rice in a sieve).

Next, she fills the inner pot (a little water in there is fine, good actually) with enough water so that when she places her palm flat into the rice, the water level rises to the crease in her wrist where it meets the hand. I always thought this was black magic. "My hand is way bigger than yours!" I'd say. And she'd go: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. But I'd end up making rice like this for decades, sticking my palm into the rice and feeling anxious about the lack of science of it all. How accurate could this be, really? Eventually, when I started developing recipes that required exact measurements, I was able to figure out the actual rice-to-wrist-level-water proportions. Which came out to be about 1 cup water for every 1 cup rinsed, drained short-grain white rice. Remember: This is for the rice cooker, not for the stove, so if it doesn't sounds like enough water, just trust me (or rather, trust my mother).

This next step is subtle but, in my experience, essential (especially if you're using the 1:1 water to rice ratio above): My mother lets her rinsed, drained rice sit in its water for a bit before cooking. Sometimes she'd forget about it completely and it'd sit there, and sit there, and sit there. But the idea is that the rice should soak. The resultant texture is, for me, so much fluffier, rounder, better. Even when you think you don't have the time, just soak it a little. Five minutes is better than zero. These days I set a timer for exactly 10 minutes, which I've learned over the years is totally sufficient. Longer is fine, if you forget like her (and me sometimes), but any longer than an hour or so and you run the risk of entering mushy rice territory.
Finally, press the button and wait. But don't watch it. A watched rice cooker never steams.

5 reasons why involving kids in cooking is recipe for success

Cooking for the family can be difficult at times and leave you wanting an assistant in the kitchen. Although it may not save you much time, there is a sous chef you can have start right away, with big benefits: your kids.

Depending on their age, letting kids help cook might seem like more of a hindrance than a help. But your kids can gain a lot by helping you out however they can.

Here are five reasons to put your kids to work in the kitchen.

Help picky eaters

Being a picky eater is like a prerequisite to being a kid. If every mealtime is a battle with your kids, letting them help you in the kitchen could help. When kids are part of the cooking process, they may be more likely to try new foods.

You can even go beyond the kitchen and let your kids help you plant a garden or pick groceries at the store. The more involved kids get in meal planning and preparation, the more likely they are to try some of it when the meal is done.

Teach math

Following and altering a recipe may seem second nature to you now, but it is harder than you think. Kids can gain a lot from using recipes to cook, like reading comprehension and math skills. Recipes often use fractions, like 3/4 cup of flour and 1/3 cup of sugar. Trying to make a double recipe can be a great chance for a practical math exercise.

Recipes also involve reading and understanding specific steps. So besides being delicious, baking a cake could also be just the study help your grade-schooler needs.

Make healthy choices

You can encourage your kids, big and little, to eat more healthy foods by getting them involved in meal prep. When your kids help you shop for and prepare the food, you can let them pick which healthy food they want to make and teach them ways to make delicious, healthy meals.

Cooking together is also a great opportunity to talk with your kids about nutrition and making good food choices.

"The best way to eat healthy meals is to make them from scratch at home," says nutritionist Emily Woll. "Preparing dinner with your kids and including lots of fruits and vegetables will help them make healthy choices themselves."

Help toddlers use senses

Little children learn by playing, touching, tasting and manipulating the world around them. Cooking is a great way for kids to use all these senses at once. Let them dig into whatever you’re making, rolling cookie dough, kneading bread, listening to the mixer, and smelling and tasting the finished product.

Encourage family dinner

Having dinner together as a family has many benefits, including spending time with your kids and helping them to eat healthy meals. As your kids get older, the opportunities to eat dinner together may dwindle due to school and sports obligations.

Have your teens cook dinner with you, and they may be more likely to stick around for the meal. As your kids get older, you can even give them weekly cooking responsibilities for family dinner. They can learn to cook for a group and make their own meals before they head off on their own.

Convincing kids to eat healthy food can be difficult, especially when they are often surrounded by tantalizing fast food and vending machine treats.

Prepare them for the future by cooking with your kids, helping them develop healthy eating habits and skills that will last them a lifetime.

