Heirloom Tomatoes Shine at Santa Rosa Farmer’s Market

Today was the annual Heirloom Tomato Festival at the Santa Rosa farmer's market. I have done a cooking demonstration at the market for this event for many years. I had to skip last year because I was traveling. This year, i decided because raw food is still trendy, that I would prepare a simply delicious heirloom tomato salad with a little twist — grated lemon zest. Anyone can make it, and you can even leave out the oil, if you follow... [Read More...]

Vegan? College Student? Making it Work for You

This is a guest blog post by Nora Allen who has been my "virtual" intern this summer. If you have a vegan college student, friend or relative, then please share this with them. It has important information written by a "real" vegan.   Nora Allen has been a vegan since 2005. She was a Vegetarian Resource Group scholarship winner. Nora is currently a senior nutrition major at Cedar Crest College. She enjoys sharing her experiences... [Read More...]

The Veggie Queen Says Goodbye to Bear the Dog

We adopted Bear from the Sonoma County shelter when he was middle aged. He was quite a handsome dog, mostly Chow with his black tongue, and not my choice. My son Shane picked him out. But we all loved him dearly. I wrote this piece in 2008 and never published it: Old Dog Teaches Me New Tricks My dog Bear is probably around 11 or 12 now. We’ll never know because we adopted him just over 4 years ago. They said that he was between 6 and 8... [Read More...]

Food for Life: Your Customer Service Stinks

I hoped that it wouldn't come to this: calling a company out online to get them to see what I perceive as an error of their ways. I'm going to explain the situation and I'd like your opinion about this customer service issue, and if anything like this has ever happened to you. I would insert a photo of me pulling my hair out HERE if I had one but how about this, where I had on my pink hair just for fun? I needed a moment of levity before... [Read More...]

My Oprah Winfrey Network Audition — Please vote

In the interest of promoting vegetable consumption, I did a 3 minute video audition for the Oprah Winfrey Network for my show Eating for Energy. I hope that you'll go to this link  and sign up to vote and vote for me. You can also leave comments there. If you know my work, you know that I love to share my knowledge about vegetables and other plant foods. I discovered that you really can't say a whole lot in 3 minutes and that I am not... [Read More...]

A is for Allium and White Bean Spring Soup

In the spring, I tell my students that it's the time when the vegetables often start with A. such as asparagus, artichokes and alliums which include onions, garlic, leeks, shallots, and chives. You can find spring onions full size but fresh with greens, fresh dug young onions pulled before their time, green onions (sometimes known as scallions), green garlic and garlic scapes and fresh shallots with their stems. All of these vegetables are tender,... [Read More...]

Five Tips for a Healthier and Happier Life NOW

Here are five of my key tips to improve your life daily: Be grateful for something every day. If it's only the fact that you woke up and opened your eyes and you express gratitude, it will help your attitude. The more gratitude you have, the better you are likely to feel. Practice the 80/20 rule. Whatever you do 80% of the time has the biggest impact on your life. you don't need to strive for perfection, for it may not arrive but what you... [Read More...]

The Veggie Queen Appears at Freestone Fermentation Festival

Join Me May 15th at 3:15 pm at Salmon Creek School at The Fermentation Festival to Learn How to Make Pickles In a perfect world, I would put this on my schedule page but since this website is so new-to-me and I haven't yet learned how to do all that much, I figured that this would be a great place to tell you about something that I am doing soon. I am really excited about sharing my love of fermented foods at the 2nd Annual Freestone Fermentation... [Read More...]

The Veggie Queen reports on IACP Portland Alternative Foods Tour: It Tops List

Alternative Foods Tour at IACP Portland: An Amazing Start to 2010 Conference When I received the sign up information for IACP 2010 in Portland (The New Culinary Order) I couldn't believe my eyes. They had arranged a tour (thank you Ivy Manning) to 4 incredible places: Sweet Pea Baking, Bob's Red Mill, Blossoming Lotus restaurant and Salt, Fire & Time. It compelled me to sign up right away. Then I heard that this tour sold... [Read More...]