Even the most avid cook realizes once in a while that they have avoided a basic culinary art.

I’ve butchered whole pigs, fermented kimchi, made sausage, baked bread, flipped an omelet, grown my own food, rolled out pizza dough and pasta. But until recently, I’d never cooked a pot of dry beans.

Not once.

This isn’t due to some aversion to beans. On the contrary, beans have always been around my house. As a kid, Bush’s Best, Goya, Progresso, Stagg, Dennison, all these labels graced the shelves of my family pantry. That famous “bean scene” in Blazing Saddles (google it) made me giggle whenever I ate them. And after reading Tortilla Flat and All the Pretty Horses in high school, for a time I switched to refried beans and corn tortillas for breakfast every morning, washed down with black coffee.

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I still love beans, although I have upgraded to organic, or whatever Trader Joe’s has on hand. I put them in chili, soup, or my favorite three-bean summer salad. But those recipes have always started with that reassuring thunk of the can opener.

Of course, I knew that other people bought dried beans and cooked them in a pot from scratch. But that always seemed like a real waste of time to me. How much better could home-cooked beans really be? And was it worth all the extra hassle of rinsing them, soaking overnight, and watching a simmering pot for hours?

I decided the answer was no.

And, I felt pretty good about that culinary decision. Right alongside making my own pasta, or baking the perfect hamburger bun. Other folks simply did it better, so why bother.

That is until I got a random email earlier this summer that invited me to my first ever bean tasting. Suddenly my legume world was turned upside down.

Welcome to the Underground Bean Scene

Back in June, for the first time, Enlightened Omnivore got invited to a press event. The nice PR rep said it would be an intimate backyard heirloom bean tasting. I’d never been to a bean tasting. But apparently, I would be experiencing some very rare varieties of heirloom beans only grown in Mexico by small family farmers. I was assured these beans were being shared across the border for the very first time. How could I resist this clandestine, exclusive opportunity?

I pulled up to the address, a residential ranch house in an off-beat Mar Vista neighborhood. There were plenty of cars in the driveway, but no “bean tasting here” sign announcing I’d arrived. I began to wonder if this was all an elaborate scheme to kidnap gullible food writers. I noticed the front door was ajar. Hearing voices inside, I took the risk and stepped through.

Inside, the living room was a bit dark but harmless looking. Yet, where were the tasting stations? What, no bean sommelier to greet me? What about a tasting card with notes on earthiness and mouthfeel? No complimentary packets of BEANO for the ride home?

I was about to give up on this alleged bean tasting when, at the back door I could feel something watching me. On the patio stood two majestic chickens panting in the afternoon heat. They cocked their heads from side to side staring at me through the open back door. Were these my hosts?

Past the poultry, at the far end of the yard, I found a table decorated in Mexican blankets, baskets of dried beans, and native plant arrangements. Under the near end of the table were half a dozen pressure cookers, lids on tight. A small crowd of a dozen people looked out of place.

On closer inspection, there were several important-looking foodie types. Folks that appeared a lot cooler than me in their fashion glasses, eye-catching accessories, and expensive-looking shoes. It turned out, this bean tasting was a bit trendier that I had anticipated. I did my best to fit in, chatting up the closest person, who just so happened to be the chef making a delicious lunch for us.

Eventually, I got my stride, put on my journalistic big-boy pants, and started digging into this whole bean story. My host, Lisa Riznikove, founder of Foodocracy, was eager to fill in the gaps. Smiley, charming, and clearly obsessed with beans, Lisa was happy to tell me everything she knew about the heirloom varieties spread across the table.

And boy, were there a lot of different kinds of beans. Some had histories dating back thousands of years, unique to certain climates, landscapes, and traditions. Others were hyper-specific varieties like black chickpeas, or estate-grown Peruanos from the Albarran family farm.

But the star of the show was the Ayocote Medianoche.

According to Foodocracy, this particular Mexican bean comes from the volcanic highlands of Puebla, belongs to the Ayocote bean family, and has been cultivated since before Aztec times. It turns out that Foodocracy, which is kind of like a digital farmers market for small and rare bean growers, is working with a Mexican company, La Comandanta, to rescue ancestral beans like the Medianoche, which are disappearing thanks to market consolidation and industrial farming. Together, they’re hoping to introduce some of these mysterious beans to the US market in order to keep them around.

The Medianoches were lima bean-sized, black and purple, and really quite beautiful. I loved the meaty flavor, with a hint of mushroom and sweetness. I enjoyed describing the flavors for myself, rather than relying on a tasting card.

Lisa had me taste two other beans, identical except for how they were raised. One was farmed with regenerative methods, and the other conventional. The flavor difference was easy to notice, right away, but hard to describe. The regenerative bean was more complex, herbaceous. The conventional bean was flatter.

Before I left, Lisa handed me a gift bag with a pound of Ayocote. I didn’t want to sound ungrateful but had to ask, “When am I going to have time to cook these?”

“I just use a pressure cooker,” she admitted, pointing to the pile of cookers under the table with all the samples. “Takes about 40 minutes.”

Interesting….

Wait, You Can Pressure Cook These?

Back at home, I contemplated the possibility of cooking my newfound beans. I’d had an InstantPot for a few years now, and other than making broth in it, hadn’t quite found my groove for how to use it. But if I could cook beans in it by simply dumping in some water, pushing a button, and coming back later, maybe there was hope. Could it be that easy?

It was…almost.

My first attempt at pressure cooker beans started with the Ayocote. I must have misread or ignored the recipe, because I didn’t put in enough water. The second attempt got me closer, but it took a third try to confirm the proportions. And this time, the results were remarkable. Not only did the beans fill the house with an amazing aroma while they cooked, but the skin had a firm, yet tender, texture, and the inside of each bean was impossibly creamy. Then there was the broth! A black flavorbomb of earthy, beanie goodness that—when thickened up—might rival any meat gravy I’ve ever made.

With canned beans, I have always rinsed off all that cloudy liquid (sometimes called aquafaba) before serving. I still struggle with the memory of being served unrinsed, canned beans. The smell reminded me of dog food. But when cooking dry beans, the remaining liquid almost becomes as important as the beans themselves. That bean broth convinced me then and there that cooking dry beans would be my new normal.

The experience was so enjoyable, in fact, that I joined Foodocracy’s Bean+Grain Club, which sells out every time they open subscriptions. In addition to new legume varietals each month, members also receive crazy cool non-bean sundries like whole grain red rice, millet, and heirloom popcorn.

The No-Soak Pressure Cooking Method

I’ve now experimented enough that I’ve fallen into more of a routine than a strict recipe when it comes to cooking dry beans.

For one pound of beans, I use about six cups of liquid. That might be water, beer, broth, or a combination of all three. Lately, I’ve been pouring in a bottle of beer (nothing too hoppy, Mexican lagers work great or any mainstream American brand), two cups of broth, and enough water to make up the difference.

I’ll also rifle through the kitchen for impromptu bases like garlic, onion, cumin, oregano, chile flake, and maybe some bacon. You could also add some celery or carrot depending on what kind of dish you’re planning.

Just don’t forget to season the liquid with salt.

I know, someone probably told you that salting before cooking beans was a big no-no. Well, I’ve tried it both ways when pressure cooking, and I find that salting before makes sure the seasoning permeates beans all the way through, leaving them tastier.

The other revelation was that you don’t need to soak dry beans before cooking them with a pressure cooker. I go straight into the pot with mine, and it takes about 40 minutes on high pressure to get them tasting right. I’ve heard that pre-soaking can shorten that cook time by half, but then I’d have to plan ahead.

The other thing to remember is that beans tend to expand and foam while cooking, so don’t fill your pressure cooker more than halfway. I have the eight-quart InstantPot and a pound of cooked beans fits fine. It’s also plenty for dinner plus leftovers for my family of five.

Second, beans vary, not only in type but in dryness, size, and probably other ways that can affect the cooking time. All these measurements are approximations. The best way to determine doneness is to taste those beans, and don’t be afraid to cook them for another 10 minutes if they’re not quite creamy enough.

Finally, I stir in a little acid at the end of the cooking process. A teaspoon of apple cider vinegar or rice vinegar works just fine. A splash of citrus juice could also works in a pinch.

Born Again Bean Eater

No, I’m not throwing away the can opener. And there will still be a few cans of black beans and garbanzos on the shelf for a quick salad or some hummus. But now there is another shelf full of one-pound bags labeled with names I’ve never heard of, just waiting to be turned into a high-protein, high-fiber meal.

Turns out, that’s what I was missing for 48 years. Beans aren’t just pintos or black, kidney or navy. They are grown by individual families, in unique soils, and varietals I’ll never find in the grocery store. Who knew that my pressure cooker would unlock a whole new world of food that I can’t wait to try.

However, my family, for reasons I won’t get into here, has asked me to pace myself—or open a window.

CookStack Collective September: Anna Vocino

The next CookStack Collective Class is on Sunday, September 20. Join Anna Vocino as she celebrates the upcoming release of her fourth gluten-free, low-carb cookbook Eat Happy Cocktail Hour with a class dedicated to feeding people ridiculously good food and drinks that just happen to be low in sugar.

I am honored to be one of 12 incredible food writers, bakers, cooks, and teachers in the CookStack Collective. Together, we’ve created a year-long series of live cooking classes that are all about cooking with and learning from one another.

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Next Live: The Seasonal Table; Fall with Nicki Sizemore

Fall is coming to The Seasonal Table! Join me and my friend, cookbook author Nicki Sizemore on September 17 at 10am PT / 1pm ET for our quarterly celebration of cooking with the seasons. We’ll talk about what’s coming into its own at farmers markets, what we’re excited to cook as the weather cools, and simple ways to make the most of fall’s abundance, outside, in the kitchen, our bodies, and the family dinner table.

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After more than 1,500 miles, six Airbnbs, four presidential libraries, and (at least) 10 fast-food/fast-casual meals, I have finally wrapped up a family road trip that helped me answer the question, where can an Enlightened Omnivore eat while on the road.

For those of you who didn’t read The Green Drive-Thru, back in July, I decided to visit 10 of the most popular fast-food or fast casual restaurants that make claims about being “green” while on a Rust Belt Road Trip visiting family. Our route took us from Cincinnati to Cleveland, to Pittsburgh, to Amish Country, and finally Rhode Island.

Spoiler Alert, the winner doesn’t have a drive-thru.

Before I go any further, this isn’t a definitive assessment of these ten brands’ sustainability efforts, or even an evaluation of their environmental impact. It’s simply an attempt by a single highly opinionated consumer using publicly available information and unscientific personal experience to better determine where he might find a road trip lunch stop that is reasonably priced, tastes good, gives choice, provides some transparency about where it comes from, and not at the expense of our food system’s health.

Here’s the list of candidates again, in case you don’t remember:

• CAVA

• Chipotle

• Jimmy John’s

• McDonald’s

• Panera

• Shake Shack

• Starbucks

• Subway

• Sweetgreen

• Taco Bell

I asked 10 questions of each restaurant and gave them a score from 1-5 in each category. For the most subjective feedback, I asked my family of five what they thought. That is, when I could get them to eat with me.

I don’t know if I have succeeded or failed as a parent, but sometimes my kiddos flat out refused to eat at a few of these establishments. Some arguments were elegantly presented moral and ethical concerns. Others could be chalked up to a bit of culinary snobbery. But some objections were of a more health and safety concern since the now nationally famous outbreak of cyclosporiasis had occurred days before right along our planned road trip route. It turns out, the threat of “explosive diarrhea” has a way of influencing teenagers’ dining preferences. In most cases, I only visited one location for each brand, so your experience may be different.