Cooking the books, in his own words, by his own hand

James Cook's original, handwritten journals from his voyages through the Pacific Ocean will go on display in Canberra in an international exhibition announced to coincide with the day the legendary explorer set sail from England 250 years ago.

The National Library of Australia will, for five months from September 22, be home to three journals that chronicle Cook's voyages, from 1768 until one month before his death in 1779.

"We've got a chronometer Cook used on his first voyage, some of the things for making maps and navigating, we've got a telescope, some of the materials used originally by Cook," exhibition co-curator Martin Woods said. "We tried to cover the whole field."

The National Library is the permanent home of one of Cook's journals — it was purchased by the Australian government on March 21, 1923, for £5000 from a private collector at a Sotheby's auction. The other two will be on loan from the British Library in London, while other artefacts from around the world — including a swordfish dagger that may have been used to kill Cook — have been painstakingly collected from museums and collections in Britain and the Pacific.

"When Cook and the Pacific opens next month, we will have on display here in Canberra the most complete set of Cook's major Pacific voyage journals in his own handwriting," National Library director-general Marie-Louise Ayres said.

"Reuniting these journals is significant because they are Cook's own record, in his own words, of how he experienced the three Pacific voyages."

Dr Woods and Susannah Helman curated the exhibition, which includes rarely seen paintings, manuscripts, scientific ­instruments, botanical specimens, archeological material, maps and even a playbill inspired by Cook's voyage.

Dr Wood said he was "the right person in the right place" in the late 1700s. "He started life working the coal ships, the coal trade, and then joined the navy as a late entrant, a mature-age student, you might say," he said. "It's always been amazing he forged such an amazing career, and became the foremost British navigator."

Kids learn to cook healthy at Diman

FALL RIVER – Some kids go to camp to climb trees and learn to swim.

And others camp out in the kitchen where they learn to make tasty (and nutritious) treats that just might stir them toward a long and healthy lifestyle.

About a dozen kids, ages 7 to 13, participated in Diman Regional Vocational Technical High School's Culinary Wellness Camp last week. Kids can still join for additional weekly sessions for the next two weeks.

"They learn to make healthier snacks," said Diman culinary instructor and chef Meredith Guilbeault-Rose. "Today, we're making pizza."

As the children rolled out their dough balls and assembled their favorite ingredients, Rose said the kids also learned to make chocolate hummus, fruit pizza, peanut butter protein balls, guacamole, salsa, chips, and healthier cupcakes made with apple sauce instead of oil.

They were also making a recipe book to take home at the end of the session with a certificate of completion. And, they got to eat.

"I like it," said Emelin Borges, 8, while she shaped her own pizza crust. "It's fun. We get to make stuff. She shows us the kitchen too."

Borges said she enjoys cooking at home with her mom and grandma (Mena).

"I help Mena," Borges said. "Once we made apple pie."

When it comes to pizza though, Borges is a fan of cheese-only-please.

"I don't like cooked onions, or cooked peppers or cooked pineapples," Borges said.

Mya Canuel, 12, said she likes to cook "if my mom lets me." And, she likes healthy food because "it gives you more energy."

Sadie Krauzyk and her friend Jadyn Silva, both 13, said they both want to attend Diman's culinary arts program in high school, and perhaps be head chefs in a restaurant one day.

"I love it. I just like cooking," Krauzyk said.

Rose said she tries to teach the kids to eat different foods because they typically like things that are sweet. And some kids are picky eaters.

As they all sipped a strawberry smoothie, Rose told them: "Everything doesn't always have to be sweet. Some things can be light."

They seemed to enjoy the smoothie, sweetened only with honey.

Rose said there are "too many children with diabetes, or obese, too many children going to fast food" too often.

Cooking, she said, gives kids "basic skills. Food is time with family. You can give people love with food."

How Is 'Cooking On High' Legal? Netflix's Newest Cooking Show Features A Secret Ingredient — Weed

There's no shortage of cooking competition shows out there. Top Chef. Chopped. The Great British Baking Show. But until now, there hasn't been a culinary show where the judges and contestants get baked while the food is cooking. Enter Cooking on High, Netflix's newest cooking competition show, in which every challenge features the same secret ingredient — weed. But though the show will no doubt make viewers' mouths water, those who watch the show may find themselves wondering: How is Cooking On High legal?

