Category Archives: Book Reviews

Finally…My Cookbook in Print!

Yay! It took much longer than I expected but it’s finally finished and already selling like hotcakes. Low calorie hotcakes, of course!

It was frustrating that the process seemed to be so drawn out, but I only have myself to blame. Because I was combining all the previously published recipes plus about 60 new ones, I kept finding things that were formatted differently.

I wrote each cookbook at different times, so in one book, for example, I’d capitalize the first word in the ingredient list and in another I wouldn’t. The reader wouldn’t notice because the continuity was there within a cookbook, just not between cookbooks. So when they were all compiled together, it became obvious.

But not so obvious I’d catch everything at once!

However, it’s done now and I want to thank everyone for their patience. I know you’ve been on me for a print book rather than digital, and I hope you think it was worth the wait.

Here’s the link to buy … (THANK YOU!)

And here’s the cover, front and back …

Book Review — The Skinny Rules by Bob Harper

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Title: The Skinny Rules: The Simple, Nonnegotiable Principles for Getting to Thin

Author: Bob Harper with Greg Critser

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Bob Harper has a new book out. After seeing some of the reviews, I wanted to take a look for myself. I’m a sucker for simple rules, after all. Just tell me what to do to keep the weight off and I’ll do it. Maybe.

“Today, like never before, we are bombarded from every direction with health advice — about diet, nutrition, weight loss, exercise, organic or nonorganic, free-range or corn-fed. Now add in the daily science and medical news, a lot of which sounds either stunningly obvious (not being obese = good) or ridiculously counter to what we thought was correct (fruit juice = not so good), and you’ve got a jumbo case of Clutter Brain.”

Sound familiar? Yeah, I thought so.

So Bob, like many of us, tried to distill it down to some simple rules, in his case 20 of them. Most are obvious and you probably already do them … don’t drink your calories, read food lables, don’t eat so many refined flours and grains, eat more fiber, blah, blah, blah.

But two of them piqued my interest a bit more. The first was “eat apples and berries every day.” Wow. So simple! So doable! So cheap! They’re rich in phytochemicals and fiber, and low in calories. They also help keep the balance of friendly bacteria in our gut and stabilize energy storage vs energy expenditure, which is how you prevent packing on the pounds. I can definitely eat apples and berries every day. I already eat berries every morning. To make sure I remember to eat an apple too, I set my alarm to take a break mid-afternoon. I watch Ellen’s monologue and eat my apple. It gives me a laugh, forces me away from my desk for 15 minutes, and now, Ellen Degeneres is that friendly face that reminds me to eat my apple.

Rule #7, however, has proven to be a bit more difficult for me. “No carbs after lunch.”

“Carbs are forms of sugar, and sugar cues the pancreas to make more insulin, which in turn triggers appetite …. the number of times during the day that you signal your pancreas to make insulin is just as important as how much sugar you eat. Each ‘excursion’ is like a hammer delivering blow after blow to your cells.”

I’m not a carb addict by any means, but I’m finding this rule quite challenging. Bob tells me to “eat lean and green at night.” Until I started thinking about this rule, I didn’t realize how often I ate lasagne for dinner, or a sandwich, or crackers with my soup. Plus, I’m completely unclear as to whether my afternoon apple counts as a carb. (I’m going to say it doesn’t. If Bob didn’t want me to eat my apple with Ellen he would have said “eat berries and apples every morning,” right? Right?!)

I’m going to keep trying the no-carbs-after-lunch thing partly because it is so difficult for me, but also because I want to believe Bob. He’s so adorable … he wouldn’t mislead me, right? Take a look at Bob’s rules and see if there’s some tweak(s) you can make to your lifestyle.

Maybe it’ll be the very one you’re missing.

What do you think … does Bob want me to eat my apple every day regardless of the time?

Book Review — Banana by Dan Koeppel

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Title: Banana — The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World

Author: Dan Koeppel

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Political intrigue, corruption, history, humor, science, folklore, genetic engineering, ethics, and a ticking clock for the future of bananas. All in this book about a seemingly mundane topic. And there’s pictures!