Let’s all be on the same page here. I’m treating this entire adventure as a snapshot in cross country culinary entertainment, not a statistically significant science experiment. But that doesn’t mean you can’t vehemently disagree with my conclusions. I’m looking forward to my foodie purists rolling their eyes and gasping in disgust. I am quite eager to hear from closet fast-food junkies ready to hate on me. And of course, if you work for one of these establishments, here’s your chance to put me in my place.

It goes without saying—but I’m saying it here—I don’t have relationships with any of these brands.

Alright, here we go.

The Ones that Didn’t Make the Cut

First I’ll start with the brands that weren’t finalists: Jimmy John’s, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Subway, and Taco Bell. Some of these are the largest and most popular fast-food options globally. Collectively, these five brands serve customers more than 30 billion times each year. That’s nearly 1,000 a second! They are quite literally entire food systems in their own right, which is both terrifying and an opportunity. Any effort these brands make to improve their sustainable business practices can have huge impacts not just on their operations, but on the entire global ecosystem.

Most of these brands do a pretty good job of sharing their environmental “foodprint” when it comes to GHGs and solid waste. McDonald’s alone can bury you in reports and data. The biggest—McDonald’s Starbucks, and Taco Bell—have individual sustainability reports online, and most are members of the Supplier Ethical Data Exchange–or Sedex for short–a global trade organization that rates suppliers on ethical and environmental metrics.

Subway didn’t have an annual report, but the sustainability link on their website got more granular than any of the others on animal welfare. Their initiatives on phasing out caged chicken and gestational pig crates were impressive. Jimmy John’s (by far the smallest and youngest brand in this cohort) was most noticeably quiet on anything green, which made it hard to evaluate, and put them at the bottom of my list.

Most of these five brands focus on chasing industry best practices as well as reporting their numbers. Goal-setting or measurable improvements were much more common in the top five brands. None of these restaurant chains openly led with sustainability messages in their locations, not even when it came to separating trash from recycling, and the customer experience felt entirely transactional with a strong focus on convenience and price.

Surprisingly, my biggest disappointment wasn’t actually with the lack of transparency or deprioritization of environmental impact and sourcing. It was simply their complete lack of focus on quality and cleanliness.

When I was younger, I could always count on McDonald’s golden arches for a clean bathroom and a familiar meal anywhere in the world. But when I visited McDonald’s this summer in Upstate New York, I was shocked at how disheveled and dirty the location presented. I assumed Taco Bell would be on extra special good behavior since its recent outbreak of cyclosporiasis. But even there the tables and chairs were too dirty to sit at and enjoy my bean burrito. Jimmy John’s seemed the cleanest, but only marginally.

My Subway experience was most shocking. Maybe it was just the branch I visited in Hartford, CT, but I haven’t seen a greater disregard for basic food safety from a major brand in a long time. I was actually more concerned I might regret my foot long Roast Beef than my Taco Bell meal.

Overall, none of these outlets impressed me beyond basic lip service in terms of what they were doing to improve sustainability. And although I did appreciate that most of them had information online, I got a greater sense that they were more concerned with cutting costs and remaining competitive on price, rather than making any demonstrable effort to improve quality or environmental impact.

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The Top Five

That brings us to the top five Green Drive-Thru brands. The first disclosure is that most of these brands don’t have a drive-thru, and none of them self-identify as fast-food. More fast-casual brands, they all were quick when it came to ordering, and I got my food in less than 15 minutes. Most of the made-while-you-wait restaurants were as fast as their traditional fast-food competitors. Here are my thoughts in order from least to best:

NUMBER 5: Shake Shack

I had never been to a Shake Shack before this road trip, but I’d heard good things about this New York City-based burger joint. The sleek and industrial-chic decor gives a more urban cocktail bar than burger joint feel, and the bright, photo-heavy menus were so light on copy that it took me a few minutes to get my bearings. the customer experience also felt sterile with a mandatory digital ordering kiosk, but I’m not sure that’s common at other branches, so I tried to ignore it.

With regards to sustainability, Shake Shack names a few of its suppliers, and mentions their meat is hormone and antibiotic-free on the side of their recyclable to-go bags. Despite the small menu, there were two vegetarian options, although we all ordered the burger to go. The order arrived with no plastic other than the ranch dressing container for the fries. No talk of farmers or sources in the restaurant, but there was more information on that front online. Nutritional information was light, and the calorie count conspicuously inconspicuous in light grey off to the side.

Overall, I enjoyed the burgers, and the fries, saw the product as fresher than anything from the bottom five, but still felt a little in the dark on sourcing and sustainability until I visited their website.

NUMBER 4: Panera

Believe it or not, Panera is the only brand in the top five that has a drive-thru in more than half of its locations (which surprised me). And it turns out, Panera had several more surprises.

Years ago I frequented the self-professed bakery-cafe when my kids were little. The buttered pasta and mac & cheese were cheap and the perfect kid-sized portion. The salads weren’t bad either. But there was always something about the vibe at Panera that reminded me of my grandparents, or more specifically, the cafeteria at their retirement home.

Visiting a decade later, I tried to leave my geriatric assumptions at the door, and was immediately impressed with the value and effort to be more “green.”

First off, Panera has real silverware and plates. Maybe this contributes to the cafeteria feel, but it also significantly reduces paper and food waste. There are also loads of vegetarian-friendly substitutions and allergen alternatives, and the nutritional information was front and center.

Panera still doesn’t say much about its sourcing, although it mentions its coffee is raised responsibly, and there are scant marketing messages about environmental impact. But where the physical locations were mute, their website and annual sustainability reports were ample. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised that they reported how they hadn’t achieved some of their annual goals. Other brands might have just omitted that fact from their report.

Value was the most compelling reason to visit Panera. I had the cheapest meal of all ten restaurants, spending $16 for a salad, fresh bread, and a drink. The salad was so big, I couldn’t finish it.

NUMBER 3: CAVA

I hadn’t even heard of this brand before I got the idea to write The Green Drive-Thru, but it quickly appeared in my research. CAVA is one of the smallest brands on the list, serving up Mediterranean-inspired salads, grain bowls, and pita wraps at fewer than 500 locations. Yet, I easily found several along our midwestern route.

The in-restaurant experience appeared to be targeting a younger generation. Bright colors, contemporary music, and lots of wellness and chef-inspired marketing came at me from all directions in bright pastel hues. It was impeccably clean and felt more upscale than every other brand but Sweetgreen. I also noticed several more employees behind the counter compared to some of its larger competitors.

Despite all the fancy decor and the extra labor, prices were not too expensive. My meal came out to under $20, and my family of five ate for $80. My frugal kids skipped a drink, which was their loss since CAVA has several tasty house-made beverages like their blueberry lavender and strawberry ginger refreshments.

CAVA’s packaging was recycled or compostable, and they had a three-bay trash (recycling, landfill, compost) for easy self-sorting. Sourcing was less visible on-site, but maybe that was because they’d recently disclosed they’d been working with Taylor Farms, the supplier responsible for the tainted lettuce “explosive diahrrea” claims earlier in the summer. Oops!

Even though CAVA had sustainability information on their website, and a 2025 report available for download, the data didn’t feel as comprehensive as the heaviest hitters at the top of this list. As a result, I enjoyed their food, and their image, but their efforts were a little underdeveloped. Maybe in a few more years they’ll have the chops.

NUMBER 2: Chipotle

To be honest, this was the brand I assumed would win the Green Drive-Thru. I’ve been a fan of their food, their cooked fresh operations, and commitment to sustainability for years. Their online content is beautifully designed and voluminous in detail, and they seem to have the respect of sustainability experts who often hold them as the standard to beat.

Chipotle was also one of the first fast-casual brands, and that is starting to show. Their look and feel is a bit stale and dated. Not a fair criticism for this evaluation, but when compared with some of the other front runners in this list, I was less inspired.

Reporting is industry leading, with highlights on “animal welfare” and “supporting farming communities.” They are also the only company to define claims like “local”(within 350 miles) or peg executive pay incentives to several of their environmental goals.

Choice is sufficient for a fast casual restaurant in terms of proteins, vegetarian alternatives, and food allergies, but again, compared to CAVA or Sweetgreen, the options seemed limited. Nutritional information is easy to find, and one of the most conspicuous in the industry.

I’ve always admired Chipotle for its steel trays, recycled paper products, and three-bay trash cans. And although meal prices have gone up recently–$3 for a spoonful of guacamole!-–I can still feel full for less than $20.

Chipotle is doing a great job. I feel like their claims and numbers are pretty bulletproof, and I always eat there with a clean conscience. My biggest criticism is of their modesty. Despite all the effort, their menu and restaurants remain silent on most of their impressive work. Come on guys, take a victory lap! Sharing your successes helps with educating your consumers.

NUMBER 1: Sweetgreen

When my eldest daughter was looking at colleges, she started with campuses that had a yoga studio and a Sweetgreen within walking distance. That immediately made me want to hate this brand. But after visiting a spotless and posh location in Greenwich Connecticut, I realized that she was probably onto something.

If you squint your eyes, Sweetgreen is very similar to CAVA and Chipotle in terms of set up and customer experience. But once you focus on the finish and marketing materials, you realize that they’re doing something a little different.

The brand is targeting younger consumers much like CAVA, and it’s interior looks very similar with honey blond wood trim and softer-colored marketing materials. But Sweetgreen goes deeper into the details. A poster on the wall presented the most elaborate sourcing list I’ve seen in any restaurant, including many high-end restaurants. More than 30 farms were named supplying everything from sweet potatoes to avocado oil to shredded kale and feta cheese. No other brand came close to this level of transparency.

The menu was equally open book, as were the cute little farmer stories that showed up on the cash register screen between ring ups. Chock full of veggie options and substitutions, each dish was so customizable that I simply relied on the recommended chicken sesame crunch ordering it as is.

Like several competitors, Sweetgreen has clearly labeled three-compartment waste stations that help you sort trash, and their utensils and paper goods are all compostable. Although I would like to see them adopt Panera’s washable plates and silverware for dining in.

I was surprised that we were the only people in the well-appointed restaurant. Despite it being 6pm on a Thursday in a busy central location, we had the place to ourselves. They were doing plenty of business as there were a dozen or more sharp looking to-go bags lined up against a back wall waiting for delivery drivers. Apparently the younger generation prefers to eat their Sweetgreen at home.

The meal was delicious, if not a bit sweet, and a filling balance of protein to veggie. Unlike at CAVA, I didn’t feel like they were skimping on ingredients. And despite being in boojee Greenwich CT, prices were only marginally higher than at Chipotle or CAVA. That said, Sweetgreen was still the most expensive restaurant I visited with my Chicken Sesame Crunch Salad and the expensive drink choices pushed it to $22.

Visiting their website, I was equally impressed with the amount of information they shared about their sourcing and sustainability. Although, had higher expectations considering the transparency in-restaurant. They still don’t compare to Chipotle in terms of details, but they are a younger company, and have time to flesh that out.

Without a doubt, I felt like I have found the ideal choice for dining on the road. With so many menu options I hope to have several more visits on a few more road trips this fall. I also appreciate that no meal ha

d more than 760 calories, and several came in around 500. That will help me work off some of the vacation weight I gained while touring the rust belt.

