Edible Education with the Plan Z Diet

Edible Education with the Plan Z Diet

By: Zola

Chief Dieter

Plan Z Diet




Used to be that if you picked anything from a public garden you could get yourself arrested.

It’s not always that way these days.

I don’t recommend you start picking things from your local public garden, but in some cases you can participate in what’s going on in the garden and be able to “consume” your education.

Take Chicago for example. In Chicago you can go to the Regenstein Garden and attend a chef series. They do cooking demos with items from the garden. Herbs can be ornamental one day and then they might find themselves as a feature in a sauce. Gale Gand, pastry chef extraordinaire gives cooking demos at the Regenstein Garden and then she offers up the recipes to go with the discussions. Check out www.chicagobotanic.org.

Live in Atlanta? There they have an old parking lot that is now a garden with an outdoor kitchen. Local chefs do cooking classes. YUM: www.atlantabotanicalgarden.org.

Here’s a cute one. In New Orleans they have a new city program that educates kids about how to plant and tend a vegetable garden. They get to do tastings too! I got my early start with this helping my mother tend the rhubarb patch. We had tomato plants out back of the house too. I’ll also never forget the year my brother dug up the area behind the garage and planted potatoes! I don’t recall eating one potato but I do remember the potato patch: www.neworleanscitypark.com.

One more.

In San Francisco there’s a place called Arcimboldo’s Edible Garden. What a great name. Arcimboldo was a 16th century painter. I bet he never envisioned his name on a garden, although he specialized in doing portraits made out of fruits, vegetable, etc. it’s something you have to see to believe. Quite creative. Google Guiseppe Arcimboldo and read all about him. You can go to the Arcimboldo Garden and take a cooking class or watch a cooking demo at www.sfbotanicalgarden.org.

Cheers,

To read more of Zola's blogs CLICK HERE or head over to https://www.planzdiet.com/blog/

The Plan Z Diet Commitment to Whole Unprocessed Foods

The Plan Z Diet Commitment to Whole Unprocessed Foods

By: Zola

Chief Dieter

Plan Z Diet




You’ve probably noticed lately that I have been pretty regularly trying to convince you to eat whole, unprocessed foods even if you're not on the Plan Z Diet. Every recipe I write for the Plan Z Diet uses what I consider unprocessed foods (with minor exceptions).

To keep it simple, let’s start off with some definitions: Processed foods are anything you buy in a package in a grocery store. Anything that has chemicals and preservatives as additives would fall into the processed foods category. By my definition, any bread in a store that has a preservative put into it would be a processed food, so even if it doesn’t always come in a box, you can consider it processed. Processed foods encompass most of the grocery store.

Unprocessed foods are the things you find in the produce section, the fresh meat section and limited parts of the dairy section. I say limited parts of the dairy section because we can’t all have a cow or goat in our backyard. We need to allow for some processed foods that are in packages or cartons but the fewer the ingredients that are there to keep them fresh for transport to the grocery store, the better. The closer your food comes to you from the farm, the better.

The almost old adage is, “If you can’t pronounce it, don’t eat it.” Just read labels and you’ll see what I mean.On the Plan Z Diet you will become a label reading maniac!

Another almost sage saying is “Shop the perimeter.” Buy your food from the sections that surround the outside of the store. That includes the produce department, the fresh meat (not that deli stuff that hangs in those plastic packages), fresh flowers if you want them to decorate your table and the freshest dairy you can find. With dairy, try to stick to the things that have that shorter ingredient list and which don’t have enough chemicals to keep them fresh in the case until 2012. Check the sell-by date.

Buy fresh. That pretty much covers it.

I bring up this subject because there’s a pretty good article in this month’s issue of Food and Wine Magazine written by a contributing chef named Dan Barber. Dan was awarded Best New Chef in 2002 by Food and Wine and is a partner in Blue Hill restaurant in NYC as well as a partner in Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills, NY.

Dan’s article is called “Can Farms Save the World?” (Buy this month’s Food and Wine and read the whole article. It’s not in the on-line archive yet).

He contends that our old thought of keeping farming separated from “nature” is ludicrous. The idea of good environmentalism was always separated from farming. That’s where the concept of natural parks came from. You see a national park like Yellowstone in the distance as an environmental preserve while you stand in a pesticide-filled wheat field or a cornfield.

