Food 2.0: What to eat while Googling

If you're like me, you use GMail, Google calender, Google maps, and just plain google.com on a daily basis. So perhaps eating like Google does was just the next step for me. Google employees get free healthful gourmet meals made for them every day -- a fact that fills me with jealousy whenever I ride my bike past Google's Santa Monica office on my way to the farmers market.

Well, now, I can eat like the Google people do, thanks to former Google chef Charlie Ayers. His new book, "Food 2.0: Secrets from the Chef who Fed Google," is filled with his environmentally-conscious, locavore-friendly cooking tips -- with more than 100 yummy recipes accompanied by mouth-watering pictures.

Ayers was hired by Google when the company had just 40 mouths to feed. When he left Google in 2005, he was feeding 1,500 people a day! And in "Food 2.0," Ayers tells little anecdotal stories from his tenure at Google while dispensing healthful eating advice. "You're smart. So why don't you eat that way?" he asks.

"Food 2.0" emphasizes that eating healthfully and ethically doesn't have to be time consuming. Many of the easy-to-make recipes are labeled "Grab & Go." Plus there's lots of time-saving tips, from cooking in bulk and freezing for later use, to instituting an effective labeling system for the meats in the freezer. Then there's the eco- and health-conscious advice, like "Stuff to avoid feeding to yourself or people you love" to "4 best herbs to grow at home."

Of course, not everything in "Food 2.0" is simple and easy -- especially to a cooking novice like me. For example, Ayers names his top favorite vinegars to use at home -- all 11 of them -- then gives instructions for making more! I don't even have space for that many vinegars... In addition, some recipes, like those for Lamb Korma or Goan Pork, seem both complicated and time-consuming. Good thing I don't cook meat.

But I drooled over most recipes. The first one I want to try: Smoked salmon-sun-dried cranberries-goat cheese wrap. Prep time: 6 mins. Cook time: 0. I just need to bike past Google tomorrow for the Wednesday farmers' market, where I plan to pick up some local goat cheese from the Redwood Hill Farm booth!

For a taste of "Food 2.0," try the recipes on Ayers' website, or the Lamb Burgers with Tzatziki Sauce recipe published on Amazon.

Comments

[Jennifer Kimock]

Charlie Ayers catered many special events for our bands over the past decade, and his creations are mouth-watering delicious. I look forward to getting his book and enjoying some of the inspired, healthful meals with our family.