The only downside to picking Sweetgreen as the winner of the Green Drive-Thru Award is that it doesn’t have a drive-thru, and I’ll never live down the fact that my daughter had chosen it first.

Conclusion

If you’re still pondering my decisions, or wondering a bit about my questionable methodology, don’t forget to share your thoughts, I’ve also included the quantitative results below, so sharpen those pencils and have at it.

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If you’re still enjoying the last weeks of summer, and you’re sick and tired of your fast-food options, consider any one of the top five brands on this list. I’d love to hear your personal experiences with any of these brands. Prove me wrong. Let me have it. Or, better yet, send a note to your favorite brand (on this list or otherwise) and challenge them to do better.

We all certainly can.

CookStack Collective August: Betty Williams

Who was at the party last night? Betty Williams did a great job of sharing her fermentation primer on Korean kimchi and her quick-pickle hacks. All paid subscribers are already signed up for the CookStack Collective, 12 of the leading food writers want to share their best recipes and secrets with you. If this is the first you’re hearing of this offering, or you’ve been sitting the fence on becoming a paid subscriber, click the button below and learn more about how you can join the fun.

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Next Live: The Seasonal Table; FALL with

Fall is coming to The Seasonal Table! Join me and my friend, cookbook author Nicki Sizemore on September 17 at 10am PT / 1pm ET for our quarterly celebration of cooking with the seasons. We’ll talk about what’s coming into its own at farmers markets, what we’re excited to cook as the weather cools, and simple ways to make the most of fall’s abundance, outside, in the kitchen, our bodies, and the family dinner table.

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Stay Connected

• Follow along on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok for video content, reels, and behind-the-scenes thoughts. I’m also on Facebook and LinkedIn.

• Say hi on Substack Notes—I’m posting almost every day about my random reflections on life.

• Join me in Chat. It’s a space just for subscribers, kind of like a group text but less embarrassing. Download the app, tap the Chat icon (it looks like two speech bubbles at the bottom), and find the latest “Enlightened Omnivore” thread.

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I own plenty of cookbooks, and I love reading them, but when it comes time to make dinner, I’m much more likely to open the refrigerator, see what needs to be eaten, and take it from there. Sometimes that means substituting ingredients. Sometimes it means inventing something entirely new. And occasionally it means making something I probably won’t make again.

I’ve always thought that was just how I cooked. But after my recent Substack LIVE with of , I realized there’s a much bigger idea behind it.

Katerina teaches something she calls intuitive cooking—learning to trust our senses, experiences, memories, and appetites instead of outsourcing every decision to a recipe or an expert. And she believes our modern obsession with recipes, celebrity chefs, and perfectly photographed food has convinced a lot of us that cooking is much harder than it actually is.

We had a fascinating hour talking about why so many people are afraid to cook, how recipes can sometimes create a kind of learned helplessness, and why restaurant chefs probably shouldn’t be the standard by which we judge Tuesday-night dinner.

We also talked about one of my favorite subjects: permission. Permission to substitute an ingredient. Permission to add more salt. Permission to use the slightly sad tomatoes in the back of the refrigerator. Permission to make something that tastes good even if it doesn’t look anything like the photograph.

Then we put it all to the test.

I raided my refrigerator and challenged Katerina with random combinations—eggs and feta, sweet potatoes and cilantro, even mango and onion—to see how an intuitive cook thinks through ingredients without immediately reaching for Google. Katerina also cooked a simple Greek-style green bean dish while explaining how understanding why we chop, salt, sauté, and season can eventually free us from needing a recipe at all.

One idea from our conversation kept coming back to me. We spend so much time trying to make cooking more “convenient” so we can get dinner out of the way.

But as Katerina asked: What if the evening is the dinner?

If you’ve ever stared into your refrigerator wondering what the hell to make, felt intimidated by a recipe, or wished you were one of those people who could “just throw something together,” I think you’ll enjoy this conversation.

Enjoy the full recording at the top of this post.

Also, please consider becoming a paid subscriber before the end of summer. Not only will you get a bunch of great paid benefits, including in-depth workshops, more live conversations, PDFs and opportunities to connect one-on-one. But you’ll also help me to achieve Best Selling status, which helps get Enlightened Omnivore in front of more readers. I only need 12 more subscriptions!

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Next Up: CookStack Collective — Kimchi!

Our next CookStack Collective class is this Friday. Paid subscribers can join Betty Williams on Friday, August 21 at 12 pm PT / 3 pm ET for a fermentation primer and hands-on lesson making two kinds of Korean kimchi: quick-pickled cucumber kimchi and fermented cabbage kimchi.

It’s the second installment of the year-long CookStack Collective, featuring 12 live cooking classes from food writers, cooks, bakers, and teachers across Substack. And if you can’t make it live, paid subscribers get access to the recording.

Come cook with us.

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The Seasonal Table is Back: Fall

On September 17 at 10am PT/1pm ET, I’m co-hosting with Nicki Sizemore the next installment of The Seasonal Table — a quarterly Substack Live series marking the four seasonal turning points of the year (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter).

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For our fall conversation, Nicki and I will share about my favorite time of year. What does autumn mean to nature, the body, the kitchen, and the family dinner table.

And, of course, there will be food. Nicki and I will be demoing some of our favorite recipes for fall. I hope you join us.

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I’m just back from a month on the East Coast. Last week, I was on a canoe trip in the Adirondacks, the largest public parklands in the country. In fact, you could fit Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, and the Great Smoky Mountains inside its boundaries. The Adirondacks are also notoriously wet. It rained every day I was there. So why not bring out this last Myths about Beef Rewind article (originally posted in February 2024) to explore the nuances behind cattle ranching and water. So here goes….

Beef Bioswales and Other Aquatic Anomalies

It seemed ironic that the fourth post in my series on Dispelling the Myths About Beef would be about water. California is in the middle of another Atmospheric River that has dropped more than eight inches of rain on my backyard over the last three days.  We Californians aren’t used to rain, certainly not eight inches. So I’ve been hiding in my house all week. Understandably, I started to get a little antsy. I needed to go on a little rainy day field trip. And it just so happens that only ten minutes from my home there is a peculiar little building that I’ve always wanted to visit in the rain. It’s called the Chino Basin Water Conservation District Waterwise Community Center. 

It’s an impressive, modern structure full of sharp angles, earth tones, and glass. The facility’s goal is to “inspire water-wise practices at home and in the community.” This includes exhibits, gardens, school programs, and a friendly tortoise who happened to be hibernating when I stopped by. The place must be a hit with kids because a school bus full of elementary students had braved the atmospheric river just as I pulled up. 

I had decided to come to visit the Waterwise Community Center (WCC for short) because the place puts on quite the show during these rare rainy California days. Known for its innovative rain harvesting design, the WCC’s roof and gutters are intentionally positioned to capture every ounce of rain that falls on its footprint. With architecturally embellished channels, funnels, and pipes, the runoff is directed into planters and bioswales at the building’s base. Native plants, drought-resistant grasses, and attractive stones make sure to slow, filter, and percolate the water back into the soil. Mimicking the natural characteristics of a stream bed, the swale cleanses debris, pollutants, and toxins, and recharges the water table. Gravity is the only energy involved throughout the process, the natural flow of water downhill. 

Tragically, this facility is an anomaly in Southern California. Just fifty feet from the WCC’s front door, there is a massive reminder of how most of the Southland deals with rainwater. A 30-foot-wide concrete trough, the San Antonio Creek Channel, is a churning and frothing cataract of storm drain effluence. Food wrappers, plastic bags and bottles—suburban flotsam and jetsam—hurl by at a dangerous clip. My stomach turned as I remembered this viaduct was rushing toward the Pacific Ocean where it would spill its bilge at a rate of 16,000 cubic feet of water per second, or 12 Olympic-sized swimming pools every minute. 

So what does all this have to do with cows? 

Don’t worry, I’m getting there.

Myth #4: Beef cattle uses more water than any other agricultural commodity.

Cattle are often called the thirstiest of food sources. Many ecologists will say that unless we reduce our reliance on beef, we will simply run out of water. Isn’t it better to just do away with beef altogether?

Well, if you’ve been reading along for the last few weeks, you know that things are never that simple in our complex agricultural ecosystem. I wouldn’t be writing about this topic if I didn’t think there was more to learn. In fact, responsibly-raised cattle might even help us replenish—rather than degrade—our watershed. Shall we get started?

FACT: It takes more water to raise one pound of beef than it does any other domesticated animal. 

Water needed for one lb. of meat

• Cattle: 1,850 Gallons 

• Pigs: 720 Gallons 

• Chicken:  520 Gallons

• Soybeans: 256 Gallons

• Wheat: 220 Gallons

• Corn: 148 Gallons

This makes some sense because beef cattle are big animals and can grow to more than 1,500 lbs. of nutrient-dense protein, fat, and bone in just two or three years. This thirsty reputation isn’t exclusive to raising animals. On a per-pound basis, beef ranching has one of the largest total water footprints of commonly consumed foods. Only chocolate and almonds have higher numbers.  So if we’re to save the planet, should we be giving up our burgers and Almond Joys?

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Not All Water is the Same

It turns out that accounting for water in the food production system ain’t easy. Water comes from different sources and has different uses. To make things simpler to follow, scientists have distilled agricultural water use into three categories.

• Blue water is the kind of freshwater that you find in lakes, rivers, and streams, and also the water you can’t see below ground in the aquifers. This water is acquired by pumping or diversion. 

• Green water is basically rain. This water falls naturally from the sky, but is distinguished from blue water because it is immediately put to use by plants and the topsoil. It doesn’t make it into the water table.

• Grey water is basically water used to clean up the mess of agricultural production. This can include cleaning and processing agricultural products, or diluting the pollutants created during that process. 

When you look at cattle production through this hydrological prism, a more dynamic story emerges.

I know you’re squinting at this eye chart, but trust me, the results are worth scrutinizing. Although beef is thirstiest in terms of total water, roughly 94 percent of beef cattle’s water footprint is green water—rainfall consumed by the grasses and other plants cattle ultimately eat. Much of that water would still fall on the landscape and be used by vegetation whether the cows were there or not. The grass would still grow, transpire water, die back, and decompose.

Grazing animals change that cycle: they harvest some of that vegetation and return much of its nutrients to the soil through manure and urine, often accelerating nutrient cycling.

The water argument against beef cattle gets even harder when you consider a stinkier example, grey water. This is the water used to clean up after animals, or to reduce pollutants caused during production. When it comes to grey water, beef is less polluting than chicken or pork, and far less polluting than almonds or apples. 

Almonds and apples produce the most grey water presumably because of all the chemical fertilizers that get washed into the water table. But why are cattle less water polluting than pigs or chicken when they’re larger animals? This is because beef cattle are on pasture for most of their life–at least nine months for feedlot beef, and two to three years when it comes to grass-finished beef (you can read more about this in my last post). Pigs and chicken, on the other hand, are confined for their entire existences on concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), and confinement is messy and unhealthy. More water is needed to clean and sanitize factory farms, and because the manure from these facilities is often concentrated into piles or pools, rather than spread out over beautiful green pasture, it has a higher chance of polluting local blue water sources. 

Cows as Water Catchment

But what does this all have to do with bioswales? It turns out that in addition to creating less wastewater, cattle—if properly managed—are good at capturing green water too.

