This Food and Drink Issue of the magazine — the fourth annual — is full of questions. I have two of my own, and they’re the same questions I’ve been asking myself since I began cooking 40 years ago. How can food change my life? And how can food change the world?

I grew up during a time when the awareness of the quality of food was practically nil. It’s true that in the ’50s and even the ’60s people still cooked, even if much of the food was “convenient,” like Jell-O mold or tuna tetrazzini. It’s also true that pigs were still raised on farms, most vegetables were seasonal and hyperprocessed junk hadn’t yet achieved hegemony. But back then we took the good stuff for granted and never thought it would get anything but better.

The ’70s and ’80s were a more optimistic era, because cooking was in the news and the American food revolution was in full swing. It turned out, though, that it wasn’t a revolution but a civil war. Our side featured good people arguing for real, mostly simple cooking done with fresh, well- raised ingredients, a retreat from convenience and overly fancy stuff and a return to the basics. Arrayed against us in this fight — a struggle for the American palate and ultimately the global diet — was Big Food, spreading like the Blob.

It was hardly a fair fight: we were naïve, optimistic and unprepared, armed with spatulas, good food and journalism. The bad guys had nuclear weapons like scientific marketing and advertising, billions of dollars and, worst of all, government support.

But our side grew as more people began to care. Contrary to what you sometimes hear, it was not an elite group. It was traditional farmers, urban farmers (many in poor neighborhoods), high-school and college students, back-to-the- landers, concerned parents of all classes and, yes, hipsters and intellectuals. Our numbers began to snowball, as more people embraced the importance of good, healthful food in their lives.

To my way of thinking, cooking is central to this battle. Cooking changes lives in ways that eating never approaches. Cooking makes you care about nourishment, family meals, nutrition, pleasure, relaxation, skills, control, health, the environment, culture and the earth. And it leads your kids to care about these things too.

As rewarding as all this is, it’s not enough. There is the personal, and there is the political. As well as you might feed yourself and your kids, the food “system” is still out there, stuffing some people and starving others, poisoning the earth and the air, destroying cultures everywhere.

Which brings us to how food can change the world. For people to eat well, to live well, to thrive and be healthy (and for health care costs to become more affordable), for agriculture and rural areas and even towns and cities to be sustainable — that is, for agriculture and land and water and labor to endure — the food system has to change. That means working locally, nationally, globally. Fix school lunches. Support a farmer, or start growing your own vegetables. Work for a member of Congress who is committed to making Big Food pay its way. Support fair treatment of workers — and of animals too. As a friend of mine said recently, there’s plenty of good work to do. With food it can really have an impact, not only on your life but on everyone’s. read more…

I know this is true because I have done it myself.
I learned to make my favorite Tibetan dishes like momos (dumplings) and sha balep (fried meat pies)
by watching and helping some great cooks and then just trying the recipes myself.

I have been cooking Tibetan dishes for over 20 years, but you won’t have to practice that long
because I have made a very easy-to-follow Tibetan Home Cooking cookbook and video series for you! Read more…

Ceviches, causas and anticuchos provide flavors that have the world’s top toques raving, experimenting and catching the next jet

Make room Spain and Korea, Peru is having its moment in the gastronomic sun.

Yesterday, a crew of the culinary world’s leading lights, including Denmark’s René Redzepi, France’s Michel Bras and America’s Dan Barber began descending on Lima for a star-studded food festival. This week, Spain’s Ferran Adrià, the unofficial dean of global haute cuisine, will begin making a documentary film about the food scene there. A huge restaurant from the nation’s top celebrity chef will open later this month in Manhattan.

Andy Weber Studios

Fear plays a very important part in our daily life, and in human society as a whole. Fear comes in many shapes and forms, but it could be described as: an unpleasant feeling of perceived risk or danger, real or not. It functions to make us alert and ready for action while expecting specific problems.

