A Healthy Hunger is Launched!

It’s been an exciting few weeks for me here. I’ve been working on creating a healthy eating menu plans for well over a year. After countless hours of planning, creating and building the website, we are finally up and running!

A Healthy Hunger was created out of a desire to provide healthy AND delicious recipes for people who either have general health concerns (such as high cholesterol, overweight, digestive concerns), or who are diabetic or pre-diabetic. I wholeheartedly believe that we can have power and control over our health by eating well. I also believe that eating well does not have to mean that you have to eat “boring”. 

To make life easier each week there are menus, shopping lists and detailed recipes to take the thought and worry out of what to cook and how. In addition the accompanying blog offers information, news, cooking tips and more to help you understand how to live a healthier life.

I invite you to take a look: www.ahealthyhunger.com

As a loyal A Stack of Dishes reader I am offering you a 50% discount on the subscription rate through the end of the year. It’s a great holiday gift and at $3-5/month not a bad stocking stuffer either. To get the discount simply enter the coupon code: HEALTHYXMAS.

In other news, Pam and I spent 2 weeks in NYC visiting my family and celebrating our wedding with friends. My dear friend Maria McBride and her husband Brett Mellinger without hesitation offered up their beautiful home so that we might celebrate with our NY posse. It was a beautiful night and full of so much love and happiness. My dear friend and ex business partner Lauren Bohl-White made us the show stopping cake. She made a combination of roses, and hydrangeas to represent me, added orchids to represent Pam, placed magnolias on top to represent or home in Louisiana and the final touch were champagne grapes to represent our wedding in Napa. Isn’t it fantastic!?! The cake was a toasted almond with chocolate mousse, but as a surprise Lauren make Pam a small red velvet cake, and for me a dark chocolate cake- which are really our personal favorites. It was all just too wonderful.

From there we spent time with my mother and children out on the East End of  Long Island in Greenport. Now that I am living in Louisiana I do my best to keep communications up with my family, but nothing beats just hanging around with each other. My girls can speak on the phone pretty openly, but my son (20) does better with me next to him. Even just sitting on a couch snuggled up together watching a movie is priceless time together.

In the days leading to Thanksgiving Pam and I did a little wine tasting. The North Fork has a growing number of vineyards and the quality of the wine is ever improving. Driving up to quiet wineries in the gray winter afternoon was so relaxing and fun. Without the crowds and pretentious chatter of others, we got to kick back and really talk with the wine makers and delve into the tastings. The North Fork is wonderful in the Spring, Summer and Fall- but I invite you to try Winter wine tasting. It was delightful.

Other priceless moments were digging through some of my mother’s and aunt’s old recipes.

This is the original recipe for my Aunt Josephine’s rice pudding in her handwriting. Based on the piece of paper, which if from her then husband’s business, this was probably written out about 50 years ago. Josephine is gone now {and btw the impetus for this blog}, but her rice pudding will always live in my memory.

My mother also had a restaurant for almost 25 years and I pulled out her master recipe cookbook. The book is stained and worn from years of use, as you would imagine. As a waitress and prep cook I know each of those recipes quite well, and it brought back vivid memories of my college years when I worked the floor there. Mom says she wants to make a cookbook one day and name it, “More Crab Cakes!”.

For many years the chef at The Cinnamon Tree was Dena Spielberger. She was an ex school teacher (and beauty queen), and a real hoot. In those days the kitchen was always hopping and she really hustled behind the line. When there was a lull she would have the kitchen staff work on prep. So to make it easier on herself she took an index card and wrote: More Crab Cakes!, that she would whip out and post on the board to save her from having to tell the staff what to do.

After our time out on Long Island Pam and I were able to spend a relaxing few days in NYC and play tourist. This has become one of my most favorite things to do now. All those years that I lived in Manhattan (28) I was so busy keeping the wolves from the door with work that I rarely got the chance to really enjoy the town. Sharing it with Pam is even better. As Pam likes to say, “making memories!”

A Healthy Hunger has taken a huge bite out of my time right now as I get this ship upright and sailing straight. I have several recipes coming up to share with you here, so  I will be back to my usual self soon. Thanks for your patience.

And don’t forget to toddle over to the site and give it a once over. Please let me know what you think!