This is, quite simply, a fascinating book. It might even be my favorite book about bananas. And that includes “Good Night Gorilla” and “The Happy Herbivore.”

When I buy bananas at the grocery store, I’m always delighted and amazed at how inexpensive they are. I was stunned to learn that even in 1913 the same thing was true. Even though bananas were shipped halfway around the world, they were still cheaper than good ‘ol American apples.

The book is full of people I’d like to know. Like Wilson Popenoe. “By the time he was twenty, he was an agricultural prodigy, with an encyclopedic knowledge of nearly every fruit and vegetable grown in the United States and an intense desire that his understanding should encompass the entire world.”

If you’ve ever thought about bananas — and that’s probably a big ‘if’ — chances are you’d be surprised at how much you didn’t know about them. For instance, did you know a banana tree isn’t even a tree? It’s actually the world’s largest herb. And that a banana is actually a ginormous berry? And that even though we only eat one variety — the Cavendish — there are over 1,000 types of bananas growing all over the world? And that the bananas you eat don’t have seeds? They are always cloned.

Yeah, I didn’t think so.

But the most important thing to know about bananas is that the Cavendish is not the banana Americans ate before World War II. That distinction goes to the Gros Michel … the Big Mike. But the Gros Michel disappeared due to a fungus they named Panama Disease. By 1960 the Gros Michel was extinct.

Now, Panama Disease is stalking the Cavendish. It’s a race against time and nobody knows if the banana can be saved.

Travel with Dan Koeppel on his banana journey and I guarantee this will become your favorite book about bananas too. It might also end up being your favorite mystery and history book too!

Book Review — Drop Dead Healthy by AJ Jacobs

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Title: DROP DEAD HEALTHY – One Man’s Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection

Author: A. J. Jacobs

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AJ Jacobs is an immersion journalist. For previous books he spent time living the Bible and reading the encyclopedia. This time, he realized he wasn’t very healthy so he tried to “maximize health from head to toe,” getting up close and personal with each body part to learn how to make it the healthiest it can be.

His goal was to follow all the advice out there about healthy living — ALL the advice. Quite impossible, as you know, especially since so much is contradictory advice. For instance, trying to find the “best” diet. He says, “If you could lock ten thousand people in identical rooms for eighty years and feed half of them nothing but vegan food and feed the other half nothing but steak and eggs, and keep everything else the same, you could have some real data. But unless a Bond villain decides to pursue a doctorate in nutrition, that’s not going to happen.”

Jacobs tucks away lots of useful little nuggets. Like when he felt his willpower slipping away while trying to give up sugar. He wrote out a large “disincentive” check to the American Nazi Party, which is an organization that would make him sick to support. He’d see the signed, ready-to-mail check whenever he was in the grip of a seemingly uncontrollable sugar craving. He reports it was one of the most effective strategies to tame his weakness.

And this newsy nugget, when one of his experts explained that, despite what you’ve heard about carpel tunnel syndrome, it’s mostly inherited. That is, unless your job involves using a vibrating power tool in a very cold room, like people who process human cadavers for orthopedic use. “Jeffrey Dahmer was probably at high risk for carpel tunnel.”

Stuff you didn’t know you didn’t know.

Not only was this a fact-based, interesting read, it was also poignant and laugh-out-loud funny.

He talks about Coco Chanel, who is on his list of the top five health villains because of her influence in creating the idea of worshipping the sun. He points out her Nazi spy collaboration and adds, “Which makes her life especially ironic — she was involved with two opposed evils: white supremacy and tanning.”

At the beginning of each chapter he lists his stats that month. For Month 18 he lists:

“Days I activated Freedom software (prevents Internet access, thus lowering stress and improving concentration): 19.

Days I rebooted my computer in order to short-circuit Freedom software: 15.”

He wanted to jump-start his sex life but his wife was skeptical of his plans. “You can’t get much more testosterone-deprived than having your wife forbid you from taking testosterone supplements.”

Wiser words were never uttered.