Things are changing though. I drive by community gardens in Chicago, built right under the elevated train tracks. That takes the separation away from city and farm. You see farmer’s markets becoming even more popular and prevalent; bringing the farm closer to the city too. People are flocking to these markets because they are starting to ‘get it’. They see now that fresh food; brought to them from as close to their location as possible is fresher and better for them. Chefs are buying food directly from the farmers. They feature the farms’ names on their menus. Depending on where you live that might be ‘old hat’. It might have been going on for decades now but for many the trip to the local grocery store is still the only option for buying food. For many a franchise restaurant is still the biggest game in town. That’s sad. We have to get back to restaurants owned by individuals. But the trend I’m talking about is growing. Thank goodness – literally!

I had this idea about 20 years ago that I never got to implement. I wanted a sheep farm. I wanted to locate my sheep farm on about 100 acres south of Madison, Wisconsin. I was actually pursuing the idea enough that I’d drive about 45 minutes south of Madison along the rolling hills that border the I-90 corridor, looking for an ideal location to put a sheep farm. I even read books on how to birth sheep. I visited two huge sheep farms, one in upstate New York and one in Washington State, working toward my dream of building a sheep farm.

It’s odd to have a sheep farm in Wisconsin. Wisconsin is the land of cows and corn. So why sheep? Maybe it is my Irish heritage. I’m in love with sheep. I love the noises they make, the shape they are, the size and I love the cheese that comes from sheep’s milk. I was totally ready to do the sheep thing and learn how to make sheep’s milk cheese. That was going to be my sheep production involvement. And of course some butchering. (Well , maybe I’d hire that out.)

The sheep farm I planned doesn’t need the full 100 acres. My plan was to lease out the surrounding acres to organic farmers. Then I was going to be in charge of selling the produce to Chicago restaurants. That’s why I was looking where I was. I wanted the transportation of the produce to be simple. Go down I-90 and deliver all this fresh produce and my sheep/lamb products to Chicago.

That idea was in my head long ago when that form of restaurant supply was very new. Alice Waters of Chez Panisse in California, and a few other cutting-edge chefs were growing their own produce and sourcing their meat and produce totally locally. I wanted to do my thing; only with sheep. Alas, I was always too busy running another company to get my sheep farm together. But now that I have developed Plan Z by Zola I am approaching the whole food trend from another perspective; that of teaching you how to make delicious whole food recipes and encouraging you to spend the majority of your grocery budget on fresh, whole, unprocessed food.

Cheers,

To read more of Zola's blogs CLICK HERE or head over to https://www.planzdiet.com/blog/

Plan Z Diet Chicken Alfredo with Almost Noodles

Plan Z Diet Chicken Alfredo with Almost Noodles

By: Zola

Chief Dieter

Plan Z Diet




The Plan Z Diet by Zola

This is a Plan Z Diet ZReboot recipe. This dish comes together in a flash! You can also make it with steak or even seafood. Any of those options would be good. When I get a hankering for pasta on the Plan Z Diet I crave Chicken Alfredo. This one did it for me! Satisfied that craving.

To make “noodles” out of zucchini you need a contraption called a “spiralizer.” You can order them online, or buy one in a kitchen store. They are very inexpensive and super easy to use. If you don’t want to buy one you can make this dish with just zucchini slices but that would defeat the noodle technique.

Servings: Serves 2

Ingredients:
¾ of a pound of chicken tenders
Your favorite meat rub (optional). I use Special Shit (sorry… that’s what it’s called). That gives me sort of a southwestern feel to the chicken. Any meat rub will work or you can just do yours plain.
1 medium zucchini (about a foot long and 3” in diameter) turned into noodles with a spiralizer
2 tbl of olive oil
¾ cup of whipped cream cheese
3 Tbl of sour cream
1/3 cup of grated parmesan cheese
A whisper of cayenne (optional)

Instructions:

In a saute pan, add 1 Tbl of the olive oil. Begin to heat it to medium high. Add your chicken tenders. If you are going to sprinkle them with meat rub you can do that now. Just sprinkle the top side.