The short answer is that Cooking On High is legal because pot is legal now — well, in nine states and Washington, D.C., anyway. According to Vox, Alaska, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington have all legalized marijuana, though in Vermont and D.C., weed still can't be sold for recreational purposes. So that means that if the show was produced and filmed in one of those states where recreational use of weed is legal (production company Stage 13 is run by California-based Warner Bros.) then all of the challenges featured on Cooking On High are also totally legal. Pretty rad, right? But parents who are concerned that their children might stumble upon the show by accident don't have to worry, because according to High Times, the cannabis cooking show will only be available to viewers 18 and older. So there's a limited chance that your 8-year-old might come up with some, ahem, interesting ideas for dinner.

For those cooking show aficionados who are of age, Cooking On High pits real, experienced chefs against one other to cook a gourmet meal that somehow includes marijuana. According to Food & Wine, the delicious creations concocted by these chefs will include the use of marijuana oils, butters, and even marijuana buds. But don't worry, the process is entirely safe for everyone involved. Food & Wine also reports that there is a marijuana expert on set who "explains exactly what strain the chefs will be cooking with, down to the THC level, and Indica and Sativa percentages." So everything is monitored, safe, fun, and, most importantly, yummy.

And the chefs making these delicious edibles are far from college kids baking weed brownies in their kitchens. Food & Wine reports that the chefs competing on each episode are true professionals, from a former Chopped contestant to a chef trained at Le Cordon Bleu. But though the judges on the show might be experts in weed, they aren't exactly professional culinary critics. The Boston Globe reports that the Cooking On High judges tend to be "extremely experienced stoners" who will rate the food they consume based on a scale of one to 10 pot leaves. They even take a break between eating the food and judging it in order to allow time for the buzz to set in, which the show calls a "THC Time-Out," according to The Boston Globe.

Cooking On High might be the first show of its kind, but gourmet edibles have already become a trend in states where recreational marijuana has been legalized. The Los Angeles Times compiled a list of the best places to attend an edibles pop-up dinner party, where the food is delish and infused with THC. These gourmet meals could cost you as much as $250 a person, are curated by well-known LA chefs, and run the gamut from Middle Eastern cuisine to Japanese sashimi. Weed pairs well with everything, apparently.

So even though it's no Chef's Table, Cooking On High just might be the solution to your munchies — well, in addition to a large bag of Doritos, of course.

Cooking as marriage therapy

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry aren't the only ones getting hitched of late.

This month, especially Memorial Day weekend, marks the start of high wedding season.

I'm a Memorial Day weekend bride myself. In fact, my husband and I have a hard time remembering the exact date of our anniversary. We just know we tied the knot that holiday weekend 23 years ago.

I could tell you it has been 23 years of wedded bliss, but even my husband would laugh at the "bliss" part. Oh, there have been highs — the early wonder years, new parenthood and all the firsts that come with babies and buying a home. But, it's hardly been a cake walk, because there have been the early wonder years, babies and home buying.

The past few months, in particular, have been stressful, as we've geared up for graduations for both of our sons — one from college, the other from high school.

In the midst of such pomp and circumstance, I've shifted focus away from my better half. Yet, we're about to become empty nesters. And, if my life partner and I don't want to just stare blankly at each other in the days, months and years ahead, it's a good time to take stock of where we are as a couple, and where we're going.

As the nuptial gods would have it, a new cookbook of sorts recently crossed my desk. "Cook Your Marriage Happy" (CYH Press, $14.95) by clinical social worker and self-titled "sous therapist" Debra Borden, explores cooking as a vehicle for marital problem-solving.

Borden has been in practice since the mid-1990s, but it was about 10 years ago, while providing family therapy, that she stumbled upon what she since has dubbed "cooking therapy." In order to get clients to open up, she played a lot of games, she explained. "One day, I was walking through a kitchen and saw Frosted Flakes, Cool Ranch Doritos and a loaf of Wonder white bread. I thought, maybe I could do something with nutrition. But, mainly, I needed an activity where someone would talk."