Pretend you wanted to write a non-fiction book. Would you ever immerse yourself into that endeavor for two years or so? What idea would you like to explore?

A Race of Joy

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I was sad to hear the other day about the death of 58-year-old Micah True, also known as Caballo Blanco, the ultra marathoner who went out for his regular 12-mile run in the Gila Wilderness area in New Mexico and never came back. He wasn’t known to have any health issues and he’d run all over those trails like they were his backyard playground. As I write this, the autopsy is pending.

I first became aware of him when I read BORN TO RUN by Chris McDougall. I posted about this remarkable story back in July 2010. If you haven’t read it, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy. It’s the account of True’s residence with the Tarahumara Indians in the harsh Copper Canyons in Mexico. The members of this tribe think nothing of 100-mile runs for fun. They are the world’s most natural ultra-marathoners. And they do it practically barefoot.

BORN TO RUN sparked the interest in shoe mechanics and caused the spike in sales of barefoot runners. At least for me.

True was the race director of the Copper Canyon Ultra Marathon, which sends runners through the desert for 50 punishing miles.

With his death, the fate of future races is up in the air. That’s a shame because he loved the area and the race so much. I hope it doesn’t go away and someone steps up to turn it into his legacy.

Hal Higdon runs and writes about running. He said, “The marathon never ceases to be a race of joy, a race of wonder.”

I have the feeling every time Micah True ran it was a race of joy.

Book Review — Fat Girl by Judith Moore

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Title: FAT GIRL — A TRUE STORY

Author: Judith Moore

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Be forewarned, all ye who enter here. This book is sad, sad, sad, sad, sad.

This book is SAD. Heartbreaking. Tragic. And yet, Judith Moore emerges from the other side, apparently intact.

“I will tell the story of my family and the food we ate. We were an unhappy family. With the exception of my father’s maternal grandparents and a woman who worked for them and my adorable and generous gay uncle, nobody much loved anybody…. Unhappy families, though, still have to eat. For my father and for me, who are this story’s primary fatsos, food was the source of some of our greatest pleasure and most terrible pain.”

When she was in first grade her mother told her that nobody wanted to be friends with a fat girl. Her mother also constantly told her how disgusted she was by her. Constantly.

How does a person survive that?? I can’t imagine.

Moore doesn’t try to conjure up psychobabble about any of it. She told her story frankly, honestly, and made herself ill reliving it.

The only attempt at analyzing her childhood comes at the end. “Would love have done me any good? Love, I think, would not have made me thin. Plus, by the time I thought of ‘love’ as an answer, it was too late for love. I was too fat for love. Even when I was slender, I was fat.”

Here’s my suggestion. Read this book, then go thank your parents for not being like Judith Moore’s.

Happy thoughts … happy, happy, happy thoughts. What’s your favorite happy memory? Where’s your happy place?

Book Review – The Writing Diet by Julia Cameron

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Title: THE WRITING DIET — WRITE YOURSELF RIGHT-SIZE

Author: Julia Cameron

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Coincidentally, yesterday I read a profile of Julia Cameron in the July/August 2011 edition of Writer’s Digest. There’s no link to the article — it’s like they want you to subscribe or something! — but it’s pretty interesting. She’s led a wild life.

Julia Cameron has written 25 books, both fiction and non-fiction. One of her best-sellers is The Artist’s Way, which is also the basis of courses she teaches, helping students find their creativity.

As she was teaching over the years, she saw her students not only transform their creative brains, but she saw them transform their bodies and lifestyles as well.

The Writing Diet explains that process. She provides several tools — “Morning Pages,” journaling, asking yourself four questions to distract you from your cravings, going on culinary adventures, and something as simple as taking walks, among many other exercises.

I didn’t think I’d find much of interest in this book because not only do I tap my creativity constantly, I’m not one for writing exercises and assignments. But I read the whole thing fairly quickly, enjoying it immensely. While I didn’t do any of the exercises, per se, many of them did make me stop and think.