If you’ve ever seen a pasture after cattle have mobbed it for a bit, the place is a mess. They’ve mowed down the tallest blades, stirred up the soil, and dropped a ton of manure. Pastures that have been rotationally-grazed in this way are incredibly water absorbent. When rain falls on these regenerated pastures, it goes right where it needs to, into the ground. If pollutants are present, they follow the water into the soil where they go through natural decomposition, just like the bioswales at the WCC.

However, fields intensively farmed with chemical fertilizers and herbicides like glyphosate (Roundup), or overgrazed and compacted with traditional grazing, have soils much less water-friendly. Constant tilling or trampling, exhausts it and the ground loses its microbial glue, drying out more quickly between rains. it can look a lot like sand or clay. When rain hits this depleted soil, you’d think it absorbs more quickly, but in fact the water runs off the surface before it can soak in, taking topsoil and toxins along with it. These flow into nearby streams, ponds, and lakes. Remember that filthy water rushing down the concrete storm culvert next door to the WCC? Same idea

Where Do We Go from Here?

Despite the data, I’m not suggesting we should eat beef instead of apples. Nor am I suggesting that cattle somehow solve our water problems. Poorly managed grazing can compact soil, degrade watersheds, and increase runoff. But well-managed animals have much more to offer an ecosystem than just their ribeyes and top round.

The most compelling lesson of watching rain disappear into the bioswales at the Waterwise Community Center, wasn’t the building’s unique design. The cleverest part was that the designers weren’t trying to replace nature. They were mimicking it. The troughs and shoots were slowing down the water, giving it roots and soil to move through. Letting gravity do the moving and microorganisms do the filtering. Instead of whisking rain away through a concrete channel, the WCC made it easier for the landscape to open its arms and receive it.

That same principle is what excites me about regenerative ag and responsible animal husbandry. Healthy grasslands used to dominate North America. They are the greatest bioswales of our continent. Grazed properly, cows can maintain healthy prairies, improve ground cover, and energize soils. Then rainfall has a better chance to soak into the earth rather than rush across its surface. Animals deposit nutrients. Plants capture sunlight. Roots feed soil organisms. Water moves through a living system.

None of this means we can simply turn some cows loose and call a farm regenerative. Stocking rates matter. Soil matters. Climate matters. Management matters. Regeneration isn’t a label or a magic trick. And it doesn’t come without some work. But I have to believe there is more benefit to the global environment if we agree to participate in our food-producing ecosystem rather than try to overpower it.

A lot of folks believe technology will ultimately solve our agricultural and environmental problems. Maybe some of it will. But increasingly, I’m most interested in technologies that augment what nature already knows how to do rather than trying to replace her altogether. Four billion years of evolution have given us some pretty remarkable infrastructure that I’d hate to see wasted.

And maybe that’s the larger lesson I’ve taken from revisiting this entire series two years later.

Some of the numbers needed updating. Some of my arguments needed more nuance. And in more than a few places, the research challenged assumptions I didn’t even realize I was still carrying. But the experience reinforced why I started Enlightened Omnivore in the first place. I’m less interested in proving that beef—or any food—is inherently good or bad than I am in asking better questions about how it was produced, where it came from, and what role it plays in the larger ecosystem.

That’s also why this feels like a good place to end the Rewind. Next week, I’ll be back with something entirely new: the results of my Green Drive Thru road trip. After eating my way through some of America’s biggest fast-food and fast-casual chains, digging through their sustainability reports, asking questions about sourcing, waste, agriculture, and transparency, and subjecting my family to far more roadside meals than they probably bargained for, I’m finally ready to report back.

Which chains are actually trying to build a better food system? Which ones are mostly serving green marketing with a side of fries? And where should an Enlightened Omnivore eat when hungry, in a hurry, and a thousand miles from home?

I’ve got some answers. And a few surprises.

See you next week.

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THIS MORNING: Cooking Without Fear with of the Intuitive Cook.

Most of us assume that good cooking starts with the recipe. How many of you are intimidated by following the rules?

This morning, Saturday, August 15th, 10am PT / 1pm ET, Katerina and I will be talking about why so many of us have lost confidence in the kitchen—and how to get it back.

We’ll even put that idea to the test with a live “refrigerator challenge,” where we’ll build a meal from whatever ingredients happen to be in my fridge over the weekend.

If you’ve ever stared into your fridge wondering, “What am I supposed to make with this?” this conversation is for you.

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CookStack Collective August: Betty Williams

If you are a paid subscriber to Enlightened Omnivore, I’m so excited for this new content. Join me each month for the CookStack Collective, twelve of the best food writers on Substack offering private cooking lessons to all my paid subscribers. It’s more like a party than a class. The next CookStack Collective is on Friday, Aug. 21, 2026 at Noon PT/ 3pm ET. Join of BettyEatz as she walks you through all things fermentation to learn two kinds of Korean kimchi: a quick-pickled Cucumber Kimchi and fermented Cabbage Kimchi.

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• Follow along on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok for video content, reels, and behind-the-scenes thoughts. I’m also on Facebook and LinkedIn.

• Say hi on Substack Notes—I’m posting almost every day about my random reflections on life.

• Join me in Chat. It’s a space just for subscribers, kind of like a group text but less embarrassing. Download the app, tap the Chat icon (it looks like two speech bubbles at the bottom), and find the latest “Enlightened Omnivore” thread.

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I’m also about to cash in my birthday gift and spend an evening in Mark Twain’s personal library thanks to my thoughtful kiddos. Here’s a link for more details if you want to do the same.

I hope you’re all taking full advantage of the summer as well. I’ll be back before the end of August with new stories, recipes, and a full report on what I discovered while searching for America’s most environmentally responsible fast-food meals, the Green Drive Thru.

Is the American FeedLot All That Bad?

If you’ve ever driven Interstate Five through Central California, you know it bisects some of the most fertile and diverse farmland in the world. The San Joaquin Valley is home to bumper crops of cotton, grapes, garlic, almonds, walnuts, potatoes, and berries, just to name a few. And many of you also know that while heading north just after Highway 33, about halfway between Sacramento and LA, you better push the recirc button on your car’s A/C.

The Smell of Beef

Out the window, the east side of the freeway begins to resemble the set of a Spielberg-scale war epic. Concertina wire-topped fencing stretches to the horizon. The hills are stripped of all vegetation and pockmarked with hoof prints. Hill-high berms of manure are surrounded by moats of frothy urine. Chemical warfare-strength ammonia dust blows across the freeway with each passing semi. Even at highway speeds, it takes minutes to drive past upward of 120,000 head of cattle packed into 800 acres of lifeless soil. Welcome to the town of Coalinga. Welcome to the Internet infamous, “Cow-schwitz.”

Coalinga has another name, Harris Ranch. It’s one of the largest single pen feedlots in the United States. Basically, a feedlot is a factory farm for cows. Animals are brought in off the range and concentrated into fenced paddocks. They’re fed a conveyor belt diet of grains and growth hormone for weeks or months before being shipped off to slaughter. Feedlots allow ranchers to produce a lot more beef. And Harris Ranch is no exception. It sells a mind-boggling 150,000,000 pounds of red meat every year to the likes of In-N-Out Burger, Costco, and California school lunch programs.

Ranchers have always known that feeding cattle a little grain just before slaughter was a good way to add flavorful fat, and help their animals put on weight. The practice was called “finishing” and lasted a few weeks, or even a month before processing. But in the 1950s, when subsidized grain became cheap, and hormones and antibiotics were discovered to accelerate growth, feedlots became larger and even more popular.

The concept caught on quickly. Maureen Ogle’s In Meat We Trust notes that by 1962, one-third of all cattle came through large feedlots. By 1973, it was two-thirds. Today, more than 95% of America’s beef cattle live out their last weeks—and sometimes months—in corn concentration camps.

I’m not going to go into it here, but Michael Pollan’s groundbreaking Omnivore’s Dilemma points out all the latent consequences of America’s obsession with force-feeding corn to cows. Let’s just say there were enough no-nos to fill a New York Times Bestseller.

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Mother’s Milk

So, how can I—a huge believer in regenerative agriculture—suggest that feedlots are anything less than the seventh level of animal husbandry hell? 

Believe it or not, when it comes to factory farming, beef cattle have it better than almost any other mass-produced farm animal in America. And though I absolutely advocate for 100% grass-fed and grass-finished beef, and it’s the only thing I feed to my family at home, it’s important to note that when compared to high-density pig or chicken farming, beef is getting all the bad press.

It all starts with mother’s milk.

Beef cattle nurse their calves for the first eight to nine months in bucolic green pastures. That’s because baby cows aren’t yet mature enough to digest grass or grain. It’s only after this weaning phase that ranchers even consider sending their cows to a feedlot, where they’re finished in four to six months. This is about half the time it takes to raise a 100% grass-fed steer or cow to maturity. Most people would be surprised that regardless of how the rancher raises their animals, all cattle spend at least 60-70% of their lives in natural, grass-rich pastures.

Compare that to “factory farmed” pigs and chickens, and the differences are striking.

Piglets only enjoy a few weeks of nursing before they are prematurely weaned (5-8 weeks) and permanently moved to Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). In colder climates, piglets are born and raised indoors for their entire lives, even during the nursing phase. Pigs don’t live as long as cattle, and are customarily slaughtered between the ninth and twelfth month. Sadly, even the luckiest pigs spend 85% of their lives on concrete in abysmal factory farm conditions.

Chickens have it worse. Being birds, there isn’t any mother’s milk to keep them in the fields. Instead, meat chicks are born out of a handful of enormous hatcheries in the Midwest. Within days, or even hours of birth, they are crammed into cardboard boxes and shipped live (you read that right) to poultry farms across the country. Upon arrival, the vast majority spend their entire 9-15 weeks of life inside poorly ventilated, mile-long barns, sometimes in cramped single cages, never experiencing natural light.

Despite the horrific and putrid conditions of Coalinga’s Harris Ranch, it’s a Bovine Four Seasons when compared to the CAFOs that confine feathered and porky brethren. That’s because cattle live their entire lives on real dirt, even if it might be knee-deep in shit. This may not sound like a huge benefit, but factory-raised pigs and chickens often suffer unnecessary pain and deformities because they spend their entire lives on manmade surfaces. Concrete or wire mesh floors are designed to make over-crowded CAFOs easier to clean, but they also result in split hooves and lacerated feet.

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Slow Down Man

So now that I’ve shocked all of you into becoming vegetarians, where do we go from here?

The point of this article isn’t to convince you that feedlots are good. The point is that we often compare beef to an imaginary ideal instead of to the foods people actually replace it with. So here’s my takeaway. Sometimes you can lose the forest through the trees. Sometimes you can challenge the notion or rebel against the trend, only to learn that your “obvious solution” has become part of the problem you hated in the first place.

I was often reminded of this lesson when my wife and I were backpacking through Latin America. At the time, we were on Caye Caulker Island, just off the coast of Belize. Everywhere we went, people remarked about our New Yorker-fast walking gait. “Slow down man!” was a common drawl from the Rastafarians sitting along the dirt paths that meandered through town. After a few days, we started to slow a bit, and take in the scenery. Then one wise local surfer with white braids and beard stared at me over mirrored sunglasses.

“You Americans are so funny. You come here to escape all the bullshit in your big cities and busy jobs when your antidepressants and yoga don’t work. But you come here to heaven and you muck it all up, and turn it into the hell you ran away from in the first place.”

In our exuberance to change the world, we often muck things up because we don’t take time to realize it’s all an ecosystem. It’s interrelated. And our actions always have an opposite reaction.

