Advice on How To Write A Diet Cookbook

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I was in town today and had 30 minutes to kill before an appointment, so I wandered over to Barnes & Noble. I found myself standing in front of a huge table devoted to nothing but diet cookbooks. Paleo, low-carb, gluten-free, vegetarian, Biggest Loser, South Beach, Fat Cleanse, French Women... take your pick.

Personally, I love cookbook porn. I'll sit and flip through any cookbook, any day of the week. But as I was looking at the recipes, particularly in the breakfast, lunch, and dessert sections, my thought with any given cookbook I picked up was, "Who has the time to make all this stuff?" 

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Unplugged

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You may have noticed a lack of blog posts recently. That's because I decided to temporarily unplug. Blair is on vacation, we had relatives staying over for Thanksgiving, and I frankly was at a point where I'd had my fill of the computer. I walked away. Turned off the cell phone. Ignored on-line life. It was lovely.

To balance the scales, here are a few random moments from the past week to provide a cross-section of what like is life off-line: 

  • Thanksgiving morning: Got up at 5:30 to bake a pumpkin-walnut-strudel-pie and was out the door by 7:15 for a 6-mile tempo run. TIP: If you've never experienced the joy of cold, outdoor exercise before a Thanksgiving meal, might I suggest you try it? It takes the holiday up, like, a notch. You return tired and cold and walk inside and are enveloped by smells of turkey, sweet potatoes, rolls, pie... Best shower and best meal of your life. Promise. 
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Cooking Diaries: What on EARTH was I thinking?

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South American Squash and Vegetable RagoutSo a while back the October issue of Vegetarian Times arrives in the mail. I do my usual thing of flipping through the pages, dog-earing the corners of pages with recipes I think I might like to try. I kind of wanted to try my hand at the South American Squash and Vegetable Ragout recipe. (Mainly for bragging rights so I could say to friends, "What did you have for dinner last night? Hamburger Helper? How quaint. Me? Oh, I just threw together a little South American Squash and Vegetable Ragout...") However, as making the dish would require a significant time investment, I checked in with Blair first. 

"Would you eat this?" I asked, handing him the magazine.

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Self-Involved Much?

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The phone rings this evening and it's my sister. "Hi, what are you doing?" she asks. 

"Cooking dinner."

(There is minor commontion in the background on her end.) "Are you okay?" she asks.

"Yeah, I'm fine. It's just a simple sweet potato hash." 

She bursts out laughing. "Not you. Cole (her 3-year-old) was choking and I was making sure he was okay."

Okay. No way around it, that's embarrassing. And of course, the sister can't let it go. "Are you having trouble stirring? Do you want to talk about it?" 

"Shut up."

"Sometimes chopping can be hard. It's important that you know you're not alone." 

So much for sisterly love. As for me, I'm never answering the phone again.