She talks about “eating clean” which is the same thing I’m trying to do. She said, “The healthiest way to view our relationship to food is to see it in terms of progress, not perfection. Now we are eating more healthfully, if not perfectly. This is progress, and it is progress with which we must learn to be satisfied.”

Amen.

My favorite image from the book was a woman she quoted. “I have to take my overeating one day at a time,” says Eleanor. “I feel like I have my finger in the dyke. I can’t keep it there forever, but I can keep it there just for a day.”

I like that. In fact, there was a lot of similar talk about 12-step programs. Another of her students said he thought it was easier to be an alcoholic because alcoholics can stay away from liquor but everyone needs to eat.

If you can eat right for one day, maybe you can get up and do it again tomorrow. Pretty soon, you may find you’ve been doing it for years.

Lots of excellent, practical advice.

If you haven’t tried journaling before and seem to have some issues with food or healthy living, then you might benefit from reading The Writing Diet and doing the tasks Cameron lays out for each chapter.

What have you got to lose … besides weight, that is?

Have you tried journaling? Did it work for you? Have you ever dumped a bad habit or incorporated a good one? How did you do it?

Book Review — Insatiable by Gael Greene

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Title: INSATIABLE — TALES FROM A LIFE OF DELICIOUS EXCESS

Author: Gael Greene

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Let me say right up front that Ms Greene is a horndog. A brilliantly funny, articulate, interesting horndog. But a horndog nonetheless. So if that bothers you, do not — I repeat, do NOT — read this book.

That said, I sure wish I could have been her roommate in 1952 Paris where she fled to escape “the Velveeta cocoon” of her Detroit.

She was the food critic for New York magazine for many years. She knew every restaurant, every chef, and every tidbit of gossip. It’s the ultimate sensual memoir — men and food. Perhaps she has written a ‘menoir.’ Sorry.

She shares her dalliances with Elvis, Clint Eastwood, Burt Reynolds, among others (many others!) along with recipes for things like Infidelity Soup with Turkey and Winter Vegetables. No Fried Egg Sandwich recipe, however.

I was delighted to see a section where she talked about the changing times and habits and smack-dab in the middle of this book about excess, there was this description of a 445-calorie lunch …

Lunch was breathtaking to look at and delicious, too: a perfect poached egg crowned with tomato coulis and snippets of chive, and beside it, slivered chicken riding in an artichoke heart on a cool pale green sea of cucumber puree. A concerto of texture, color, and taste. Okay, I thought. Nice lunch. But there was still more. A second plate, a statement in beige: thinnest slices of duck in a rich pepper-studded sauce, with sautéed apples.

“Can it be cream?” I asked. No, Michel insisted, looking wounded that I would suggest such perfidy. What looked suspiciously like a cream sauce was the result of whisking zero-calorie white cheese with duck stock and water in a blender.

“But surely the apples are sautéed in butter?”

“Absolument non,” Michel cried. “It is my pan of Teflon that does that.”

Dessert was yet another still life: a trembling little mold of delicate coffee custard capped with a crunch of espresso ice, beribboned with candied orange peel and a punctuation of ripe currants. I’d eaten a total of precisely 445 calories.

Delicous to read, eh? And I love when people — complete strangers — validate my theories!

She’s very funny, too. Here are a couple of my favorite lines:

• All my life, people have assumed I am an only child. No, I am not an only child. I just act as if I were the only child. I am left-handed. That’s enough to overcome.

• Still freshly hatched and an ingénue in the world of the grape, I was not used to drinking from a flute. The fragile crystal in my bridal trousseau included saucer goblets for champagne. (I’d grown up with the myth that a perfect breast would fit into a champagne goblet, and mine were embarrassingly Burgundy balloons. Certainly the flute banished that conundrum.)

Much of this book will appeal to those true foodies who know NYC, restaurants and chefs, but the name-dropping was lost on me and got a bit boring. But did I mention she was a horndog?

Do you know any horndogs? (No names, please!) Do they make you blush or make you laugh? Would you subscribe to the 400-calorie meal idea if they all were described like Michel’s?

