We’re in Love with These 1970s-Inspired Summer Salads
Jess Damuck’s newest cookbook is a love letter to the golden era of ’70s California cooking and it couldn’t be more relevant today.
Reprinted from the new book Health Nut: A Feel-Good Cookbook by Jess Damuck. Text copyright © 2024 by Jess Damuck. Photographs copyright © 2024 by Linda Pugliese. Published by Abrams.
When I was a kid growing up in the 1970s, I hated my parents for ruining every sandwich with alfalfa sprouts, trying to convince me carob was as good as chocolate, and passing off falafel as meat. In the intervening, years I changed my tune and now thank them for introducing me to a plant-forward way of eating free of processed foods that endures to this day (though I still abhor alfalfa sprouts and am known to indulge in a well-marbled ribeye now and again).
Jess Damuck was schooled in similarly crunchy, hippie ways and then some, working a juice bar in Shelter Island, eating macrobiotic at progressive schools, eventually attending the French Culinary Institute, and serving the high priestess of local and organic cooking Martha Stewart for nearly a decade as a junior editor whose first job was to make the lifestyle icon her daily lunch.
Photo by Jennelle Fong
Today she’s known in food circles in Los Angeles and beyond for her easy way with mostly vegetarian food on social media, throwing rollicking dinner parties with foodie super producer/songwriter Benny Blanco, for her book Salad Freak, and now Health Nut: A Feel-Good Cookbook. With its fetishization of all that is organic, local, legume-y, leafy, nut-milky, grain-abundant, and, yes, hippie, Health Nut is in the tradition of great ‘70s tomes like Moosewood and Kripalu Kitchen, but with clever cultural mashups, trending preparations, and flavor flourishes. Think chai-spiced overnight oats, beet-cured salmon and jammy egg toasts, and turmeric tonics. It’s a bright and sunny culinary snapshot of this moment in healthy eating in L.A., a homespun antidote to the excesses of Erewhon (although, TBH it would go over very well with the Erewhon crowd), and a new sort of Bible for elevated healthy cooking.
It’s also a prose poem to a city that continues to be a beacon and inspiration for people who want food to be as sexy as it is healthy. As Damuck writes of L.A.: “the lushness, the freshness, is persistent. The overwhelming scent of jasmine blooming, the agave busting from the sidewalk, the view of snow-capped mountains in the distance opposite the city. The sprouts and almonds and avocados, so many different kinds of avocados. Coming home and driving under the lemon tree and walking under cacti to the long table in the garden.” Join us in savoring a few recipes from Health Nut and cooking up those dreamy vibes in your own kitchen.
Reprinted from the new book ‘Health Nut: A Feel-Good Cookbook’ by Jess Damuck. Text copyright © 2024 by Jess Damuck. Photographs copyright © 2024 by Linda Pugliese. Published by Abrams.
For more delicious recipes, pick up a copy of Health Nut: A Feel-Good Cookbook by Jess Damuck.
Go (Health) Nuts in Your Own Kitchen
Charred Cabbage with Mushroom Butter
Charring vegetables is a magic trick. It pulls all the sweetness to the top and adds the richest, deepest smoky flavor, transforming the humble cabbage into something so special. Mushroom powder brings this cabbage into another dimension—swirled with a little butter, the dish becomes a tender, melt-in-your-mouth savory side, or, with a little rice and a crispy egg, it’s satisfying enough to enjoy as a main course.
Melon Salad with Honey, Pistachio Yogurt, and Mint
Melon is usually just a little side dish for breakfast, but in the summer months when it’s bright and sunny and hot and sticky, ripe melons are so incredibly sweet and juicy that they are really all I want. Swirling deep green pistachio butter into rich yogurt sweetened with honey makes a simple fruit salad feel luxurious.
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