Rediscovering real food

This winter I find myself in an unhealthy quick food quagmire. Life is busy and the food I eat, simple. My vegetable garden is four months from producing, as the black soil and my physical activity lay dormant from lack of solar energy. I need the sun. Canned chili, frozen corn dogs, turkey subs, heat and serve pizza and an occasional blackened salmon Caesar is my diet. My belt tightens and my heart begins to ache suffering the agony of processed food. As my palate enters culinary Siberia, anything salty and processed satisfies - I'm in trouble.

I rediscover real food while eating at Scratch, with my wife and friends. Textures, flavors and seasoning recently forgotten are now remembered as canned chili loses its appeal to crab chowder. Laughing with friends while eating great food does something good for the soul.

The conversation warms as my wife challenges, "What is your favorite restaurant?" My wife offers the Spokane vegetarian restaurant Mizuna, which creates vegetarian (and now meat) feasts prepared with an artistic and organic flare. I quickly pick two restaurants. First, The River Cafe, in Calgary, Alberta, for its intelligent mix of opulent yet rustic wild game - I love wild game. Next, The Bistro Jeanty, in Yountville, Calif., for its authentic French bistro philosophy and classic cream of tomato soup topped with puff pastry - yum! When visiting last year I ordered the escargot for dessert. The snails in buttery garlic satisfy as I leave the restaurant reconnected to my culinary roots.

Our more-traveled friends first offer the iconic The French Laundry, in the Napa Valley, for their "Have to do before you die," list and speak of simple, artesian restaurants in France and Spain with fish caught the day of service and ingredients harvested within five miles of the restaurant. My culinary passion is reborn.

During my journey to culinary health, I rediscover my favorite things; favorite foods created while cheffing in restaurants throughout the west, local foods eaten while living in New Mexico, South Dakota, Texas, Illinois, Northern California and Coeur d'Alene and foods rediscovered from reading cookbooks and food magazines. Most importantly, I dig my Culinary Institute of America textbooks, binders and notes from their disrespected bottom shelf to the honored center of the bookcase. I open the books and notes daily and relive my experience attending one of the best culinary schools in the world.

When life gets wacky and stress hits volcanic status, I enter the kitchen. Cooking and eating great food satisfies my tummy and calms my mind so, "When the dog bites, when the bee stings, when I'm feeling sad, I simply remember my favorite things, and then I don't feel, so bad." Here are a few of my favorite things:

• Homemade yogurt - I use yogurt on everything. Yogurt takes 10 minutes to make and 12 hours to cook and is used in place of sour cream, crme fresh, in salad dressing and low-calorie cream sauces. When placed in cheesecloth and strained overnight, homemade and store-bought yogurt becomes Greek yogurt which broadens its appeal. It becomes thicker and creamier and can top soup, stirred into pasta, coat lamb prior to breading and is the main ingredient for the famous Greek condiment, tzatziki. I sweeten my yogurt with honey and build a parfait mixed with fresh fruit and homemade granola.

• Salt - all salt is not created equally. In the Rutherford Culinary Academy I do a salt tasting. One might say, "Yuck," but this experience changes one's perspective of what salt really is and what salt does to food. I challenge the readers of this column to taste four different salty flavor profiles and email me your experience. Have a party, celebrate food and taste salt. Have cucumbers, bread and water available for tasters to neutralize their palates between tastes. First taste ionized table salt. Notice the dry, metallic one-tone flavor of the salt. Next, coarse kosher salt. Immediately the taster should notice a cleaner, more palatable note to the salt. Third, taste sea salt (a good quality fleur de sel and not a cheap large cardboard container of sea salt) and notice the clean, slightly ocean taste of the granules. Finally taste a good quality, Southeast Asian fish sauce and anchovies.

• Olive oil - This is where things get difficult and sometimes expensive. Olive oil comes in different grades. Extra virgin - acid content not more than 1 percent, Sopraffino virgin - acidic content not more than 1.5 percent, Fino virgin - acidic content not more than 3 percent and Virgin - acidic content not more than 4 percent. Avoid any oil with different labels than these. Olive oil with an acid rate of 4 percent or greater is usually too acidic to satisfy most culinary palates. Olive oil labeled pomace is from the pits and skins of the olive and reserved only for fuel in Europe but sold widely in the United States for human consumption. Run quickly away from this type of olive oil. What is good olive oil? Price does not dictate quality or appeasable flavor profile. Buy four or five bottles of extra virgin oil at a price you can afford. Taste them all with bread and decide which fits your palate. Some cooks appreciate strong and dark, bitter oils while others desire lighter colored mild oils. Decide what you like and purchase it.

• Balsamic vinegar - Good vinegar is aged a minimum of 12 years in a battery of seven barrels of successively smaller sizes. The casks are made of different woods like chestnut, acacia, cherry, oak, mulberry, ash and in the past juniper. Traditional vinegar can be 80 years old and as thick as oil. Treat yourself to a culinary treasure and purchase an old-world balsamic, drizzle it on figs or homemade vanilla ice cream and enjoy the best culinary experience imagined.

• Change beef burger to bison, garden or turkey burger. This change has added variety and will hopefully extend my life. Bison burger is delicious. If cooked properly (medium rare to medium) bison tastes richer than beef, has half the calories, less cholesterol, more iron and more vitamin b-12 than salmon, chicken, pork and beef. Not bad for a protein indigenous to America. Turkey follows the nutritional lead of bison and the vegetarian garden burger option satisfies with a strip of vegetarian bacon, grilled onions and Tillamook reserve extra sharp cheddar cheese on a toasted bun. You will not miss the meat.

• Other suggestions include making your own vinaigrette, buying locally grown food from local producers, canning vegetables and fruits from local ranches and farms, cooking from scratch - pasta, tortillas, sauces, breads, muffins and soups. Purchase meat and eggs from local producers, subscribe to magazines, buy books about cooking and become a self-trained chef.

Remember, if all else fails put traditional family food back into your life. Food is tied to memories and if food is memorable, so will be the new memories created. Psychologically, we create flashbulb memories of each positive and negative event we enter. If the event is happy, we wish for the event to continue. If the event is unhappy, we desire it to end. Invent or create happy food experiences and allow them to continue.

Bill Rutherford is a psychotherapist, public speaker, elementary school counselor, adjunct college psychology instructor and executive chef, and owner of Rutherford Education Group. Please email him at bprutherford@hotmail.com and check out www.foodforthoughtcda.com.