Chef Seamus Mullen, owner of the Spanish restaurant Tertulia and the author of the new cookbook, “Hero Food,” first visited Spain at the age of 16. “It opened me up to a world of flavors that now may not seem that exotic to a lot of people; chorizo and everybody’s heard of paella,” he explained to Takeaway co-host John Hockenberry. “But, going back 20 years, for a farm boy from Vermont, that was completely new territory.”
John paid a lunchtime visit to Chef Mullen and spoke with him about the flavors of Spain, the pace of eating in Europe versus the United States, and how Seamus strategically uses food to cope with his once-debilitating rheumatoid arthritis.
When Chef Mullen was first diagnosed, he “didn’t realize that it was an autoimmune disease, and that everything that I put into my body, and how I treat my body, would dramatically impact how the disease behaved.” At the age of 35, a severe arthritic attack landed him in a wheelchair. His diet has played a major role in coping with the effects of the disease.
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