Progress Doesn’t Require Perfection

So if this article has you questioning what you should do to improve your animal protein purchasing, here are a couple of thoughts that won’t muck things up all over again when it comes to eating meat.

1. If you can... buy from a regenerative ranch: They’re a small but growing network, and this website will help you find them.

2. Buy 100% grass-fed beef: It’s no longer challenging if you look for that 100% marker. Even if you can’t find the good stuff locally, most grocery stores carry one ground beef option that fits the bill.

3. Buy local or online: There are a ton of sources that sell responsibly-raised proteins that are feedlot-free. Some are very competitive on price. If you know of a local farmer, that’s your best bet. But here are a few online sources I have enjoyed (note: none of these folks paid me any money; I just enjoyed their products).

   1. Porter Road

   2. Wild Pastures

   3. Cream Co.

   4. PastureBird

4. Eat less, and better meat: Buy the best meat you can afford, and supplement it with responsibly-raised, whole plant proteins as often as possible. Consider beans, lentils, chickpeas, quinoa, wild rice, or amaranth. Plus, they’re not mono-cropped soy, nor are they energy-intensive franken-meats of the Impossible or Beyond variety.

Progress doesn't require perfection. It requires asking, "What's the next best choice?" That’s how food systems change, one decision, one purchase, and one meal at a time.

CookStack Collective August: Betty Williams

Last night was the first installment in the CookStack Collective, and Rebecca threw a PARTY for more than 30 participants. Not only do paid subscribers get twelve free cooking sessions with some of the leading Substack food writers, but you also get to participate in the fun. The next Cookstack Collective is on Friday, August 21, 2026, Noon PT / 3pm ET. Join Betty Williams for a fermentation primer and learn to make two kinds of Korean kimchi: quick-pickled Cucumber Kimchi and fermented Cabbage Kimchi.

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Next Live: Cooking Without Fear with Katerina Pavlakis, of the Intuitive Cook.

Most of us have been taught that good cooking starts with the recipe. What if it actually starts with permission to express yourself? Next month on Saturday, August 15th 10am PT / 1pm ET, Katerina and I will share how so many have lost confidence in the kitchen—and how to get it back without opening up a cookbook.

We’ll talk about abandoning recipes, trusting your senses, reducing food waste, and making dinner from whatever happens to be in the refrigerator. I have a feeling you’ll never look at recipes quite the same way again.

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• Follow along on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok for video content, reels, and behind-the-scenes thoughts. I’m also on Facebook and LinkedIn.

• Say hi on Substack Notes—I’m posting almost every day about my random reflections on life.

• Join me in Chat. It’s a space just for subscribers, kind of like a group text but less embarrassing. Download the app, tap the Chat icon (it looks like two speech bubbles at the bottom), and find the latest “Enlightened Omnivore” thread.

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Over the next four Saturdays, I’ll be republishing my 2024 series Dispel…

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That curiosity sent me down a rabbit hole of continuous glucose monitors (CGMs), metabolic health, protein-packed breakfasts, and plenty of surprising discoveries, including some potentially medicinal mushrooms.

Last week, I had the chance to revisit that journey during a Substack LIVE conversation with metabolic health educator . We had a fascinating hour together, and I came away with even more questions than answers—which is usually a good sign.

We talked about why blood sugar is really a window into the body, why stress and sleep can matter just as much as food, and why a ten-minute walk after dinner might be one of the simplest health interventions available. We also explored continuous glucose monitors, the surprising foods that can send blood sugar soaring, and the small daily habits Beth recommends to almost everyone.

If you’ve ever wondered whether a CGM is worth trying, why your energy crashes in the afternoon, or how food affects your body beyond calories alone, I think you’ll enjoy this conversation.

You can watch the full recording above.

I’ve also dig into the archive and shared my When Worlds Collide series again for anyone who wants to dive deeper into my own journey with blood sugar, food, and metabolic health. You can find the entire collection here.

Also, please consider becoming a paid subscriber in the month of July. Not only will you get a bunch of great paid benefits, including in-depth workshops, more live conversations, PDFs and opportunities to connect one-on-one. But you’ll also help me to achieve Best Selling status before the end of the month. I only need 12 more subscriptions!

!!!FIRST CookStack Collective: Rebecca Blackwell!!!

Paid subscribers can join us on Friday, July 17 at 4pm PT / 7pm ET, for the inaugural CookStack Collective class. Rebecca will be teaching live from the galley of her sailboat, preparing a colorful hummus platter, sesame chicken salad, and…a watermelon salad—proof that summer may have many flavors, but watermelon is almost always one of them. I’ll be there too with some watermelon trivia.

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• Follow along on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok for video content, reels, and behind-the-scenes thoughts. I’m also on Facebook and LinkedIn.

• Say hi on Substack Notes—I’m posting almost every day about my random reflections on life.

• Join me in Chat. It’s a space just for subscribers, kind of like a group text but less embarrassing. Download the app, tap the Chat icon (it looks like two speech bubbles at the bottom), and find the latest “Enlightened Omnivore” thread.

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Back in March, I got the opportunity to interview food writer and editor Nancy Matsumoto for Pomona College’s Magazine. We’re both alums. Nancy’s written a book called Reaping What She Sows, looking at how women are rebuilding our food system one regenerative ag concept at a time. I thoroughly enjoyed it and the Substack she writes .

Our conversation abo…

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Happy Fourth of July!

I hope everyone is enjoying some summertime with loved ones, eating something off the grill, and maybe (safely) shooting off a few fireworks in the cul de sac or watching a pyrotechnic display at the high school football stadium.

In anticipation of celebrating our country's birthday, I found myself wondering about the history of perhaps the most American of summer symbols: a watermelon sitting in the middle of the picnic table on Independence Day.

My Love of Watermelon

I’ve eaten watermelon all over the world. Avatiach. Sandía. Vasemelona, Dalla, Dtaeng-moh. Once upon a time I could ask for it in a dozen different languages. I’ve eaten watermelon on street corners and beaches, in crowded cities and quiet villages, atop archaeological sites and among the dunes of the Sahara Desert. It’s hands down my favorite fruit.

Mark Twain called watermelon: “The chief of this world’s luxuries, king…over all the fruits of the earth. When one has tasted it, he knows what the angels eat.”

I understand exactly what he means.

One summer while visiting my dad in Abilene, Texas, I was introduced to the monstrosity that is the Texan watermelon. Yes, it’s true. Everything is bigger in Texas, and this one didn’t disappoint. The melon we brought home was a dark green, almost black, and more than 15 pounds.

Home alone with MTV playing in the background, I cut the top off that mega melon and began carving out chunks of the ruby red flesh with a spoon, and spit the seeds into a Dixie cup on the coffee table. By the end of the Top 20 Countdown I had hollowed out the entire melon so that there wasn’t even a hint of pink on the inside rind. The Dixie cup was full to the brim with shiny black seeds.

Despite feeling a bit bloated, I took my little treasures outside and planted each and every last one of them along the fence line. For the rest of the summer I faithfully watered those seeds until a couple dozen little green vines began to break through the red Texas dirt.

My first garden.

Unfortunately, I never benefited from the fruits of my labor. I’d planted too late in the summer, and my visit ended before the melons arrived. But watermelon has always felt like a source of magic ever since.

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The History of Watermelon

The first watermelon originated in Northeast Africa, somewhere along the Nile Valley. Its closest ancestor was likely the Kordofan, a small, pale green wild melon from Sudan with thick skin and seeds nearly the size of my thumbnails. Cultivated versions of the melon are depicted in Egyptian hieroglyphs going back 5,000 years, and watermelon seeds were even found in the tomb of King Tut.

Those first watermelons didn’t look much like the ones we eat today. The flesh was light green or white, and they probably tasted slightly bitter. Rather than being prized for their sweetness, watermelons were prized for their namesake, water.

I’ve spent some time in the deserts of North Africa, and it can be hot. There is nothing more satisfying than a melon after a long, smelly camel ride. These fruits were essentially a natural canteen. Durable, portable containers capable of carrying hydration and nutrition across long distances. And back then, nothing went to waste. The seeds themselves were valuable as food. Rich in protein and fat, watermelon seeds are still roasted and eaten as snacks across the continent, and sometimes ground into flour to be added to soups or stews.

It was a few thousand years more before Mediterranean communities bred melons red and sweet. Israel has some of the best. I actually got to sample a few dozen of those red avatiachs on Kibbutz Kfar Menachem back in my archaeology days. We ate a melon almost every day after sweaty mornings of excavating.

Melons came to Europe in the Middle Ages, and some of the finest are from southern Spain. Each August, the town of Yeste celebrates its annual Fiesta de la Sandía in honor of Saint Bartholomew. Part harvest festival, part watermelon battle, revelers drench one another in a sticky baptism of watermelon juice and wine.

Watermelons also grow in Asia where the Japanese obsess over meticulous cultivation. They even grow a square version! And in China, which grows more watermelons than the rest of the world combined, the fruit has long symbolized prosperity and good fortune. It remains a popular gift when visiting family during summertime.

But the most familiar crops of watermelon are right here in California, Texas, and Georgia. And the story of how they got to America, and then became a symbol of Independence Day is worth a closer look.

Watermelon and the Fourth of July

Why did watermelon become so closely associated with the Fourth of July? Part of the answer is simple. It ripens at exactly the right moment.

Peak watermelon season arrives in July and August, just as Americans migrate outdoors toward barbecues, church picnics, family reunions, county fairs, and fireworks displays.

In the early years of our country, before refrigeration and cross-country supply chains, watermelon was a magical picnic snack or dessert. Cold, sweet, refreshing, portable, and large enough to feed an entire family, they were cheap and easy to share with strangers. It was no wonder they were popular when folks were getting together to celebrate.

But like most food traditions in the US, America’s relationship with watermelon is more complicated than that. Historians believe watermelon likely arrived in North America aboard slave ships, carried by kidnapped West Africans who carried with them generations of agricultural knowledge about cultivating the fruit. As a result, many of the earliest American watermelon crops originated in the South, grown in slave gardens. After emancipation, watermelon became an important cash crop for newly freed Black farmers and entrepreneurs who sold fruit in towns and cities.

One of our great symbols of summer was once a symbol of Black financial freedom.

The success frightened many white Southerners, and so they turned the watermelon into Jim Crow propaganda. Frequently in the early 1900s, postcards, advertisements, and political cartoons depicted racist imagery of African Americans and watermelons as an attempt by Jim Crow supporters to co-opt this symbol of Black independence and economic success, and instead associate it with laziness, childishness, and inferiority.

Enjoying Watermelon Today

Today watermelon belongs to everyone again. It can be found at church picnics, family reunions, Little League practices, country fairs, fireworks, and on paper plates balanced between our knees.

Maybe that's why watermelon feels so right on the Fourth of July. Not because it has always been American, but because—like so many of us and those who came before us—it became American.

The watermelon arrived from somewhere else. It survived injustice. It was a source of economic independence. It endured prejudice and racism. And somehow, through all of that, it has become a symbol of celebration for 250 years of this crazy, contradictory, freedom-loving country.

I know not everyone will celebrate the same way today. Some may not celebrate at all. But I hope there’s a watermelon on your table anyway. I hope you get your hands sticky. I hope you stay on the back porch until well after dark. And for one day at least, I hope we choose to be generous with one another. To feed our neighbors. To welcome those who see the world differently than we do. To bury a few grudges, share a few stories, and remember that we probably have more in common than we think.

