Authors Eat…

Author Boyd Lemon

This week Authors Eat… features a post from popular memoir and travel author Boyd Lemon. I followed Boyd’s adventures across Europe as he wrote “Eat, Walk, Write”, and he continues to impress his readers with his soulful observations of the seemingly mundane and the spectacularly beautiful. Boyd has taken a journey to improve his life through better eating habits and he shares his thoughts and a recipe for chicken vegetable soup.

In the author’s own words:

I’m not proud of the fact that I paid little attention to what I ate for most of my life. I just ate what I thought tasted good. I was naturally thin, but when I reached about 55 and had put on a little more weight than I wanted, I began to read about healthful eating and gradually began to eat more healthfully. This is not a scholarly article on nutrition, so I’m not going site studies or tomes by nutritionists. I simply learned from my voracious reading that for the most part our health is determined by genes and what we eat. We can’t do anything about our genes, so I focused on what I ate. I also learned that the types of foods that lead us on the path to serious disease, as well as overweight, are sugar, carbohydrates, processed foods and foods with a lot of saturated fat (“bad foods”). So I cut way back on bad foods. I now weigh what I did in my 20’s; I feel good, better than before I substantially cut back on bad foods; I am 73, have no known ailments and take no medication. I am convinced that my good fortune is at least in part due to a healthy diet. I eat lots of fresh vegetables, fish and some chicken, though not exclusively. I seldom eat anything with sugar in it, simple carbohydrates (bread, white rice, potatoes, pasta) or fried or foods high in saturated fat. I am not strict and inflexible. If I am dining at someone else’s home, I eat what they serve without comment. I make it a point to splurge once in a while. I have a hamburger once a month or so, perhaps a steak, occasionally French fries or onion rings, and less occasionally ice cream. I make these exceptions because I’m afraid if I don’t, I would fall back into the habit of unhealthy eating because I would miss those things I love to eat, but which are unhealthy. Besides, you only live once; and, since you can’t live forever, why totally give up what makes life worth living—eating foods that simply taste good. So, I allow myself a few transgressions, but for the most part I have established a habit of eating healthfully.

One of my favorite healthy foods is homemade soup. It is tasty, and you can regulate the amount of salt, eliminate sugar and use fresh ingredients. My favorite is a chicken vegetable soup, the recipe which I developed by trial and error over the years.

Ingredients:

1 organically fed, free range roasting chicken

1 medium to large onion (any color)

3 or 4 stocks of celery

2 or 3 carrots

1/8 cup of brown or black rice

4 white mushrooms

¼ cup of frozen peas (mostly for color)

1 handful of fresh spinach (optional)

Method:

Roast the chicken, using any recipe for roasting chicken (Google it if you don’t

have one).

Cook the brown rice separately according to directions on the package.

Carve the chicken when it is done and cools for 15 minutes, removing the legs.

Cut into small pieces for the soup enough of the chicken you have carved so that

you have about 1 ½ cups of chicken. You can eat the rest however you want.

Chop the onion, celery and carrots into soup sized pieces and slice the

mushrooms.

Throw the chicken carcass (which should have some chicken left on it that you

couldn’t carve off), the chicken wings and giblets into a large soup pot full of

boiling water; add the chopped onions and celery.  When the water is back to

boiling, turn it down to simmer for an hour. Remove the carcass, wings and

giblets and any lose bones that have fallen off, or strain through a sieve. What is left is chicken stock.

If you want to make the soup faster, substitute canned or boxed chicken

broth––32 ounces for the large pot; it will be good, but not quite as tasty as

your own broth.

Now add the carrots.

15 minutes later add the mushrooms.

10 minutes after that add the frozen peas (sometimes I substitute or add a

handful of fresh spinach).

Cook for 10 more minutes if you used peas. If you used spinach, turn the fire

off immediately after putting in the spinach; it will cook in the hot soup

without any more heat.

Throw in the cut-up chicken, and turn off the heat, if you haven’t already.

Salt and pepper to taste.

This should make 6 to 8 bowls of soup, depending on the size of your bowls.

Note: the quantities of these ingredients are not exact; these are just guides.

Experiment until you get it the way you want it. The rice is mainly for bulk.

You can substitute noodles, macaroni or corn. Sometimes I even put in a few

pinto beans.

 

Boyd Lemon is the author of:“Eat, Walk, Write: An American Senior’s Year of Adventure in Paris and Tuscany;”

“Digging Deep: A Writer Uncovers His Marriages;” and 4 other books-all

available on Amazon and by order from any bookstore

Website: http://BoydLemon-Writer.com

Facebook Author Page: http://facebook.com/eat.walk.write