\u201cThis appetizer is one of my favorites,\u201d says Julia Nordgren, MD (\u201999), of the goat cheese dip she\u2019s starting to make. \u201cWe\u2019ll mix the goat cheese with a bit of Greek yogurt and milk, then add herbs de Provence\u2014smell this, delicious!\u2014and serve it with toasted whole wheat pita chips sprinkled with herbs.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a cold spring\u00a0evening and 10 Geisel School of Medicine students, along with Dr. Richard Simons, are gathered at his Vermont home to learn how to cook. Developed by Nordgren, this innovative, elective pilot enrichment class, \u201cThe Doctor is IN . . . the Kitchen,\u201d is designed to give students information, skills, and practice in preparing healthy and delicious meals. Each cooking session also explores topics such as celiac disease and gluten-free foods, the Atkins diet, the Mediterranean diet, and vegetarian\/vegan foods, along with related recipes.<\/p>\n
The philosophy and science behind each of the diets is also discussed, \u201cwe consider a variety of issues, such as how the diet works, the research supporting it, and what a meal looks like,\u201d Nordgren adds.<\/p>\n
A Sample menu from the class<\/strong><\/p>\n Green salad with apple, cranberries, and maple-glazed walnuts<\/p>\n Rustic ratatouille over grilled polenta<\/p>\n Kale and cannelini bean soup<\/p>\n Broccoli-cheddar quinoa<\/p>\n Dessert:<\/strong><\/p>\n Chocolate-almond bark<\/p>\n Peppermint tea<\/p>\n<\/div>\n According to Nordgren, many doctors are not equipped to give their patients solid advice regarding eating, given the plethora of options, and there\u2019s a disconnect between, \u201cwhat we as physicians feed ourselves and how we help our patients feed themselves healthfully in a way that\u2019s neither judgmental nor preachy,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Passionate about the power of good food, Nordgren is out to change that. She\u2019s on a mission to arm physicians and medical students with the culinary literacy necessary for them to comfortably discuss the relationship between nutrition and health outcomes with their patients.<\/p>\n \u201cMy goal is for physicians to be able to give educated advice about each of these diets to patients who may want to try them,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n As with many diets, there are both healthy and unhealthy ways to follow them. For example, someone who wants to follow a gluten-free diet for perceived health benefits, might do better eating naturally gluten-free foods\u2014fruits, vegetables, and a small amount of lean meat\u2014rather than eating highly processed foods that are gluten-free. \u201cMany people think of a gluten-free diet as being restrictive, but in reality so many amazing foods are gluten-free,\u201d Nordgren notes.<\/p>\n Tonight\u2019s menu is based on the Mediterranean diet, which is rich in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. But before cooking begins, everyone gathers for an olive oil tasting and a discussion of the benefits of this time-tested diet, with its colorful foods rife with a variety of scents and flavors.<\/p>\n \u201cThe oils here are beautiful and made with different fruits\u2014the two I want you to taste are similar, but from two different types of olives,\u201d Nordgren explains. \u201cWhen selecting olive oil, it\u2019s important to think about its flavor.\u201d Choosing the right olive oil can be as complicated and selecting the right wine, both should be budget appropriate and complement the food. For example, light, fruity oils complement vegetables and work well in a dressing.<\/p>\n Students hungrily dip chunks of fresh bread into the oils and compare flavors while Nordgren extolls the fruit\u2019s antioxidant benefits.<\/p>\n Satisfied, everyone heads back to the kitchen to review the evening\u2019s recipes and to cook dinner.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can work on whatever appeals to you\u2014walk around to see what you want to prepare,\u201d Nordgren tells the class as she walks around the kitchen. \u201cWe\u2019re going to make a Greek salad, a couscous and quinoa dish with lots of vegetables, and we\u2019ll be using blood-orange-infused olive oil to saut\u00e9 the vegetables. We\u2019re also having a pesto and pasta dish, a fish dish, and balsamic-vinegar-glazed strawberries for dessert.\u201d<\/p>\n Breaking into small groups everyone reviews their recipe and begins preparing their contribution to the meal.