Yesterday I appeared on NBC New York’s LXTV, on the “Cooking with Sara” segment. This week is “Green Week” at LXTV, so my cookbook fit right in. I was thrilled to get TV exposure for the book, but nervous. I’d never done any sort of TV before, let alone live.
The experience was surreal and heady, and the five-minute segment was over in a flash. Time moved quickly, although it seemed to stand still when I was attempting to mash cold butter into cold sweet potatoes, an impossible feat. Luckily, the two lovely ladies standing at the stove with me – host Sara Gore and guest Jill Zarin – were on their toes, and kept the action moving along.
I’m excited to attempt the magic of cooking on TV again, with a little less exactitude and a little more entertainment in mind. As Rhoda, my wise assistant and accomplice said, “People just want to see you having fun.” It’s like when I learned my senior year of high school that academic grades depend not so much on whether you follow the rules exactly and get all the right answers, but on how creatively you solve the problem. Luckily, someone clued me in right at the start this time.
Watch the LXTV segment here:
View more news videos at: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/video.
Here are the tips I shared with LXTV viewers on how to have a “greener” Thanksgiving:
Top 5 Tips
- Buy a pasture-raised turkey from your local farmers market, or look for opportunities to buy online from local outlets. Pasture-raised turkeys either eat a natural diet or are fed only organic feed. Free-range birds are hormone- and antibiotic-free. (And they taste better!)
- Forget the disposal! Throw vegetable scraps, bread crusts and eggshells into a big Tupperware container to be composted. The Union Square farmers market has a compost drop-off.
- Buy your produce and dairy from local farmers (again, at the farmers market.). You’ll be supporting the preservation of small farms and undeveloped land, while helping conserve fossil fuels—plus, you’ll eat the freshest possible food!
- Always bring your own plastic containers and cloth bags (and be sure to clean and re-use those old plastic grocery bags—don’t take any new ones!) when you go food shopping. Buy grains, nut butters, cereals and similar items in bulk.
- Cut way down on using paper towels. Use a sponge or reusable micro-fiber cleaning cloth for spills. If you must use paper towels, buy ones made from recycled paper and then compost them.
