Can this woman make quinoa sexy?

Heidi Swanson, author of the new cookbook "Super Natural Cooking," chats about the unsung pleasures of spelt and chard and her crusade to make healthy food hot.

By Sarah Karnasiewicz

Read more: Health, Nutrition, Recipes, Life, Eat and Drink, Food and Travel

March 6, 2007 | Like many other eaters, weathering these days of transfat bans, E. coli outbreaks and agriculture exposés has prompted me to think more critically about the vittles I let pass my lips. Now, when I have a cold and crave chicken soup, I'll walk a few blocks farther, and spend a few dollars more, for an organic bird to stock my pot. At the market, I skim the ingredients in the stuff I toss into my shopping cart and avoid anything I can't pronounce or that appears to have been manufactured entirely from corn syrup. But though most of the time eating well makes me feel good (yes, inside and out) I'm hardly a nutrition scold -- and in moments of weakness I still succumb to the temptation of a big box of Mallomars (before you judge: at least they're "seasonal").

So it was with equal parts curiosity and trepidation that I opened up Heidi Swanson's new cookbook, "Super Natural Cooking: Five Ways to Incorporate Whole & Natural Ingredients Into Your Cooking." Though I've long been an admirer of the smart recipes and stunning visuals on Swanson's cooking blog 101cookbooks.com, I wasn't sure I was interested in adding such a purely virtuous volume to my shelves. After all, a woman cannot live on lentils alone.

But my fears couldn't have been more outmoded, or unfounded. In "Super Natural Cooking," Swanson not only goes a long way toward helping "whole" foods shed their stale, hippie stigma but also makes a strong case for putting natural foods at the center of an emerging, modern, global cuisine. Her seductive recipes, like lime-bathed peanut salad and an updated (almost guilt-free) take on the classic Girl Scout Thin Mint cookie, reach out to cooks who want to eat smart but still do it in style. Without preaching, Swanson playfully shows readers five simple steps -- including building a natural pantry, embracing grains, and cooking with an eye on color and super-foods -- that should form the foundation of healthy habits. The result is enough to make any closet Cheetos muncher think we're lucky to be living in times when food that is good for you can actually taste good too.

Salon spoke with Swanson from her San Francisco home about quinoa cookies, speaking up at the supermarket and the challenge of making "natural" food sexy.

What inspired you to take on this project?

The farmers markets here [in the Bay Area] are incredibly inspiring. You see farm-fresh produce being delivered to individuals from CSAs [community supported agriculture groups] throughout the city, and you run into an endless stream of amazing chefs at the markets on weekends. And people here seem to understand the positive impact that a food community can have on culture.

But the problem I started to notice was that often, beyond the fruits and vegetables and artisan meats I'd see customers buying, the foundation ingredients that people used to cook or support their farmers market finds were still heavily processed -- like nutritionally barren flours and grains, highly refined sugars, jams and jellies, or nut butters made from heavily sprayed crops, and industrially produced cooking oils.

So in a way, the cookbook grew naturally out of what I was doing in my own kitchen. I'd decided that I wanted the supporting players in my recipes to be of the same standard as the produce I brought home from the market on Saturday mornings. I started by overhauling my pantry. And that immediately opened my eyes to a whole world of exciting and completely underutilized ingredients. Trashing my white all-purpose flour, I made way for a new spectrum of whole-grain flours, everything from whole-wheat pastry flour, oat, quinoa and mesquite to wild rice flour. I made pancakes, quick breads and cookies and traded standard pasta for a new cast of noodles made from buckwheat, spelt and spinach. The book is the result of that journey. It's all the information and recipes I wish I had a few years back, compiled into one volume.

What are some of the misconceptions you think people have about "natural" food?

Most people think cooking with "natural" foods is about as exciting as buying a new pair of Birkenstocks. Broadly speaking, they know it is a more nutritious way of cooking but are convinced that if they commit to it, they'll be destined for a life of lentil loaves, brown rice and sprouts on everything. It's a grim frame of mind, especially when really there is an incredibly rich palette of bright, flavorful, nutritious and readily available ingredients out there for people to explore. And when we start cooking with those ingredients and looking at them through a contemporary lens, a whole new world of amazing flavors, textures and preparations opens up.

Next page: "Trying to get people excited about barley, quinoa, chard and tofu is no easy task"