<\/p>\n First-year Geisel student Kendrew Wong, who clearly knows his way around a kitchen, is making pesto. \u201cI like cooking and I make dinner for my friends every week, so I thought why not take a course that teaches you about both nutrition and cooking,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n The environment is collegial and fun, punctuated with cheerful bantering with Simons, Geisel\u2019s senior associate dean of medical education, who is busy precisely chopping a variety of colorful vegetables for a lightly dressed Greek salad.<\/p>\n You don\u2019t have to choose between a healthy or tasty meal, you can have both with a little planning and preparation, Simons notes. \u201cMaking a healthy, enjoyable meal does require a little skill\u2014I now know how to cut vegetables, without cutting myself,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n The class has shifted the way Simons thinks about eating. Now when dining out, he regularly orders colorful meals and in the spirit of fun, snaps a photo of his food and sends it to Nordgren.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s really cool that she\u2019s a pediatrician who went to culinary school and is able to use her passion to help her patients,\u201d says first-year student Jennifer Fleischer of Nordgren as she and Kimberly Betts, a fellow first-year student prepare grilled fish with tomatoes, olives, and capers<\/p>\n Pasta is cooked, nuts are toasted, and the fish is grilled\u2014good cooking doesn\u2019t have to be complicated. The food is plated and everyone tucks into the nutritious meal.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have made some delicious food together,\u201d Nordgren says. \u201cI\u2019m so proud of them! I hope they carry what they\u2019ve learned into their personal and professional lives.\u201d<\/p>\n Serves 4<\/p>\n This is a versatile grain recipe that can be used with couscous, quinoa, or a combination of the two. Feel free to experiment. My local olive oil store sells cranberry-pear vinegar, which I love to use in this recipe. You can easily use white wine vinegar or champagne vinegar.<\/p>\n Ingredients:<\/strong><\/p>\n 2 tablespoons blood orange olive oil Method:<\/strong><\/p>\n Finely dice all of the vegetables and set aside.<\/p>\n Put a pot over medium-high heat. Add oil. When hot, add pepper and onion. Cook for about 5 minutes. Add the zucchini and cook until soft, about 3 minutes more. Season vegetables with salt (to taste). Add grains. Add wine and cook down until liquid is reduced by half\u2014about 3 minutes. Add water, bring to a boil, then cover and reduce heat to low. Allow to steam 10 minutes, or until all water is absorbed.<\/p>\n In a separate bowl, combine orange juice, vinegar, and salt to make a dressing. Set aside. Toast the pine nuts briefly in a dry saut\u00e9 pan. Set aside. When couscous is done add dressing, season with salt, and top with pine nuts.<\/p>\n Julia Nordgren is a 2013 honors graduate of the Culinary Institute of America.<\/em> For more information about her work, visit her website<\/a>\u00a0or read the article about her time at the Culinary Institute of America in the fall 2013 issue<\/a> of <\/em>Dartmouth Medicine.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A cooking elective led by Julia Nordgren (’99) teaches students about different diets\u2014and about how to cook healthy, delicious food.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":1086,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12,1],"tags":[21,261,259,260],"class_list":["post-1069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-news","tag-curriculum","tag-diet","tag-julia-nordgren","tag-richard-simons","author-12"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2014\/05\/cooking-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4r3h1-hf","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1069"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1131,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1069\/revisions\/1131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}A recipe from Julia Nordgren: Orange-infused Couscous with Summer Vegetables<\/h3>\n
\n1\/2 small white onion, diced
\n1 small zucchini, diced
\n1\/2 red pepper, diced
\nsalt
\n1 cup couscous
\n1\/4 cup white wine
\n1 3\/4 cup water
\n1 large orange, zested and juiced
\n1\/4 cup white wine vinegar, or a light fruited vinegar, such as cranberry-pear or orange<\/p>\n