After all, a watermelon was never meant to be eaten alone.

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Recipe Below: Independence Day Watermelon Feat Salad

Don’t forget that for paid subscribers, at the bottom of this email I have my own favorite recipe for watermelon. It’s a sweet and salty salad with watermelon, feta, lemon-pickled red onions, and fresh herbs that will wow at your picnic.

!!!FIRST CookStack Collective: Rebecca Blackwell!!!

And if one watermelon recipe isn't enough, paid subscribers can join us on Friday, July 17 at 4pm PT / 7pm ET, for the inaugural CookStack Collective class. Rebecca will be teaching live from the galley of her sailboat, preparing a colorful hummus platter, sesame chicken salad, and…a watermelon salad—proof that summer may have many flavors, but watermelon is almost always one of them. I’ll be there too with some watermelon trivia!

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Coming in July: Food, Blood Sugar, and Metabolic Health with Beth Bollinger

A few years ago, I discovered I was edging toward prediabetes and started paying closer attention to how food affected my body. For my next live conversation in July 9th at 9am PT. I’ll be joined by metabolic health expert Beth Bollinger to discuss blood sugar, the foods that trigger it, and the simple habits and foods that can help create more stable health over time—as well as a few cool tech gadgets that helped me learn more about my body.

Add it to Your Calendar

Stay Connected

• Follow along on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok for video content, reels, and behind-the-scenes thoughts. I’m also on Facebook and LinkedIn.

• Say hi on Substack Notes—I’m posting almost every day about my random reflections on life.

• Join me in Chat. It’s a space just for subscribers, kind of like a group text but less embarrassing. Download the app, tap the Chat icon (it looks like two speech bubbles at the bottom), and find the latest “Enlightened Omnivore” thread.

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RECIPE: Fourth of July Watermelon, Feta, and Lemon-Pickled Red Onion Salad

This is one of my favorite summer salads: sweet watermelon, salty feta, fresh herbs, and just enough acidity to make the whole thing sing. The salt from the feta pairs

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Before we begin: I'm excited to announce a new benefit for paid subscribers—the CookStack Collective, a year-long series of live cooking classes with twelve Substack food writers. I'm also hoping to welcome 20 new paid subscribers this summer (18 to go!) to help support the essays, podcasts, worksho…

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One of the things I miss most about butcher shops, restaurant kitchens, and family tables is learning alongside other people.

I’m excited to announce a new offering to paid subscribers that will add even more community-building to the kitchen table. The CookStack Collective is an attempt to bring a little more communal cooking to Enlightened Omnivore

Over the twelve months, paid subscribers get access to a monthly live Zoom class featuring a different host, fresh recipes, and the chance to cook along, ask questions, and learn directly from some very talented cooks.

Access to The CookStack Collective is exclusively for members of paid subscribers. In addition to all the other perks, paid subscribers receive:

• 12 live Zoom cooking classes

• Recipes and class materials

• Access to every recording

• The opportunity to cook alongside some incredibly talented teachers

The classes cover everything from kimchi and fermentation to Italian meal prep, baking, seasonal cooking, entertaining, soups, salads, and practical kitchen skills.

If you’ve been considering joining us on the paid side, this might be the strongest collection of benefits I’ve been able to offer yet.

And if you’re already here, thank you for helping build a small corner of the internet where food remains connected to history, place, nature, and community.

Now let’s make something delicious together.

Next CookStack Collective: August

This Friday, we’re making kimchi.

On Friday, August 21 at 12 pm PT / 3 pm ET, Betty Williams will lead us through a fermentation primer and teach us how to make two kinds of Korean kimchi: quick-pickled cucumber kimchi and fermented cabbage kimchi.

You’ll learn a little about how fermentation works, make something delicious, and have a chance to ask Betty questions as she cooks.

Here’s the full line-up

1. JULY: Friday, July 17, 2026, 7 pm EST: Join Rebecca Blackwell from the galley of her sailboat to make 3 easy summer dishes: A colorful hummus platter, sesame chicken salad, and watermelon and feta salad.

2. Friday, August 21, 2026, 12 pm Pacific/3 pm Eastern: Join Betty Williams for a fermentation primer and learn to make 2 kinds of Korean kimchi: quick-pickled Cucumber Kimchi and fermented Cabbage Kimchi.

3. Sunday, September 2026: Join Anna Vocino to cook through some of the best recipes from her new cookbook, Eat Happy Cocktail Hour! Anna will show us how to make some low-carb party food, including Low Carb GF Pigs In A Blanket, Caprese Martini, Dill Pickle Ranch Dip, and Pom Pom Mocktails.

4. Thursday, October 15, 2026, 10 am PT/1 pm EST: Join Nicki Sizemore to make two seasonal staples — a whipped ricotta dip and a grain-free pumpkin apple cake — alongside simple practices for cooking with more intention and joy.

5. Tuesday, November 10, 2026, 4 pm EST/ 1 pm PST: Join Kerry Faber to make a cozy fall favorite, Cabbage-Wrapped Chicken Parm Meatballs.

6. Friday, December 4, 2026: Stephanie Hansen - Soup or Holiday apps

7. Sunday, January 24, 2027, 3 pm Central, 4 pm Eastern Rachel Ciordas - Focaccia Pizza, Ice Water Salad, and a Champagne Cocktail- all GF

8. Tuesday, February 27, 2027, noon EST: Emma Frisch, Classic Italian Bolognese Pasta with a Frisch Twist - batch-cooking for families, tips for picky eaters, and dietary restrictions

9. Tuesday, March 16, 2027, 4 PM Pacific / 7 PM Eastern: Just in time for St Patrick’s Day, join Kate McDermott and learn to make a Classic Irish Apple Tart in this virtual session live from her Pie Cottage kitchen. You will receive a bonus recipe for a delicious custard sauce to serve with the tart, too.

10. Sunday, April 18, 2027, 9 am PST /1 pm EST/7 pm Italy time CET: Join Lolly Martyn to meal prep like an Italian nonna: We’ll make the simply delicious family favorite pasta e ceci (chickpeas) and effortlessly whip up some veggie broth and sugo (red sauce) for your freezer or fridge at the same time!

11. Friday, May 7, 2027, 12 pm PT / 3 PM ET: - Buying the Best Meat - join me for a practical one-hour workshop on navigating today’s confusing meat landscape. Learn what meat labels actually mean, how to buy on a budget, and the questions you should ask your butcher, meat counter, or online vendor. You’ll also learn a few simple at-home butchery techniques to help stretch your dollars with minimal effort.

12. Thursday, June 3, 2027, 1 pm EST: Sheryl O’Connell - Summer themed - legume-based and portable salads.

And, if you can’t make every class, no worries, because your paid subscription gives you ACCESS TO ALL 12 CLASS RECORDINGS!

So not only will you get full access to my newsletter, you’ll get the added bonus of the 12 CookStack Collective Live Classes on Zoom!

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While you’re reading this, I’m probably somewhere over the middle of the country, wedged into an airplane seat on my way to Pennsylvania.

This weekend I’m dropping my middle daughter off at a summer pre-college program where she’ll spend the next four weeks exploring storytelling and writing. She has always loved stories. She’s also a good writer in her …

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Last Friday, Nicki Sizemore and I hosted the second installment of The Seasonal Table, our quarterly Substack Live series exploring what each season means in the kitchen, at the table, and in our daily lives.

You can watch the full replay above.

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This season’s conversation centered on summer and the approaching solstice. We talked about why seasonal transitions mattered so much to earlier generations and why many of us have lost the habit of marking them. We explored summer through several different traditions, including the Medicine Wheel and Traditional Chinese Medicine, and found ourselves returning to a common question:

What if summer isn’t a season for accomplishing more, but rather for strengthening what matters most?

Along the way, Nicki shared some of her family’s summer rituals, including how the celebrate the the first zucchini blossoms from the garden. We also talked about why summer food often tastes better with less effort, how sauces and condiments can transform simple meals, and the surprising kitchen tool we both agreed we can’t live without.

And of course, we made food.

Nicki made a whipped labneh topped with pistachio dukkah, while I shared my Provençal-inspired tapenade loaded with olives, capers, anchovies, and a rosemary-infused olive oil. Both recipes are perfect examples of the kind of cooking I gravitate toward this time of year: simple, flexible, and designed to bring people together around a table.

As the solstice approaches, I hope you’ll find a way to mark the season—whether that’s a dinner with friends, a walk at sunset, a jump in a refreshing body of water, or simply paying a little more attention to the abundance that’s already here.

Helpful links

• My Tapenade Recipe

• Nicki’s Whipped Labneh with Pistachio Dukkah

• My favorite Mini Spatulas that I talked about during our chat

• My favorite kalamata olives at Trader Joe’s

• Crown Prince Anchovy Paste in a TUBE!

Enjoy the replay, and let me know what summer rituals, traditions, or recipes shape this season for you.

Steve

Coming in July: Food, Blood Sugar, and Metabolic Health with Beth Bollinger

A few years ago, I discovered I was edging toward prediabetes and started paying closer attention to how food affected my body. For my next live conversation, I'll be joined by metabolic health expert to discuss blood sugar, the foods that trigger it, and the simple habits and foods that can help create more stable health over time—as well as a few cool tech gadgets that helped me learn more about my body.

Add it to Your Calendar

Stay Connected

• Follow along on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok for video content, reels, and behind-the-scenes thoughts. I’m also on Facebook and LinkedIn.

• Say hi on Substack Notes—I’m posting almost every day about my random reflections on life.

• Join me in Chat. It’s a space just for subscribers, kind of like a group text but less embarrassing. Download the app, tap the Chat icon (it looks like two speech bubbles at the bottom), and find the latest “Enlightened Omnivore” thread.

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  Get more from Steve Sabicer in the Substack app

  Available for iOS and Android

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I was sipping a cup of Turkish coffee on the quay in the seaside resort town of Bodrum. It was once known as the ancient city of Halicarnassus, home to the tomb of King Mausolus, one of the seven wonders of the world, and where we get the word mausoleum.

Little remained of the city’s former grandeur. Instead, Bodrum carried an eclectic energy found in so many photogenic Mediterranean ports. The weight of past civilizations now lay buried beneath vapid beach clubs and tacky souvenir shops. Bright neon cocktail signs hung from ancient stone foundations.

The streets were busy. Tracksuit-wearing Russian oligarchs chased girlfriends half their age. Cruise ship tourists drifted between overpriced cafes that had menus in every language but Turkish. Affectionate couples wandered the waterfront, chasing sunset selfies. Old Turkish men lounged half-asleep in plastic chairs, absentmindedly twirling their tesbih worry beads between cigarette-stained fingers.

My people-watching was suddenly interrupted by the delicious scent of roasting meat. A street vendor stoked his charcoal grill with a paper plate. Skewers of well-formed meatballs were pilled high as clouds of smoke wafted up into the warm Mediterranean air.

It was a childhood dream to visit this land. After decades of reading and studying this important global crossroads, the bridge between Europe and Asia, I was finally in Turkey. And I couldn’t wait to eat a meatball.

That’s right. Turkey, home to döner kebabs, dolmas, and impossibly strong coffee, pretty much sits near the center of the global meatball story.

A Food Nobody Invented

Few foods feel more universal than the meatball. Across cultures, languages, religions, and empires, humans everywhere seem to have arrived at the same delicious conclusion: if you grind meat, season it well, stretch it with a little starch or bread, and cook it, something magical takes place.

