desperation

I spent the next few years seeing myriad specialists, hoping for a singular diagnosis and a treatment that could get me back to the life I was missing. But no one diagnosis really fit or led anywhere, and the whole time I was slowly getting sicker. Then one doctor, a functional medicine specialist, suggested I try an Elimination Diet. Elimination diets have us cut out foods for a length of time and then slowly add them back to gauge our reactivity. Because I was so sick, this doctor recommended an especially stringent approach, going ninety days without a number of suspect foods and several complete food groups, and then to only re-introduce one new food per week. I was willing to try anything, and left her office feeling hopeful.

It took some time to get my bearings, so I opted for simple bites, subsisting mostly on avocados, wild salmon, fresh fruit, and green juice. Just two weeks into the diet, I noticed that my "brain fog" lifted dramatically. I was so elated! That boost helped me stay true to this strict protocol the full three months, and work through a steep learning curve about this new paradigm. Nearly seven years later, I remain free of many of the foods I eliminated during that “induction” phase. I embraced that what began as a temporary diet was now a permanent lifestyle. But I wondered if my passion for food would ever return…

a strategy

As a shop owner, with so many exceptional ingredients at my fingertips, I knew all about how to elevate a salad with a shave of Parmigiano or salty slivers of prosciutto. I could add a splash of heavy cream or swirl of crème fraiche to enrich a soup… but what was I to do now that those pinch-hitters are gone? I discovered that heavy cream did not hold a monopoly; there were opportunities for coconut milk to seamlessly replace it in many recipes. A well-placed briny bite of olive and depth-building anchovies, a burst of citrus—the Cal-Med flavors I have always loved—were better supports for the fresh, whole foods that were now the real stars of my dishes.

The knowledge and skills I honed in my shop would serve me equally well in my new eating paradigm. The best dishes start with the best ingredients. And they have a balance of flavors, textures, color, and aroma, enhanced by simple techniques which coax the most flavor from them.

Focusing on foods at their peak of freshness and nutrient punch, I would create a new collection of clean eating recipes that would free me (and my readers!) from a daily search for what to cook. Dishes that are delicious in their own right, with no sense that anything is missing. The first such recipe was my Dark Chocolate Pots de Crème. It was the moment I knew that I could make recipes while omitting a large number of foods and ingredients without sacrificing taste or texture—and that I could help others think about food differently, and fall in love with clean eating just as I have.

a personal turning point

One day, a few months after beginning the Elimination Diet, I was returning home from a "clean food" trip to the grocery store and something happened. Was it an epiphany or a breakdown? I don't know—but it involved me sobbing as I recounted to my husband the details of my mother's lifelong battle with juvenile diabetes and the dietary restrictions she lived with. I suddenly realized the magnitude of grace and stoicism that kept her from complaining even once. She was determined to live, and demonstrated never-ending resolve. She celebrated all of her birthdays without a birthday cake—something I never had put together until that moment. Suddenly, I realized the social isolation she must have felt at times as she never once shared a cookie, or a cocktail with friends. Unfortunately, it was a different era for juvenile diabetics and she died when she was 52 years old. But her doctors were astonished she lived that long, and attributed it to her disciplined diet.

Understanding her so much better all these years later, I vowed to make it easier for people like her—and like me and you—to come together with great food.