From Picky Eater to Chef, Nikki Dinki Puts Vegetables First

Nikki Dinki didn’t eat a single vegetable or protein until she was 20.

Nikki Dinki. Samira Bouaou/Epoch Times

There’s something fascinating about a cookbook by a chef who used to be a picky eater of the most extreme kind.

Earlier this month, Nikki Dinki was prepping for a dinner party, scouring the Union Square greenmarket for poblano peppers for a tomatillo salsa to accompany fish tacos. Other dishes she was planning were yellowfin crudo with lime-ginger granita and spaghetti squash polenta as a bed for chili-rubbed flank steak. She’s come a long way since eating only a handful of foods.

“You never really know where life is gonna take you,” Dinki said, reminiscing in the shade of park trees in Union Square. “My mom literally still can’t get over it because I ate not a single vegetable or protein until I was 20.”

Dinki co-hosts “Junk Food Flip” with Bobby Deen on the Cooking Channel.

She said for one of her birthday meals, when she got to eat whatever her heart desired, she picked lasagna noodles, bagels, and ramen noodles. She liked to scoop up the ramen noodles with her bagel.

 

As a young child, Nikki Dinki found inventive ways to avoid eating vegetables. Today, they're the centerpiece of her dishes. Above, Dinki at the Union Square Greenmarket. Samira Bouaou/Epoch Times