I’m not sure exactly how NGI divides up the chef’s training program, but to me it seems like there are three general sections: the “basics,” where you learn knife skills, cooking techniques and food identifications; the “cooking,” where you do a lot of baking and learn to further those basic skills; and the “health” aspect, where you focus on food as it relates to healthy living. This week, my CTP entered into the last stage, so these past few days have included a lot of lectures and tons of new information.

Today’s class was entitled “Kitchen Pharmacy,” and focused on holistic, food-based remedies for common sicknesses. It’s easy to pop an Advil when a headache rolls around, or to kill your congested nose with some Mucinex, but oftentimes that’s just covering up the symptom for a bigger problem. The benefit of these remedies is that they’re totally natural, cheap and usually offer healing properties in addition to temporary relief. For instance:

• For expansive or vascular headaches (brought on by too much alcohol or sugar), balance things out with a contractive, super-salty food like umebosi paste, olives, miso soup or even prosciutto.
• For contractive headaches brought on by too much salt or dehydration, eat plenty of fruit or fresh juice.
• To soothe sore throats, use your grandmother’s remedy or gargling with salt water; if you can handle it, drink ginger tea.
• Ginger tea is also said to be helpful for motion sickness, as is sucking on umeboshi pits.

Though I definitely think all of these remedies have some validity, I have to be honest and say that I don’t believe in Eastern OR Western medicine as a panacea. Like most Americans, I grew up in a home where over-the-counter pills and medication were the norm; I ate more processed foods than kale and quinoa as a kid; and whenever I’ve been treated for an illness it’s been through Western methods. However, I also know firsthand the benefits that healthy, whole foods can have on your health, and there are lots of studies to support non-traditional healing methods. There’s a fine line between using Eastern remedies to your advantage, and adhering to them so strictly that you ignore the benefits of modern medicine; drugs like antibiotics and pain relievers may be over-prescribed, but that doesn’t mean they’re never necessary. And let’s be real: it’s easier to pop an Advil and feel better in half an hour than it is to brew yourself some barley tea and miso soup and wait a day or two. Obviously these are just my opinions and I respect anyone who chooses a strictly Eastern or Western medical path for their own bodies, but the more I think about it, the more I believe in a balance between the two- using holistic remedies if possible, and Western cures when necessary. I’m interested to keep learning about this over the next few weeks to see how my thoughts evolve!

What do you know about Eastern medicine? Have you ever used alternative remedies like food, yoga or acupuncture to cure a sickness?

Friday night dinner has been on the brain lately. I seriously can’t believe my group’s presentation is only two weeks away! And we’re done in a month? Crazy talk, y’all.

Anyway, today was a recipe re-test for the dishes we prepared last week that needed some tweaking. Our appetizer and entree was pretty solid, so we mainly focused our energy on perfecting the dessert. Because in order to make gluten-free, maple-crystal desserts taste as good as the real deal, it’s essential to do some serious refining. And as one of the class sweet freaks, this dessert has to be bangin’.

While our initial dessert plan called for a bourbon cashew cream, last week’s tasters nixed that in favor of vanilla bean ice cream. Fair enough. So, this afternoon I made a batch of cashew-cream-vanilla-bean-ice-cream from scratch.

I started by making homemade cashew milk (just blending 1 part raw cashews with 2 parts water, then straining out the nut pulp), then added in some maple syrup, rice syrup, vanilla bean and Southern Comfort before transferring it to the ice cream machine to do it’s thing. The result was pretty incredible- I’m not normally a big ice cream girl (unless it has chunks of candy in it, I’ll go for frosting any day), but this had a strong vanilla taste with a little bit of zing from the alcohol. It got good reviews from the chef and the other group, as well, so hopefully our dinner guests feel the same way.

We also put together another edition of the apple pie in a gluten-free crust. For this one, we combined the sauteed apples with the cherry compote used a different mold for the mini-pie, and topped it with a crust crumble.

It’ll be topped with the ice cream and served with salted caramel and cherry sauces. Sweet freak satisfied.

The quinoa cornbread muffins were also remade.

I’m gonna be honest: these aren’t my favorite. The texture is perfect, but I don’t really love quinoa unless it’s mixed with another potent taste (it’s just kind of bitter to me), and when I bit into this, it was the first thing I tasted. The other members of my group like it though, so I think I just have a weird quinoa sensitivity…we need a whole-grain component to the meal, so it does give the traditional bread an unexpected twist. Plus, it’ll eventually be slathered in jalepeno jam or honey butter. Those could save anything.

And finally, more sauteed collards with shiitake bacon.

Aside from the dessert, these might be my favorite part of the meal. (Unless you count the tempeh. Or the mashed potatoes. Don’t make me choose.) So simple, but freaking amazing…the shiitakes add the most amazing smoky flavor, which is really saying something since I usually hate mushrooms.

As much as I adore our meal and think it will be a hit, I must say that I’m already starting to get sick of trying the same foods over and over. Imagining this on a hundredfold scale makes me realize why so many restaurant chefs don’t want to eat the stuff they make…

Are there any foods you have love-hate relationships with? Meaning you like them sometimes, but others they make you want to gag? I’m this way with cottage cheese. Despite how icky it can look, I actually love the stuff…except when I don’t. Wow, I’m articulate tonight.