Somewhere around the age of thirteen I decided I wanted to bake a quiche. It was 1979 and people were already making fun of quiche, deriding it as preppy and foreign and not sufficiently masculine. But a close friend of my grandmother had just published a cookbook, and I wanted to know: What is a quiche? The resulting labors kindled a lifelong interest in cooking, as well as a capacity to destroy a kitchen in short order. I worked as a cook for several seasons at a campus café in college, then for one winter at a wilderness lodge.
In the more than 30 years since I’ve written about science, health, and the environment for a variety of local and national publications. I’ve even occasionally written about food. My professional website is here, and is a tad out of date.
Since 2010 I’ve been personally exploring the challenge of nightshade sensitivity. When I began looking into the details and possible scientific explanations, I found both the tell-tale signs of quackery and a few bread crumbs of evidence that suggested a few plausible hypotheses.
The No Nightshade Kitchen captures the lessons I’ve learned as I’ve reinvented myself as a cook and expanded my understanding of the complex science that connects food and health.