Cook the chicken tenders, turning after 3 minutes. In about six minutes they should be done. Just make sure all of the pink is gone. Set them aside.

While the chicken is cooking you can also make your sauce. In another medium pan heated to medium, add the other Tbl of olive oil. Put in your spiral noodles. Saute them for about 3 – 5 minutes to loosen them up and cook them. Remove the noodles from the saucepan and put them into a bowl. Continue making the sauce in the same pan by adding the whipped cream cheese and the sour cream. Stir them together to mix them up and get them all melty. Add the parmesan. If you want a little heat to the dish, add the cayenne. If it’s a bit thick for you, you can thin the sauce with a bit of cream, milk or even water. Then transfer this to the bowl with the noodles and mix it all in. You want the noodles coated. Then add your meat on top and serve.

My husband does not crave chicken alfredo but he loved this!

Enjoy!
Cheers,

To read more of Zola's blogs CLICK HERE or head over to https://www.planzdiet.com/blog/


Chicken Alfredo with “Almost Noodles” Recipe Copyright 2015 Plan Z, the Diet by Zola

What the Plan Z Diet Thinks about School Lunch

What the Plan Z Diet Thinks about School Lunch

By: Zola

Chief Dieter

Plan Z Diet




President Truman started the National School Lunch Program in 1946. A little over a decade later I was born. I went to a Catholic School as a child. Most every kid stayed at school for lunch. It was an expected part of the program.

My mother fairly regularly volunteered as a “lunch lady” at the school. She went in early in the morning and helped prepare the food, helped serve and clean up, and then ran errands on her way home to cook dinner for the family. She became friends with many of the on-staff ladies who were the full-time pros. Those were the women who designed the menus, ordered the food and supplies and supervised the cooking.

I can remember many of the meals we were served. Each of them contained a protein, a starch or two, a veggie and something for dessert. One of my favorites was chicken with gravy, mashed potatoes, mixed peas and carrots, a dinner roll with butter and freshly made apple crisp. Sure, there were times when something was served that I didn’t like. Sauerkraut comes to mind. We’d have some kind of roasted meat with the sauerkraut on the side. I’d eat the meat and everything else on my plate but the sauerkraut always stayed on my tray. There were plenty of lunch ladies cruising the aisles making sure you ate the majority of your meal, but I could get away with leaving the sauerkraut behind.

The drink was always 8 ounces of whole, white milk. In Wisconsin, that was a given. The meals were subsidized by a weekly payment (I think my weekly payment was about a dollar, maybe less). Now compare that to the average lunch in a grade school today.

Deep fried popcorn chicken, tiny taters, bread, barbecue sauce, ketchup and chocolate milk. EEEW. You call that a healthy meal that is going to keep a kid full and focused all afternoon. Making matters worse, none of that food is cooked in the cafeteria. You never see anyone peeling a potato. That food is shipped in and reheated. That’s enough to turn a kid’s brain to mush.

Other mainstays on the menu: pizza, French fries, hot dogs and a mystery pork they call “ribicue.” Do you see anything green and leafy on that list? No. Oh yeah, and the “fruit cup” they call dessert is floating in sugar water. You have to open the top of it and peel back the plastic to eat the diced fruit out of a plastic cup. How long has that fruit been in that cup? And how many preservatives are in there? Compare that to the freshly baked apple crisp that I could smell as I descended the stairs to the school cafeteria as a kid. My mouth was watering by the time I stepped in. If I were a kid these days I’d be gagging.

And get this: in many schools the children are allowed to sit with the meal they are served and wait 15 minutes. Then they are allowed to throw it out, take their own money and buy things a la carte. They can buy cake, brand name junk foods like chips and sodas, along with candy bars. No limits. The big name food companies ship that stuff in.

Sadly 16.9% of children between the ages of 2 and 19 are obese.
No wonder.

Guess what a typical meal in a French school is? Beet salad, veal stew and pumpkin soup. What do they eat in Korea? Stir-fried beef with carrots and kimchi. What is WRONG with this picture? Are those nations more wealthy than ours? Do they care more for the well-being of their kids than we do? The United States sadly budgets $2.68 per child for lunch and only $1.25 of that money goes toward the food!

Children born in 2000 have more than a 30% chance of developing diabetes in their lifetime. We are sending our children down a nutrition and health hell-hole.

