the following appeared in a local paper. I found it interesting, and contacted
the author for permission to post on Internet (raw-food, veg-raw, and
living-foods e-mail lists ONLY), and to use in the SF-LiFE newsletter.
If you wish to use this material elsewhere, contact the author (his e-mail
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P.S. I did not write the below. Please don't send me e-mail if you disagree
with something in the interview. I am merely the distributor, not the
interviewee or author.

P.S. #2 the author did not have a text file version. I manually retyped the
material below.

Tom Billings
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MOLLIE GREEN GIANT
by Paul Kilduff

Copyright 1998 by Paul Kilduff, all rights reserved. Used by permission of
the author. This first appeared in "The East Bay Monthly", January 1998,
28(4), pg. 34, the  "Back Talk" section, "East Bay Grill" column.

Mollie Katzen is one of America's undisputed vegetarian heavyweights. But it
was not always thus. Katzen first went green when faced with the "suspicious
gray" meats served at her college dorm cafeteria. Turning to vegetables for
solace, she discovered their wonders. By the mid-70's, she'd opened Moosewood,
a vegetarian restaurant in Ithaca, New York. Responding to customer requests,
she wrote and illustrated a book of her restaurant's recipes, "The Moosewood
Cookbook". Over the years it has become to vegetarian cooking what "The Joy
of Sex" is to, well...Katzen is now almost an industry to herself, marketing
not only cookbooks but posters, placemats, aprons, and other items featuring
her colorful veggie illustrations. Katzen recently launched a new series of
her eponymous cooking show on PBS television. I called on her to chat at
her Kensington [California - just North of Berkeley] home to chew the fat.

Paul Kilduff: Becoming a vegetarian - is that a good New Year's resolution?

Mollie Katzen: That might be taking on too much. I try to steer away from the
language of "being", "becoming", "are you a...?" That scares a lot of people.
It gives them associations of some kind of club they have to join.

PK: Like becoming a communist?

MK: Or joining an ashram. Some kind of weird sect or cult. I think most
people are just interested in good ways of eating and don't want to eat red
meat all the time. It's more wanting to eat more vegetarian food than wanting to
*become* a vegetarian.

PK: I understand you even serve your son the occasional hamburger.

MK: I'll buy my son a burger. I don't cook them. I certainly don't tell my
children they should be vegetarians or anything like that.

PK: So you let your kids hang out with meat eaters?

MK: Oh yeah. I don't think vegetarians are better people. It's just a personal
choice. Some people need to eat meat. But they still might want a good
vegetarian meal or good vegetable dishes to have with their meat. I never argue
with that.

PK: So being a vegetarian is not a political statement on your part?

MK: Well, it's complicated. The raising of livestock on a very large scale has
a very large impact on the environment. Also more and more of the practices of
raising meat are less and less sanitary, like the use of hormones and anti-
biotics. It's not as clean as it once was. There have also been studies showing
it's better physically for human beings to eat less of it. And yet I wouldn't
say somebody should never eat it. I would say somebody shouldn't eat tons
of it. I'm a moderate.

PK: You've got a cassette out called "Food, Sex, and Relationships". What's
up with that? Are you a sexpert as well?

MK: Susie Bright is. Harriet Lerner writes self-help books about relationships.
And I write cookbooks. And we're all friends. So we thought it would be fun
to do an evening where we schmoozed and talked and opened up to the audience.
So we did. It was in Kansas City about a year ago. It was like a discussion
group.

PK: People say you are what you eat - does that apply to sex too?

MK: Everyone's obsessed with relationships and sex working out for them -
and food is what they turn to when it doesn't work out. It's like food is
a substitute. When the other two don't work, give me a call.

PK: You're like, "Just broke up? I've got a great broccoli recipe."

MK: I'm trying to bridge the dichotomy that a lot of people experience
between something being enjoyable to eat and something being good for you.
I certainly hope I've imparted a joyful attitude toward the stuff instead of
a dutiful or grim attitude about eating well. You can have it all. You just
need some knowledge about how to go about it.

PK: You have a recipe for macaroni and cheese in your book. Is that the most
decadent thing you make?

MK: For my kids, you mean? Yeah, that's probably as bad as I get. I try to
be kind of hands-off as far as preaching about food to my kids, but when they
discover for themselves that junk food is junky, it's exciting. My son's
a teenager and he likes a good burger, but he was reading about mad cow
disease, and he said, "Mom, I don't want to eat cheap burgers anymore. I'm
only going to eat high-quality burgers".

PK: I hate to admit this but I recently swore off french fries.

MK: Paul, guess what? Buy some little creamer potatos and roast them. Coat
the pan lightly with olive oil and roast them in a hot oven until they're
crispy on the outside and creamy on the inside. Add a little salt and vinegar
and you're not going to miss your french fries.

PK: Are you a role model?

MK: A lot of people respond to me that way.

PK: Does that make you uncomfortable?

MK: No, I don't walk around thinking I'm so nifty. If what people get from
me is to feel encouraged to be more creative, to push themselves to follow
a vision or become adept at eating well and cooking well - that feels really
good. In terms of admiring me as a person, it's very simplistic when you look
at someone and say, "Oh she's achieved a lot. She must be a superwoman."
I have a very intense career that not everyone would enjoy.

PK: Would you climb in the ring with Martha Stewart?

MK: What would we argue about?

PK: I'm not talking about arguing. I'm talking about boxing.

MK: Oh God, no. You're talking boy talk. No, I admire her a lot. We don't
have the same message but she's certainly struck a nerve in a good way -
people really respond to her. She's brilliant. I think a lot of her stuff
appeals to people's fantasy of having a perfectly micromanaged aesthetic
situation in their household. There are some things that Martha's doing that
I'd like to do - I'm putting together a web site. But I don't think I would
ever do what she does. She works 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Business
is her art, but art is my art.

PK: Could you paint a still life with ground chuck?

MK: I don't think I could do that. I just don't find it beautiful. I don't
disapprove of meat but I don't like looking at it.

E-mail Paul Kilduff at: [log in to unmask]