Pete Wells, Former Restaurant Critic for The New York Times, How He Brought His Kitchen to Life

In the second part of this month’s series, Pete Wells and experts say the easiest way to eat better is to surround yourself with the right foods.

Reset your Appetite This is the second of four articles by Pete Wells, appearing every Monday in January, about how he developed healthy eating habits. First of all focused on reducing sugar.

In 1976, David Bowie moved to West Berlin. He would make some of the most original music of his career there, but that’s not why he left. He was trying to kick cocaine, which had taken over his life in Los Angeles, damaged his memory and produced hallucinations day and night. “I felt like I had fallen into the bowels of the earth,” he said later.

Obviously, there’s a big difference between being a life-threatening drug addict and the struggles of a satiated restaurant critic, although my past life may have been somewhat ambiguous at times. But one of the ways I got myself back to health was the same method used by Bowie and countless other people who decided to get clean: I changed my environment.

I needed to eat my extra food in a place where there was no temptation and where no one ever said no, at least to me. I had to change all the habits that were slowly killing me and replace them with new ones that could keep me alive. The only way to do this, I knew, was to stay home while I taught myself to eat again.

If I was going to clean, I had to start with the place where I lived. My apartment became my Berlin.

King in the Market

Lisa R. Young, an assistant professor of nutrition at New York University and a nutrition consultant, tells clients that the success or failure of any diet is largely determined by what’s in the kitchen.

“Willpower is more than strength,” said Dr. Young. “There really isn’t. What’s in your house is what you’re going to eat. By focusing on the healthy foods you can add to your plate, you’ll end up eating more of them and you’ll cut back on the cake, naturally.”

In order to turn my Brooklyn home into an escape where I could release my self-harming behavior, I had to look far, far away, to the stores where I shopped for groceries.

I was like that in a food company I had joined as an experiment during the pandemic. The store was small and full of pamphlets, with an emphasis on brown rice and dried beans. The refrigerated cases were so weak that they kept the lettuce and herbs cool. Each week, a different part of the floor seemed ready to move in. But the prices were much lower than last time, and that made a difference now that I was eating at home most nights.

It turns out that this small co-op, with its 1970s community aroma, is perfect for someone trying to reinvent their food. It’s full of things I wanted to eat the most. Part of the most worked product is packed like a Tetris grid with bundles of vegetables and root baskets. Every wall is taken up by plastic bins full of almonds, unsweetened papaya and other dried fruits, lentils in a wonderful variety of colors, and grains that seem to invite me to take my cooking to new places: fonio, flowers, amaranth.

Reset Your Shopping List

• Whole grains, such as brown and black rice, millet, fonio and farro

• Dried beans, including colorful ones like red lentils and cranberry beans

• Canned beans and fish, such as canned sardines and mackerel

• Vegetables for salads and snacks, such as cucumbers, carrots, radishes and cherry tomatoes

• Long-lasting vegetables for cooked dishes, such as winter squash, kohlrabi and broccoli

• Fruit salads and snacks, such as apples, mangoes, berries and oranges

• Some basic snacks and snacks, like eggs, peanut butter, unsalted nuts and hummus

As important as the things that the co-op shares are the things that they don’t have. No place for chocolate chip cookies or muffins. There is no place for cereal, just a few boxes sandwiched between wheat flour and oat biscuits. In front of the register, where most supermarkets have sweets and tunes, the co-op has a table spread with wilted kale and slightly damaged fruit at half price.

It’s easier for me to pass a basket of free cats than to pass a tax on a great product. Wilted kale is as close as I get to random purchases at the co-op, though. I try not to buy them when I’m hungry, which history shows will lead to a basket full of cider donuts. No, I stalk the hallways like a cold-blooded killer whose targets include persimmons and ginger tea. I come in with a list and try to stick to it, even though I might work an attractive squash that catches my eye in my plans.

Now, after making dinner at this store hundreds of times, I can walk into a bigger, gaudier store and see the bones of my food co-op hidden inside. I can go straight to canned white beans, bags of barley, chartreuse fractals of romanesco. (And right there, I have a filling soup made to withstand the cold winters of Northern Italy in Friuli.)

And I know which channels to avoid. This is a technique known as perimeter shopping, because many supermarkets display minimally processed foods – vegetables, dairy, meat and seafood – along the outer walls, while packing Cinnamon Toast Crunch on the inner shelves. By sticking to the perimeter, I can strip the good stuff out of a food court full of bad ideas.

Organize Your Kitchen

When I get home, grab my chia seeds, I have another food area to clean – my kitchen. I don’t have new ideas about food storage, but I do have tricks.

• Fruits that will quickly collapse into a wet pool of mold, such as raspberries, should be stored in plain sight, either on the counter or at eye level in the refrigerator, where I’ll reach in an hour or two and think, “Ooh, berries!” (This is what magicians call card forcing.)

• The product that should last a few days is written down on a list that I have attached to the door of the refrigerator, where I will see it every time I think of my next meal. Radishes, cucumbers and small carrots, which will keep for a while, go in a small, clear bag in a shiny cupboard to make salads or antipasto plates.

• Millet, popcorn, red lentils and other bulk ingredients are lined up near the shelf by the fridge door, so they don’t disappear into the tundra. Pistachios, sardines and dates are included in the crowded cupboard. (Along with a hard-boiled egg, sardines and radishes make a useful lunch.)

The point of this whole stream of strategic resources is to revolve around snacks that don’t destroy you and a few simple, smart meals before I get hungry.

Recipes to Make with Your Kitchen Remodel

Steamed Broccoli Grain Bowl with Nooch Dressing | Saland-e Nakhod (Chickpea Yogurt Stew) | Every day | White Bean, Tuna and Kale Salad | Soba Noodles with Ginger Broth and Fine Ginger | Frijoles de la Olla Maraq Misir (Red Lentil Soup) | Salad Roasted Millet with Cucumber, Avocado and Lemon | See all the recipes for this series

Corby Kummer, executive director of the Food and Organization program at the Aspen Institute, a nonprofit effort to make food systems healthier and more equitable, said what I’ve done so far has been good for me but it’s going to be a big challenge for a lot of people. He said, the average American would have an easier time eating sensibly if supermarkets offered a variety of healthy, unprocessed, easily prepared and affordable foods. Like other nutritionists, he believes the best way to help more people eat better would be for the government to regulate what food manufacturers are allowed to sell.

For now, he added, it’s worth any effort you can make. “Changing where you eat is the most important thing you can do for yourself.”

More from this series

Read the first of four articles by Pete Wells on how to reset your appetite.

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