Synopsis
This is not a weight-loss book, but rather a collection of wonderfully delicious recipes to prepare every day in your own kitchen. Simmons has trimmed the fat from these down-home favorites, and throughout the book Richard shares his "Farewell To Fat" wisdom, which has helped so many people to get down the pounds - millions, in fact.
Before Simmons jumps into his favorite subject, the recipes, he tells all in chapter 1, "Welcome to My Kitchen." Here he describes the six basic kinds of eaters (he's two of them); the Three Fat Sisters; his Holy Trinity (Sacred Fat, Sacred Sweet, and Sacred Salt); the Portion Patrol; deciphering the new food labels; how to use fresh spices; what basic kitchen equipment you need; and much, much more.
And then there's the food. These are recipes steeped in American tradition - dishes passed on from one generation to another, and now updated with flavorful twists from Richard's own kitchen. The recipes are easy to fix; and each one includes preparation time, a nutrition analysis with the percentage of calories from fat, and Richard's personal anecdotes about the food.
Throughout the book, Simmons offers easy-to-understand tips and special "tricks" for making everyday food fit into a healthy life plan - no complicated calculations or exotic foods, just Richard at his fun-loving best showing you how to eat well using food you already know. He tells you, among other things, how to get the fat out of food, the most effective low-fat cooking techniques, how to meet the butcher, what to do with leftover potato cooking water, and the secret of the special Simmons Roasted Garlic Potion.
Reviews
We are now so familiar with Simmons as a diet and exercise guru that just a tiny leap of imagination lands us in his kitchen--for more than 80 recipes of low-fat, low-cholesterol eating. Although certainly not so polished a heart-healthy chef as Graham Kerr, Simmons packs his own brand of American cooking: simple-to-fix down-home recipes with the "evil" stuff omitted. And he also wields a quirky, pun-filled sense of humor, evident both in the text and in the names of dishes. Any reader's comfort level will be increased further by the up-front times shown for preparation and cooking, baking, broiling, and marinating, as well as by the innumerable sidebars on mustards, hams, pasta shapes, and other culinary information. Expect library patrons to make reservations for this title. Barbara Jacobs
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