Well-deserved Living Now award for Suzanne Landry and her beautiful new Cookbook, The Passionate Vegetable!

A book writer after my own heart, Suzanne goes well beyond the recipes, and lets the reader get a full view of the philosophy that informs all her cooking. Her approach is empowering, her language clear and accessible, and the book well laid-out and generously illustrated. There is not a daily food and eating issue she hasn’t addressed, in her typical simple and organized way: organic, allergies, reading labels, switching to whole foods, whole grains, natural sweeteners, cooking methods, food supplements, nutrition information, and many more: It’s all there!  A natural food lifestyle presented in this no-nonsense way seems totally desirable, attainable and affordable. No question of dissing veggies here, or shoving them aside at meal time, au contraire. She spreads the vegetable gamut really thick (especially all the roots and tubers, my favorites)  the oft-maligned cauliflower gets vindicated by enjoying cover page star treatment here. And the best part is, following all her sensible guidelines, the dishes are fun, delicious and simple, no fuss and no frills whatsoever, they will work any day of the week and fit into our busy lifestyles and strained budgets. Even the desserts are real good-for-you foods, made as they are with whole grain flours, natural sweeteners and fats, fruit, dark chocolate. The other great appeal of the book is, most meat and fish dishes are prepared with the vegetables built right into them, so in one fell swoop you get a one-pot meal. How delicious do these dishes sound: Roasted Winter Vegetables, Three Sisters Stew (the name intrigues me, the off-beat sisters here being, squash, beans and corn), Thai Coconut Chick Peas, Turkey Burgers, Fish Tacos, Chocolate Coconut Bars, Roasted Fresh Figs with Goat Cheese. This makes me want to meet Suzanne and cook a wonderful meal with her!