Fit for Foodies: Kicking Off a Year of Heart Healthy Eats with Hadassah

by Shannon Sarna

Hi! If we haven’t met before, either in person or online, my name is Shannon Sarna and I am the editor of the popular Jewish food blog The Nosher.  I am pleased to announce that for the coming year I will be the official food guru and spokesperson for Every Bite Counts: Hadassah’s Nutrition Program.  As an alliance partner with the American Heart Association, Hadassah’s goal is promoting heart healthfulness. I am so excited to take this delicious journey with you.  Also, I am thrilled to have finally earned the title of "guru" in my professional life.

I grew up in a household where food was central and almost always homemade. I baked banana bread and learned to make meatballs in the kitchen with my mom. With the arrival of The Food Network, my dad got us hooked on Emeril Lagasse and Mario Batali, while he tinkered in the kitchen with new dishes and more exotic ingredients. My grandfather was a food chemist for General Foods and he took great pleasure in how and what we ate. There was always a vegetable on our plate and a box of Oreos in the pantry.

Have I mentioned my daughters yet? Before I get too ahead of myself talking about organic string beans, let me tell you about my kids. I have two absolutely adorable daughters who I love to feed, like any good Jewish mother. Just look at those gorgeous faces.

The younger is Billie, who just celebrated her first birthday, and the older is Ella, who is 4 ½ and relishes being a big sister, mostly because it means she has a new person to boss around. Ella and Billie are both excellent eaters who devour everything from cauliflower curry to matzo ball soup to hand-pulled ramen noodles at our favorite local Chinese restaurant. They are wonderful taste testers for my own experimenting and it is one of my greatest joys to go on foodie-ventures with them.

I hope my children embrace my attitudes towards cooking, my love of good, healthy food and that they will have fond memories of our time cooking together. Our kitchen is always full of lots of fruits and veggies, homemade food as much as possible, a healthy dose of cupcakes, and lots of fun along the way. I have a strong interest in supporting local farms and my daughters have spent time picking apples, peaches, raspberries and eggplant. Perhaps they did more eating than picking, but that’s part of the fun. When we moved to the suburbs from the city a little over a year ago, one of the first things we did was set up our vegetable garden and compost, a project my older daughter has enjoyed taking part in.

Together this year, we are going on a unique foodie-venture all our own in which I get the opportunity to share recipes, stories and food videos with you. And, in turn, I hope you will share with me your family recipes, favorite food stories, memories, tips, tricks, and your beautiful food photos.  

Please feel free to reach out - you can email me anytime or follow me on Facebook and Instagram. I would love to hear from you!

Shannon Sarna
Shannon@hadassah.org
Instagram: @shasharna
Facebook: facebook.com/TheNosher