Just Salad and Chef Laura Pensiero have always seen eye to eye when it comes to fresh food.  For those of you who don’t know Chef Laura, she was instrumental in helping Rob and Nick put together the salad choices and dressings at Just Salad before it opened its doors.  Laura also creates our special “chef designed” salad combinations that have attracted legions of devoted Just Salad eaters.

Now Laura has tossed together something new for fans of her flavor-forward nutrition-savvy style: her new cookbook, Hudson Valley Mediterranean. In it Laura demonstrates her trademark “balanced” perspective on eating and cooking: food that is good for you must always taste great to you.

Like us, Laura has a balanced approach to healthy living and loves seasonal produce.  Her food is rich in flavor while it introduces people to sophisticated, healthy, great-tasting ingredients.   We’re proud that two of Just Salad signature salads, the Immunity Bowl and the Hudson Valley Salad, made the cut and are included among all her great recipes.

“I love walking into Just Salad and seeing young people bringing in their reusable bowls for a healthy meal,” says Chef Laura. “They know that good nutrition and good taste should never be mutually exclusive.  That idea was very much on my mind when I wrote Hudson Valley Mediterranean. It was my chance to convince people that eating well and eating healthy go hand in hand.  I also think that eating seasonally and locally can increase the pleasure you take from every meal.  As I write in my book, nothing can replace the blissful flavor of a peach at the peak of ripeness.  If you’re a New Yorker, you’re much more likely to get that from a local grower right here in the Hudson Valley than anywhere else.”

I’ve always loved working with Rob and Nick, in part because Just Salad so fully captures my philosophy of nutrition and my inner hungry girl!  We have similar palates and really enjoy fresh, flavorful ingredients.  But the biggest thanks goes to Nick’s dad, Peter, who is a frequent diner at my restaurant, Gigi Trattoria, in Rhinebeck.  It was he who first made the connection between the Trattoria’s emphasis on fresh, local ingredients and Rob and Nick’s goals when Just Salad was still on the drawing board.

In Hudson Valley Mediterranean, I’ve take a four seasons approach to mealtimes, but also have given people lots of possible substitutions based on what may catch their eye at the market, and I hope this tempts people to head to the kitchen with my cookbook and start having fun.  You’ll be pleased at how well you do!”