Making Love in the Kitchen

Written by Christopher Paton-Gay

Just before last Christmas, I had a scheduled full checkup with my doctor. That was when I discovered that my blood pressure was getting dangerously high (165/124) and so I was immediately referred to a cardiologist for stress tests and a MRI. A week later my cardiologist had finished the tests and prescribed two types of blood pressure pills. I filled the prescriptions and never took a pill; feeling that I could control my BP and pulse rate by making some substantial changes to my lifestyle and more particularly, what I was eating. At the time, I weighed 224 pounds, drinking 16 cups of coffee a day on average, smoking (1 pack a day), travelling constantly and eating in restaurants in Europe and the USA.

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We’ve got a new feature here on the Love in the Kitchen blog- we asked some of our all time fave peeps and superheroes the same five questions and asked for their heartfelt responses. The result? A super sweet glimpse into the inner workings of some of our UnDiet vibrant living rockstars! The questions will not change, though we can only imagine how the answers will. FUN! You must know Josh Gitalis by now- he is our Clinical Nutrition Superhero (among other things) and all around superstar. We asked him to answer our Five Qs we love to ask and he happily obliged. Enjoy this little sneak peak into the world of Josh- and yes, the photo above correlates perfectly with his dessert island response. Coincidence? I think not.

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It’s patio season and since most patios I know of aren’t serving guacamole flax crackers with a kombucha mojito, looks like I’ll just have to create my own patio. And so I did- mostly with stuff we found on the street that other people were discarding. Seriously. We made the decision that last Sunday we were going to plant our greens garden and set up a sweet patio and on our to the plants store, we keep seeing old patio discards that were just what we needed. How about that?

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Happy long weekend, Canadian lovers (and sorry to our international peeps)! And happy Victoria Day, almost? Yay for the 193rd birthday of ol’ Queeny Vic. Still don’t really get the point of it all, but am I going to raise a stinkeroo about a long weekend? Nopers. May 24 really has become more to Canadians than just a celebration of Victoria Day- it is kinda like our celebrated right to a long weekend. I like that. We come together and cottage, sing by campfires and play in lakes and forests all weekend long. Very Canadian, if I do say so myself. For the international peeps- you should come play! We really do it up right.

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When was the last time you woke up in the morning and instead of either dreading what the day would bring or being excited about what was to come, you actually took the time to reflect on the goodness bits that remain pretty sweetly constant? See- it’s easy, oh so easy, to get caught up in the fleeting moments- the good ones and the bad ones, to recognize that for the most part we are blessed to be stressed about whatever it is we are stressing over. I tell you this today, on the Friday before the long weekend, as I pack up for a weekend with my family at our cottage together, that things are pretty sweet. And with that being said, it’s mostly ’cause of you. And because the sweetness is mostly ’cause of you, well, that’s why I’ve been working my tootsy tail off.

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Written by Amy and Kim Sedgwick, two sweet, sweet members of Meghan Telpner’s Superhero Posse. They are our Superhero Eco Sexperts. Read their bios here. If you’ve ever speculated that there is a connection between your diet and libido, you’d be correct. Diet and lifestyle have all sorts of effects on our mood, our energy, how we feel about our bodies, the amount of sex hormones our bodies create, and yes, our libido. While whole books could be written on the topic (and have!), here are just a few points to get you started in thinking about what’s on your supper plate in a whole new way. As Marrena Lindberg points out in her book, The Orgasmic Diet, there are basically three main ingredients to libido. The first is feeling good – if you feel depressed or stressed, you’re not likely to want to engage in sexual activity.

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I have been just about bursting at the seams over excitement wanting to share with you every last sweet detail of our forthcoming FIRST EVER online course. We had so much fun around the kitchen getting our outline together for the course, deciding what recipes to include, what would be part of the wicked awesome meal plan and then of course planning and prepping out each and every one of the 20 videos. Deciding what course would be the first, well that was easy. We did have nine to choose from and every one of those nine that I have been teaching over the last four years will soon make their way into video form too. For the first one, we had to go with the one we get the most demand for.

