I Hold The Secret

Went to my first segment of the Creative and Mindful Cooking Workshop this afternoon!

Already I can tell I’m going to learn a lot. We worked we Chef Chad Luethje, Miraval’s Executive Chef, and covered A LOT in terms of soups, salads and salad dressings.

Personally, I love salad. Great way to get your veggies and a tasty first course. However, salads can also be very, very boring if done wrong. Or, they can be pretty unhealthy when doused with heavy dressings and buttery croutons.

But wait….I have the secret!!!!

Three words: thickened veggie stock. Basically, you just make a slurry out of cornstarch and water and then stir that into simmering stock or broth. It thickens right up and that becomes the base for your salad dressing. It creates a thicker/richer mouthfeel but has practically no calories. I’m going to have to try this trick at home.

Here are some beauties that we made today:

When in Rome…..eat low-fat chocolate turtle cake as a mid-day snack. And like it.

But wait…there’s more!

Crab cakes and fish tacos for dinner…am I really alive right now or have I been lifted straight up to Heaven? I must be in Heaven. Who am I? Where am I?

Dinner was followed by my first spa treatment—I had Nurture, an outdoor treatment that involved one hundred minutes of scrubbing, rubbing and massaging. I don’t think my skin has ever felt so soft and afterwards I hurried silently back to my room wearing a big white robe and bearing flourless chocolate cake in one hand and herbal tea in the other.

**Warning: this is not my real life. In real life, I live in a six hundred square foot apartment and eat peanut butter sandwiches while brushing Dexter. Last week my car got broken into. My butt is getting bigger.

I don’t know how I feel about that.