Dancers and athletes, take note! After being diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis at age 35, the chef and owner of New York’s Tertulia experimented with diet to combat his symptoms and fight inflammation. B2TP has had a blast sampling the recipes from his luscious new cookbook, ‘Hero Food’, which highlights 18 super-fuel ingredients that have helped him manage his symptoms, including olive oil, almonds, anchovies, sweet peas, parsley, berries, leafy greens, and local grass-fed lamb. Mullen on stone fruit: “Cherries were kind of a gateway drug for me. I soon moved on to the harder stuff like peaches, plums, and eventually apricots.” Watch Seamus Mullen as he describes his personal ‘Hero Food’ odyssey
I was tempted by the line about stone fruit as a gateway drug but then i ended up watching Seamus fondling a very dead pig’s head…blech! a little warning, please! 🙂
You’re right, Mullen says he’s an “unabashed meat man” – though he rails against the American habit of consuming “obscenely massive portions” of meat and points out how meat can contribute to inflammation, particularly in RA sufferers like himself. Consequently, there are very few meat recipes in his book. Having grown up on a farm and having learned to slaughter animals himself, he is a passionate believer in raising animals responsibly. A few of the photos in the book are not for the faint of heart; however B2TP – having grown up in a tradition where a whole roasted baby pig was the crowning glory of the buffet table at the Christmas noche buena – may not be as sensitive to the issue as many of her readers.