Remember when Julie pledged to cook her way through Julia’s cookbook
and the Julie and Julia Project
was born? Well, after reading Matt Frazier’s new cookbook, I am starting a project of my own. I am going to cook and blend my way through Fuel Your Run the Tarahumara Way.
You may know Matt Frazier better as the No Meat Athlete. Not only is he an amazing, vegetarian runner, he is also the author of a new cookbook with recipes “designed for the modern athlete”. Because my husband is a cyclist, and I have recently started trail running, I am very interested in this book. The other reason I am excited about trying these recipes, is because I am reading Born to Run by Christopher McDougall for the second time. The book goes into great detail about the lifestyle of the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico’s Copper Canyons. They run hundreds of miles for fun and sometimes survival, and seem to be immune to many of our modern day diseases and health issues.
After reading Born to Run by Christopher McDougall, I am inspired to run for the love of it, and to do other things more simply and joyfully as well. Matt, the No Meat Athlete liked Born to Run too. Here’s what he said when I asked him about it:
- “Born to Run is great, isn’t it? What I came away with, more than anything else, was a real passion for running that I never knew I had in me. I read the book right after I qualified for Boston, after years of trying to do it. I worked so hard for that, but the whole time I told myself that I wasn’t really a runner, that it was a means of staying fit and having a goal to chase after. I was so focused on that and never took a step back and tried to enjoy the actual running part. Right after I read Born to Run was the first time I ever went for a run purely for the fun of it. Now I do that all the time. Maybe even too much.”
Ok, back to my project. I am going to create each recipe from Matt’s book and come back to you with recipe reviews and more feedback on these Tarahumara super foods. While all of these recipes are healthy, I am not going to be eating them to dramatically improve my overall health, or speed up my running. I want to do this for the fun of it!
There are a few differences between my project and the Julie and Julia project that I would like to point out…
- Julie cooked and blogged about 536 recipes and I will be working with 15.
- Julie set a time limit of one year, my project has no time restrictions or deadlines.
- It is unlikely that my project will turn into a movie. Maybe a book deal, but not a full length feature film.
- I am not going to go crazy and torture my husband during the project.
- The majority of Julia’s recipes were not veg friendly. All of Matt’s recipes are.
- I don’t have a cool name for my project. Any suggestions?