As is often said, fear lies at the basis of all religions. At the time humans were gatherers and hunters, little was understood of the world around them, so without understanding the causes for many everyday experiences there is logically existential fear. In search for understanding the world around them, shamans and mystics tried to explain the world with invisible and incomprehensible aspects aspects like spirits, gods, nature itself, the sun and moon etc. which also gave the possibility to do something about ‘the unexpected’ by pleasing the gods and spirits with prayers and rituals. Later on, more advanced ideas and philosophies developed, and of course, organized religions.

Also Buddhism is to an extent based on fear; the fear of suffering. The historical Buddha went out on his spiritual quest when he realized that everybody is subject to discomfort, problems and pain, and with the goal to find a way to end it alltogether he discovered a ‘way out’.

In fact, this is not too different from the main motivation to develop human civilization: we fear discomfort so we store food for more difficult times, we prepare ourselves for dangers like wild animals, or to defend ourselves from other humans. This fear of discomfort and attachement to comfort has driven humans in their development from a type of smart monkey to a creature that has gained control over nearly all other living beings on this planet.

Our most basic fear is the fear of death, which functions to make us alert in dangerous situations, and can thus be a very healthy emotion. But much less dramatic reasons of fear are found everywhere in our daily lives: ‘Did I lock the house?’, ‘Isn’t this food unhealthy?’, ‘Is my health insurance high enough?’, ‘Shouldn’t my daughter be home yet?’. These worries can be based or quite baseless. Problematic types of fear can be when we are afraid of things that do not pose any real threat, like fear of spiders or large spaces. Fear and paranoia, together with attachment, craving and hatred are usually responsible for wars.

In all cases, we could say that fear is a reaction to something that may happen in the future, be it realistic or not, it is always uncomfortable. And here we find one of the contradictions of fear itself: it should work to keep us from discomfort, yet it is uncomfortable itself. read on…

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This cookbook has been especially created for you using a wide array of cuisines with examples of intentions that you can place. Of course there are certain foods that are better for our energy than others.

Food and drink is used in all traditions, philosophies and religions as an offering to Gods and because Humans need sustenance to get energy, everything we put into our body is transformed to keep us going. That is why it’s vital that we ingest food and drink with the correct intentions and energy.

The book will be available as an ebook. 20% of the sale of this book is donated to organizations that teach and feed mind, body and spirit.

The Turrón de doña Pepa is an anise and honey nougat that has become part of Limeños’ cultural identity. Traditionally prepared for the Señor de los Milagros (The Lord of Miracles) procession, in October, the legend tells that a black slave named Josefa Marmanill, aka Doña Pepa, received the recipe from the saints in her dreams. Josefa was a black slave in Cañete Valley (Ica, south of Lima). She was liberated due to a paralysis in her arms, and as she couldn’t work, she traveled to Lima and went to the Señor de los Milagros procession to ask him for a cure. After she had received the miracle, she made this nougat to thank him. Since then, each October Lima is filled with this traditional nougat and now you can prepare it in your home.

Every year, in October, the faithful from all races and economic backgrounds celebrate The Lord of Miracles in a religious procession through the streets of Lima. The boulevards are dressed in purple to celebrate on October 18th, 19th and 28th Lord of Miracles his annual procession through the streets of Lima.

For the recipe click here http://bit.ly/HXRXS (if you need translation, Google can take care of it for you).

My mother is Peruvian and father, Chilean and ‘abuelita’ was from Peru and she was famous back in Peru for all the desserts she made from scratch. The cuisine at home was homemade every evening and we didn’t eat fast food. Eating fast food was a treat. My grandmother loved White Castle and so perhaps once or twice a month she would take my brother and I out to eat as many tiny square hamburgers as we could. I grew up in NYC and its famous for the Pizza and anyone that has traveled to NYC and tried the pizza knows what I am talking about, ‘You know what I mean?’

My father and mother loved to eat well so we went out all the time in the city and frequented Spanish, Italian and Asian restaurants. My father would get invited to some of these places and he knew how to get in with the owners and chefs. Not before long they’d be coming to our home and cooking and entertaining with us. That’s how we all started learning about food from the world.

Here’s a drink you’ll enjoy that will quench your thirst.

Serve a glass of white wine half way and top it off with tonic soda. Serve with a slice of orange.