The author admits she bends her own rules to eat out sometimes, and hasn’t eliminated white sugar from her household. But for the most part, the foods she craves most are “real.”
Question: What is your ideal rnmeal?
rnrnrnrnrnrnNina Planck: rnWellrnmy real food luxury would be a raw milk butler. Hern would just bring raw dairy products including fresh rawrnmilk to our house. Once a dayrnwould be fine, every other day I could live with. But we go to some rntime,rntrouble and expense to get fresh raw milk in our household. And then a real food meal: I just lovernroast chicken and when I came off the vegetarian wagon I really, really rnenjoyedrnwhat they call in England the parson’s nose. It’srn the chicken tail and it is just this fatty littlernthing. It’s delicious. So Irn love a fresh green salad with highrnquality greens that have been raised in real rich soil and have realrnflavor. We love good olivernoil. I’m happy to spend money onrnit. Gosh, I love good blue cheese. rn I love homemade ice cream and I love tornmake pannacotta with raw cream, which I haven’t done for ages. You can actually just use the littlernbit of gelatin and it’s a whole raw pannacotta. Irn call it pannacrutta. rnThat recipe is on my Web site somewhere and I love a glass of rnwine and Irnlove chocolate. So those are a few things.
Question: What foods are yourrn guiltyrnpleasures?
rnrnrnrnrnrnNina Planck: rnMyrnguilty pleasure is to eat a big salad with nuts and cheese and meat day rnafterrnday after day, and not to make chicken broth and not to find some good rnroastrnbeef, so my guilty pleasure is sort of what I call "girl food" or rn"single girlrnfood." But there is a man at home and there are children at home and sorn I can’trnjust feed them salads with blue cheese and walnuts day after day. My industrial food guilty pleasure isrndefinitely white sugar. We havernnot eliminated white sugar from our household or our diet, but I always rnpreferrnwhole, unadulterated sugar, so whole unrefined cane sugar or maple syruprn orrnhoney are definitely my sweeteners of choice, but the dark chocolate we rneat – andrnby dark I mean 70% or higher – always contains a little bit of sugar, rnpreferablyrnorganic, so I have not eliminated sugar from my diet and there are rndishes thatrnare just not improved by maple syrup. rnYou know if you want a lemon meringue pie it just doesn’t taste rnrightrnsweetened with anything other than sugar and I love a little dessert. I used to indulge in nonfat frozenrnyogurt and also in the sort of imitation crab you get at salad bars, butrn I nowrnrealize that those are lowest form of reconstituted fishmeal and the rnlowestrnform of dairy, if in fact there is any dairy in it, so I just don’t evenrn botherrnnow and I don’t even miss those guilty pleasures
rnrnQuestion: Is it hard for you rnto findrn"real food" in restaurants?
rnrnrnrnrnrnNina Planck: rnIrnmake some exceptions for eating out, although I don’t really write them rndown onrna note card, but while I would never ever buy farmed salmon and we havernbeautiful wild Alaskan salmon in the freezer, in the cupboard all the rntime I dornsometimes find myself eating farmed salmon at weddings or on airplanes, rnthatrnsort of thing. One of my pleasuresrnof the moment after our three young children are in bed is to walk down rnthernstreet and for 20 minutes have a dozen oysters and one glass of rnsparkling winernat the local joint. Oysters, by thernway, are great food for men and women who would like to be mothers and rnfathers.
