Summer 2021 Issue
FOOD & COMMUNITY IN PHILADELPHIA AND BEYOND
COOKSHELF
Char Nolan: Plant-Based Chef and Cooking Instructor
BACK IN 2009, when Char Nolan worked in marketing for Whole Foods Market, she noticed a sudden change in her regional manager. “He looked different. His skin looked better. He had a whole different demeanor,” she recalls. She learned he was following the program outlined in the book The Engine 2 Diet by Rip Esselstyn. “I went directly to Borders to buy the book, and then I went to the supermarket to stock up on oatmeal and kale,” she says.
The book—like all the books authored by the Esselstyn clan, whose patriarch is renowned cardiologist Caldwell Esselstyn— The Engine 2 Diet is entirely plantbased. It also eschews oils, refined flours, added salt and sugar. Nolan thought she’d do it for a month. “I didn’t know how I was going to live without chicken breast for 28 days, but after 10 days I felt incredible.” She had been struggling with osteoarthritis and, for the first time in years, she was pain-free. “I thought, ‘I’m never going back.’”
More than a decade later, she has not only stuck to the plant-based program, she’s made it her life’s mission. Now a cooking instructor, she works with the Philadelphia Free Library and Philabundance to offer classes and produce via its mobile kitchen classroom known as the Charlie Cart.
She’s also still loyal to the Esselstyn family recipes. Her favorite potato salad, which she often brings as a plant-based option to summer cookouts, is from the Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease Cookbook (Avery, 2014) by Jane Esselstyn and Ann Crile Esselstyn.
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