Big Hands Lead Smaller Hands To Better Places When Dr. Julia Cooks (Suvir)

Julia Nordgren is telegenic, intelligent, articulate, curious, hardworking, modest and generous to a fault. Attributes that make her an able doctor and chef, as well as parent and nurturing pediatrician - all at once.

The same qualities that make a good doctor, make a good chef. In end, both cooking and healing, require one to be giving of oneself for the betterment of another. Both require time spent in working for the benefit of others. Both require curiosity, tenacity, hard work, scholastic thinking and dedication to what affects mind, body and soul.

Dr. Julia Nordgren is an Medical Doctor and a trained Chef. She is pediatrician and mother. Cook and healer.

And now she has added cookbook author to her list of credentials with the release of The New Family Table.

Five Reasons Everyone Needs & Will Love This Book:

The recipes are fabulous - And not in a fussy, time-consuming way. They are fabulous because they are simple, accessible, and so very delicious. And everything is good for you (well, except for a few desserts, if eaten without mindful care and thought). These recipes will teach you easy, effective techniques and inspire you to eat more at home with fresh, delicious ingredients.They demonstrate easily how any meal cooked at home will be SO much healthier than grabbing take-out!
The stories are great - Dr. Julia shares personal stories throughout the book, including how she took a break from medical practice to enroll in the Culinary Institute of America (while living across the country from her family!). She shares her triumph as the “Soup Mom” and her many failures and mistakes. You will feel like you are cooking with a friend!

It’s smart - The book is punctuated by rich "All About" sections, where Dr. Julia shares her expert opinion as a pediatrician and culinary professional on the topics of consuming milk, nuts, grains, developing flavors, and using oils and sweeteners in recipes. It’s "insanely informative” as one reader gushed!

She makes eating together attainable - She stresses how connecting to one another matters. How food doesn’t need to be fussy or complicated. Eating together as a family is one of the most important opportunities we have to enhance the physical, intellectual, and emotional growth of our children. Eating together is one of the few things that we can do that helps everything.

She isn’t shy about desserts! - She shows how we don't have to leave desserts behind in the pursuit of good health. Sweets and desserts can fit into a healthy eating pattern, but it just takes a bit of thought, skill, and mindful intent to eat desserts well. Desserts should be experienced and savored!

Dr. Julia is a mother and a doctor, a chef and parent. The trifecta that makes her mom, doctor and chef, is the very foundation of what makes her genius and a force to reckon with.

Her audience as a pediatrician is young. But not entirely the focus of her book. She caters to people of all ages as a chef. In fact her largest fan base are those in the middle, who are caring, cooking, and feeding her patients.

She is aware of this and her recipes and work as a chef, takes this into account.

Hence it would be no accident that in the photo above, her son Benjamin, is at her side, as she says "helping me teach my cooking sessions at the Physician Wellness Retreat. Even doctors need to eat better!"

''....I love to see that I am breaking all rules in terms of an age demographic for my audience.

My littlest reader is 4, and she used a whole pad of sticky notes flagging all the recipes she wants to make! My oldest reader is my 91 year old uncle, who declared the book “A masterpiece! I read the whole darn thing cover to cover!” Which was so touching, even if he never cooks anything out of it!

But most importantly, there are many readers in between, who have taken my book into the kitchen, and made something delicious for their family. That is the feedback that has meant the most - knowing that I can be where it matters most - in the kitchen, inspiring people to try something new and enjoy it with the people they love...."

As I spoke with Dr. Julia from New Delhi, she said, "the past few months have been thrilling as I launch my first book out into the world.

It is at my favorite local bookstore, Books Inc in Palo Alto. The book even took the prime spot in the window with a fabulous staff review!"

Details matter to this pediatrician. The devil is in the details. With Dr. Julia at your side in the kitchen, and at your disposal for medical care for your children, you can rest assured that you are investing in your kids as you ought to.

Here you can find Dr. Juia at a Plant Based Nutrition Leadership Symposium in LA.

When I asked her what it was about being in Los Angeles at this symposium that had her most excited, her reply, "because plants are delicious and everything is better when we eat more of them!'

With this honest love affair that she has for delicious cooking, eating and sharing, it is easy to be in her awe, and follow her lead to healthier and happier places of living.

Living that keeps visits to the doctor infrequent, whilst making for happier and healthier conversations at the dining table, which Dr. Julia hopes we spent more time at.

When I asked why she had sent me this photograph, Dr. Julia's response was not unexpected. She said "I wanted to share my beautiful home town of Portola Valley, California with you. I feel so blessed to live here."

