Bringing Healthy Food Lessons Home
by Laurie Walcott

I'm a suburban mom living in Denver, CO, and my oldest son is in his junior year at West Point in the Mid-Hudson Valley. I miss my boy, but we keep in touch by phone and by "boodle." That's my name for the boxes of treats I send him periodically. My boodle is not a huge box of candy; rather, I walk the health-nut/gourmet line since most of my relatives are health nuts who grind their own flax seed for their homemade bread. My husband has also gotten more interested in healthy eating, and loves my winter legume soups, hot fruit crisps, and cornbread with puréed bananas. (I'm the only one still on speaking terms with sugar.)

This past Christmas, my husband had a great idea. He gave me a CIA Boot Camp called Techniques of Healthy Cooking and added two weekends on either end of my trip so I could visit my son at West Point. That meant time with my kid and new food ideas for the family when I came home. I wanted to get new thoughts on cooking at Boot Camp. After all, when you cook for teenagers—who can be fussy—you get into a rut and find yourself making the same three entrées. So new ideas would be valuable.

At Techniques of Healthy Cooking Boot Camp, Chef Michael Skibitcky (who asked us to call him "Chefski") was outstanding, as was the kitchen staff and dietitian. I was part of a very cool group of interesting women, including two lawyers and a pediatric endocrinologist from Yale. Others came from Pebble Beach and Fullerton, CA and from North Carolina, Albany, and Boston. The best thing was the way our group clicked. Americans who are interested in healthy cooking are passionate, but in the minority. It was great to find others to swap healthy food ideas and inspiration with. Healthy eating has gotten such a bad rap among so many. But we were working alongside a pediatric endocrinologist who cares for low-income kids with diabetes, and she re-affirmed the importance of changing the American diet.

I was really nervous the first day; I have really high standards for myself. But Chef was a charming fellow, with some excellent ideas and pointers. One of his asides was, "Oh, never trust the recipe!" The food demonstrations he conducted in class will keep percolating in my mind for years. I was especially proud of one dish I made: salmon en papillote. It was quite the showstopper. I was thrilled to make collard greens, too, which I had never seen before.

Unexpectedly, the most useful dish I made was macaroni and cheese. (Mac and cheese at the CIA?) This version was prepared for people who have gluten intolerance, known as celiac disease. It used a variation on béchamel sauce. I didn't know how valuable this humble recipe would be. The day I got home, I learned about two neighbors with family medical emergencies who needed dinners made. I signed up and brought them mac and cheese, the ultimate comfort food. Heeding Chefski's advice to ignore the recipe, I added smoked turkey to the version I learned at the CIA. What a blessing it was to my neighbors! Chefski was helping people he didn't even know. But isn't that the basic deal with education? Well-applied, it reaches people you never could, in ways you could never imagine.