Classes feature vegetarian and organic dishes

by Anne Fitten Glenn

Weaverville, North Carolina - Lenore Baum truly believes that eating well helps people feel their best. She espouses this belief through teaching people to prepare and cook healthy, organic, vegetarian food. She calls her business Lenore's Natural Cuisine, and she started offering her cooking classes in September.

"My passion is teaching natural, wholesome and flavorful cooking to create and maintain health," said Baum.

Part of the cooking school's appeal is the simple, open kitchen design with floor-to-ceiling windows that seem to bring the outdoors inside. "The setting gives people a reprieve from the stresses of their lives," Baum said.

Before starting her school in North Carolina, Baum ran cooking schools in Michigan and Arizona. She started cooking 20 years ago, when friends praised her soups and talked her into selling them from two freezers in her backyard. Baum eventually self-published two cookbooks of her recipes.

After stints studying at the Kushi Institute in Boston and the Vega Institute in California, Baum turned to teaching her recipes and culinary tips. She now boasts 97 different cooking classes, from Luscious New Soups to Speedy Seitan to Winter Dinner Delight.

Baum's students become acolytes who offer high praise for the changes that her classes have had on their lives.

Joan Russell, 62, was diagnosed with Type II diabetes two years ago. She began taking drugs to control the disease, but she said they weren't particularly effective, and she disliked taking them. Russell started an intense daily exercise routine, but she still couldn't reduce her blood sugar levels. She decided the next step was to change the way she cooked and ate, so she signed up for Baum's Vegetarian Class Series and adopted an organic diet.

Now, six months later, Russell says her blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol are all in the normal to excellent range.

"I now have no signs of diabetes," said Russell, owner of Russell Properties. "I'm amazed. Even my doctor is amazed."

Russell, who is of Penobscot Indian heritage, said she believes that she needed to "start eating like her ancestors" and, most importantly, "keep preservatives and chemicals out of my body."

Another of Baum's students, Jeffrey Whitridge, said: "If you really want to change and improve how you eat, the series classes are a great opportunity."

See Lenore’s Website for photos of here sustainable, passive solar home and cooking school and to sign up for her e-newsletter: www.lenoresnaturals.com.

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Above photo by: John Fletcher