By Melanie Albert, Founder & CEO Experience Nutrition, Intuitive Cooking Expert, and Award-Winning Cookbook Author
As an entrepreneur, I am totally living my passion. Connecting with our local Arizona farmers and chef friends, and having so much fun every day enjoying real whole foods.
I am so humbled to be invited to appear on tv segments with The List TV Show, produced by Scripps, right here in Phoenix, Arizona, and aired in 41 markets across the USA.
In the recent February 2019 segment our focus was the HMR Diet, rated as the #1 weight loss diet by US News & World Report. Our angle was to create 3 different meals taking into account the 3 2 5 philosophy of HMR. That is, eat 3 Shakes a Day, 2 Entrees a Day, and 5 Servings of Veggies and Fruit a Day.
Pre-Production with the Producer
The producer, Olivia Schneider and I wanted all of the meals to be simple to prepare and in keeping with my plant-based focus. For the shake, we decided to make home-made cashew milk as the base for a raspberry smoothie. For the Entree we chose a Farm-to-Table Veggie Bowl with Brown Rice, and for the Veggies, it’s a colorful Farm-to-Table Roots and Greens Salad with a vibrant rainbow of veggies.
Farm-to-Table Just Harvested Produce for the Shoot
A few days prior the tv shoot — as soon as the recipes were approved –I reached out to my passionate urban farmer friend, Billy Anthony at The Farm at South Mountain. Billy supplied us with literally “just-harvested” produce for the shoot including all kinds of beautiful roots, greens, veggies, edible flowers, and even a floral arrangement.
A Quick Look at The Farm at South Mountain Soil & Seed Garden
Billy was kind enough to organize and label the produce, so the different types of unique veggies and greens would be perfectly clear. Even the edible flowers were labeled.
Thanks to Billy for the beautiful farm-to-table floral arrangement for our kitchen set.
Day Before the Shoot: Finalize the Recipes
A little more than 24 hours before the shoot, I started to intuitively decide which veggies would make sense with the two different veggie dishes: Roasted Farm-to-Table Veggie Bowl and Rainbow Salad. And, we finalized the recipes that we’d be filming.
Food for the Shoot
Incredibly beautiful just-harvested produce from the Soil & Seed Garden at The Farm at South Mountain.
Day of Shoot Food Pre-Production
The morning of the shoot started quite early, around 6am as I began to cook and prep food for the shoot, so we’d be ready with the final components of each of the dishes for on-camera. Just for fun, my pre-shoot cooking check-list.
Behind the scene out-takes from Pre-Prep
A video look at the pre-production prep for The List TV Shoot…all set for the Crew.
The Kitchen Set
Right at 1pm, when I had just finished cooking and organizing the pre-prep food, the crew arrived and set up my kitchen for the shoot.
We all loved the edible flowers. Thanks so much to urban farmer, Billy Anthony at The Farm at South Mountain.
On Set: The Make your Own Shake: Raspberry Goji Berry Cashew Milk Smoothie
On Set: The Farm-to-Table Roasted Veggie Bowl
On Set: The Beautiful Farm-to-Table Roots & Greens Salad
The beautiful dishes we created, with plating by The List TV Show Co-Host Segun Oduolowu.
Now, lets’ take a look at the beautiful dishes we creating during the shoot. During the segment, I guided The List co-host Segun Oduolowu to plate the dishes. Thanks again to urban farmer, Billy Anthony for the beautiful food grown at the Soil & Seed Garden at The Farm at South Mountain. Thanks so much to The List for the opportunity to work together to bring these “create your own dishes” to your viewers.
Please join the Experience Nutrition Blog and come back for the step-by-step photos of the creating of the recipes created in for this tv segment with The List.
INTERESTED IN PLANT-BASED COOKING RETREAT IN SEDONA, September 13-16, 2019. CLICK TO LEARN MORE
Purchase Melanie Albert’s award-winning cookbook, “A New View of Healthy Eating: Simple Intuitive Cooking with Real Whole Foods”
COOKING CLASSES AT THE FARM AT SOUTH MOUNTAIN IN PHOENIX, ARIZONA
Thanks to Natural Awakenings AZ magazine for featuring my Plant-Based Chocolate Pie on the cover and Plant-Based Dessert recipes in the January 2019 issue.
Natural Awakenings Arizona, January 2019
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