Kale is quirky; with the right touch it shines like an emerald and tastes delish, but if you ignore a few key steps it can resemble Astroturf. Fortunately, it doesn’t take much to get on kale’s good side. Once it’s ripped and stripped it loves a bath in olive oil, lemon juice, and salt. This spa treatment break down the kale’s fibers, making it easier to digest (the olive oil’s fat also increases the bioavailability of kale’s fat-soluble nutrients). I’ve included mint, parsley, quinoa, cumin, and coriander in the dish and added one additional surprise: red grapes. There’s something about chomping on a sweet grape that’s just joyous, and the anthocyanins that give the grape its deep color are also phenomenal antioxidants, with other studies showing they may also enhance memory.

I promise you that this quick and easy preparation of sugar snap peas will become a summer favorite. Look for pods that are evenly green, firm, and free of blemishes. Observe the usual caution: do not overcook them; better to err on the side of too crunchy than too soft. This is the essence of good, healthy fast food.

This is a twist on plain old steamed broccoli, which too often is tasteless. The miso is the salt component in the miso butter. If you choose to use wasabi butter, you may need to add a pinch of sea salt to this dish.

Butternut squash is the utility infielder of vegetables; wherever you place it on the culinary diamond, it does a great job. Stuffed in ravioli, as part of a risotto, roasted with herbs--it’s far more versatile than its tubby exterior suggests. In this soup, it’s blended with coconut milk to create a sensual, buttery texture that carries a phenomenal spice blend that delights the tastes and delivers superior nutrition. The cinnamon and turmeric help regulate blood sugar, have anti-inflammatory properties, and help fight cancer, while cumin boosts immunity and energy.

If this were the 1960s, I’d call this the “ohmmmmm” elixir, as kudzu root has a way of eliciting a meditative state. Now, we’d just call it “chill,” because that’s certainly what kudzu does in this drink, thickening spiced apple juice slightly to a silky consistency. This is a variation of the tried and true recipe by my mentor, Annemarie Colbin, who was looking for ways to make puddings that didn’t require milk or eggs, and turned to kudzu. It thickens the same way as cornstarch does—by being dissolved in a cold liquid and then heated while you stir it. After a few days of eating it for breakfast, she began to realize she was feeling exceedingly mellow and sleeping really well. And you didn’t hear this from me, but this elixir makes for a heckuva hangover remedy.

Anybody who knows me knows I’ve got a potato jones that just won’t quit. Doesn’t matter the make and model, a properly prepared spud just takes me places. This version relies on a little spice razzamatazz: I throw some mustard and coriander seeds into a hot pan and play Jiffy Pop with them for about thirty seconds. It gets their oils going, and they get fully released—along with a load of anti-inflammatory ingredients—when I grind them a few seconds later. I then bake them along with some lovely fingerling potatoes coated with olive oil and sea salt, and it’s heaven on a plate. Or so say the potato critics in my crowd, and they’re not an easy bunch to please.

They say kids don’t like vegetables, but my grandson Brandon evidently didn’t get that memo. He’s eaten and loved veggies since the age of two (he’s eight now), with broccoli being his favorite. He’s not shy about it, either. Last time he was over I asked him how he wanted his broccoli. He said, “Roasted... where you lay them out on a cookie sheet.” Want a scene that’ll melt your heart? That’s watching Brandon down on all fours , peering through the glass into the oven at his broccoli baking . When they come out, I put a little Parmesan cheese on top, and Brandon’s picking them off the roasting pan.

Here’s a recipe where, if it’s leafy and green, it’ll work. I use chard and collards, but kale or spinach would be brilliant too—in fact, put it this way: if you think Popeye would eat it, it’s in. The flavor enhancers are onion, garlic, red pepper flakes, and lemon zest, with a yellow potato thrown in for creaminess. The whole pot gets blended, and you’ll swear you’re eating emeralds (albeit luscious ones): that’s how shimmering green this soup looks. It’s a smart, calming soup, with whichever cruciferous greens you use (kale, bok choy, watercress, collards) providing a ton of folate, which may help ward off depression.

The wonderful thing about cooking is that we can borrow from everywhere. Take bartending: one of their favorite tools is the muddler, which, as the name implies, muddles (or crushes) ingredients to release flavors that go into the drink. And so it is here, with mint being the ingredient to be muddled. Now, you and I don’t have muddlers (unless you happen to be a mixologist), but you can use a mortar and pestle or the back of a wooden spoon to break down the mint and release the essential oils that go into this mojito. Mixed with antioxidant-rich pomegranate juice, lime juice, and pellegrino (Italian for “seltzer”), it tastes anything but muddled; it’s a straight shot of joy juice to the brain.

As a kid, I remember the Ladies Who Lunch coming over to the house regularly to play canasta or mah-jongg. On these occasions, my mom showed me how you could use a fruit as a bowl for salad: she’d serve the pearled grand dames tomatoes stuffed with chicken salad, and that was the inspiration for this dish. I’ve gone for a different mode of transport—an avocado boat—and jazzed up the salad as well. No mayo here, but lime juice, cumin, coriander, jalapeño (za-zing!), olive oil, and avocado provide the diving pond for the shrimp. I think the Ladies Who Lunch would’ve approved.

