Kitchen Yoga

By Lori Powell

Cooking for one is highly underrated and might seem to some a tad lonely. My day job is to create recipes to serve at least four or more people and sometimes involves working in the company of others. So I embrace MY time alone in the kitchen where the only sounds I hear are from my knife chopping and slicing or something sizzling and speaking to me from the pot on the stove.

Being alone in the kitchen is when I can truly lose myself in the ingredients and smells of conjuring up a nourishing meal. Everything else that happened that day gets drowned out by the current task at hand. It’s not unlike a runner who gets in the zone on the track and their single focus is to move forward.

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The Color of Spring

By Lori Powell

It’s nice to be green, especially in spring after a rain. Amazing how many variations of green can sprout out of the ground. Every bud and flower is exploding with color.

I can’t take my eyes off of the lushness of it all. The first thing I do when I get up in the morning is open all the shades to embrace the greenness.

In celebration of the color of spring I have developed a recipe for spring pea soup with lemon and mint. I will be eating mine on the back porch while breathing in the sweet scents of everything renewed!

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Extreme Food Styling

By Lori Powell

Last week, I was food styling on the North Fork of Long Island for a future Prevention magazine issue. Sounds glamorous, yes?

Well, not so much when you have brush fires raging a couple of blocks away and 40 MPH wind gusts. The fires were eventually put out, but not without destroying 1,000 acres and three homes.

The winds, on the other hand, kept on gusting so that anything that wasn’t tied down was flying through the air. Then came the rainstorms that blew through our shoot not once but twice…what’s next…locusts?

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It’s Asparagus Season!

By Lori Powell

Spring brings asparagus season and with it the many ways of cooking and serving the lovely stalks. I eat so much of it in season that I have to start pacing myself early on.

The great thing about this versatile veggie is that you can steam, boil, grill, broil or roast it to perfection – just make sure that you don’t under or over cook it.

Asparagus have a natural break in the stem between the tough ends and the tender stalks. To trim, simply snap off the end and it will break in just the right place. Discard the stems or use them to flavor broth or soup; they’re tough, so remove them before serving.

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The First Salad of the Season

By Lori Powell

The fresh air of spring has arrived and with it are thoughts of bathing suits, the ocean, vacations, spring cleaning and fresh produce. With the advent of fresh produce comes inspiration for lovely salads for dinner and for lunch, hopefully resulting in a couple of pounds and inches off my frame.

My first salad of the season is a pickled shrimp and red onion concoction with cucumber. You make a simple pickling liquid which uses seasoned rice vinegar, agave, star anise and a pinch of heat from red pepper flakes. The star anise is optional but adds nice dimension to the pickling liquid.

Star anise can be found in the spice section of the supermarket. This spice is shaped like a star about one inch in diameter and has eight dark-brown spokes. It is grown in China and Japan, similar to licorice and anise, and is one of the spices in five-spice powder.

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