The Soaked Bean

Seeking Nourishment, Finding Traditions

Nutrition Rule #1: Nourish Yourself

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sunny porch

It seems that Winter has blown its last breath in Geneva.  Hallelujah!  March is long gone (& so swiftly did it pass, with many thanks to the kind friends who participated in last month’s Collaboration Celebration) and we’re well into Spring, with all its sunniness, open terraces and blossoms.  Can I get a (non-demoninational) amen?

L & I spent this past week in the mountains, where a few (relevant-to-this-post) things happened:

#1. I had the chance to talk nutrition with a new friend &, as a result of our conversation, was reminded just how challenging it can be to have a clear view of what it means to eat “well”.

#2.  We witnessed, what I reckon to be, the last snowfall of the season and the first downright summery days of the year all in the span of less-than-a-week.  Spring is truly the season of rapid change, with so much new growth and such vivid, formerly-dormant energies shooting forth into the light.

What better season to wipe our proverbial nutritional slates clean?

chocobunni

These days, there are a lot of rules for eating well.  I attribute all the murkiness surrounding nutrition to these rules.  You’ve probably heard at least a few:  Don’t eat carbohydrates.  Only eat raw fruits.  Never eat after 6pm.  Intermittent fast and only eat after 4pm.  Add coconut oil and butter to your coffee.  Don’t drink coffee.  Juice-fast.  Don’t eat sugar.  Eliminate gluten.  Sprout your grains. Cut out dairy.  Include dairy products only if your blood type is B.  Eat clean.

If you feel like this list has left you wondering what you can actually eat, dear friend, you are not alone.

hermesmirabelle

The word nutrition comes from the latin verb nutrire–meaning to feed, to nourish.  These days, nutrition has been turned into an industry that sometimes seems to connote the opposite.  The products of this industry change–perhaps it’s a book, a type of protein powder, perhaps it’s even a personality (ahem, Food Babe)–but the objective remains the same: to sell.

Let’s look at Rule #13–Eat Clean–as a prime example.  The implication behind this phrasing is that it’s possible to do the opposite, to eat dirty.  Actually, I prefer to do just that as the foods I love are foods that come from soil, dirt, the same dirt under my feet, in fact, as I like to keep it regional.

The other nettlesome implication is that we are dirty.  Toxic, even.  We must eat clean, detox, cleanse, restrict in order to be healthy, or “clean”.  We must buy juicers, high-tech blenders and spiralizers, follow the same grocery-store list as an author or blogger or celebrity (Goop must be stopped) living in southern California if we really want to eat well.

Now, let’s all take out our erasers and let’s start with #13.  Clean-slate-time, friends!

cows

Do you have your piece of chalk ready?  Because I’m going to share with you the only rule for eating well you’ll ever need to follow:

Nourish yourself.

eggs

Fill your diet with the nourishing foods that surround you.  For me, this Spring, this means a spinach-and-egg-tortilla, a wild-garlic-and-new-potato soup, a glass of rhubarb kombucha, a jar of nettle infusion and, at the same time, a mirabelle-jam tartine, cracked-off chunks of a giant chocolate bunny, anchovy-and-caper pizza and a tall glass of beer.

I’ve found that the principle of nourishing our Earth (through choosing to eat according to region and season), is truly the most nourishing diet for ourselves, but I’ve also found that the principle of letting go of restrictions every once-in-a-while yields miraculous results (the joy of the late-night falafel, for example), as well.

What’s nourishing you this Spring?

Japanese Wisdom from Loulou

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During my childhood, my father and I would go to a tea room in the early morning, before he dropped me off at school.  I remember being, first of all, very proud because my father knew the man who had designed the interior of the tea room and second, very admiring because that tea room used to be a bakery–the same one my father and his brothers would go to for bread when they were my age.

Sometimes, I was able to convince him to buy me a pâtisserie even though I’d already had breakfast. I loved them all:  the cream roll shaped like a microphone, the l’éclair au mocha with its specific pâte à chou–the flakiest dough from the moon and back, the lime green carac shaped like a flying saucer.  I’ve never been a lover of candies, but all those wild shapes and colors and glazes, oh mon dieu!  I could stay at the counter for so long, trying to choose the one, thinking how I should not be too quick while eating it.  I remember how slowly my sister enjoyed any little bouchée and the sassy look she would give me, because of course my sweet was already gone.

But let’s go back inside the tea-room, for a moment,  where you actually receive your dolce.
Dad is reading the newspaper, very concentrated as always. I’m staring at a Dali reproduction with Don Quixote and a melting clock in the desert, wondering if I’ll still be a fan of my LEGO toys when I grow up.

A Japanese adage says that you stop being a sweet tooth as an adult to go for more bitter tastes; that’s called wisdom. I’ve been to that tea-room Chez Mage a hundred times and let me tell you, I’m going still.  Sometimes I even enjoy this mocha pastry, called in French un Japonais, another kind of wisdom for a nostalgic and a sweet-tooth like me.

Japonais