When food travels more than 50 miles in refrigerated trucks, it tends to lose some of the nutrients that our bodies need.
At her recent culinary show at Macy’s at Herald Square, Whitelaw made tomato and corn salad for her audience. In order to pick the tomatoes, she travelled all the way from her home in Morristown, NJ, to Lancaster, PA, because heavy rain has affected the tomato crops in NJ.
“I live in New Jersey and California and you have so many farm stands that you can go to different towns everyday almost and find these fresh fruits and vegetables,” she said. “So that’s the delicious part of it.”
Path to Becoming a Chef
Chef Melody grew up in southern California, where her family picked vegetables right out of their backyard garden to make dinner.
“I really learned cooking with my father and my grandmother. They just taught me how to cook delicious food—real food,” said Whitelaw, who began making pancakes and French toasts since five years old. “When I was a little girl, they didn’t give me dolls. They gave me stoves and cash registers for Christmas.”
She eventually graduated from University of California at Los Angeles with a bachelor degree in nutrition and is currently the owner of the Main Event by Melody, and Kids’ Green Kitchen, a program designed to teach children how to cook healthy meals and snacks.
Never Too Busy For Food
People are so busy in this world nowadays, yet Whitelaw always spare an hour a day to make a dinner for her family.
“I’m so busy too but you can never be busy doing something that’s good and nutritious. … I always ate a well balanced meal because everyone in my family was chef. We always ate well and we still eat well,” said Whitelaw.
Today chef Melody continues that tradition of healthy eating in her own family, “When my son was in grammar school he’d bring kids home from school and we’d eat at the dinner table and we’d have a whole dinner and some of these children would say ‘Who’s birthday is it?’ and we’d say ‘What do you mean?’ and they’d say ‘We only eat at the table when it’s somebody’s birthday.’”
Below is Chef Melody’s recipe for a refreshing tomato and corn salad done at the culinary show.
Tomato and Corn Salad
Ingredients:
4 Roast ears of corn
2 pints grape tomatoes
4 Scallions thinly sliced
1 Avocado sliced thin
1/2 pound of mushrooms
1/3 cup of olive oil
4 tablespoons fresh lime juice
Salt and pepper to taste
Method:
Roast corn on a grill (if you have one) or cook under a broiler. With a sharp knife, cut corn off cob cutting lengthwise along the cob. Combine with tomatoes, thin sliced mushrooms, scallions, lime juice. avocado with olive oil. Add salt and pepper to taste.
