Good Eats that are Good for You

THE OTTAWA CITY WOMAN magazine - Spring 2005 issue

Story by Cindy Deachman (reproduced with permission)

Edith Carter is the woman behind the House of Culinary Inventions. She’s also an activist, an artist, a musician, and a writer.

"I don’t like cooking. I can’t wait to get out of the kitchen, so most of my dishes take very little time to make." Strange words coming from someone who not only cooks but also teaches cooking to others. But then, Edith Carter is no ordinary cook. This is the woman behind The House of Culinary Inventions, a place to learn how to cook unfamiliar grains and vegetables; a place to discover how eating healthy food can be ever so painless. For someone who professes not to enjoy cooking-well, you should see and smell the delicious concoctions issuing from Carter's slow cookers and frying pans. And I can't keep up with the ideas rocketing out of her tumultuous imagination.

Edith Carter is warm and vivacious. She's also irrepressible and ever so gracious. I'm sitting in her sunroom, looking past the elegant palm tree, the geranium, and that spiky tropical plant unknown to me. Her kitchen is dark but snug, a blue and purple runner across the table and four cheery, yellow-flowered tin covers on top of the stove elements. Everything is in its place. "That means my work is done," she says. Well, almost. She brings the tea things on a tray into the sunroom and settles into a comfortable chair. She tells me about starting her House of Culinary Inventions more than ten years ago "at the pushing and prodding of friends." Those friends include naturopaths and other holistic practitioners whom she'd invited to her house over the years. "Come for lunch," Carter would urge, "I'll invent something."

"Up until then, I had no idea I was creative," says Carter, as she lifts off the tea cozy, the one with tiny red deer prancing across a white quilted background. Inside the squat glass teapot, I see all kinds of herbs.

"Lemongrass and cinnamon," I say. "Yes," she replies, "cinnamon sticks, cloves, and coriander, too." Refreshing, with an utterly light sweetness, this tea. Meanwhile, she tells me about one of her all-time favourite salads. It's made with robust barley, raw shredded beets, celery, and lots and lots of chopped fresh dill.

"This one's for people who say they hate beets. Carter is reminded of the house rule when she was growing up in Germany: you had to try a new dish, "had to take one spoonful at least It was considered rude if you said you just didn't like it" The same custom holds in her cooking classes. She remembers one student, a confirmed beet hater, grudgingly taking a spoonful of that barley salad, eating it, then silently holding out his plate for another helping and then another helping and then one more. Unexpectedly converted, it seems.

Another former student has taken himself to a Buddhist monastery in Thunder Bay, becoming a "helluva cook". He's even making his own organic sauerkraut up there.

It is well before eleven, but even so, the saucerful of this Lakehead sauerkraut that Carter offers convinces me I like pickled cabbage. This one's hardly salty at all and, dare I say it, almost sweet. I'm sold. Take me to your leader. Of course, I'm already there. Right here in the sunroom with Edith Carter sitting across from me, laughing and telling me more stories.

Carter is a teacher and a leader. She's bursting with ideas and needs to tell you all about them. She is a mother too. She wants to take care of you, her friends, and her students. But Edith Carter is also one mad muckraker. I don't mean mad, really: I mean angry.
She's very angry at Health Canada, for instance. You might recall stories that have surfaced in the past few years. There has been a suggestion that pharmaceutical companies want to rush Health Canada's approval of new drugs, despite the need for more testing. And it seems that those pharmaceutical companies often get their way.

Dr. Shiv Chopra, a former Health Canada scientist, testified at Senate hearings about the possible risks of bovine growth hormone. Health Canada didn't want to hear what he had to say. Similarly, Dr. Brill-Edwards, a former senior physician for prescription-drug approvals, resigned from the department after complaining about the drug-approval process. Health Canada retorts that everything is above board and everything is being done fairly. Carter doesn't believe that for a minute.

Then there's the Canadian Cancer Society. Don't get Carter started. Most Canadians, upon discovering they have cancer, follow the medical treatments prescribed by their doctors. These can involve surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, or a combination. Both the chemotherapy and the X-rays damage or destroy cancer cells but, in so doing, leave the body weakened. Patients tend to lose their appetites and, because weight can be shed so easily, the Canadian Cancer Society recommends eating quick snacks.

Carter points to some "easy ways to add calories to your diet" from their nutrition guide. Yes, the guide does list healthy foods such as dried fruit and nuts, but it also offers up some questionable suggestions. For instance, adding whipped cream to your Jell-O or ice cream to your pie. . Rather strange, given that everyone and their dog knows that too much fat and sugar in your diet can be unhealthy. Carter maintains that "tumours” love sugary environments." As it turns out, she may be right.

The January 12 edition of I the Journal of the American Medical Association published evidence that diabetes is related to an increased risk of cancer. It's common knowledge that eating too many carbohydrates, including sugar, exacerbates diabetes. The association between cancer and diabetes might mean that sugars and other carbohydrates make conditions in the body ripe for tumours, too. Is the Canadian Cancer Society paying attention to these links? Carter thinks not.

But enough of the warpath; already it’s a glorious day, and the sun is striking a few strands of Carter's grey hair. She's telling me about a new dish that she created the other day: steamed green beans with sautéed onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, and chickpeas. She says it has a "lovely aroma, which actually releases digestive enzymes." That's what lovely aromas do, they make you salivate. And salivating is the unromantic process of delivering enzymes to do their job of eating up incredibly delicious lunches. Here at The House of Culinary Inventions, you learn to go out on a limb and try the unfamiliar. You find that you-yes, even you-can come up with your own ideas. Best of all, you learn to cook food that is really, really good. In this whole process, better health is simply icing on the cake.

As I leave her house, I admire the roomful of gouache paintings-abstract bursts of yellow, blue, and purple-all done by Carter. Her painted note cards are set all about the dining room table. In the living room, at the front window and away from the fireplace, is the Nordheimer piano. Every Sunday, Carter plays chamber music with a flautist and a cellist. Did I tell you that this woman also writes?

She's now close to finishing three books about cooking and nutrition. And there will soon come a day, she's convinced, when she will be able to leave her kitchen and get away. She'll find an outlet, hook her computer up, and finish those three books. As in everything, her passions will come through strong and clear.

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