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Food and Wellness

Lectures related to the Food, Cooking, and Human Health.

  • Boston Day & Evening Academy celebrates a new garden with a ribbon cutting ceremony and several speeches. Speakers included Beatriz Zapater, Head of Boston Day and Evening Academy; Sheila Dillon, Chief of Housing for the City of Boston and Head of the Department of Neighborhood Development; David Price, Executive Director of Nuestra Comunidad; Felix Arroyo, Chief of Health and Human Services for the City of Boston; Cassandria Campbell, Cofounder of Fresh Food Generation; and Jamiah Tappin, Community Organizer with the Boston Alliance for Community Health.
    Partner:
    Boston Day & Evening Academy
  • Many of us are familiar with milk as a food in our supermarket aisles, whether as a beverage that pairs well with cookies, or as the starting ingredient for cheese and yogurt. But milk is also part of what makes us mammals, a class of animals that produces milk as the first food for our young. Our lecture will begin with a discussion of the "recipe" for milk and investigate why the recipe may vary among species. We will also take a closer look at how different parts of milk support the growing infant. Next, we will dive deeper into how milk supports an infant's immune system. Finally, we will conclude by discussing current and future applications of milk as medicine.
    Partner:
    Science in the News
  • "Food writer and photographer Béatrice Peltre discuses her new cookbook, *La Tartine Gourmande: Recipes for an Inspired Life*. For Béatrice Peltre, author of the award-winning blog LaTartineGourmande.com, to cook is to delight in the best of what life has to offer ' the people and places she loves. With nearly 100 gluten-free recipes and anecdotes, *La Tartine Gourmande* takes the reader on a journey, not only through the meals of the day but around the world, as Peltre revisits her inspiration for each dish. Though her style is largely inspired by her native France, other influences include places as diverse as New England, Denmark, and New Zealand. Here she discusses the inspiration behind her book, her blog, her photography, her favorite cuisines and ingredients, and more."
    Partner:
    Harvard Book Store
  • As part of the 2012 Cambridge Science Festival, the MIT Museum presented a lunchtime series of talks, *Culinary Chemistry*. Here, MIT Hummus enthusiasts Eliad Schmuel and Ethan Sokol discuss the chemistry and nutrition behind the food, its cultural significance, and how to make hummus from scratch.
    Partner:
    MIT Museum
  • Can 'diseases of affluence' ' cancer, diabetes, heart attacks, and obesity ' be controlled, or even reversed, by your diet? A panel discussion about the film *Forks Over Knives* explores the power of plants as medicine.
    Partner:
    Museum of Science, Boston
  • Joanne Chang, pastry chef and owner of Flour Bakery and Cafe, will tempt you in the kitchen with her book of recipes, as used in her popular bakeries in Boston and Cambridge. Browse the book and see her latest feats: Flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston's Flour Bakery and Cafe. Every day 1,500 Bostonians can't resist buying sweet, simple treats (Homemade Pop-Tarts!) from Joanne Chang, an alumna of Harvard with a degree in economics. While at Harvard she discovered that nothing made her happier than baking cookies--leading her on a path that eventually resulted in a sticky bun triumph over Bobby Flay on the Food Networks Throwdown. From Brioche au Chocolat and Lemon Raspberry Cake to perfect croissants, Chang's repertoire of baked goods is deep and satisfying. Almost 150 Flour recipes such as Milky Way Tart and Dried Fruit Focaccia are included, plus Joannes essential baking tips, making this mouthwatering collection an accessible, instant classic cookbook for the home baker.
    Partner:
    Harvard Book Store
  • Chris Kimball and the cast of America's Test Kitchen discuss healthy and delicious ways to feed your family, and their new book, *The Americas Test Kitchen Healthy Family Cookbook*. *The Healthy Family Cookbook* is an all-purpose cookbook that delivers more than 800 foolproof recipes for healthier everyday cooking--including breakfast dishes, kid-friendly favorites, meat and pasta entres, vegetarian dishes, healthy makeovers of family classics, desserts, and more. Each recipe also includes calories, fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, carbohydrates, protein, fiber, and sodium counts. *The America's Test Kitchen Healthy Family Cookbook* takes a good, hard look at eating healthfully--incorporating more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains into recipes on a daily basis, and reducing calories from fat whenever possible while still maximizing taste. But unlike other "healthy recipe" cookbooks that simply substitute brown rice for white, or fat-free mayonnaise for regular, every one of our recipes have been specifically developed for the ingredients used, to maximize both taste and health.
    Partner:
    Harvard Book Store
  • Harold McGee, food scientist and "Curious Cook" at _The New York Times_ talks about how to cook well, even when the recipe you're following isn't perfect. McGee is joined in conversation by Rialto's award-winning chef/owner Jody Adams. *Keys to Good Cooking* directly addresses the cook at work in the kitchen and in need of quick and reliable guidance. Cookbooks past and present frequently contradict one another about the best ways to prepare foods, and many contain erroneous information and advice. *Keys to Good Cooking* distills the modern scientific understanding of cooking and translates it into immediately useful information. Looking at ingredients from the mundane to the exotic, McGee takes you from market to table, teaching, for example, how to spot the most delectable asparagus (choose thick spears); how to best prepare the vegetable (peel, dont snap, the fibrous ends; broiling is one effective cooking method for asparagus and other flat-lying vegetables); and how to present it (coat with butter or oil after cooking to avoid a wrinkled surface). This book will be a requisite countertop resource for all home chefs, as McGee's insights on kitchen safety in particular--reboil refrigerated meat or fish stocks every few days; (they're so perishable that they can spoil even in the refrigerator); don't put ice cubes or frozen gel packs on a burn; (extreme cold can cause additional skin damage)--will save even the most knowledgeable home chefs from culinary disaster. A companion volume to recipe books, a touchstone that helps cooks spot flawed recipes and make the best of them, *Keys to Good Cooking* will be of use to cooks of all kinds: to beginners who want to learn the basics, to weekend cooks who want a quick refresher in the basics, and to accomplished cooks who want to rethink a dish from the bottom up.
    Partner:
    Harvard Book Store
  • Joseph Dabney discusses his new book, *The Food, Folklore and Art of Lowcountry Cooking.* The book's subtitle is: A Celebration of the Foods, History, and Romance Handed Down from England, Africa, the Caribbean, France, Germany and Scotland. Dabney takes readers on a prideful tour of Charleston, Beaufort, and Savannah and offers authentic regional voices, old-time photographs, and fascinating sidebars.
    Partner:
    Margaret Mitchell House & Museum
  • Journalist and food writer Kim Severson discusses her new memoir,* Spoon Fed: How Eight Cooks Saved My Life*. Somewhere between the lessons her mother taught her as a child and the ones she is now trying to teach her own daughter, Kim Severson stumbled. She lost sight of what mattered, of who she was and who she wanted to be, and of how she wanted to live her life. It took a series of women cooks to reteach her the life lessons she forgot--and some she had never learned in the first place. Some as small as a spoonful, and others so big they saved her life, the best lessons she found were delivered in the kitchen. *Spoon Fed* weaves together the stories of eight important cooks with the lessons they taught her--lessons that seemed to come right when she needed them most. We follow Kim's journey from an awkward adolescent to an adult who channeled her passions into failing relationships, alcohol, and professional ambition, almost losing herself in the process. Finally as Severson finds sobriety and starts a family of her own, we see her mature into a strong, successful woman, as we learn alongside her.
    Partner:
    Harvard Book Store