Lorna Sass

Culinary Entrepreneur

Recently, 50+Fabulous Nutrition Expert, Joan Pleuss introduced us all to a new label developed by the Whole Grains Council. The label helps consumers identify foods that really are whole grain. While Joan’s column was still with our copyeditor, Lorna Sass contacted me about a new cookbook she’d recently introduced, Whole Grains Every Day Every Way. I love synchronicity! I love the Internet! And, I love to hear from women all over the nation. Intrigued, I gave Lorna a call and reached her in her office just off Central Park in New York City. I am thrilled to be able to introduce her to you.

Lorna Sass is a culinary visionary.

• At a time when women had limited choices and career expectations, she earned a Ph.D.
• She started teaching culinary history when it was unavailable on any curriculum in the country.
• With her four pressure cooker cookbooks, she introduced the concept of fast, fabulous, and healthy meals for busy women way before the movement got started.
• When she wrote a cookbook called Recipes from an Ecological Kitchen in 1992, the publishers changed the name because the term ecology was not generally known yet.
• When QVC was still in its infancy, Lorna sold her cookbooks on it, 10 thousand at a time!
• With her groundbreaking cookbook on whole grains, Lorna won the prestigious James Beard Award in the healthy focus category this year.
• And, when confronted with a serious health problem and doctors wanted to “cure” it with surgery, she took matters into her own “nutritional” hands and won!

Lorna became an entrepreneur in the early seventies due to an “allergy” to the structured 9-5 workday. She discovered her passion on the way to her doctorate…within the pages of medieval literature. While conducting research, she discovered 14TH century manuscript recipes of King Richard II’s royal household. She promptly began to cook from them, and before long began offering medieval cooking classes to children attending an after-school program at the Cloisters. The director there suggested that she approach the Metropolitan Museum with the idea of publishing a book based on these recipes, and her first cookbook, To the King’s Taste[*] was born. She was 30.

About the same time her NYC apartment went co-op and she realized she would need to earn more money. The fear demons started to dance in her head, but she invited them to sit this one out. Based on insight from the famous playwright, Edward Albee, who said “when I am not standing on a precipice, I know that I am not breaking new ground,” she fearlessly, plunged ahead with three more historical cookbooks.

From that initial experience, Lorna continued to find inspiration for her cookbooks from her life experience. For example, after her mom returned from India with a pressure cooker in the mid-eighties, Lorna experienced how quickly delicious soups and stews could be prepared in that miraculous pot in 1/3 the usual cooking time. She decided to re-introduce the “PC” so that everyone could enjoy quick, easy, and nutritious meals. The first of her three books on the subject, Cooking Under Pressure, became a best-seller and soon Lorna became known as “The Queen of Pressure Cooking.”

Through the years, she’s come to realize that her intuition is generally right on. For instance, when she read an article in the New York Times observing that the low carb craze was loosing its grip, she knew it was time to write her new book, Whole Grains Every Day Every Way, which garnered her one of the most prestigious awards in the culinary field, the James Beard Award. Lorna believes that people choose the foods they eat not because they are healthy, but because they taste good. Her goal was to create delicious recipes using whole grains so that we would all start to eat more healthily , in spite of ourselves. Mission accomplished.

In addition to writing cookbooks and magazine articles, Lorna consults and does recipe development for major food companies nationwide. She also continues to explore uncharted territory in her 50+ years. Her undying curiosity continues to motivate her every day. And when Lorna gets curious, we all win!
Lorna’s Tips:

• Remind yourself of what Joseph Campbell said: “Decide what you want, and let the universe handle the details.”
• When you strike out on your own, have enough money to get you through at least one year. Creativity flows more easily when you’re not worried about paying the rent.
• Don’t let the demons take charge.
• Challenge yourself often.

How to find Lorna:

Lorna writes a monthly column for Local Harvest; a website that covers the organic and local food area. Check out the local harvest newsletter for her latest column and a fabulous recipe for those loveliest of all fruits, the blueberry.

Her food articles appear in Metropolitan Home, Vegetarian Times, and other magazines.

Visit Lorna on her website www.LornaSass.com. She shares some of her great recipes!

[*]Although out of print, Lorna still has a limited supply of To the King’s Table. If you are interested in obtaining a copy, write to her at .