Blueberries in Boston

I thought about The Sun once this summer. As I peeled a cantaloupe rind from the bottom of my favorite sandals and stared quizzically at the war scene in front of me, I thought maybe, just maybe, someone from Cornell with an aptitude for Boston culture could explain to me what on earth just threw down on Hanover street. While on a quest to the Italian fest on the North End, I think I might have been warped into a level of Yoshi’s Story, with melons and bananas and fruit of all sorts literally dumped and overflowing from the streets to the sidewalks. I stood dumbstruck and watched ravenous Bostonians on all fours scrounging through rotten fruit for a hopeful gem. It was entertaining but the pastacotti at Mike’s Pastry was a bit more appetizing than the decaying berries that were stuck to the bottom of my shoes.
      In between digging through piles of research in the darkness of my cubicle and running off the guilt-ridden pastries and cookies that I ate on a daily basis with my morning coffee, I spent my summer figuring out just what Boston tastes like. Brioche from Flour Bakery, tapas from Solea, cappuccino from Uptown Espresso, and all of the concoctions that my partner in cooking crime and I came up with, resulted in a summer saturated in all things food. As a nutrition major, I feel that I must tell you that my face wasn’t covered in cookie crumbs ALL summer. I must give credit to the Federation of Massachusetts Farmer’s Market and to the river walk trail that follows the Charles for maintaining my girlish figure. And although I only thought of The Sun once, I’ve come up with quite a few things that I feel I need to tell you over the course of this year; some food and nutrition revelations if you will.
      With the swine flu rearing its ugly horns in the direction of us Cornellians, I’m going to focus this year’s blog a bit more on the nutrition aspect of food in order to give you the information necessary to achieve a healthy body. Healthy eating habits lead to a stronger immune system, which is a serious weapon against the swine flu and recovering from it quickly. While in Boston this summer, I attended the 11th Postgraduate Nutrition Symposium at Harvard on Protective Nutrients and listened to the A-list of the nutrition world talk about what the different protective nutrients are and what they do for us. From the two days of lectures, I’ve emerged with huge amounts of information on prebiotics, probiotics, vitamin D, choline, omega-3 fatty acids, zinc, antioxidants and B vitamins that I will be sharing with you. In addition, from the inspiration of my muse of sorts, I will be embarking on a series articles exploring the nutrition and lifestyle of the communities and cities that contain the longest-lived people which include Sardinia, Italy; Okinawa, Japan; Loma Linda, California; and the Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica, as identified by Dan Buettner in his book The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest. With my mind back on The Sun, I hope you look forward to a year with Chop, Dice, Simmer, and Slice!