Red Lentil Falafel Burgers with Lemony Tahini Sauce

Celebrating the Brain Health Kitchen Cookbook’s First Birthday

Red Lentil Falafel Burgers with Lemony Tahini Sauce, excerpted from THE BRAIN HEALTH KITCHEN: PREVENTING ALZHEIMER’S THROUGH FOOD, Artisan Books 2023. Photograph by Alexandra Grablewski.

The Brain Health Kitchen book just celebrated its first birthday! I would have let the occasion slip by without fanfare since I was busy getting ready for a big trip (my plane just touched down in Auckland, New Zealand!). Thankfully, my friends persevered and we pulled together a celebration featuring recipes from the book transformed into party-sized appetizers including bite-sized falafel with lemony tahini sauce (the recipe I am sharing today) tucked into a Little Gem lettuce cup. 

Signing books at the BHK birthday party, plus appetizer sized Savory Waffles with Smoked Salmon and Falafel bites.

Read on for the rest of the BHK book party menu, which you may want to bookmark for later. All the recipes are crowd-pleasing, can be made ahead of time, and will elevate the brain health goodness of any gathering.

A Brief Origin Study of the BHK Book

Here's some of the original art from the book, photographed by Alexandra Grablewski and styled by Cyd McDowell. I had the very best art team in the business!

Writing a book is often compared to birthing a baby after a long pregnancy. As an OB/GYN, I can relate! The BHK book was just a glimmer in my eye around 2015 when cooking school students kept asking me to put my recipes into a book. There was a long period not unlike the infertility I experienced in my 30s—“trying” to write the book without success. It was 5 years from glimmer to contract, and 3 more years until the book was released. This book baby’s gestation was truly prolonged!

This BHK newsletter was like the book’s undiagnosed twin, a condition common before ultrasound when baby #2 is a big surprise. (This actually happened to my mother in 1962.) In this case, the newsletter quietly entered the world on the heels of its big sister’s splash, and within weeks you all had made it a Substack bestseller.  

My tattered first copy of the book, signed by BHK community and people I met on book tour.

I started the newsletter because I wanted this brain health journey to be a continuing conversation. Instead of just handing over the book, I hoped that we could create a community around the book through which I could offer support and advice as questions came up. And I wanted to update you in this rapidly changing field of how to protect the brain with age.

All of this is to say that the book and the newsletter are part of the same community. I could not be happier with how the book was received, or more grateful for all of you here. 

Cohost Dana and I giving out cups of Creamy Tomato Soup, the Chunky Whole Grain Chocolate Chip Cookies are always a hit, as my friend Sheryl shows they turn out just like in the book!

The BHK Book Birthday Menu

You will find all of these recipes in the book and some have been shared here or on other online sites. I’ll be sharing the Savory Chickpea Waffles soon! Find the Falafel recipe below.