Ghost What? Where?
Ghost Kitchen.
Located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the heart of the Midtown district, Liberty Gourmand is a pick-up-only, pre-order “ghost kitchen” providing best-quality food to the greater Santa Fe community. We are starting small – but with big dreams, and big food. Liberty Gourmand shares commercial kitchen space with the extraordinary Plantita Vegan Bakery, also for pre-order and collection or delivery from the kitchen.
Origins
In Spring of 2020, as the pandemic gripped us and my business flagged, I decided to pursue a certification from T. Colin Campbell’s Center for Nutrition Studies (CNS), via eCornell, in plant-based nutrition. Later that year, I completed the “Plant-Based Professional” culinary certification through Rouxbe on line. I have worked full time in real estate in Santa Fe for nine years – it’s been a great career, but by 2019, I knew I wanted to effect more change in the world through food and education, as I learned more about the present threats our planet and communities face, and the key role that animal agriculture plays in driving all of it. In 2021, I completed the new Food and Sustainability certification from CNS/eCornell, and was almost simultaneously presented with an opportunity to lease the Lena St. kitchen space – I took it as a sign that the time was now to initiate the change I’d been considering for so long.
Taste and Nutrition
Food: Philosophy, Background & Notes
I’ve been winning people over with food for much of my life, and this only ramped up after adopting a vegan lifestyle in 2018. Prior to that, I had experience as a restaurant cook, and a lifetime of interest in all kinds of foodways and traditions, as well as in nutrition (now, I know a great deal more, though!).
With most dishes, I am always cognizant of the nutritional balance and quality of the food, as well as the epicurean experience. While many items may contain oil, salt and/or some more refined flour or sugar, many will not, and the amount of highly refined products is in general much lower than what is found in typical restaurant fare – even when such meals exclude animals. Similarly, while I aim for reasonably generous portions, most diners should be able to eat these delicious meals, built around whole plants, without feeling overstuffed and lethargic – even if you clean your plate.
Dishes are prepared with minimal extracted oils, and with a lighter level of salt seasoning. Any nuts, or prepared coconut or soy products used are minimally processed, non-GMO and organic with few exceptions, and with very few or no fillers or gums. *All items are prepared in a kitchen and on equipment that may process wheat products, and thus are not suitable for celiac patients.* Any wheat used is organic and non-GMO.
MANIFESTO
Food & Community
Liberty Gourmand
means the free enjoyment of abundant, delicious, vegan-friendly, plants-only food with no sacrifice in culinary delight. This is a nation of immigrants, and a planet cloaked in a tapestry of infinitely rich culinary traditions across countries, regions, towns and families. No matter what may divide us, we are one world of people who, when we sit together at a table laden with nourishment for body and soul, become family. This devotion to food as a fundamental tool for communion and healing fuels everything we do.
Unifying Theory
The Plants-Only Plate
We promote the unifying theory of the plants-only plate, furthering the freedoms across the board that arise from the elimination of animal flesh and secretions from the human diet. The time for Liberty Gourmand is now – we are working for:
Healing over Disease
Freedom from:
- Chronic illnesses that plague much of our world (especially in the context of mostly whole plant foods and the limitation or elimination of highly refined ones);
- Ever more pathogenic communicable diseases – and pandemics – that we foster, mutate and spread through our global reliance on intensive animal agriculture and the clearing and exploitation of natural habitats.
Regeneration over Destruction
The Plants-Only Plate:
- Means freeing up and regenerating vast land and water resources – and achieving massive-scale reduction of greenhouse gas emissions – for the ecological repair and renewal so desperately needed by this planet and all of its inhabitants.
- It can also improve the situation for impoverished nations and communities with regard to water and food resources, and is a major step in combatting ever worsening natural disasters, which hit these populations the hardest.
Kindness over Cruelty
No more:
Needless torment, suffering and death for dozens of billions of non-human land animals and trillions of aquatic animals each year, and no more suffering for slaughterhouse workers and financial indentured servitude for farmers. We can become true stewards of the planet and our fellow creatures simply through the more healthful, more delicious and more sustainable choice to consume only plants.
ON NUTRITION
Food & Nutrition
Common Questions & Concerns
If you have specific concern about soy beans, grains, legumes, starchy vegetables, fruit or other healthful whole foods that are regularly vilified in modern pop-nutrition media (typically backed up with no, or incorrectly interpreted, research), please visit these topics in the Resource Center on this web site (coming soon!), or search any such topic at nutritionfacts.org, for thorough, comprehensible reviews of most relevant nutritional science. Although some people have underlying digestive issues or disorders to address before they can comfortably consume certain extremely health-promoting whole plant foods, and while some have actual allergies (often also resolved with digestive healing), most people would be missing significant longevity and health benefits by excluding one or more of these items from their plate – it’s worth gaining a more thorough understanding of the topic.
Whole Food Plant Based
A note to the WFPB/no-oil, SOS- or SOFAS-free lifestyle consumer:
Have you adopted – or wish to adopt – a whole plant-food diet for health reasons? If so, I’d like for you to know that I am well versed in all of the major permutations of this dietary pattern according to various doctors (for instance, “Nutritarian”, SOS- and SOFAS-free, “starch solution”, as well as Dr. Goldner’s high-raw therapeutic interventions, and so forth), and many cooking techniques necessary to achieve delicious results in most cases. I am also versed in nutritional “tweaks” and considerations that are particularly beneficial for specific disease, health concerns and goals. Liberty Gourmand is not launching with Forks-Over-Knives-compliant food, but in the area of one-off catering services, I will be able to create delicious options that are compliant with a whole food, plant-based lifestyle, customized to any specific consideration you may have, except that I cannot produce food that is guaranteed to be safe for celiac patients. Please simply reach out to me here.
FUTURE CONCEPTS
Contact
(505) 780-0338
Drop us a line here!