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We know you love our classes (checked out the fall semester yet?) but we are THRILLED to see Travel To Wellness magazine picked the Love in the Kitchen Academy as one of the Top 10 Best Cooking Classes in Toronto. Yipeeeeeeee! How exciting. We are flattered..and blushing. And all the fun things that come along with a sweet, sweet compliment such as that. You can read the whole awesome write up right here. (Also- check out this article I wrote for Travel to Wellness a little while back that is very seasonally appropriate: “8 Wellness Things to do in Toronto”)

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Suuuweeeeeet Summer is coming! This weekend I’ll be running away to my fave place in the woods with a view of the lake and the smell of freshness. Freshness. That is right. Why? ‘Cause I won’t be grilling my homies. I am not a huge fan of the old BBQ. Not really. Once in a while we’ll light the flame and get some sweet potatoes grilling- but meat, no way. A barbecued burger? Hello cancer sandwich. I think I’ll pass. My bestest friends over at Harvard have this to say on the subject:

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Happy weekend, lovers! Yesterday, I announced I would be releasing the first of MANY fully supported, online video courses for you my sweet peeps. I wanted to fully re-create the experience SO many of you have written to me about wanting to enjoy- my workshops and classes. Okay, so I can’t fly you all down to Toronto and fit all of you in my kitchen (I still foresee this happening one day…stay with me for that one). Instead, we filmed over 2.5 hours worth of fun and informative videos, and I have been working like a busy busy bee to get the loads of content that will go along with the program finito for your reading pleasure.

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We’re going DIGITAL! Or maybe the term is virtual… or online??? I don’t know. What I do know is that we have now filmed our first ever full length online course! Yes- that is what all the hints we’ve been dropping are all about. We are slowly but surely working our way through all of my classes and workshops to make them fully accessible online for you to learn, laugh and cook along with no matter where in the world you are. Exciting, right? The first set of 20 videos were shot a few short weeks ago and over here we’re busy getting the finishing touches on the print materials that will go along with them. So, so, soooo many people email us every week asking if we have plans to put the course online, if they can get a copy of the handout, if we record them… All that jazz.

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Yeppers. It’s now feeling really official that I am getting hitched. The wedding will be at the end of this summer – less than five months away- and our sweet planning is just about complete. We all know I didn’t need a part time job planning a wedding so keeping it all simple and true to my man and I is the name of the game. With that in mind, when it came time to plan a stagette, my sister-in-law and best girlfriends went to work to create an evening that was pure joy- Meghan style. There was no need for late night drinking or strange naked men flipping their their floppy about. We’re all in our 30′s after all, so it was time to do something mature…

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As a natural foods chef, I spend most of my day creating menus and cooking healthy meals for my clients and their families. All of my meals are whole foods based, local as possible and often all-organic. But by the looks of the dinner parties, cocktail soirees and celebratory brunches I put on weekly, you’d hardly know the food I serve is all-natural, or heaven forbid- healthy. Because you see, although my clients are often already on the healthy train (or well on their way, by hiring me!) their guests often are not. It’s my job to create a menu that will satisfy even the pickiest of eaters, and impress even the most hardcore fast food addicts of the bunch. So when Meghan asked me to do some posts on healthy entertaining, I agreed without hesitation- this is my area of expertise. My goal is to show you how to impress your guests with healthy food- no arguments or wrinkled noses in sight.

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Dance Like A 4-Year Old

Have you ever seen a 4-year old dance? Of course you have. There is nothing sweeter in the whole wide world. They move how they want to move- sort of the music but mostly just moving and grooving however they’re heart desires. They laugh. They’re silly. And perhaps most of all- they don’t give a flying kazoo who is looking or what those lookers are thinking. That is what dancing like a 4-year old is all about. Letting loose, shaking the wiggly in your jiggle, lightening the mood, lifting the world up off your shoulders and letting your cares shimmy and shake right on our of your soul.

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After 14 years of using a neti pot on a regular, almost daily basis – I must admit, I am amazed how overlooked this basic bit of personal hygiene is. Most of us brush our teeth and we usually expect the same of others. In fact, when someone neglects this important bit of personal cleanliness, the rest of us can be easily turned off. How about bathing? What if you knew someone hadn’t showered or bathed in months, years, or worse still, never at all… How would you feel about getting… um, close to them?

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