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(More customer reviews)Co-owner and chef of Primo restaurant in Rockland Maine, Melissa Kelly enthusiastically espouses the Mediterranean lifestyle in her new book, "Mediterranean Women Stay Slim, Too", an obvious take-off of the mega bestseller, "French Women Don't Get Fat" by Mireille Giuliano.Rather than focusing on the epicure wonders of one country, Kelly shoots for the melting-pot American approach of multiculturalism and sails the wine-dark sea in search of a metaphorically food-loving Ithaca.
Unlike Giuliano's vignette-styled success, Kelly takes a foodie's approach:food snobbery and sheer gastronomical delight reign supreme tempered with gluttonless slow eating and small portion sizes.Her best tip?Special treats like a scoop of gelato shouldn't be eaten every day, but when one indulges the three-bite rule should be enforced; delight in only three bites and then stop before excess rules over commonsense.
Kelly's book cruises along tracking other `real food' diet/lifestyle road maps like the "Sonoma" and "Fat Fallacy" regimes.If there is a difference its intaglio is the wealth of recipes that Kelly includes from seasonal staple dishes from menus of her famous restaurant composed of fresh ingredients facilitated by Primo's own vegetable and herb gardens.After explaining her Italian-American rearing on Long Island (you go girl---I am also an Italian American from Old Bethpage), she divides the book into familiar components---forgive my explanatory license here.Topics like `high flavor', `variety', `olive oil', `the market and garden', `tapas portions', `whole grain', `meat control', `eating at the family table', `water and wine', `eating little but eating well',`heart healthy', `living a small rural life', provide a glimmer into the svelte world of the archetypical Mediterranean woman with the addition of health factoids and individual stories that are geared to launch the convenience driven American mindset into a landscape resplendent with a cornucopia of good choices and the breathing room to utterly enjoy and savor the options.
Although not your typical diet book replete with dietary dos and don'ts, Kelly does round out her information with a nuts and bolts chapter that answers the obvious questions of how? how much? and when? with a seven day-menu planner that controls portions, includes the wholesome foods discussed in the previous chapters and adds a little meat for a little excitement.
Along with this, she plugs the idea of balance and contentment which seems to embody the Mediterranean woman and calls to mind that relaxed feeling that one gets even after a short two week trip abroad.Even though she admits that life in America seems very far away from life in the Mediterranean, she asserts that she "almost [has] it right" bolstering her opinion with Charlotte Cushman's words "To try to be better is to be better."
Kelly's chatty style reflects the ease she employs to welcome us into her quasi-Mediterranean world.At times her enthusiasm runs amok and she falls into the same annoying foreign language usage utilized by Mireille Giuliano in FWDGF.Overtly, Mireille shamelessly uses her `French-ness' to charm her super-sized American audience; sadly Kelly's pseudo sophistication runs the foreign phrase gamut using too-cutesy italicized comments from Gibraltar to Lebanon that annoy rather than instruct and detract from otherwise good information.
Bottom line?While Melissa Kelly's all-American pluralistic approach in "Mediterranean Women Stay Slim, Too" works well on the level of providing good information and interesting recipes, it seems that the current marketplace is saturated with so many books advocating real food and slow eating that they all seem to cover the same ground. Under the guise of learning the newest need-to-know slenderizing secrets of different cultures, we learn only a few simple facts:Eat well, eat slowly and enjoy life.Recommended to those who would appreciate some staple Mediterranean recipes.
Diana F. Von Behren
"reneofc"
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Product Description:
Mediterranean women live lives free from empty calories, empty diet promises, impossible standards, and a "say no to food" mentality. Thanks to the influence of cooking lessons in her Italian grandmother's kitchen, Melissa Kelly, co-owner and executive chef of Primo Restaurant, has learned how every woman can extract the essence of the Mediterranean spirit and make it uniquely her own.
She shares these lessons in Mediterranean Women Stay Slim, Too, along with more than one hundred diverse and mouth-watering recipes, as well as a detailed menu planner. While sampling everything from traditional Hummus to Prosciutto, Fennel, and Pear Salad with Persimmon Vinaigrette, you'll join women in enjoying the timeless, artful Mediterranean way of eating well and living a long, sensuous, beautiful life.
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