In response to some of the worst economic times since the Great Depression, I’m excited to present my “Grow. Cook. Grub.” series.  With unemployment climbing, diet-related illnesses increasing, and health care costs sky-rocketing, more and more people are looking to feed themselves healthfully, simply, and cheaply.  Using my family and community as an example, I will show readers how easy it is to cook health-promoting, delicious, and inexpensive meals year round using food from my home garden, CSA, and local farmer’s markets.

Sweet Sweetback’s Salad with Roasted Beet Vinaigrette

Yield: 4 to 6 servings

Soundtrack (all songs that contain samples of Melvin Van Peebles’ music):

“30 Cops Or More” by Boogie Down Productions from Edutainment
“The Finest” MF DOOM from Operation Doomsday
“Come on Feet” by Quasimoto from The Unseen
“Hydrant Game” by Quasimoto from The Further Adventures of Lord Quas

Film: How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It) (2005), directed by Joe Angio. This documentary chronicles Melvin Van Peeble’s astonishing career.

In March 2008 I went to Los Angeles to film an episode for MVP’s Greenhouse, a television series that follows Mario Van Peebles, his wife, their five children, and his father (Melvin Van Peebles) as they renovate their LA home in an environmentally friendly manner and embrace a more sustainable lifestyle. I was excited to help Mario prepare a meal, but I was overjoyed to be in the presence of Melvin.

I created this salad not so much in honor of Melvin’s cult classic Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song or the moving biopic—Badasssss—written and directed by Mario, but more so for Melvin’s influence on me as a creative person. In addition to being a screenwriter, director, actor, and film editor, Melvin’s creative pursuits include being a painter, sculptor, children’s book author, dancer, novelist, journalist, translator, composer, recording artist, playwright, playboy, Broadway producer, and stockbroker (the first African American to hold a seat on the American Stock Exchange). And at 77 years old he’s still going strong. Black genius indeed.

Like Sweetback, the protagonist of Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, this salad is bold (beets), bitter (argula), earthy (walnuts), and sweet (agave-sugar).

4 medium beets, scrubbed, tops trimmed, root tails left intact
Coarse sea salt
4 tablespoons plus 4 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon agave nectar
Freshly ground white pepper
3 large bunches arugula, trimmed and roughly chopped (6 to 7 cups)
1 1/2 cups Candied Walnuts ( see Vegan Soul Kitchen)

*Combine the beets, 3 quarts cold water, and 1 teaspoon salt in a medium pot over high heat. Boil uncovered for 20 to 30 minutes, or until the beets are easily pierced with a knife. Drain. Peel the beets by holding them under cold running water and rubbing their skins off with your fingers or a clean towel.

*Preheat oven to 400°F.

*Trim the tails off the bottom of the beets. Reserve two of them for the vinaigrette and compost the others. Cut the beets into 1/4-inch dice. In a medium bowl, toss the diced beets with 4 teaspoons of the olive oil. Transfer them to a parchment-lined baking sheet and roast for 15 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes to ensure even cooking. Remove the beets from the oven, transfer them back into the bowl just used, and toss with 2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar. Return to the baking sheet and cook for an additional 5 minutes. Set them aside to cool.

* In a blender, combine the reserved roasted beet tails with the remaining red wine vinegar, mustard, 1/2 teaspoon agave nectar, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and white pepper to taste. Blend while slowly pouring in 4 tablespoons of olive oil. If needed, add more salt to taste.

*Place the arugula pieces in a large serving bowl, add the roasted beets on top, and add the candied walnuts on top of that. Immediately before serving, toss well with just enough of the vinaigrette to coat.

I was so excited when I received Bryant Terry’s newest cookbook, Vegan Soul Kitchen: Fresh, Healthy and Creative African-American Cuisine.  First, because I grew up on southern delights like baked beans, corn bread, grits and coleslaw, but have been hard-pressed to find tasty recipes that don’t call for industrially canned and/or processed ingredients.  Second, the recipes in Terry’s book are vegan — which I see as an added bonus (though I’m not a vegan, I love eating that way), allowing the eater to get back to the core of what makes soul food good: Terry shows us that it’s the fresh, simple ingredients that bring the most flavor.

Vegan Soul Kitchen is first an ode to reclaiming African-American cuisine.  Collards (with orange and raisins, tried successfully over at La Vida Locavore), Gumbo Z, and Black-Eyed Pea Fritters mash up the old thinking on Caribbean, Cajun, African American and even Native American cuisines, reminding us that dishes don’t have to be heavy or greasy to be delicious.

Terry is an eco-chef, meaning that he takes note of his impact on the planet and avoids waste while cooking, reserving vegetable trimmings for stock, collard stems for his “Collard Confetti”, and squash seeds for toasting.  My favorite eco-recipes, though, are his many offerings for the humble watermelon, including salting it, which we always did at my house (his version throws in basil, too), a recipe for a Double Watermelon-Strawberry Slushee, a tantalizing Balsamic Syrup-Sweetened Watermelon Sorbet and also for Citrus and Spice Pickled Watermelon Rind, all of which I can’t wait to try this summer.

When I got my copy a few weeks ago, I was participating in Kim O’Donnel’s Eat Down the Fridge challenge on her blog A Mighty Appetite.  The goal was to eat what you have on hand, clearing out the fridge and pantry.  As I flipped through Vegan Soul Kitchen’s pages, my mouth started to water. Sure, I’d eaten a sort of boring buttered kasha with caramelized onions for lunch, which hadn’t quite filled me up, and was still hungry.  But now I was armed with inspiration — and a cabinet full of beans and grains — and I was ready to improvise.

My eyes alighted on the Johnny Blaze Cakes, as I scanned the ingredients, stone-ground cornmeal, wheat flour, baking powder, sea salt, cayenne, rice milk, jalapeno and olive oil, I realized I had every one aside from the jalapeno. No matter, some extra cayenne would do.  The recipe that I felt would compliment the cakes was the Baked BBQ Black-Eyed Peas, for which I substituted black beans (it was what I had on hand).  The result was a bold play on traditional baked beans and corn bread, which I’ve since made again with equal success.

Terry’s enthusiasm for inspiring people to eat better with easy-to-make, delicious recipes is present throughout his cookbook.  He empowers cooks by tying cooking to culture — a powerful tool for change. His recipes are more like oeuvres.  Like those from his previous book, Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen (written with Anna Lappe), each recipe here has an accompanying song, even a piece of art is conjured, and sometimes a story from Terry’s own life is there in the mix, too.  The effect is to show that food is more than just gas for our tank, it is instead an engaging process, an art form, something that binds us and brings us together, meanwhile giving us traditions to share.

I cant wait to try the Whole-Grain Mustard and Cornmeal Crusted Seitan next, as well as the Fried Green Tomatoes with Creamy Celeriac Sauce and the Succotash Soup with Garlicky Cornbread Croutons.  Get yourself a copy, tie on your apron, and get cookin’!