Cooking, she said, "opens the portal, and they are more likely to share." Cooking therapy, as a type of experiential therapy, works well with people who feel stuck, resistant or looking for clarity in a situation. "It can jump-start the honest self-reflection process," she said.

The difference between cooking and cooking therapy, according to Borden, is purpose. "You are purposely focusing and mining each task for metaphors."

As far as focusing on married couples, Borden said that there are four main issues that bring couples to therapy: a stale marriage where the thrill is gone; a sexually out-of-sync marriage; a maybe-I-made-a-mistake marriage; and a financially frustrated marriage, "which has a lot to do with unrealized expectations or not really focusing on financial style before the couple got together."

When I first flipped through the book, I was skeptical. The kitchen is not where my husband and I find perfect harmony. I'm the pots and pans person. He's the electric saw and socket wrench guy. Neither of us is good about sharing these tools. It results in turf wars. For this couple therapy thing, would we need to cook together?

Turns out, no. I could do it on my own.

Here's how it works: You pick a recipe from the book, then stay mindful through every step and ponder how they relate to your relationship.

It starts with gathering ingredients. "What are your ingredients? Are they a willingness to evolve? To make a healthy change? To be honest about what you might be bringing to the table (that) isn't working in the dish?" Borden said.

Then comes process and procedure. As an example, she cited the recipe for Tune In and Talk to Me Tacos, which requires "looking at the raw mass" of beef, heating it up, draining the rendered fat ("What do you want to throw away from your marriage?") and seasoning the meat.

Even a recipe that doesn't turn out right is ripe for interpretation in Borden's mind. "A bread that doesn't rise: Is it pita, crackers or something you throw out?"

Recipe names also hold import in Borden's method of cooking therapy. There is From Boiling to Bliss Cake, Life Is Sweet and Sour Meatballs, and Miss You Mucho Mini Muffins. "If I'm working with a couple on their stale marriage, a week after the session, it starts to dissipate, but she'll remember Break Up the Boredom Bread Pudding. The recipe name cements the session after it's over."

It was time to put myself through some cooking therapy. I chose Break Up the Boredom Bread Pudding. The original recipe is credited to food writer and cookbook author Mark Bittman.

How'd it go, you ask?

For one thing, the cooking exercise reminded me how bad I am at following rules.

The recipe called for leftover challah bread. I didn't have any, so I bought a new loaf. If I attempt to read more deeply into it, I'll just consider it a wife looking to keep her marriage fresh.

You're supposed cut the bread into 2-inch cubes. During the step, Borden asks, "When you were slicing and dicing the bread, what did you think about?" D'oh. I didn't slice and dice. I tore the bread. Ripped it, actually. Is that the sign of an angry wife?

"It's fluffy," said my eldest son, ever the optimist, as I pulled the finished dessert from the oven.

Yeah, the chunks were fluffy, but, as a whole, the dish wasn't very pretty. Then again, the flavors were spot-on. And, everyone did eat it, even my husband, who is not a sweets guy.

I was tempted to ask him what he thought about the bread pudding. But, I stopped short of fishing for compliments as I recalled one of Borden's many correlations between cooking and marriage. "There's a great direction when making scallops," she said. "‘Don't harass the scallops.' You have to trust them and leave them in there until it's time to turn them. Just let them be."

After 23 years of marriage, I've got a whole new perspective on scallops — and Bittman's bread pudding.

Cooking with Que: Detroit foodie to launch school program out of new food incubator and kitchen

Entertaining children might seem like a surprising audience choice for the energetic figure behind Cooking with Que, but she is brimming with ideas of how to involve young people in healthy eating programs. Broden was recently awarded a $60,000 Motor City Match grant to establish a brick-and-mortar kitchen at Woodward Avenue just south of Grand Boulevard, and she is busy launching a new foundation called Eat To Live, which will work with Detroit Public Schools to host students for free courses.

The new culinary hub, simply called The Kitchen, will open this summer and form a space for her fans to visit and learn about food. A 16-foot live-demonstration kitchen at the front will host classes and meals, while the back portion of the building will be a shared-space kitchen for Broden and other chefs interested in catering or events.

