[.ca] The Healthy Kitchen: Recipes for a Better Body, Life and ... (ISBN 055371290X)

From Amazon.com:
In Eating Well for Optimum Health, one of Amazon's bestselling health books of 2000, alternative-medicine maverick Andrew Weil revealed his version of the ideal diet (and backed it up with scientific proof): a variety of unprocessed, or "whole" foods; just-picked, organic vegetables; whole grains; "good" fats, such as the omega-3 fatty acids found in fish and nuts; fresh herbs and spices instead of heavy sauces; and a minimum of meat and dairy products. Eating this responsibly is certainly an admirable pursuit, but home cooking of this caliber can be intimidating, requiring much more energy than it would to pull up to the drive-through and order a burger and fries. In The Healthy Kitchen, Weil successfully teams up with Rosie Daley, formerly chef at the ritzy Cal-a-Vie Spa, to show how to cook with confidence within these dietary guidelines, creating dishes that are not only good for you, but are also fun to prepare, beautiful to look at, and delectable. For those of you predicting a tofu-fest, have no fear: Weil stresses he's "unwilling to eat food that is boring, artless, and devoid of pleasure even if it's somebody else's idea of healthful." Indeed, the gorgeous color photography in The Healthy Kitchen will get you drooling over healthy entrées like Warm Chicken and Asparagus Salad and desserts like Lemon Yogurt Sorbet. You can be proud to serve these recipes to your family and friends--many of the appetizers and entrées are perfect party foods, sized to feed a dozen. Some recipes are notably more complicated than others--Cold Vegetable Pasta Primavera involves grilling five different veggies; baked Vegetable Wontons are time-consuming if you're not familiar with the folding process. However, Daley and Weil advise working your way up to these more complex dishes. Sprinkled throughout the book are witty and wise health tips from Weil and cooking shortcuts from Daley. The two admit they don't agree on all cooking matters; Weil would substitute cashew milk for coconut milk and adds his two cents on making the Thai Shrimp and Papaya Salad spicier, for example. The Healthy Kitchen seems to be influenced a bit by Martha Stewart's Healthy Quick Cook, with Weil's text shaded in that unmistakably Martha sage-green, and Daley's in what Stewart might call bisque. Both books emphasize seasonal fresh foods and boast sumptuous photography and tempting menu suggestions. However, Weil and Daley outdo her with calorie and nutritional breakdowns for each dish, shopping guides for easy meal planning, and tips on encouraging children to help out in the kitchen (and develop lifelong healthy eating habits in the process). --Erica Jorgensen