Book Review – FINDING IT by Valerie Bertinelli

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Title: FINDING IT — AND SATISFYING MY HUNGER FOR LIFE WITHOUT OPENING THE FRIDGE

Author: Valerie Bertinelli

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First, is anybody cuter than Valerie Bertinelli? I can’t imagine so.

This is a fun read as I suspect the one before it was too. I never read her previous book LOSING IT, but my guess is if I liked one, I’d like the other too.

While LOSING IT dealt more with her original dieting, FINDING IT deals with the dreaded ‘maintenance phase’ of dieting. You know, the rest of your life while you juggle family and professional responsibilities. Although having Eddie Van Halen give your kid the birds and the bees talk probably isn’t something you have to deal with so consider yourself lucky there.

(Insert weird Eddie Van Halen coincidence here.)

Reading this is like having your best friend hold your hand while you diet. She’s been there and while she may have challenges, she knows what to do … just like we all do. But it’s comforting to hear her say it.

She’s funny and accessible and often says wise, heartfelt things like this:

“Change is a process; the key is to start. Obviously you can’t remake your life in a single day, but you have to begin someplace. It’s like giving yourself a day pass. And it’s not hard. You simply step out of your own way for a few hours. You put yourself in a different head space. You change environments and you tune in to your inner voice, the voice that tells you who you really want to be, and then you become that person. You visualize yourself in that role.

Try it for a day. Then spend the rest of the week figuring out how to be that person two days in a row, then three, and so on.”

That’s nothing you don’t already know. But isn’t it lovely to know someone else knows it too?

She confesses she’s been coloring her gray hair every 12 days (!!) since she was twenty, but eschews plastic surgery in all its forms. She’s absolutely correct when she points out the natural beauty of Jessica Tandy’s face.

Valerie Bertinelli may have a lifestyle not all of us can understand, but raise your hand if you can relate to what she said on page 196 …

“I craved an ice cream sundae. I was remembering how great the last one I ate tasted. Then I remembered how great it was throwing out my size 12s and 10s and 8s. Suddenly I lost my craving for ice cream.”

What’s your best wise advice to give about weight loss or healthy living or life in general? Did you watch Valerie Bertinelli grow up on TV? Did you, like me, want to be that cute?

THE END OF OVEREATING

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Book Review

Title: THE END OF OVEREATING — TAKING CONTROL OF THE INSATIABLE AMERICAN APPETITE

Author: David A. Kessler, MD

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It seems strange, but according to Dr. Kessler, it took researchers a very long time to conclude that people were getting fatter over the years because they were eating too much. Our bodies used to be very good at regulating food intake to energy expenditure, but not so much anymore. Why?

This book has a little bit of science, some anecdotes, and lots of info presented in easy-to-digest (no pun intended) style. I found it fascinating, even though I’m not a fan of science-y stuff. I’ve always been too curious for my own good, though. I love seeing the whys and the wherefores in the world. As long as it doesn’t require my brain to work too hard.

I loved learning exactly what happens when we eat Doritos (or whatever our kryptonite is) and why it’s irresistible to us.

I also learned a new word that merits pondering — “eatertainment.”

There are treatment theories and tips to alter behavior. Kessler advocates contradictory advice from the mainstream. Mostly you hear diet gurus say something like, “No food is off limits” or “There are no ‘good’ foods or ‘bad’ foods.” But Kessler says that to change our eating behavior — our conditioned responses to certain foods we crave — we need to “view the pursuit of sugar, fat and salt in a negative light.” He believes it’s no different from a smoker or alcoholic creating negative associations with ciggies or booze.

Definitely read this book if you feel out of control with your eating. You’ll begin to understand the science behind your difficulty in resisting certain foods and how to start gaining control over your cravings.

But if you read nothing else, read the chapters about The Food Industry with visits to Chili’s and Cinnabon. Oy vey.

As I read, I was proud that many ideas and techniques in the “Food Rehab” chapters were already in place in my Lazy Low Cal Lifestyle before I even read the book. Makes me feel smart.

Are you overwhelmed by your cravings? What are some strategies you use to resist cravings? What’s your food kryptonite?