Hari Cameron knows a thing or two about those who are self-proclaimed “veggie heads.” Cameron grew up in Southern Delaware and was raised a vegetarian for many years. That is, he was until after a soccer game at school, when a friend convinced him to eat a burger.
Today, many years later, as the executive chef for Nage in Rehoboth Beach, Del., he still eats meat but now has a healthy appreciation for the earth and the meats he cooks. It’s the sort of fusion that Cameron relishes — his upbringing giving him the veggie background and his teenage years giving him a taste for meat. That is why he is excited and inspired by the idea behind Nage’s “Meatless Mondays.”
The concept of the Meatless Monday comes from the national campaign aimed at making meatless meals a part of the weekly routine to reduce the negative impacts of a meat diet on people’s overall health, as well as on the environment. The campaign is designed to help people incorporate healthier choices into their lives and slow the environmental impacts that come from meat consumption.
Nage’s Washington, D.C., location started incorporating the concept, and found they were getting wonderful feedback. They even got a shout-out in Food & Wine magazine. Following that recognition, they quickly incorporated Meatless Mondays into their Rehoboth location, beginning in November of 2010.
Cameron said Nage – named for a culinary technique that involves poaching food in a flavored liquid – has always offered a veggie tasting plate, which is popular, but Meatless Mondays take the concept further. He said he loves working with a variety of vegetables to make both vegetarian and vegan – free of both meat and dairy – dishes, and finds that the seasons themselves are a great guide that lead him to the textures and layers of the vegetables that ultimately make the dishes.
He is guided intuitively by what he finds in nature. Seasonal cooking, he said, is the “mantra of the modern chef,” and that is expressed in the level poise his cooking displays — vegetarian or carnivorous.
Healthy eating and environmental responsibility both found their starts as grassroots movements, but they are rapidly becoming more popular and accepted in tandem – not as two separate concepts. That is echoed over and over again within Nage. Their menu items reflect the seasons, as well as the locale. Nage tries as often as possible to purchase local products and to obtain produce from local farms.
“There is a difference,” Cameron stated, “between ‘in season’ taste and ‘out of season’ taste.”
For Cameron, who has been at Nage for seven years and worked his way up from sous chef to executive chef over that time, cooking is not about changing flavors, but rather, it is about enhancing what nature provides. Meatless Mondays allow him to explore the flavors of the seasonal veggies in his culinary space, as well as to contribute on a greater level in keeping with the environmental aspects of cooking.
One of his favorites of this season? Cauliflower. His “veggie head” customers can’t seem to get enough of the roasted cauliflower, which he finishes with an artichoke pesto and red sorrel.
Environmental awareness and healthy eating is also something Cameron is passionate about on a personal level. In fact, he spends a great deal of his “down time” bringing quality food and nutritional education to the people around him. In partnership with Nage and Rehoboth Elementary School, Cameron participates in Chef’s Move to School program, which brings healthy snacks, such as crispy apple chips or healthy chocolate chip cookies, to children in the school.
They arrive armed with not only their healthy treats but also the recipes, which are sent home with students to share with their parents. Cameron said that, when he returns to the school the following week, he is most often approached by students who boast that they have made the treats at home with their parents — something that clearly makes Cameron feel a sense of pride, and responsibility to his community.
His community has been just as good to him as he has been to them; Cameron was voted Delaware Today magazine’s Readers’ Choice Best Chef of Downstate Delaware 2010, and he is only progressing from there. His innovative nature in dealing with nutrition and taste bring something special to the table each and every night at Nage, where the ever-changing “daily chalkboard” brings special dishes to the diners. Nage also hosts a plethora of events that aim at keeping diners informed, as well as entertained.
Every Thursday in the summertime, Nage does a “Farm to Table” series wherein the farmers come and bring their food, and a special menu is created around the foods they have grown. Cameron also runs a gamut of popular cooking demonstrations. Nage has also just added wine classes, to help educate people about wine pairing and tasting.
Together, Nage and its executive chef, Hari Cameron, aim to bring something extra special to the community they serve, and these concepts nourish that community with great flavor and knowledge.
For more information, check out Nage online at www.nage.bz.
