Snacking Olives: A Brain-Healthy App With Goat Cheese
And other dishes you can try from my cooking class in Tuscany
Hello, brain health ambassadors! I made it to Italy where I write to you from the hilltop town of Monteverdi—a medieval Tuscan village reborn as a wellness and culinary center. It’s the third day of the Sempre Sano longevity retreat, and I’ve just come from my cooking class. We are 3,000 feet above the valley floor, with spectacular views of Val d’Orcia, a UNESCO heritage site important for its agriculture.
It’s fun to be here with a small group of food-loving people who are passionate about healthy aging and all things Italian, including some BHK newsletter subscribers! Even though we’ve just met in person, I feel like we are already friends.
The theme of this year’s Sempre Sano is exploring longevity through movement, music, meditation, and food. My longevity mentor—neurosurgeon Dr. John Tew—is here, and so is my meditation teacher, his wife Susan. We are joined by my new favorite person, Victoria Morgan—accomplished ballerina turned healthy aging ambassador who is leading dance and movement classes. I am giving a series of informal brain health talks—I call them Espresso Riassuntos (recaps of brain health concepts over coffee), and Aperitivo Talks—focused discussions over drinks. Throughout the week, I’ve been collaborating with the extremely gifted Chef Giancarla Bodoni for the food program, which includes a hands-on cooking class and a Mediterranean luncheon spread at a local farmhouse.
Monteverdi even has its own organic grower with a PhD in botany—Enrico Della Giovampaola—who is cultivating lost heirloom vegetable varieties including these Blueberry Tomatoes (mirtillo). Imagine my excitement when Enrico shared that these remarkably blueberry-ish tomatoes are packed with antociani (anthocyanins), a key flavonoid I’ve been telling you for years to consume for your brain health. Garden lovers: check out Enrico’s podcast Life in the Garden. (It’s in Italian but worth reading the translated previews.)
Today’s cooking class was the stuff of dreams. We grabbed the last tomatoes of the season from the garden—from the tiniest yellow teardrops to deep red cuore di bue (meaning ox heart) the size of my fist. Giancarla instructed us to pick them all. So while I normally make the Creamy Tomato Soup from my book with canned tomatoes, today we made it with this bounty of fresh ones. Here’s how we made the switch, along with a few other riffs on the recipes that you can try at home.
Creamy Tomato Soup
You may be familiar with this soup—it is one of the most popular ones from my book. Find it on page 120, here on
‘s substack, and many other places. The surprise ingredient—and what makes it so creamy and rich—is cashew! They simmer in the pot along with the tomatoes before being blended into a deep orange soup.I created this recipe with canned tomatoes because I wanted it to be an easy pantry meal. But if you are sitting on an end-of-summer pile of fresh tomatoes, they work incredibly well here.
Here’s how to adapt the recipe with fresh tomatoes: Put as many tomatoes as will fit in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet, coring and cutting the large ones into quarters. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with kosher salt. Roast in a 375ºF oven until they collapse and are bursting with juice, about 25 minutes. Transfer to a large measuring cup; you should have about 4 to 5 cups total. Add to the recipe and cook as directed. Note: if you fall short of 4 cups, add a small can of tomatoes along with their juice to make up the difference.