I’m feeling ill.
I think I better stop now.


To read more of Zola's blogs CLICK HERE or head over to https://www.planzdiet.com/blog/

The Shrinking Architect

The Shrinking Architect

By: Zola

Chief Dieter

Plan Z Diet




I first met Jack as a prospective client. He designed the house I live in and that functions as Plan Z Diet headquarters. He’s an amazingly talented man. He took a car fix-it shop that was built in 1954 and transformed it into a home. Our home. Check out the kinds of things Jack designs by clicking here. http://yochicago.com/talking-architecture-at-mondial/9421/

This link is not an ad. Instead it will give you a lesson in modern Chicago architecture and even a little bit of a lesson in architecture from the turn-of-the-century. It will also give you a short glimpse of Jack but better yet, an understanding of his design expertise.

Fast forward a year. We have been living in our new home that long. Time flies when you love your residence. We have been very happy.

Jack has watched me begin the building of The Plan Z Diet by Zola. Sort of a twist on my type of architecture; building a new business. He’s been very interested in the building of the Plan Z Diet, not only because we live in a building he designed but also because he’s been interested in losing some weight.

Jack has dieted for years. I have watched the man order dinner and you’d never know he could eat so little and stay large and unhealthy. He was much like me. No matter how hard he tried to lose weight he never lost much, and those pounds he did lose just came roaring back.

In recent months Jack has had a larger motivator to lose weight. His daughter has been planning her wedding. Everyone in the family feels pressure to lose weight when a wedding approaches. As they say, wedding pictures are forever. Jack also wanted to lose weight to improve his health so he decided that since he knew me, why not try The Plan Z Diet.

Jack did a great job with The Plan Z Diet. I congratulate him.

Over the weekend I got this email from Jack. How he had time to write this in the middle of the weekend his daughter got married, I will never know, but I will always appreciate that he took the time to write me such a personal note. He also gave me permission to share it with you.


I want to thank you for the Plan Z Diet…Our daughter is getting married tomorrow and the first time I had seen many of our guests since starting the diet was at the rehearsal dinner. On The Plan Z Diet I have lost 32 pounds and I guess it made a noticeable difference since dozens of our guests commented on how good I look and how much younger I look at my new weight. I can tell you that the one who was proudest of me was my daughter who said, “Thanks Dad … we want to keep you around for the grandchildren”…and the smile on her face and the hug I got was as they say …priceless…Unfortunately the wedding wasn’t priceless, but it was worth it and I look forward to the next stage of The Plan Z Diet by Zola….Thanks so very much for your Plan Z Diet, your coaching, and the recipes…it changes people’s lives.

Jack

Since August is the biggest bridal month I thought you’d like hearing that not only is the bride happy, the dad is too.

Cheers,


To read more of Zola's blogs CLICK HERE or head over to https://www.planzdiet.com/blog/

My New Favorite Plan Z Diet Pen Pal

My New Favorite Plan Z Diet Pen Pal

By: Zola

Chief Dieter

Plan Z Diet





I guess you could call us “Pen Pals”. Internet pen pals.

Plan Z Dieter Jo-Beth found out about The Plan Z Diet by Zola by reading this very column. She and hundreds of thousands of others just like you have heard me talking about failing at losing weight for so long that I decided, finally, that I had to design my own diet. The Plan Z Diet was born. Jo-Beth was curious and checked it out. She registered, got started on the Plan Z Diet and ended up losing all the weight she needed to lose. She is one happy Plan Z Diet camper.

The reason Jo-Beth and I became internet pen pals is because she lives on a kibbutz in Israel. She’s a dieting pioneer for us. She’s been doing the Plan Z Diet in a Kosher fashion and has done very well. She’s become a big fan and my whole staff loves her.

Jo-Beth came back to visit family in the US and stayed for an extended period. Most of her time was spent in Phoenix. She said she was determined to meet me someday so when she was traveling across the country she made an effort to reach out to me to see if we could get together.

I was excited to meet her, so of course I cleared my calendar to be able to have a nice long visit. We closed the Plan Z Diet office and all trooped off to a nice lunch.

Jo-Beth told us so many interesting stories. We were all fascinated with the life she’s leading. She’s lived on a kibbutz for over 40 years!