Nobody really invented the meatball. Or maybe everybody did. That’s because, long before refrigeration, grocery store meat aisles, and Instacart, you had to really work for your meat. Grinding (or chopping it finely) was less about culinary innovation, and more about survival. Ground meat turned tough cuts and scraps into tender morsels. Adding stale bread, old grains, herbs, and rendered fat allowed people to hide off flavors from older cuts, and feed more mouths with less.

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The earliest written references to meatballs appear in the 10th century. The Kitab al-Tabikh was a Persian cookbook written by an Iraqi, and influenced by Greek medicine. The meatball it referred to was called kofta, from the Persian, kufta, meaning “to pound” or “to grind.” Heavily seasoned with cumin, coriander, and cinnamon, the ground beef and lamb was then formed into balls the size of oranges and glazed in egg yolk and liquid saffron.

The recipe was so good that the meatball spread like empire itself.

Every Culture Added Its Own Fingerprints

As trade routes expanded and armies moved across continents, variations of kofta traveled through North Africa, the Middle East, the Balkans, Southern Europe, and South Asia. It had even more names, like Turkish köfte, Greek keftedes, Armenian kufta, Romanian chiftele, Albanian qofte, Bosnian ćufte.

Some versions were grilled over charcoal. Others simmered in tomato sauce or yogurt. Some mixed in rice or bulgur wheat rather than bread. Others leaned into the strong flavors of lamb, pine nuts, clarified butter, and sometimes curry.

Round. Flat. Cylindrical. Skewered. Fried. Steamed or braised, the meatball became less of a recipe and more of a format. And while nobody can truly claim ownership over the meatball itself, the Ottoman Empire (present-day Turkey) likely helped standardize and spread their version throughout much of the Mediterranean world.

IKEA Owes Turkey an Apology

Meatballs appear to have come to Europe late in the game. In Italy, polpette arrived some time in the late Middle Ages and included bread, cheese, herbs, and even fish, but no pasta. Moorish Spain adopted the meatball but called it by another Arabic-influenced name, the albóndigas. In Eastern Europe, meatballs became hearty peasant foods mixed with rice, onions, and buckwheat.

Food moves the same way people do; through conquest, trade, migration, exile, poverty, and curiosity. And sometimes through war. And that’s how the meatball made its way to Sweden in one of my favorite food history stories. Don’t worry. We haven’t left Turkey quite yet.

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The now-famous Swedish meatball — immortalized by IKEA cafeterias and frozen grocery store trays — may actually owe its existence to Turkey. In the early 1700s, Swedish King Charles XII fled to Ottoman territory after suffering a devastating defeat at the hands of the Russian tsar. He spent years living in exile in Istanbul, where he likely encountered Turkish köfte. When he begrudgingly left the warm and luxurious Turkish coast to return to Sweden, legend says he brought the recipe with him.

But not without making a few changes. Lamb was replaced with pork. Allspice and nutmeg replaced the Mediterranean spices while cream sauce replaced the chili paste. Local lingonberry jam topped the dish as a garnish. The Ottoman meatball was transformed into something unmistakably Scandinavian, and equally delicious.

A wandering recipe adapting itself to colder climates and different ingredients feels more interesting to me than culinary purity ever could. And it also reminds me of a conversation I had with my friend Cynthia Rebolledo on the podcast about the fleeting search for food authenticity.

“Food is ever evolving. It’s shared, it’s borrowed, it is always growing,” she reminded me when I asked her if Mexican food in Los Angeles was authentic.

The dishes we think of as ancient national treasures are often only decades old, and the result of centuries of borrowing, adaptation, reinvention, and accident disguised as tradition. Tomatoes arrived in Italy from the Americas. Chiles transformed Southeast Asia after European trade routes expanded. Pastrami, another of my favorite meats, likely evolved from Turkish pastirma before migrating to Romania, and eventually into Jewish delis in New York. Good luck trying to keep good food in a cultural box.

Spaghetti and Meatballs

Meatballs were late to the United States, only arriving at the end of the 19th century. This was thanks to Italian immigrants who found themselves in a country where meat was suddenly more abundant than it had been back home. Meatballs grew larger. Tomato sauce became heavier. And eventually somebody paired them with towering piles of spaghetti — a combination that would have looked somewhat foreign to Italians back in the home country at the time.

But that doesn’t mean that Italian-American cuisine was fake Italian food. It was immigrant adaptation. A survival ration becoming comfort cuisine.

Which brings me back to Istanbul.

When I finally arrived in Turkey’s largest city, I made sure to visit Sultanahmet, where the minarets of the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia rise high above the skyline. This is the meatball neighborhood. There are several cafes that prepare a flattened köfte grilled hard over charcoal until the edges crisp and blacken. The versions I fell in love with were made with lamb and seasoned with fenugreek, paprika, and cumin. Served on small plates alongside pickled yellow peppers, white bread, and a bright red chile sauce, they were the perfect late-day snack.

The locals agreed. The cafe was crammed with crowds of men smoking cigarettes and drinking thick Turkish coffee. Boisterously, they argued about soccer, politics, or maybe nothing important at all. Waiters brought more small plates of köfte. Nobody seemed to be in a hurry. I sat there and listened, and ate and smiled.

Why Meatballs Still Matter

When visiting Turkey, you can’t help but feel like you’re at a crossroads. And the food reminds you that sometimes the best dishes in the world emerge precisely because cultures collided. The meatball might be the best example of that process. Simple, portable, adaptable, and impossible to fully own. A food flexible enough to survive almost anywhere humans settled.

And maybe that’s why meatballs still feel so emotionally comforting when I make them at home. They carry the memory of resourcefulness. Of making enough from very little. Of gathering family around inexpensive ingredients that are transformed through labor and seasoning and love.

Even now, when I make meatballs at home, I still think about all those overlapping migrations hidden inside the bowl. Persian cooks pounding meat by hand. Ottoman grill smoke drifting through Istanbul. Swedish kings in exile. Italian immigrants arriving in New York. Neighborhood butcher shops still making them by hand.

And somewhere inside all of that history is a pot of meatballs simmering in tomato sauce while people chat around the table waiting to eat.

Which honestly feels like the best possible ending for a wandering recipe.

My butcher shop meatball recipe is listed at the bottom of today’s piece, available to all paid subscribers. In addition to these periodic recipes, paid subscribers get access to monthly Substack lives, practical workshops and PDF downloadable tools.

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The Seasonal Table: Summer

It’s that time again, on June 12th at 9am PT/Noon ET, I’m co-hosting the next installment of The Seasonal Table Series with Nicki Sizemore. Our Substack Live and cooking demonstration explores the four seasonal turning points of the year (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter).

For our summer conversation, Nicki and I will share what the season means to us — in nature, in the body, in the kitchen, and we’ll be making two of our favorite summer sides. Hope you can join!

Register Here

The Enlightened Freezer Workshop

Most people use their freezer like a graveyard for leftovers and mystery meat. But chefs, butchers, and thoughtful home cooks know something different: your freezer might be the most important tool in your kitchen.

Join me for a practical workshop on Saturday, June 13th, @9am PT / Noon ET to learn everything about freezing foods: how to organize things, preserve seasonal items, and make everyday cooking dramatically easier and cheaper. Paid subscribers can register at the link below.

Register Here

Stay Connected

• Follow along on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok for video content, reels, and behind-the-scenes thoughts. I’m also on Facebook and LinkedIn.

• Say hi on Substack Notes—I’m posting almost every day about my random reflections on life.

• Join me in Chat. It’s a space just for subscribers, kind of like a group text but less embarrassing. Download the app, tap the Chat icon (it looks like two speech bubbles at the bottom), and find the latest “Enlightened Omnivore” thread.

Leave a comment

Get more from Steve Sabicer in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

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ECB Italian Meatballs

These were a quiet sleeper hit behind the butcher counter at Electric City Butcher. Built on a classic 70/30 blend of beef and pork, they lean into richness with ricotta, parmesan, garlic confit, and plenty of seasoning. They’re soft in the best possible way—perfect simmered in tomato sauce, tucked into a sandwich, or served simply with olive oil and crusty bread.

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Sitting in a dark room with several rows of empty chairs, there was a man in front of a pull-down screen. We were on the first floor of UCLA’s Rothman Institute of Food Policy. I had hoped to see my former podcast guest Jack Bobo, but the room held only a pair of grad students and a handful of faculty. A student host sat at a folding table littered with…

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In a world that always seems focused on optimizing for convenience, distraction, and outsourcing, cooking asks something different of me. Attention. Patience. Adaptability. Presence. It reconnects me to the power of transformation itself: raw ingredients becoming nourishment, strangers becoming family, houses becoming homes.

Looking back, I realize this essay wasn’t really about recipes or meal prep. It was also a little about reclaiming my agency. Anyone else want to reclaim some power they deserve these days?

Rereading this reminded me how much Substack has changed in the last year. There is SOOOO much more content these days. So, I wanted to shine some light on a few of my favorite food authors. If you need some good ideas for your cooking, check out the links peppered through this piece. They’re all great sources of inspiration for sure.

Next month, I’ll be sharing a new workshop for all paid subscribers called The Enlightened Freezer—a practical guide to using your freezer not as a graveyard for leftovers, but as a tool for resilience, economy, seasonal eating, and everyday sanity.

Anyway, here’s the original piece revisited and revised—with some new links to other great food writers, and a few fresh thoughts simmering inside. I hope you enjoy it just as much the second time.

The Enlightened Kitchen

When my friend Dr. Matthea Rentea asked me to be on her podcast, The Obesity Guide, to talk about my philosophy on cooking, I was a bit nervous. A big believer in everything in moderation, I don’t know that my cooking has ever been conducive to grandiose mantras or a rigorous workout plan. But Dr. Rentea—who has been working with people struggling with obesity for more than a decade—made it clear, addressing unhealthy eating habits doesn’t start with weight loss, it starts with a healthier outlook on eating. She wanted my thoughts on how adults can start cooking for the first time, or return to it after a long hiatus.

Sure, I can do that. So here are some thoughts on how reconnecting with cooking doesn’t have to be stressful. In fact, it might even save you some money, while helping you live a healthier, dare I say, enlightened life.

The Three Biggest Cooking Mistakes

If your kitchen feels like a foreign country, or it’s had about as much use as that ambitious gym membership, I wanted to share some super simple tips that I've noticed are the most common errors standing between the home cook and delicious dining:

1. Not Enough Browning: Proper browning–what’s called the Maillard reaction–creates depth of flavor that transforms ordinary ingredients and packs their bags for “flavor country.” Don't rush this process! Allow proteins and vegetables to develop a proper sear before moving or flipping them. Potatoes come alive with a nice crust, grains with a little color offer a comforting toasted vibe, and pine nuts browned in a pan for a minute make an ordinary salad taste like fine dining.

2. Under-seasoning: Don’t skimp on salt. The FDA found that 70% of our salt consumption comes from processed foods, not the salt we add to recipes or place on the table. Chances are, if you don’t like how your homemade foods taste, you’re probably not salting them enough. Also, buy some flake kosher salt, which absorbs faster and provides better flavor distribution than table salt, and season throughout the cooking process. Don’t forget to taste the food before serving it.

3. Leaving out ingredients: Cooking is chemistry, and leaving out an ingredient might prevent an essential reaction. Salt is a flavor enhancer. Adding it to chocolate chip cookies actually makes them taste sweeter and more chocolatey. Acids like lemon juice or vinegar brighten up flat flavors. A splash of olive oil gives body to sauces and stews. Chances are, ingredients are in that recipe for a reason. If in doubt, make it both ways and choose your favorite.