Good Mix of Healthy Culinary Advice.:
'The Healthy Kitchen' by holistic medicine expert Andrew Weil, M.D. and professional chef Rosie Daley promises to be the very best union between expertise on food and health. It is not limited to simple weight reduction or to curing any other specific medical problem. It is true to the holistic doctrine of treating the whole person. The book generally takes the form of a dialogue between the two authors. The contributions of the two different voices / areas of expertise are clearly delineated by printing them with a header indicating the speaker and differently colored pages to signify which voice is speaking. Regarding the good doctor's contribution, I believe it is all sound, reflecting a synthesis of the most recent conventional wisdom on health and food. The value of this material will depend much on how much you have read in this area before reading this book. If you have read any of Weil's earlier books, especially the title 'Eating Well for Optimum Health', you will have already read almost all of Weil's material reproduced on the his green pages in this book. Much of this information has also appeared in other recent books on nutrition; however, I believe there are several tips in the book on kitchen practices which are unlikely to appear in a book general nutrition. One example is Weil's comments on cooking oils, especially the recommendation to never heat oils to the smoking point and to never breath the smoke of heated oil, as it is highly toxic. This is why he recommends grapeseed oil, as it has a very high smoke point. I am especially happy with Weil's bringing out the distinction between simple and complex carbohydrates and that in spite of the current low carb diet fads, one should not avoid all carbohydrates. Even more important is his discussion of the glycemic index of foods, which is a measure of how fast a food is converted from the gut into glucose in the blood. High glycemic index foods such as most sugars and starches have the undesirable effect of quickly raising blood sugar, triggering the production of insulin. This also has the effect of making you feel hungry again, soon after eating. Low GI foods remain in the stomach longer and maintain satiation longer. The culinary half of the partnership is shared by the two authors, with Ms. Daley providing the recipes and Dr. Weil providing 'color commentary' and comments on the health benefits and risks of various cooking techniques. All recipes include a nutritional analysis, giving the weight in grams of calories, fat, saturated fat, protein, carbohydrate, cholesterol, and fiber per serving. The serving size is not indicated directly. Rather, the recipe gives the number of servings in the dish. Given the totally acceptable variability in the practices of home cooks and the variability of nutritional content of ingredients, I would use these figures only as a means of comparing one recipe to another. As usual, portion sizes seem to me to be rather small. The recipes are divided into very familiar headings, giving us chapters on: Breakfast, Beverages, Appetizers, Salads, Soups, Entrees, Accompaniments, and desserts Desserts. The last chapter gives a week's worth of menus with a composite nutritional analysis for the entire day's menu. The selection of dishes fits your expectations for a healthy eating book. There are no beef or veal dishes and the authors flatly state that they are excluded to avoid saturated fat and environmental toxins. On the positive side, there are several pasta dishes. Dr. Weil offers the very wise suggestion that he typically looks to Oriental cuisines for his pasta recipes instead of to Italy, as Oriental dishes have less fatty sauces. There are many fish, shellfish, chicken, and tofu dishes, plus an emphasis on grilling and roasting techniques. Overall, the book borders on but does not enter the world of dietary extremism parodied by a menu of tofu, bean sprouts, and wheat germ. It celebrates things like garlic that many people enjoy and which are also good for you. It devalues carob as a pale imitation of chocolate and endorses chocolate in moderation, especially as an accompaniment to fruit. If you have a limited budget for cookbooks and are concerned about food and health, this is a very, very good book. The list price is lower than almost any other recent hardcover cookbook you are likely to find and the recipes are very good. They are not simple. This is not quick cooking a la Rachael Ray. My only concern with the book's nutritional advice is that it may be just a bit dated. It touts the benefits of garlic; however, I think the nutritional value of garlic has been devalued recently. It is still tasty and quite safe. My main concern with the culinary material in the book is that it does not adequately provide a good substitute for white bread. While bread appears in one chapter title, it does not appear in the index and the closest I can find to a bread recipe is a recipe for blueberry pancakes. This may be too much to ask from a $27 book, but it would have made the book a lot better. Highly recommended, especially if you own no other books on nutrition by Dr. Weil. Requires some preexisting culinary skill. Not fast cooking.

Annoying; recipes are mistake-laden:
If the recipes here were written clearly (they're not) and you were a novice cook, you'd find enough basics to get a good grounding in healthful cooking. As it is: kitchen disaster on most pages. If, on the other hand, you were an experienced cook, you'd know where the recipes miss the mark --- but then again, you could find far better ones elsewhere. Examples: a pancake/waffle batter that is fat free, as far as the ingredient list goes, but unlisted in the ingredient list, buried in the directions for pancakes, is 1/4 teaspoon butter, for greasing the griddle. First off, if butter is called for, list it in the ingredients. But secondly, why not use a non-stick skillet in the first place, and/or a spray of oil? And thirdly, the recipe says that you do not need to add more butter to the pan. This is probably not true, unless you are using a non-stick or have a superbly seasoned skillet --- which amateur cooks would not know. And fourthly --- when you get to the waffle variation, no fat of any kind is called for in greasing the waffle iron. Even non-stick waffle irons (which are not specificied here anyway)require lubing with oil or butter, and most waffle batters contain oil because of the tendency towards sticking. Doing it as suggested will result in ruining your waffle iron, since you can't soak waffle irons lest you screw up the regulator. Books like this waste readers' time, money, even equipment. Directions like "strain the raspberry puree through a colander" are so annoying: Hello! A colander's holes are too large to catch the seeds; you need a strainer. (Why didn't an editor catch this, at the very least?) And what of a Citrus Mango Freeze made without added sweetener that has 1/4 cup each lime and lemon juice to 3/4 cup orange juice and 3 mangos: Yikes, that is some serious tartness! Not a word to even warn readers / eaters so they now how sour it is, or to suggest modifications. I could go on. As an experienced cook and cooking school teacher I find these kind of omissions unsconscionable and irritating. Frequently such errors occur in celebrity cookbooks, especially when "packaged", as this one, to judge from the intro, was --- put together by the publisher, not a self-generated collaboration between friends or colleagues. Best thing about this book: Andrew Weil's dietary advice, which is sensible and informative, if basic, and a lovely lay-out. But you don't eat the lay-out. Bottom line: get this out of the library for Weil's advice, but the recipes are not worth cooking from. Try Passionate Vegetarian, Laurel's Kitchen or World of the East for superb, healthful and varied recipes which work.

