Serving Up Sustainability with a Sense of Humor

Enter Emily Rosenbaum’s kitchen on any given day and you could see this mother of three making homemade pasta with her children.

To the average observer, this may seem … well, a little insane. What mother of three has time to boil water let alone make pasta from scratch?

For Mountain Lakes resident Rosenbaum, cooking healthy and sustainable meals is a way of life.

When asked to describe herself, Rosenbaum laughs and says she is far from normal. She said she is “that mother”—“the one who avoids chemicals, minimizes food waste, shops locally, fears sugar, hides from corn byproducts and tries to convince her son that lemonade is not a fruit.”

After perfecting the art of cooking sustainably for her family, this suburban mom is sharing her story in a book, "Cooking on the Edge of Insanity."

At first glance, Rosenbaum’s publication looks like your typical cookbook. However, after closer examination, you see a memoir of sorts, a collection of witty essays about the author’s life and quest to feed her family in the healthiest way possible.

Rosenbaum also uses a tongue in cheek approach to challenge conventions and “reduce the carbon footprint of her meals, the waste products that come out of her kitchen and the byproducts from the manufacture of her food.”

It is easy to think that Rosenbaum’s motivation for becoming a “real foodie by consuming stuff that is actually food” came from a nutritional standpoint. However, Rosenbaum states that her initial desire for change came from a concern for the environment.

When Rosenbaum was pregnant with her first child, she really focused her efforts on sustainable living.

"Something about cooking for the kid inside me made me really nervous about the planet he’d inherit one day," she explained.

Rosenbaum set out to feed her family in a way that was better for the planet. She also cites the global climate change after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 as further incentive to eliminate chemicals and waste products from the food her family eats.

Rosenbaum, a well-published writer by trade, calls her book a “labor of love.” Knowing the difficulties of trying to get her book to fit into a particular genre for publishing, Rosenbaum took on the challenge herself.

Thanks to the popularity of e-readers such as the Nook and the Kindle, Rosenbaum was able to publish an electronic copy of the book (readers can download the book on amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com for $2.99). Rosenbaum also published paper copies ($10) of the book to be sold at local farmer’s markets.

Although she doesn’t like the selling aspect of publishing, Rosenbaum said that this experience was “a great way to learn about the publishing world and book market.”

Despite Rosenbaum’s success with her sustainable cooking, she has experienced some misadventures along the way. Rosenbaum’s two youngest children are “no problem” when it comes to eating healthy, non-processed foods. Her oldest son, however, is another story.

In an attempt to get her pickiest eater to try new foods, Rosenbaum launched what she calls “The Great Muffin Project.” Using her trusty food processor, Rosenbaum starting pureeing meals and making them into muffins for her son.

Rosenbaum encourages others to find creative ways to experience the benefits of healthy, sustainable eating. While the task may seem daunting, she suggests that families prepare and freeze foods on the weekends to be used in meals during the week. By doing this, she said it is possible to “go greener, more local, and cook from scratch.”