It shows in her recipes and her person. There is a sense of grounding to her, that comes only when one has been exposed to the elements. When one has lived with respect for the land. When one has seen the vagaries and vicissitudes of life that one can only be witness to when living in close connection to nature.

How fortunate for us that Dr. Julia has that connection, and now we are able to connect with it, through her book, and with her clarion call to eating together at the table.

Dr. Julia has trained her family to participate in the task of cooking and bringing food to the table. They share in the act of cooking, and in all that it takes to prepare a meal, share it at the table, and to clear after.

Dr. Julia was able to be doctor, wife, mother and chef around Easter, as her now-trained-husband, put together these fruit jars (photo above) for Easter as she tackled other chores.

One can treat these are chores, or one can make these into familial rituals where we spend time with one another, get to learn about each others days, and those ups and downs of life that are making us smile more or less.

Dr. Julia wrote me saying, "I might want to add how important it is to include family in the whole process - even cleaning! It’s where kids learn teamwork and being together and supporting each other in the work of the household. I want these boys to be amazing partners and husbands, whoever they choose to love!". Amen, to that!

When asked if this was Benjamin a tad older, and she was quick to tell me it was her other son, Andrew. Fourteen years old. Camera shy. As helpful as Benjamin in cooking and all the chores that help get food to the table, and keep the household functioning.

Dr. Julia added, " wanted to show off me kayaking with my handsome teenager - showing him the great glorious world beyond a media screen!".

And I see a mon of wondrous talents, incredible savvy, and a deep connection to her children, and their success in being adults one day, being citizens of civil society, and being parents in their own right.

Through dinner shared together at the table, and the preparation and clean up that are part of dining together as a family, Dr. Julia also has a better understanding of her kids, and they of her and her husband.

I cannot stress enough how important Dr. Julia's message around eating and living with a connection to one another, is. It is at the root of mindful living and being.

Dr. Julia had marked the above photos as "my family cheering me on at a book signing at Stanford".

I saw in the photograph a family that was happy together, because it cooked and ate together.

Like Dr. Julia, I have always believed that families that eat together, stay happier together.

Buy her book, The New Family Table, and I promise you even more fun as a family, and certainly more deliciousness at the table, and hopefully less visits to the doctors office.

I asked Dr. Julia to share a recipe for the blog. Below is the recipe for the Kale and White Bean Stew above.

Kale & White Bean Stew (recipe from The New Family Table)

I am from New England, so I always need a few hearty stews to get me through the winter. I taught this recipe to my Dartmouth Culinary Medicine class, and it was the students’ favorite meal. We made it on a cold, snowy night and it hit the spot.

SERVES 8

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 small yellow onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon dried sage

1 teaspoon dried rosemary or thyme (or both)

1 pound ground hot Italian sausage (optional)

1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes

1 (15-ounce) can white beans (or 1 cup cooked white beans), drained and rinsed

5 cups of chicken of vegetable stock

1 small bunch lacinato kale, washed, stems removed, leaves chopped

Kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Grated Parmesan cheese, for serving

In a large Dutch oven or soup pot, heat oil over medium-high heat. When oil is shimmering, add onion and cook until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add garlic, sage, rosemary, and/or thyme and cook 1 minute more. Add sausage, if using, and cook until meat is no longer pink, 7 to 8 minutes.

Add tomatoes, beans, and stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes, or longer if you have time.

Add kale and allow to slightly wilt, at least 2 minutes. Season with kosher salt and pepper to taste. Divide stew among bowls and top with grated Parmesan.

PS: I first caught wind of Dr. Nordgren through an introduction from a mensch of a doctor, a visionary and a rare "good-people", Dr. David Eisenberg. The man behind Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Lives, a thought leadership, CME, and most inspiring conference, that brings chefs, doctors and nutritionists together. Where science meets food, meditation, and mindfulness and the wisdom of centuries past. When Dr. Eisenberg shares, I study, reflect, embrace and share further. His are teachings that are plain and simple, tested by time, sound in logic and practice, and simply mindful and correct.

In the photo above Dr. Julia Nordgren can be seen hugging me as we both finished our session teaching at the Teaching Kitchen Collaborative with Dr. Eisenberg in CA earlier this year.

I share this to make sure everyone understands that I write this post with deep respect, admiration, and regard for this doctor, what she is doing, and with care and concern for where we are at in this moment in our worlds history. This is how we need to eat, live and share. It is nothing fanciful. Nothing out of the ordinary. It is so old, so buried and steeped in culture and so tested by time for its goodness, that it makes sense and is nothing to be afraid of.

It is so old, that it seems new. But it being the old way, also makes it the correct way, as it has withstood all the tests of time.