Love this Cookbook!:
I absolutely love this cookbook. My new year's resolution was to start cooking better. I got tired of walking around the grocery store with all of the sodium, preservative, fat and sugar laden products. Before I found this cookbook, I would rarely stumble on a healthy recipe from a magazine or cookbook that would actually taste good. It was really quite discouraging to learn to cook healthy. There is not a single recipe in this cookbook that I do not like. Everything turns out perfect and the flavors are incredible. It's amazing to me that my husband, who lives for burgers, pizza and red meat, really loves the food from "the Santa Claus dude book" (referring to Dr. Weil). Sure, it takes longer to shop for the ingredients and make the recipes. Instead of grumbling, I use the time to practice mindfulness -- using all of my senses (sight, taste, smell, etc.) to get lost in the process. It relaxes me at the end of a long day. The rewards are a wonderful meal and knowing that I did something positive by choosing to eat healthy.

A coffee table book for Rosie and Dr. Weil fans:
This is not so much a cookbook as a coffee table book for fans of Rosie and Dr. Weil. We are meant to buy it because of the authors' credibility and the publishers play this angle to the hilt. We see photographs of Dr. Weil's herb garden, Rosie in a sexy little black dress spoon feeding Dr. Weil, and numerous attractive studio shots that have little relationship to actual cooking. Even Rosie's hands appear in most of the not very helpful how-to photos as evidenced by several distracting bracelets. This constant presence of the authors distracts from the recipes, but that is the point, to capitalize on the successes of their previous books and semi-celebrity. As a cookbook it is mediocre. You've already seen all of these recipes. As noted by many reviewers, most recipes use numerous, expensive, and sometimes exotic ingredients. Editing errors are numerous. In some cases the error is obvious and the home cook can adapt, but this leads one not to trust other recipes. Are there critical steps or ingredients missing? There's no way to tell and I hesitate to commit twenty dollars of ingredients to a dish that may not turn out. Some recipes call for specific brands of products that are not available in my part of the country. Substitutes are not suggested. The book layout is visually appealing, but impractical. The numerous colored callouts with comments and tips interrupt the flow of the book. Recipes that could easily have been kept on a single page span multiple pages because of all this extraneous material. Maddeningly, recipes that span more than one page are not even on facing pages. Plan to flip pages while cooking. If cooking is your hobby or you are a particular fan of these authors you may enjoy this attaractive coffee table book. If you need reliable recipes for every day that you can make from ingredients found at a well-stocked neighborhood supermarket, you'll be disappointed.

Good taste, but hard to assemble:
The beauty of this cookbook is that it offers interesting, tasty foods that are healthy beyond being low fat or low calorie. In other words, they offer healthy food, not diet food. Each recipe includes a nutritional guide, but there are also notes on the actual nutritional value of many ingredients and on various food groups. The problem I've found is that many of the recipes call for foods that just aren't easy to come by. This is a cookbook for the focused chef with time to shop and prepare full menus, not for the casual health-conscious cook.