I just bought Nathan Lyon’s cookbook, “Great Food Starts Fresh.” Does he also have a TV show?
—Natalie Kornilova, St. Augustine, Fla.
Lyon, 41, got his start on TV as one of the competitors on “The Next Food Network Star.” He lost to Guy Fieri, but instead of giving up, he took his platform–from the market to your table–to the folks at Discovery Health, where “A Lyon in the Kitchen” aired for several years.
This summer, Lyon is combining two of his favorite ingredients–travel and good food–in a new show for Veria Living TV called “Good Food America With Chef Nathan Lyon,” in which he travels America exploring signature dishes to find the healthiest recipes, which are also the tastiest.
“I have always wanted to work with different chefs around the country who may or may not prepare food the same way I do,” says the Arlington, Va.-born chef. “Each part of America has its own thumbprint. When you go to the Pacific Northwest, they have certain types of food locally there that has nothing to do with the food you would find in Southern Florida. The show is a celebration of American cuisine, which is so vast and so different.”
With both his cookbook–which promotes seasonal cooking–and TV series, Lyon is hoping to get people to change their eating habits. His goal is to get people to learn how to cook just a handful of healthy dishes and to shop at farmer’s market–or if not that, to at least perimeter shop in groceries, which means mainly the outside aisles where you don’t find processed food.
“My advice for families that are really busy is when you go to the grocery store, pick up bags of frozen vegetable–like a bag of corn or pea–and canned beans and tomatoes,” he says. “What I am not into is when you get a giant whatever that is filled with sodium and fat. That doesn’t benefit your health.”
