You Don’t Need a Superfood. You Need Salt, Fat, Acid… and a Vegetable That’s in Season
Sometimes the simplest dishes are the most satisfying.
A nice thing about being a dietitian is that when you invite people over for dinner, they never really ask what you’re going to make. They just assume it’ll be delicious, vaguely healthy, probably a little elaborate and sprinkled with at least one ingredient they can’t pronounce. There’s also this unspoken expectation that somewhere in your pantry, you’re hiding a “superfood emergency kit”—complete with goji berries, spirulina, or something equally intimidating.
The other thing about being a dietitian? Sometimes you don’t want to use any special ingredients at all. Sometimes you don’t feel like proving you’re the “queen of health.” And sometimes—which I’ve finally learned—that’s completely fine.
The minute I stopped trying to make “something a dietitian would make,” I started having so much more fun hosting. Turns out, there’s a real joy in letting dinner be dinner. In letting “healthy” be simple. And in letting a side dish be…an actual side dish.
Some of my best dinner parties have happened on nights when the thought of making anything ambitious made me want to lie face-down on the floor. Those are the nights I reach for a seasonal vegetable, chop it without ceremony, drizzle it with olive oil, salt, maybe a squeeze of lemon, and let the oven finish the job. Is it groundbreaking? No. Does it taste incredible and make people think I did something fancy? Always.
As soon as I gave myself permission to trust in good ingredients—and to stop requiring them to perform circus tricks—the more I started to enjoy the food I was making. What I’ve discovered is that nourishing food doesn’t have to be complicated, exotic or “super” anything. Sometimes, being a dietitian simply means knowing when to let a vegetable speak for itself.
So no, you won’t always find goji berries in my pantry or spirulina in my sauces. What you will find is food that tastes good, makes sense and doesn’t demand a personality overhaul to prepare. If that means roasted asparagus with olive oil, salt and lemon, then so be it.
My guests may come expecting something elaborate, but more often than not, they’re getting unfussy vegetables dressed with simple ingredients and a little confidence. And those are always the dishes—roasted, tossed, or baked—people ask about. Those are the dishes that get remembered. And that’s proof that simple dishes—when you allow them to—speak the loudest of all.