Her enthusiasm really shines, though, when she explains the school project she's organizing. Already a founder of The Brown Bag Movement, an initiative to feed the homeless in metro Detroit, Broden's new foundation officially launched on April 6 and will work with 10 pilot schools to provide free courses on food purchasing, cooking, and kitchen skills.

"When I was small we didn't get to go to the places in downtown Detroit, and hang out in the fancy-shmancy places, so I want to bring the kids to the kitchen," Broden explains. "They need to see what it's like, and learn how to eat better, and teach them while they are young because if you start them while they are young they will keep doing it forever."

In a nutshell, Broden wants people—especially youth—to get smarter about the way they eat. Her vegan blog encourages plant-based cooking, although she openly declares that her domain is a place where "vegans and meat-lovers can co-exist."

"I feel like we get so stuck on what the titles are going to be. 'I'm a vegan, you're a meat-eater,'" Broden says. "My mission is to teach people to have a more plant-based lifestyle—just eat more plant-based foods. I'm not saying you have to give up every piece of meat."

Broden encourages her audiences to live on "70/30," which means eating 70 percent fruits and vegetables, and 30 percent everything else. When her fans do want to include meat in their diet, she encourages some tips for that too, such as knowing where it's coming from and pairing it with helpful herbs and spices.

"If you want to eat beef or steak, I'm rubbing it down with ginger because it's going to help your body digest it better," she says. "If I'm feeding you chicken, I'm going to get Amish chicken. It's ok for [vegans and meat-eaters] to get along, we just have to figure out what you like, what I like, and how we make it work together."

Broden's drive comes from her own personal experiences. After being diagnosed with the autoimmune disease sarcoidosis and dairy allergies, she searched for holistic methods and recipes as an alternative to taking steroids. The busy mother of three said she was shocked to find about what was going into her family's food.

"You start researching things and once you do you find out so much stuff that you don't know, it's crazy, you don't want to give it to your kids,"  Broden explains. "Everything I researched pushed me towards plant-based. I literally had to cold-turkey everything—I don't push that on anybody but I didn't have a choice."

Broden changed her entire diet and became a vegan, but she didn't stop there. When people started asking her about what she was doing, and why, she decided to share what she had found. "I needed to create a place where people could learn this stuff together," she says.

Establishing a permanent kitchen is a natural next step in Broden's multi-platform approach to sharing her philosophy, in which she aims to "meet people where they eat."

Broden wants her contribution to the foodie movement in Detroit to help shape a new identity for the city. "For so long we were known for just cars: auto, auto, auto," she says "And my brain says, why can't we be known to be a health spot, too?"

"We have to get out of our culture of instant gratification, which has taught us to go grab a $2 sandwich, go grab a burger. … Why can't we have a fresh food market on every corner, as opposed to a liquor store?"

Broden argues that the variety of food movements in Detroit that have flourished in just the last few years is an indication of people trying to recreate and reinvent the city, and that food has been at the center of changes.

"That's why I didn't necessarily want to do a restaurant—I wanted to make it like a food museum," says Broden.

The Detroit Economic Growth Corporation (DEGC) facilitates the Motor City Match grant, and they are thrilled to be supporting Broden's plans to activate the vacant retail block in New Center. 

"[Broden] has an excellent vision," says Kyla Carlsen, DEGC Small Business manager. "We know there is a need for more access to fresh and healthy foods across the city, and Cooking with Que will provide substantial community benefit."

Broden agrees it's serendipitous that her kitchen will be at the end of the QLine streetcar route ("Que in front of the Q") and the interest from the community certainly suggests she is on the right track.

"I have people who are booking it already for events, it's awesome," she beams. "It's gone so far. I just thought I was making a blog!"

How you cook your meat could raise risk of high blood pressure

Backyard barbecues come with a new caution: Grilled beef, chicken and fish may boost your risk for high blood pressure.

The same goes for roasting or broiling these foods, because high-temperature cooking is what's key, according to a new study presented Wednesday at an American Heart Association meeting.

"Our findings suggest that it may help reduce the risk of high blood pressure if you don't eat these foods cooked well done and avoid the use of open-flame and/or high-temperature cooking methods," lead researcher Gang Liu of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said in a release.