What are your war stories in the kitchen? What are some of your favorite rules in the kitchen?

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The Basic Tool Kit

We could spend an entire post on what gear you should have in your kitchen. But my philosophy on cooking tools leans heavily on the wise words of Alton Brown: no unitaskers. Every tool in your kitchen should have more than one function. I am a devout believer in this rule except for this guy. Not a single day goes by in my avocado-holic household that someone isn’t using this tool, or looking for it in the dishwasher.

That said, here’s a starting list to help make your cooking a success (I really should make an affiliates link, but I don’t receive any endorsements for the recommendations below):

• Chef’s Knife: They don’t have to be expensive. I like this one.

• Paring Knife: Saves you from cutting yourself with that quality chef's knife when working on smaller morsels.

• Cutting board: I prefer wood. They’re easier on knives and we don’t need any more plastic in our lives that we already have.

• Measuring cups: Both wet and dry.

• Sauce pan and frying pan: Stainless steel is a great start; we can talk about my cast iron fetish later.

• Baking sheet: Splurge on a couple sturdy ones that won’t buckle under heat in the oven.

• Cooling rack: one of these has too many uses to list; in addition to cooling baked goods, it’s perfect for roasting and crisping foods, glazing or decorating, draining, drying, or thawing.

• Strainer/colander: For draining pasta, washing produce, and steaming.

• Storage containers: again glass is my preference; don’t like putting hot things into plastic, and glass freezes better.

• Thermometer: This will ensure you never overcook a piece of meat again; start with this bargain version, and then upgrade when you can afford it.

• Tongs: This might be a personal preference, but I can’t live without mine. Great for flipping, grabbing, and serving.

• Scale: For those European recipes that rely on weight (grams and ounces) versus the more American volume (cups and tablespoons), a scale is essential. A cheap and easy to clean scale is a real benefit if you want consistent cooking. might have an opinion on a better one.

What did I miss? Leave me a comment with your personal favorites!

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What Should I Cook? Menu Items

Let’s assume you’ve been away from the kitchen for a while. Or maybe this is your first time. Rather than committing to complicated recipes every night, consider mastering a framework for basic and balanced meals. Also, if you don’t have a cookbook, get The Joy of Cooking. In addition to having hundreds of recipes, it’s also part encyclopedia part Cooking for Dummies, which will help any beginner find their way in the kitchen.

• Start with protein: Structure meals around satisfying protein sources. Contrary to popular belief, grass-finished beef can be as lean as chicken while providing more iron and flavor. For the vegetarian, beans, tofu, and lentils should be prime on the plate.

• Embrace fiber-rich foods: I fill half my plate with non-starchy vegetables and incorporate whole grains like wild rice, bulgur, and quinoa. These foods provide sustained energy and promote digestive health without the need for calorie counting. I also don’t fall asleep after my meal.

• Doctor up pre-made items: If you don't have the time, outsource some of the work. In a pinch, I buy pre-made marinara sauce that is zero-sugar and then doctor it up with protein, herbs, and spices at home. Saves time while staying away from heavily processed, salty and sweet store-bought items.

• Use frozen veggies: If you can't go to the store regularly, keep broccoli, green beans, and riced cauliflower (great carb substitute) in your freezer for a quick addition to your meal. Frozen broccoli under the broiler for 12 minutes browns faster than fresh, green beans sautéed for a few minutes in a very hot pan are still bright and snappy. Riced cauliflower browned with some butter is better than basmati. Key is hot pan and a short cook time.

• Try heritage grains: If you missed my piece on farro, check it out. Ancient grains—like bulgur, quinoa, and wild rice—are great substitutes for pasta or white rice. They also come with lots more fiber and nutrients.

If you have questions on any of these basics, simply comment or send me a message and I’ll be happy to share more detail. Or, if you’re ready to replicate our favorite restaurant dish, check out at The Secret Ingredient.

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The Butcher's Corner

For the meat eaters of the world, there are lots of exciting kitchen experiments you can try. Here are just a couple to get you started:

• Buy large format proteins and cut them down: A prime rib roast is often cheaper than individual ribeye steaks. Bulk ground beef also comes at a discount, and can be portioned at home to go into the freezer. Practice basic butchery to save cash.

• Don't throw out bones: Save up your chicken and steak bones, and put them in the freezer. On the weekend, throw them all in a pot (or pressure cooker) and make some broth. It will come in handy for future recipes. If you don’t know what broth is, or how to use it, my friend Heather has you covered.

• Quality over quantity: Good meat is more filling than bad. Splurge on the quality and stay away from factory farmed stuff that is often higher in calories, full of other bad things, and bad for farmers and the environment.

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Practical Meal Planning for Real Life

The all-or-nothing approach to meal planning often leads to frustration and aborted efforts. Instead, try these more sustainable strategies that will keep you coming back to the kitchen for more of your meals:

• Culinary Boot Camp: Pick five basic recipes–maybe ones that use a single pot or baking sheet, and require minimal prep and cleanup. Take a weekend to practice making them. It should take about an hour for each recipe. After a long afternoon, you’ll have leftovers for a week. When you’ve mastered those recipes, you’ll be able to make them fresh when you want in half the time. Experiment with new recipes on weekends.

• Practice Makes Perfect: Once you have your skills up, plan 3-4 days of meals at a time rather than an entire week, which can feel overwhelming. Choose recipes with overlapping ingredients to reduce waste and decision fatigue.

• Make extra and FREEZE: If you're making a labor-intensive dish, double the portions. So many recipes taste better the next day, and tons freeze easily. Start with the “low and slow” cooked foods, like pot roast, chili, and soups. These can last months–if not years–in the freezer for those nights you’d rather reheat than cook from scratch.

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My Kitchen Philosophy

My relationship with food has ping-ponged between enjoyment and anxiety over the years. I wasn’t always trying to be a mindful eater. In fact, as a teenager, I prided myself on how many $0.49 McDonald’s cheeseburgers I could eat. The number was thirteen! Does anyone else remember that price? My friend and food historian often writes about how deeply Americana foods shape modern taste and memory, and honestly, he’s right. Those cheeseburgers are burned into my brain.

Today, eating looks quite different for me and my family. You might have heard me chattering away about it on my podcast. I guess I’ve developed a bit of a philosophy on food that starts with three core principles:

Regenerative: Food that rebuilds our capacity to make more food is the most intuitive and sustainable model we can embrace. I choose ingredients that support farming systems that give back to the land rather than deplete it. Check out my friend and on this topic, particularly where women are leading the charge.

Resilient: Just like nature's most successful species, our superpower as omnivores lies in maintaining a diverse diet that doesn't over-rely on any single calorie source. This diversity makes us adaptable and strong. If you want lots of ideas on ingredients, check out and his Things on Bread.

Restorative: The most important ingredient in any meal is love. Food must nourish not just our bodies, but our minds, spirits, and connections with each other. If food loses that sense of adventure, it probably doesn’t deserve to go into your body. ’s Let’s Get Lost reminds me that feeding people can be both practical and deeply personal — that recipes are often just another way of telling stories about hospitality, curiosity, and connection.

This approach runs counter to much of today's diet culture, which often prioritizes restriction or over-consumption of a handful of things. Somewhere along the way, we forgot about nourishment and fellowship, the only two ingredients that matter to me. But for readers trying to better understand how ingredients affect other things, like blood sugar, mood, and long-term health, offers a helpful and practical perspective.

Let’s Be Mindful

Truly mindful eating starts in the kitchen, but it really comes to fruition around the dinner table. For my household, dinner is the only time I see my teenage kids most days. It’s not just where we share a meal, but where feelings and newly formed ideas can percolate; whether it’s Star Wars lore, the history of hot dogs, or what presidents ate for breakfast — topics I probably wouldn’t know nearly as much about without .

If you can, try and eat with others. It’s a hoot.

To truly nourish me, food must affect my mind, body, heart and spirit. That’s when it becomes medicine rather than mere calories. With this mindset, I can then create a more fulfilling relationship with the food I eat, the system in which it was raised, and the people with whom I share it. That's at the heart of being an Enlightened Omnivore, and the name of ’s .

And remember, we all make mistakes in the kitchen. Be kind to yourself when things don’t go your way. That’s part of the learning process. Not every meal will turn out perfectly. Mine don’t! Whether you're cooking for one, or feeding a busy family, the key is finding an approach that works for your life and makes home-cooked eating more accessible in your daily routine.

That's how we get back into the kitchen. One meal at a time.

The Seasonal Table: Summer

It’s that time again, on June 11th at 9am PT/Noon ET, I’m co-hosting with Nicki Sizemore the next in our The Seasonal Table Series — a quarterly Substack Live marking the four seasonal turning points of the year (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter).

For our summer conversation, Nicki and I will share what the season means to us — in nature, in the body, in the kitchen, and around the family table. Hope you can join!

Register Here

The Enlightened Freezer Workshop

Most people use their freezer like a graveyard for leftovers and mystery meat. But chefs, butchers, and thoughtful home cooks know something different: your freezer might be the most important tool in your kitchen.

Join me for a practical workshop on Saturday, June 13th, @9am PT / Noon ET to learn everything about freezing foods: how to organize things, preserve seasonal items, and make everyday cooking dramatically easier and cheaper. Paid subscribers can register at the link below.

Register Here

Stay Connected

• Follow along on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok for video content, reels, and behind-the-scenes thoughts. I’m also on Facebook and LinkedIn.

• Say hi on Substack Notes—I’m posting almost every day about my random reflections on life.

• Join me in Chat. It’s a space just for subscribers, kind of like a group text but less embarrassing. Download the app, tap the Chat icon (it looks like two speech bubbles at the bottom), and find the latest “Enlightened Omnivore” thread.

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Bennett has built one of the most fascinating food history projects online — recreating the meals of presidents, politicians, and everyday Americans to explore what food says about culture, class, power, and identity. Somewhere between hot dogs for the Queen of England, and frozen cottage cheese suspended in Jell-O, we uncovered a surprising amount about American food.

We also opened our fridges live for the internet, which may or may not have been a mistake.

If you missed the conversation, listen to the replay. It’s a fun one. Come for the hot dog history, stay for the Siberian pine cone jam and morning presidential cocktails.

And definitely go follow Bennett’s work at Cooking with Congress — especially if you love food history, strange recipes, or the beautifully weird ways Americans have eaten over the years.

WORKSHOP: The Enlightened Freezer

Most people use their freezer like a graveyard for leftovers and mystery meat. But chefs, butchers, and thoughtful home cooks know something different: your freezer might be the most important tool in your kitchen.

Join me for a practical workshop on Saturday June 13th, @9am PT / Noon ET to learn everything about freezing foods: how to organize things, preserve seasonal items, and make everyday cooking dramatically easier and cheaper. Paid subscribers can register at the link below.

Register Here

Stay Connected

• Follow along on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok for video content, reels, and behind-the-scenes thoughts. I’m also on Facebook and LinkedIn.

• Say hi on Substack Notes—I’m posting almost every day about my random reflections on life.

• Join me in Chat. It’s a space just for subscribers, kind of like a group text but less embarrassing. Download the app, tap the Chat icon (it looks like two speech bubbles at the bottom), and find the latest “Enlightened Omnivore” thread.

Read null in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

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Get more from Steve Sabicer in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app