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Cooking and Eating for a Connected World: Lois Ellen Frank on PYP 462

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Chef Lois Ellen Frank, PhD, is a cultural anthropologist, chef and food educator, activist, and self-described “mixed corn” amalgam of many different peoples and cultures.

Raised on Long Island of mixed heritage, Frank was taught to accept and honor all parts of herself so that she could be a whole human being.

Interested in food and cooking from a young age, Frank studied to be a chef but found the classical European tradition stultifying, and oppressively gender-based. (Men got to be chefs; women had to settle for being “cooks.”) She rebelled against the wastefulness inherent in making the same dish over and over until the client was satisfied, and throwing out all the “failed” attempts.

Next Frank turned to food photography, and set up a successful commercial practice. But again, after tossing gallons of pancake mix and hundreds of perfectly good pizzas while trying to get the perfect corporate photo, she realized that making money being a food photographer in the corporate food industry was not her calling.

Always connected to her heritage, Frank began cooking, teaching, and writing about Native American cuisine – to the consternation of food publishing houses and academics who insisted there was no such thing.

Her book, Native American Cooking: Foods of the Southwest Indian Nations, was published in 1991, followed in 2002 by Foods of the Southwest Indian Nations: Native American Recipes, and Taco Table in 2009.

Frank cooks and eats plant-based, and has partnered with the Physicians' Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) to create the Native Power Plate program to reduce the incidence of type 2 diabetes among the Native American population through ancestral foods.

We talked about her childhood, and how her upbringing influenced her views on growing and preparing food.

We spoke about the life of a professional food photographer, and the training to become a chef in the classical French Escoffier tradition.

Frank explained the four stages of Native American life and cuisine: pre-contact (whole foods, mostly plants); first contact (introduction of domesticated animal agriculture); colonialism (oppression and rations of lard and white flour, which gave rise to survivals foods such as fry-bread), and the current “New Native” reclaiming of traditional ways and diets.

We talked at length about identity, and the elements that create it. And how our identities can support our personal  and communal health once we embrace our traditional cuisine and “foodscape.”

And we spoke about how TEK (Traditional Ecological Knowledge) held by indigenous peoples around the world can restore balance and honor the interconnectedness of all people.

Links

RedMesaCuisine.com

Native American Cooking: Foods of the Southwest Indian Nations

Foods of the Southwest Indian Nations: Native American Recipes

Taco Table

Native Power Plate program with PCRM

Dr Howie Jacobson

This podcast is a labor of love and a way to give back to the world that has given me so much. That's why there aren't any sponsors (except me :).

My day job is helping leaders and their teams master their mindsets to remove all obstacles to heart-centered high performance.

Here are three gigs that I do:

1. Executive and Senior Leadership Mentoring and Facilitation

I work with high performing executive teams in organizations — and executive teams that need to become high  performing. My focus is mindset mastery, because it’s our mindsets that either support high performance or get in the way.

At this level, everyone’s got the skills and experience to excel and contribute at the highest level. What holds people back is mindset stuff: specifically the triggers that get them out of creative engagement and into fight-or-flight defensiveness.

My practice is all about teaching people to respond differently to those triggers by updating old maps — essentially removing the glitches that the triggers grab onto.

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I work with individual executives and leaders, one on one. The program is called Quick Wins for High Performance, and what we do is, we work strategically on one or two areas that are holding you back and keeping you from performing at your best.

We reverse engineer the presenting problems — too much work and not enough time, underperforming employees and teams, maddening organizational inefficiencies, etc — and identify and rewire the suboptimal mindsets that are behind those problems.

The work is all about updating your mental maps so your actions and responses are always appropriate, proportionate, and strategic.

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So that's what I do. If you'd like any of those results, drop me a line and tell me about yourself.

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Well, that's what Peter Bregman and I claim in our provocative book of that title.

What we really mean is, you can bring out the best in the people around you. If you think you're powerless to help people change, it's because you've been going about it the wrong way.

Discover our straightforward, replicable process here: You Can Change Other People.

 

Music

The Plant Yourself Podcast theme music, “Dance of Peace (Sabali Don),” is generously provided by Will Ridenour, a kora player from North Carolina who has trained with top Senegalese musicians.

It can be found on his first CD, titled Will Ridenour.

You can learn about Will, listen to more tracks, and buy music on his website, WillRidenour.com.

Gratitudes

Thanks to Plant Yourself podcast patrons – Kim Harrison – Lynn McLellan – Brittany Porter – Dominic Marro – Barbara Whitney – Tammy Black – Amy Good – Amanda Hatherly – Mary Jane Wheeler – Ellen Kennelly – Melissa Cobb – Rachel Behrens – Tina Scharf – Tina Ahern – Jen Vilkinofsky – David Byczek – Michele X – Elspeth Feldman – Leah Stolar – Allan Kristensen – Colleen Peck – Michele Landry – Jozina – Sara Durkacs – Kelly Cameron – Janet Selby – Claire Adams – Tom Fronczak – Jeannette Benham – Gila Lacerte – David Donohue – Blair Seibert – Doron Avizov – Gio and Carolyn Argentati – Jodi Friesner – Mischa Rosen – Michael Worobiec – AvIvA Lael – Alicia Lemus – Val Linnemann – Nick Harper – Bandana Chawla – Molly Levine – The Inscrutable Harry R – Susan Laverty the Panda Vegan – Craig Covic – Adam Scharf – Karen Bury – Heather Morgan – Nigel Davies – Marian Blum – Teresa Kopel – Julian Watkins – Brid O'Connell – Shannon Herschman – Linda Ayotte – Holm Hedegaard – Isa Tousignant – Connie Haneline – Erin Greer – Alicia Davis – Heather O'Connor – Carollynne Jensen – Sheri Orlekoski of Plant Powered for Health – Karen Smith – Scott Mirani – Karen and Joe Crabtree – Kirby Burton – Theresa Carrell – Kevin Macaulay – Elizabeth Rothschild – Ann Jesse – Sheryl Dwyer – Jenny Hazelton – Peter W Evans – Dennis Bird – Darby Kelly – Lori Fanney – Linnea Lundquist – Emily Iaconelli – Levi Wallach – Rosamonde McAtee – Dan Pokorney – Stephen Leinin – Patty DeMartino – Mike and Donna Kartz – Deanne Bishop – Bilberry Elf – Marjorie Lewis – Tricia Adams – Nancy Sheldon – Lindsey Bashore – Gunn Marit Hagen – Tracey Gulledge – Lara Hedin – Meg from Mamasezz – Stacey Stokes – Ben Savage – Michael K – David Hughes -Coni Rodgers – Claire England – Sally Robertson – Parham Ganchi – Amy Dailey – Brian Tourville – Mark Jeffrey Johnson – Josie Dempsey – Caryn Schmitt – Pamela Hayden – Emily Perryman – Allison Corbett – Richard Stone – Lauren Vaught of Edible Musings – Erin Hastey – Sean Owens – Sagar Naik – Erika Piedra – Danielle Roberts – Michael Leuchten – Sarah Johnson – Katharine Floyd – Meryl Fury – for your generous support of the podcast.

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