It’s fair to call my day-to-day eating habits “plant forward.” That’s a decidedly more accurate description than vegetarian or pescatarian. I feel completely satisfied eating a bowl of puréed honeynut squash soup with a salad for dinner or making a main course out of charred carrots and green beans.
At restaurants I’m just as likely to order the beet risotto as the braised lamb shank. Don’t get me wrong: I love a good chicken roasted in a cast-iron skillet as much as anybody. But unless I’m hav-ing company, I rarely cook meat at home. Even then, many of my friends have dietary restrictions. Although my lifestyle is hardly free of animal products—I love butter, the stinkiest cheeses, and ice cream that I make from scratch—I’m happy to accommodate everyone by making vegetables the center of my meals.
It’s easier on me too. Like nearly 30 percent of Americans, I live alone. It isn’t always practical to go to my neighborhood grocery counter to order a single chicken breast or eight clams to finish a dish. So I typically go without—and don’t miss it.
Many of my weeknight meals resemble the pasta dishes you’ll find in Dinner Is Served on page 14. I’ll toss a handful of homemade pappardelle with herbs and kale from my garden. Or maybe I’ll mix some rigatoni with jarred tomatoes from my late-fall crop, add a few pickled artichokes, grate some Parmesan over the top, and then bake it until bubbling. Other times I’ll just drop some ravioli into vegetable broth and call it a night. All simple and comforting meals, like so many of the recipes in this month’s issue.
What I'm Loving This Month
Where to Eat
At Lasai, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Rio de Janeiro, pickled chayote and shaved hearts of palm replace truffles and caviar on the veg-forward tasting menu. Nothing against those ingredients, says chef Rafa Costa e Silva, “but they aren’t Brazilian.”
What to Watch
The Taste of Things is a culinary love story set in 1885 France, starring Juliette Binoche and directed by Tr`ân Anh Hùng. Chef Pierre Gagnaire’s gorgeous food is as sultry as the slow burn between Benoît Magimel’s character and his live-in cook.
What to Read
In Eat More Plants, chef Daniel Humm chronicles Eleven Madison Park’s transition to a fully plant-based menu. It’s an inside look at his creative process full of sketches of dishes, paintings of fruits and vegetables, and handwritten notes.