[.ca] Mediterranean Light: Delicious Recipes from the World's ... (ISBN 0688174671)

Too light for today:
Many of the recipes in this cookbook are okay, but when I ordered it I failed to notice that it contains a "Forward by Dean Ornish, M.D." That would have been the tip-off. We all know that too much fat is bad for us, and like many Americans my husband and I eat "light" nowadays--nonfat dairy products; very little beef, lamb or pork; no butter or margerine; skinless chicken and turkey. But much has changed in the dietary world since Shulman's book was first published in 1989. We now know that there are "good" fats as well as bad ones, and that an EXTREMELY low fat diet can be almost as unhealthy as a high-fat one. If you are vegetarian, this book will probably be useful to you. However, it contains only nine recipes that contain chicken (note that most are not truly "chicken dishes"). Few recipes contain cheese or dairy products of any kind, and most disturbing is her insistance on reducing the olive oil content of most dishes to a miniscule amount. She even includes a recipe for a traditional provencal onion pissaladiere (pizza) which always includes olives: she writes she "left out the olives . . .for the diet version"! There are many, many excellent mediterranean cookbooks on the market without going to the extreme of Shulman's. Dr. Atkins and Dr. Ornish are at the opposite extremes of the twenty-year- long fat versus carb controversy. Try an alternative mediterranean cookbook and find yourself a satisfying middle ground. I suggest The Mediterranean Diet Cookbook or any of Paula Wolfert's cookbooks. Another, unfortunately out of print, is Mediterranean Cooking the Healthful Way by Marilyn Spieler--my personal favorite. Go ahead: drizzle, don't dump, olive oil on your food and pop a couple of kalamata olives in your mouth. It's okay!

no use as is:
I bought this book thinking I would be getting good vegetarian mediterranean food, and found that I had to modify every recipe I have used from it to suit my taste. The modifications included adding a little bit of olive oil here and there to make the food taste better - I find that for example lentils boiled with some onion and garlic taste pretty plain, even after adding the spices suggested. Another thing I dislike about this book is that the author uses A LOT of garlic in her dishes to make up for lack of flavor, and also that she substitutes yogurt for olive oil in quite a few dishes - what a useless idea for those of us who don't even like yogurt. Finally the organization could be better. In summary there are some interesting ideas in her book but there are much better Mediterranean/healthy/vegetarian cookbooks on the market.

I Cook Regularly From This:
My rule of thumb is, if you get three recipes that you cook regularly out of a cookbook, and you otherwise enjoy it, it has earned its selling price. Let's see: I use the recipes for hummus, white bean and tuna salad, tabouleh, semolina bread, that thing with chard and fish . . . and there's lots more. The author explains how to do it all from scratch, which is always good to know, but I've saved some time substituting already cooked beans and, when I don't have any I've made myself, I've used commercially produced, fat-reduced chicken stock. Nutritional data is provided for each dish.

Five stars!:
I have lots of cookbooks but few are as reliable as this one by Ms. Shulman. The lower-fat hummus recipe alone is worth the price of the book. (Another favorite is the Swiss chard soup.) This book was obviously a labor of love for the author. Thanks!

After almost 4 years I still love this book:
I wrote in April of 2000 that I had lost 50 lbs. I've lost another 20 lbs - 70 in all and maintain that loss now for almost 4 years using this cookbook. I have given it to many friends and relatives. It has changed my eating style for the better for life. Every time there's a news story about the best way to eat it mirrors what Ms Shulman teaches in her books. It's no chore eating this way. I love it.