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Annie Walsh demonstrates how to make vegan mayonnaise and a sort of vegan tapenade. The industrial-strength blender is a Vita-Mix, which has an engine so powerful you can also cook with it. The Wildwood center sells these babies at its herb store.
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By: Robin Ford Wallace, Reporter
The first of a series of free vegan cooking classes kicked off Sunday afternoon at Wildwood Country Store, when an international cast of chefs gave spirited culinary demonstrations to a packed house.
Organizers had meant to cap attendance at 20, but there seemed more than that as every chair at the natural foods grocery – and every parking space outside – filled up. Attendance was free, and included a complimentary copy of the vegan cookbook 7 Secrets, as well as 10 percent off attendees’ grocery bills if, immediately following the class, they were unable to resist stocking up on a few recipe ingredients.
The Sentinel attended. The Sentinel stocked up.
But if you didn’t, not to worry: Your chance will come. “We’re hoping we can do this at least every five weeks or so,” said Wildwood Lifestyle Center Director Mary Fisher, incidentally one of the demonstrating cooks.
She said the next class, “Five Entrees,” is already scheduled for Jan. 13. Attendance will again be free but limited, so interested parties should call the store at (706) 820-1252 to preregister.
Dates for subsequent classes will be announced later. Additionally, the Wildwood cooks are ready, willing and able to take their show on the road for church, school or civic audiences, so give them a call if your group is interested.
The Wildwood Country Store is an associated business of the Seventh-day Adventist center at Wildwood, which includes a natural-treatment hospital, herb shop and training center for health missionaries. The staffers who conducted Sunday’s cooking class work in various parts of that organization, and the overriding message of all was that the plant-based cuisine they were demonstrating was at the heart of Wildwood’s wellness program.
Wildwood’s 11-day inpatient program is touted to be good for pretty much what ails you, its nutrition-slash-hydrotherapy-slash lifestyle approach proven to ameliorate or even reverse such conditions as diabetes, obesity, heart disease, thyroid disease or depression.
“It’ll get you well in a New York minute,” said Annie Walsh, whose not-from-these-parts accent betrayed her own origin from that state.
Ms. Walsh, whose day job is running the Wildwood-associated Greenthumb Vegetarian Kitchen on Market Street in Chattanooga, site of the old Country Life Restaurant, showed attendees at the Sunday class how to make a vegan mayonnaise from tofu and cashews as well as a sandwich spread from almonds and olives.
Another chef, Jacquelyn Lewin – who herself had a gorgeous “G’day” Australian accent – demonstrated how to make a cheese substitute from cashews. Elsie Merle – accent American Young Person – made an apple coffeecake with Brazil nuts. And Mirek Glowacki – Polish, you have to ask? – used walnuts in his oat burgers and almonds in the crust of his lemon cream pie.
That sounds like a lot of nuts, and indeed, the style of vegan cooking outlined by the 7 Secrets cookbook, whence came all the recipes demonstrated in the class, depends largely on nuts, avocados or coconut milk to lend moisture and oleaginous luxury to vegetable foods. A vegan mac-and-cheese version in the book, for example, is based on pureed cashews, with nutritional yeast thrown in for the “cheesiness.”
Nuts are high in fat, but as chef Glowacki pointed out, “Not all fats are bad.” The 7 Secrets cookbook, in fact, quotes the Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition as attributing eating nuts as being even more beneficial in preventing coronary heart disease in the vegetarian population than not eating meat.
The book also has articles on the ease of weight loss on a vegan diet and how effective eating only unrefined plant-based foods is in combating the Type II diabetes epidemic that is sweeping the country. “If they follow the program carefully, the average time required to get well is three to six weeks, although some people respond in days,” reads the section on diabetes.
7 Secrets is by vegetarian restaurateurs Neva and Jim Brackett, and Wildwood Lifestyle Center Director Fisher, who herself demonstrated a scalloped potatoes recipe from the book, said she and the other cooks chose it because of the standout lusciousness of its recipes. The standard drawback to vegan cooking is a certain perceived lack of gustatory appeal, Ms. Fisher told the audience. “We didn’t want that to be the objection,” she said.
A sampling of the finished products followed the cooking demonstrations, and the Sentinel can thus attest that, though the vegan cheese was not exactly cheeselike – a sharp aged cheddar is a tough act to follow, even if you’re a cashew – all the dishes were as bursting with flavor as the chefs were with personality.
Mirek Glowacki substituting in his lemon pie recipe from the ingredients listed in the book, explained with suavity, “Since I am a man, I do not like to follow directions.” He demonstrated fashioning oat/nut “hamburgerlike patties” of perfectly identical size and shape with a Mason jar lid and ring, as well as the freeform Glowacki style of rolling, tossing and patting.
It was so impressive the Sentinel marched off and tried the recipe that very evening, and can thus offer readers the following culinary tip:
For standard-sized hamburger buns, use a wide-mouth Mason lid.
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