Her team's conclusion is based on surveys of more than 100,000 U.S. adults in health fields revealed that the odds of hypertension are slightly higher for people who prefer meats cooked at high heat compared to ones partial to lower temperature cooking methods.

 In addition, people who regularly ate meats cooked well-done, such as President Trump, were 15% more likely to develop high blood pressure over 12 to 16 years, the study also showed.

Findings don't prove cause and effect, researchers noted. Results are limited because they don't account for all types of meat and cooking methods, as well as the narrow study population.

But they do add to studies showing that compounds created when meat, poultry and seafood are charred are carcinogenic.

 "The chemicals produced by cooking meats at high temperatures induce oxidative stress, inflammation and insulin resistance in animal studies, and these pathways may also lead to an elevated risk of developing high blood pressure," said Liu.

Bottom line: As you try to limit the amount of meat in your diet, also pay attention to how — and how long — you cook it.

Albany Med students cook with refugee kids to engage, inspire

ALBANY — The basement cafeteria and kitchen of the Refugee and Immigrant Support Services of Emmaus building slowly started filling up with middle and high school-aged kids on a rainy Tuesday afternoon. The volume of their excited chatter and laughter increased as they waited for the older students of Albany Medical College to empty out and organize the contents of their plastic grocery bags.

"OK guys, today we're doing breakfast for dinner!" said second-year AMC student Tania Rodriguez.

The kids filed into the kitchen to wash their hands and dispersed to different areas for each recipe: Four boys washed potatoes at the sink for the breakfast casserole, other kids took turns cracking eggs into a large bowl, and a young boy cooked sausages in a frying pan.

This is the scene at RISSE twice a month at the Cooks for a Cause program, where first- and second-year AMC students gather with middle and high school-aged kids to cook and eat a meal together. Past meal themes were Italian (with baked ziti and garlic bread) and Mexican (chicken fajitas and très leches cake).

"We had a family mentor program before where AMC students helped vulnerable families to do paperwork and medical-related issues, and it was so successful," said Francis Sengabo, operations director for RISSE. "When they came to request it with youth, I said maybe that will be successful because we need that integration for the whole community in general."

Sengabo, who was a Rwandan refugee himself, said the program is a great way to keep the kids stay busy and engaged after school. But the main result he hopes to see from Cooks for a Cause is a more motivated youth inspired to stay in school and pursue higher education.

"Many people from my country like to go to school because they see people that do change the family and life of the community," he said. "I think students from AMC can little by little talk to them and change their mind to do this and that."

The passion is apparent: while most of the kids disperse near the end of the cooking to play games, one boy, Rodriguez said, chooses not to play with his friends and instead continues cooking in the kitchen.

AMC students have many volunteer options they can pursue (the school requires 40 hours of service learning to graduate). Shruthi Perati, a first-year student, said she chose Cooks for a Cause to connect with the community.

"Food is a great platform to connect with people of all backgrounds," she said. "And I think doctors really need to know their patients and community, so this is a great way to do that."

Rodriguez, who is one of the head organizers of this year's program, loves cooking. But her personal interest in RISSE stems from her background: Her father and grandfather were refugees from Cuba.

"They came from having a job and a home to living in a one-bedroom apartment with six other families," she said. "Now I'm able to go to high school, college, and now medical school because of that opportunity they gave me. I see these kids and that kind of track and want to give back."

While many of the kids are still too young to know what they want to do with their lives, many of them are passionate about soccer, so Rodriguez tells them they can join soccer teams in high school and college. Her main goal, though, is to give them something to look forward to outside of school.

The kids were timid and shy during their first gathering with the medical students in October, carefully paying attention to the chopping, mixing and frying instructions. In November, they were quick to line up to confidently cut peppers and onions. And by January, the excitement and comfort level had increased exponentially.

"I can see how interested they are to come," Sengabo said. "Like today, it was raining and some of them didn't have a ride so they walked here in the rain — they are so enthusiastic."

Etha, who is from Thailand, was flipping pancakes for the first time in his life. He instinctually timed the flip for a perfect, golden color.

"Maybe I can be a chef one day," he said.