Fitness Files: Healthy eating? Add good company to your grains and legumes

Zeke, standing in his chic galley kitchen, fixed me with an unsmiling gaze and said, “So you’re the cranky exercise writer for the Pilot. Why don’t you write more about healthy food?”

He’d just presented his wife’s running friends with a vegetarian dinner out of “Gjelina” — a cookbook that looks like an art book, from a restaurant in Venice that I’d never heard of but should know — and “Plenty,” a cookbook that I bought for his wife, Pam, but don’t use much myself because it requires too many exotic ingredients.

Zeke’s yard comes straight from Sunset magazine. The guy’s got a vegetable plot, a diminutive 400 square feet, that produces heirloom tomatoes, three types of eggplant, three types of cucumbers, chilis, peppers, carrots, scallions, lettuce, kale, leeks, potatoes and French breakfast radishes. Plus he grows grapes, Meyer lemons, limes, blood oranges and figs. Oh, and he has a bay leaf tree. Also Thai basil, three types of thyme, dill, Italian parsley, fennel and tarragon.

No dead leaves allowed, not even on the tomato plants. A pair of well-behaved chickens live in a designer coop with a solar powered door, and a rooftop garden features a graceful cascade of strawberries spilling over the facia. Not one fly in the lush environs.

That evening we were to dine al fresco, under a stylish canopy created by Pam, with a tableau of succulents artfully framed against a wall at table’s end. Zeke’s menu: homemade pickled preserves, quinoa and grilled sourdough salad, grilled eggplant with smoked mozzarella and cherry tomatoes, braised romano beans with yogurt and mint, and Tuscan kale salad with fennel and radishes. And for dessert: glazed lemon yogurt cake.

After he finished cooking our entrees, Zeke sent us outside, where we chatted, basking in the delights of a healthy gourmet repast enhanced by a gracious atmosphere. Then, alone inside his quiet kitchen, he sautéed his dinner of steak and baked potato slathered in cheese.

The very next day a different group of friends came to my house for lunch to celebrate Kele’s birthday. For years, we’ve enjoyed monthly restaurant outings, but at a recent celebration, I said, “Next month’s at my house. We’ll celebrate Kele’s birthday with a salad bar.” Kele’s face went pale. “I’m a carnivore,” she said, horrified. “Salad bar?”

I should have known. Kele’s the steak-and-lobster-girl at restaurants.

So that day at my house, we had shrimp, spicy fish, roast beef and fried chicken surrounded by salad fixings, bread and crackers. We would have had cheese except that I forgot to serve it. For dessert, I made Duke’s Hula Pie, Kele’s favorite.

Returning to Zeke’s request that I write about healthy food — Zeke’s creations win, hands down. The combination of straight-from-the garden vegetables, prepared with originality and considerable skill, included all the colors in the veggie color wheel and was chock-full of vitamins, but had little oil or sugar. Health giving!

Zeke’s steak probably ties for last place with my meaty salad bar, including the Hula Pie with its chocolate cookie crumb and butter crust, vanilla ice cream, macadamia nuts, hot buttery chocolate sauce and whipped cream.

Now let’s look at what the experts call healthy eating.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and American Heart Assn. put fruits and vegetables on top of the list. Eat from Zeke’s garden and you can skip the vitamin pill. The heart association also recommends: whole grains, beans and legumes, nuts and seeds, fish, skinless poultry, plant-based alternatives, low-fat dairy and healthier fats such as olive oil.

OK, but eating is about more than nutrition.

Floating out of Pam and Zeke’s, high on good company and exquisite cuisine prepared with culinary artistry and served in enchanting surroundings, I drove home feeling light, cherished and elated.

Lunch at my house was a vegetarian/carnivore synthesis including the birthday girl’s favorite dessert. Friends tasted my garden tomatoes and cucumber, cleaned up the meat offerings and had a slice of Hula Pie. I loved having friends at my house, and hope they left high on good company, satisfying food and welcoming surroundings. I lumbered about kitchen clean-up duty, bloated and happy.

So right here, I want to make a policy statement. Feasting has ancient roots in sharing love.

Feeling celebrated, included and treasured nourishes people beyond calorie count and food pyramid.

If you add occasional feasts with friends and family to habitual healthy fare — whole grains, vegetables and fresh fruit, with some fish thrown in — that’s true healthy eating, Zeke.

Newport Beach resident CARRIE LUGER SLAYBACK is a marathoner in her 70s who brought home first places in LA Marathons 2013 and 2014 and the Carlsbad Marathon 2015. She lives in Newport Beach.