Besides that, Jo-Beth is delightful and even shared another friend with us that was planning to show her more of the city later in the evening. We sat in the garden, sharing stories of her Plan Z Diet success and just about anything else we could think of. It was sort of like having a long lost sister come visit. What a delight.

I know that for years to come I will still be staying in touch with Jo-Beth by email. Very soon she will be back in Israel, teaching and sharing her commitment to her cause. She’ll be there for a long time again before she comes back to the US for her next visit. She’s invited us to come visit her in Israel and I just might work to take her up on that sometime. I know she’d be one thorough tour guide!

I have found many fans as part of The Plan Z Diet by Zola. And I have found some cherished friends too. No one can ask for a better job than the one I have. I’m so lucky!

Cheers,

To read more of Zola's blogs CLICK HERE or head over to https://www.planzdiet.com/blog/

The Plan Z Diet Trip to Quebec City

The Plan Z Diet Trip to Quebec City

By: Zola

Chief Dieter

Plan Z Diet




I’ll remember our dinner at Le Patriarche forever. It was one of those special meals in a special setting.

Le Patriarche is located in Quebec City, in Canada.

The first time we visited Quebec City we were there for a very short time. My husband and I promised ourselves we’d be back – and soon.

Well, it took 30 years. That’s not what I’d call soon. We weren’t even married the first time we visited! That was a very long time ago. I guess life just got in the way.

So this trip was special.

We only had a few days off, and life has been hectic here at the Plan Z Diet, so I didn’t get to a lot of research before I jumped on the plane. When we got to our hotel my first mission was to scope out the restaurant scene. I wanted some quality meals in relaxed settings. Quebec City is the perfect place for that. French bistros abound but so do other kinds of food.

Quebec City, in my opinion, is as French as France. The architecture is as grand. The streets of the old, walled city are narrow and cobblestoned. The shops are small and quaint. The products are high quality. All just like Paris.

The people are friendly. Most would stereotype and say the French are not friendly but in my experience if you are willing to try a few words of French they will acknowledge that and just start speaking English. So if you can say “bonjour” you are pretty well ready to communicate. The people of Quebec City speak Quebecoise which is a different variation on French, but it all sounds the same to me since I only speak English and some Spanish. I find it to be a light, airy language so to me it is pleasant to listen to. I love listening to the music too, so French music in the background at a restaurant always makes it feel special.

Check out this link to Le Patriarche: http://lepatriarche.com/en/index_en.html

I’ll let the movie (in French with English subtitles) describe the restaurant. I’ll work to describe the food, but in truth, you almost have to go there to really get the proper perspective. (If when you bring up the link the words are in French just look over to the left and click on the English button and you can read it in English).

Chef Roth is a creative genius in my opinion. He’s not so off the charts that you feel like you are eating a chemistry experiment but I assure you that you will experience new taste sensations no matter how exposed you are to eating in fancy restaurants. Some chefs take the creativity too far. This guy does not.

You will experience things like mushroom foam. It’s not often my husband groans with delight at a restaurant dinner table. He did at Le Patriarche when he tasted Chef Roth’s particular foam.

All of the menu course selections come in threes. They are aptly called trilogies and they all have themes. One of the trilogies I ordered was the foie gras trilogy. That means I had foie gras in three different preparations. They were all completely different.

I also had the lamb trilogy so one section of my plate had a lamb chops with a special preparation, and two other cuts of the meat were used too. I should have taken notes, but I was so intense in my eating activity that I didn’t even commit it to memory. There were just too many courses and too many variations on the themes. We had 4 courses plus le muse and intermezzo courses, so that’s about 20 different “teeny” plates.

My desserts were all made of pistachio. It was the creamiest pistachio ice cream I have ever put between my lips.

Each course was served on a different kind of plate and each plate was made in 3 sections. I have some three-sectioned plates but I had no idea there were that many different designs on the market. You’ll see some of the plates if you look closely during the little descriptive movie.

Le Patriarche will live on in my personal list of Top 10 Restaurants in the world. I hope you get to visit places this special to you too.

Cheers,

To read more of Zola's blogs CLICK HERE or head over to https://www.planzdiet.com/blog/