I like to make kale a world traveler; in other books I’ve managed to stamp its passport with Asian, Latin American, and Mediterranean flavorprints. This time I’ve booked kale’s passage to Thailand, in whose cuisine coconut, ginger, and lime can often be found. Coconut milk helps increase the bioavailability of kale’s fat-soluble vitamins, while coconut’s sweetness and the brightness of the lime help eliminate kale’s natural bitterness. I’ve taken kale so many places I’m amazed I don’t have Customs showing up at my front door. But if they do, I’ll just make them this dish and they’ll go away satisfied.

This is the dollop that’s always front and center in my refrigerator. The combination of fresh parsley and mint, blended with lemon, olive oil, and sea salt is a perfect drizzle to amp up the yum for chicken, lamb, fish, or vegetables. I’ve been known to scrape the jar, just to capture the last few drops. Parsley gets a brain boost from the phytochemical quercetin, which helps protect brain cells from free radical damage, while mint helps with focus and concentration.

Maybe it’s because, at heart, I’m a soup maker, but I take making stock very seriously. I think most cooks feel that way. There’s a confidence one gets in making one’s own stock rather than buying the boxed version. (Organic chicken stock will do in a pinch, but give me my own heady concoction any day.) I get to control the ingredients and, as with this chicken stock, get the taste exactly the way I want. A big plus is that it freezes well for storage. This stock, along with Classic Magic Mineral Broth, is the base for nearly every soup in this book, so it has to be spot on, and it is. Bone broths are some of the world’s oldest healing foods, and with good reason; the calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus in chicken bones are great for brain health, while the amino acid glycine has calming and other mental health benefits.

Gone are the days when asparagus was boiled until it resembled a gray Seattle drizzle. Here we roast asparagus until it becomes sweet and caramelized in a way that’s hard to believe until it’s tried. Asparagus is full of antioxidants that help in DNA synthesis and repair. In this soup, it’s paired with the nerve-protective benefits of pistachio as part of the minty, creamy topping. This is some serious yum in a bowl.

Silicon Valley has promised us that, someday, little nanobots will act like tiny microprocessors in our brains, helping to make us smarter. I say, Why wait? We already have a teensy food that does that. It’s the lentil, the vegetable kingdom’s version of a Lilliputian flying saucer. Lentils, ounce for ounce, pack an amazing amount of brain boosters, such as iron (essential to the function of myelin, which is involved in quick information gathering). From a culinary viewpoint, it’s a myth that you have to soak lentils overnight; just a quick rinse will do. With a host of spices, cubed delicata squash, and thinly sliced kale, this is my go-to soup when I’m working hard and need to process a lot of information.

My dad, Jay, had this delightful habit; whenever you told him something that struck his fancy, he’d roar, “That’s FANTASTIC!” and gleefully clap his hands for emphasis. This was doubly true if you told him he was getting chocolate for dessert. Jay never met a piece of chocolate he didn’t like, and I have a feeling that just hearing what’s in these truffles—dates, cherries, and walnuts, smothered in chocolate, rolled in coconut and curry—would’ve given him cause to offer up a standing ovation. Studies suggest walnuts may boost memory, while chocolate, as we all know, is the ultimate moodboosting agent. One bite of this dessert and you’d be hard-pressed to feel any stress.

There’s fat, good fat, and great fat. Avocados fall into the last category—full of brain-boosting vitamin E and a monounsaturated fat that helps lower blood pressure, which can help lower the risk of cognitive impairment. The same fat also serves to signal the gut and brain that satiation is taking place, which keeps us from overeating. In this delicate salad, the avocado acts as a creamy bass note for the tart pop of the grapefruit and the perky citrus-ginger vinaigrette.

If you’re a coleslaw fan or have a jones for a crunchy salad, this recipe is for you.  Red cabbage is a nutrient-rich cruciferous vegetable.  Jicama is loaded with nutrients, including iron. Together they make a colorful pair. 

If you believe, as I do, that ancient ingredients have generally stood the test of time because they possess elements important for well-being, let me introduce you to chives, which have been used in recipes for about five thousand years. I’m so partial to chives that I grow them in my garden for both their wonderful flavor and the beautiful purple flowers the plant produces They’re members of the genus Allium, making them cousins to onions, garlic, shallots, and leeks. The sulfur in chives is believed to help the liver detoxify the body, but you won’t taste any of that sulfur in this drizzle. Instead, their volatile oils impart an almost sweet onion fragrance. This oil adds a bright, fresh-green pop to soups, salads, and fish. As for whether it also imparts the wisdom of the ancients, well, there’s only one way to find out.

Ah, the great divide. One on side, greens. On the other side, you. The chasm seems as wide as the Grand Canyon. It’s a gulf desperately in need of a bridge, especially for dark leafy greens—kale, chard, collards—which are arguably the greatest longevity foods out there, exploding with disease-fighting phytochemicals. And yet, these jade nutritional behemoths can be incredibly intimidating to work with. Where to start? I suggest thinking of greens as the perfect foundation for a variety of flavorprints. The only way you’re going to eat greens regularly is if they fly you around the world. Good thing they have their pilot’s license! By working with different spices and herbs, greens become like a local tourist guide to a host of cuisines. These dishes reach across the globe: Latin America, the Mediterranean, India, and the Orient . . . they are as versatile as a Renaissance man at a cocktail party. Learn to work with them and I promise that great divide will exist no more.