Living the WELL Life

There’s nothing like cold weather to create the desire to get together, cook and enjoy the company of friends and loved ones…I love this menu!  Read more

    It happens a lot, often after one of our signature ‘Dinner-on-the-Deck’ extravaganzas. As the wine flows and the artful bounty of whole foods slowly disappears, one of our guests at Chef’s House, my little guest house on St. Thomas, will take a deep breath in, turn to me and say, “You know…this has always been my dream… to live on an island… and open a Bed & Breakfast…”  Read more

I am so tired of it all. Aren’t you? With each day that goes by, it seems to me that marketers find new ways to lie to us and manipulate consumers into putting more and more junk food in their shopping carts. And we go along, with no protests, like lambs to the slaughter.  Read more

Are you one of those people who say they have no time to cook? No time to get a healthy meal on the table?  After all, there is all that cooking time, right?  Read more

I heard the nephew of Ghandi speak at a Spiritual Center I used to attend.  He said. “Americans do not realize it but they are just guinea pigs to corporate influence”.  I stood up and clapped first.  In fact, the majority of people abuse their bodies along with linear wasteful over-consumption habits and the desire for more, bigger, faster is killing the earth God made.  With this economic downturn, we are seeing the results of the thinking that experts have all the answers.  A positive side is many are reevaluating what is important and are learning to survive with less.   Read more

I wanted to talk about something that seriously bugs me. I have lived a vegan lifestyle for more than 25 years and people rarely knew it. I always told myself it was because I disliked labels, so ‘macrobiotic,’ ‘vegan…’whatever was off my list of things to call myself.   Read more

Want to impress your sweetie this Valentine’s Day? Time to think outside the box…and be indulgent in a most healthy way. Oh…and you should know up front, there’s no chocolate in this menu (okay, one recipe with an option for it, but really…)  Read more

I strive to live a healthy, active lifestyle and eating a plant-based diet has helped me achieve and maintain my goal.  Being a vegetarian is important to me, but it does not define me as a person.  I feel that humans are better designed for meat-free digestion anyway, so I believe that I am more of a natural human and less of any other label.  I support the school of thought that believes the word “vegetarian” comes not from “vegetable” but is derived from the Latin “vegetus”, suggesting that it was coined to describe how “vigorous” and healthy a meat-free person feels.  While I initially became a vegetarian for environmental reasons, I persisted because I felt great, I felt vigorous.  Read more

First things first.  I’m really happy to report that, thanks to Oprah Winfrey, The Kind Diet has been helping lots of people.  Here’s a link to see some cooking videos starring Alicia and Laura Linney!  Read more

The great Swedish botanist, Carolus Linnaeus christened the cacao tree…food of the gods…and boy, was he right! We’ll never know what nirvana is…well, most of us won’t anyway…maybe the Dalai Lama (but I hear he loves chocolate, too)…but chocolate is about as close to ambrosia that we mortals will ever experience. For most of us, a mere taste of chocolate on our tongue can trigger a flood of fond memories…our first Hershey Kiss, licking chocolate ice cream off our wrist during the summer, dipping our fingers into rich chocolate frosting meant for a birthday cake. But hardly any of us think of chocolate as good for us…sinful, surely…decadent, definitely…but healthy? Never…but just this once, you’ll love being wrong.  Read more