A Little About Us

Alexa grew up cooking and learned at an early age that good food comes from fresh ingredients. She has worked in the kitchens of some of New York’s finest restaurants, served as the chef at a small organic vineyard in Provence, France, and has stocked healthy meals in the fridges of busy New York families.

Matthew learned to hold a knife for a paper on neuroplasticity in grad school and has been eager to chop things ever since. He has recently discovered the joy of baking artisanal bread, and after a few early successes, he is officially hooked.

When not cooking food, eating food, photographing food or writing about food, we both practice acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine in Manhattan, Queens and Long Island.  Cooking education figures prominently in the work we do with patients, and we firmly believe that the right foods provide the foundation from which healing and wellness arise. For more information about our acupuncture work, CLICK HERE

The Kinds of Recipes You’ll Find Here

This blog is about how we cook at home, and is therefore a reflection of the way we eat (at home). All recipes pull heavily from our pantry which is stocked with a variety of whole grains, legumes, spices, oils, vinegars, condiments, and other assorted goodies. Unless noted otherwise, all recipes on sustainablepantry.com are original.

Most of our food is vegetarian, some of it is vegan, and all of it is prepared simply using high-quality ingredients. We eat lots of locally grown vegetables (more on that later), some cheese, eggs and dairy (supporting smaller scale local producers when possible) and once a week we enjoy responsibly raised/harvested meat, poultry or fish.

The cooking in our kitchen follows kosher practices, meaning meat and dairy are not cooked or served together, and we do not cook pork, shellfish and some other types of meat and fish in our home.

We mostly follow Michael Pollan’s rule that a food product used for cooking contain no more than five ingredients. Notable exceptions: ketchup (6 ingredients), Sriracha hot sauce (6 ingredients), curry paste (8 ingredients), Sambal Badjak (19 ingredients of Dutch/Indonesian gold).

We also like to avoid products containing chemical preservatives, refined sugar and corn-syrup.

Umm, I think that’s it.

What’s This Sustainability All About?

Over a quarter of our nation’s food is thrown out each day. By learning to cook based on what you have in stock (and stocking the right things), your kitchen will be more sustainable, meaning that food makes it onto your plate before making it into the trash.

Be a Gastroactivist!

Gas·tro·ac·tiv·ist (gas’troh-ak-tuh-vist)

n. One who makes informed and empowered food choices with the awareness that what they eat has a direct impact on the health of themselves and the planet

We all make our everyday food choices based on so many factors which may include: taste, health, cost, convenience, geography, religion, politics, you get the point. With the hustle of modern life, it’s understandable that convenience and cost usually win out, it happens to all of us. But that doesn’t have to mean fast food, microwave dinners, pizza and take-out all the time (or even any of the time once you’ve worked at it and learned a few tricks).

We’ve been fooled into thinking that cooking food from seasonal vegetables and whole grains has to be time-consuming, inconvenient, or taste awful, but that’s just not true. With a few techniques, some basic equipment, and the right pantry, you can learn how to get yourself on a great tasting, nutrient-dense, feel-good diet.

Support Local, Sustainable and Organic Producers

By supporting local, organic, and sustainably produced food, visiting farmer’s markets, joining a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, and cooking at home using real ingredients, we can help bring real change to the food landscape in this country.

We participate in a CSA program that delivers to a drop-off location in Queens, so the majority of our produce is grown by Golden Earthworm Organic Farm, on the North Fork of Long Island. To learn more about this CSA, and find out if there’s a CSA program near you, CLICK HERE

Thanks for Reading!

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Questions, comments, favorite recipes and successes are welcomed either through comments, or by emailing: comments {at} sustainablepantry {dot} com. Sustainable Pantry is also available to cater your next get-together in the New York area, contact us for details.

See What’s in Our Pantry