Mediterranean Women Stay Slim, Too: Eating to Be Sexy, Fit, and Fabulous! (30 page)

reached in these combinations: one person dining

alone, usually upon a couch or a hill side; two

people, of no matter what sex or age, dining in a

good restaurant; six people, of no matter what

sex or age, dining in a good home.

—M. F. K. Fisher, writer

Some people are very nervous about entertaining others in their homes. But it needn’t be a complicated undertaking at all.

When you serve a multicourse meal to others, you throw yourself into the community as someone giving to others. You create an event that will come back to you in equal measure. Offering food to others in your own home nudges you into a way of life that involves give and take. It banishes isolation. It is reaching out a hand to your friends. I’m not saying you should invite the whole city to your dinner party. Six people is just fine to start.

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You will be preparing food with heart and offering it to others.

This is a wonderful gesture and an act of love.

A dinner party isn’t the time for fancy cutting-edge produc-tions, however. You aren’t playing chef in a fancy restaurant, after all. You want to enjoy yourself, too. I always advise making something easy that you know tastes good. This isn’t the time to try something new and fancy. Stick with the tried-and-true dishes you know you make well. Here are some other things to remember when serving others in your home:

• For an interesting evening, invite a mixture of people: young and old, male and female, from different walks of life. If everybody is from the same place and doing the same thing, they will probably “talk shop,” although that can be fun, too.

• Let people help you. You don’t have to do it all alone. That’s not in the Mediterranean spirit. Let people come into your kitchen and give them jobs to do. It will make the whole preparation experience happier and more fun.

• Prepare as much as possible ahead of time so that you can assemble courses quickly and easily.

• Let your children act as servers. Offer to pay them! Train them on what to do, but don’t worry if they don’t do everything perfectly. That will be part of the charm of the whole affair.

• Let yourself be whimsical. Decorate the table and the dining room (or wherever you are eating) according to the menu.

Whimsy can be much more fun and relaxing than elegance.

• Flowers from your own garden or yard are more personal than a fancy arrangement from a florist.

• Candles are inexpensive and add a relaxing but mystical mood, signaling everyone that the evening is something special.

Artigiano

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• Offer an
aperitivo
, wine with each course, and a
digestivo
to help put everyone in the frame of mind for warm socializing, and of course, for proper digestion! See chapter 10 for ideas.

Don’t forget nonalcoholic options.

• Don’t feel compelled to clean up while guests are still in your home. You should enjoy yourself, too.

But what about the menu? If you aren’t sure what to serve, try the menus here using recipes from this book. But certainly adapt these to your own needs, feelings, preferences, and of course, whatever is fresh and seasonal at the moment.

Eating is never so simple as hunger.

—Erica Jong, writer

Menu 1: Extended Family Meal,

Italian Style

Antipasto including

Caponata

Fava and Pecorino Bruschetta

Tapenade on Crostini

Pasta Alla Puttanesca

Atlantic Salmon and Green Garlic

Tuscan Bread Salad

Chocolate Gelato with Hazelnut Biscotti

Espresso

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Menu 2: Spanish Tapas

Rosemary Roasted Almonds

Eggplant Escalivada

Spanish ham slices (purchased)

Crusty bread (purchased)

Salsa Verde

Merguez

Heirloom Brandywine Tomato Gazpacho

Crema Catalana

Menu 3: French Feast, à la Provencal

Pissaladière

Bread and Fish Soup

Vegetable Terrine

Quick-Cooked Salmon with Fall Vegetable Pistou

Cookies

Langues de Chat

Lavender Shortbread

French Almond Wafers

Socca

Coffee or Tisane

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Meal 5: Middle Eastern Meal

Hummus and Toasted Pita

Tabbouleh Salad

Mint Yogurt

Munchkin Pumpkins with Shrimp and Couscous

Charred Lamb Salad

Baklava (purchased)

Lydia’s Lebanese Coffee

Menu 6: Farmers’ Market

Summer Supper

Farmer’s Omelet

Yellow Velvet Soup

Corn Fritters

Field Greens with Roasted Beets and Fresh Sheep’s

Cheese

Garden Strawberries with Fresh Sheep’s Cheese and

Balsamic Syrup

And how was the party? Spectacular and unique, I’m sure.

As you continue to fit all the pieces together, sculpting your life into a beautiful work of art inspired by the Mediterranean but uniquely you, keep taking pleasure in your life, your food, and your own true self. That’s how those women do it, you know.

And that’s how you can do it, too.

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4

15

Baklava and Biscotti

How could we finish without a little something sweet? In the Mediterranean, dessert isn’t a daily affair. Sweets are something special to be savored and fully experienced. The notion of getting a candy bar out of a vending machine every afternoon would seem strange and foreign to Mediterranean women.

Dessert isn’t meant to be convenient. It is for celebration, and it should taste very fresh and very good.

More often than not, fresh, luscious fruit ends a meal with a sweet taste but without added sugar, and this is in itself an art-ful dessert. Fresh fruit in season bursts with sweetness and signals the body that the meal is ending. It also makes a perfect snack between meals when hunger strikes—a juicy apple, a succulent orange, a sensual pear, a warm peach, a sunset-orange nectarine, a handful of beautiful grapes misted with that bloom that signals their absolute freshness. Whatever fruit is in season right now is what you should be eating with joy.

~ 283 ~

Deep from her blue apron pocket

she drew a ripe orange to slice

and squirt light

—your mouth was stained with sun.

—Janet Frame, writer

Sometimes, something baked, something frozen and creamy, or something custardy and sweet is the right choice for a special dessert. Although women do make their own desserts at home, a common Mediterranean practice is to get dessert, as well as bread, from the local baker. These desserts and breads are made fresh every day, and because home cooking is focused more on what can be done with the fresh produce from the market, the baking is left to the professionals. Some Mediterranean favorites such as baklava are just too time-consuming to make at home on a regular basis, and they are easy to buy from a good bakery. Bring home a fresh-baked pastry for your family to enjoy after dinner. If you trust your baker, you know it will be delicious. No effort or dirty dishes required.

Speaking of that afternoon vending machine run so familiar to corporate America . . . well, a midafternoon pastry is a tradition in the Mediterranean. Midafternoon is the time to find a friend, stroll into a cafe, sit, relax, savor a cup of coffee, and split a really good pastry or indulge in a small bit of really good chocolate. There is nothing hurried about it! And there is no point in eating anything sweet unless you are going to let yourself sink fully into the deep, soul-satisfying pleasure of it. This is a time to relax, contemplate your day, talk with your friends, share your stories, laugh, enjoy your warm coffee or tea, and take just a few bites of something luscious.

Chocolate is no ordinary food. It is not something

you can take or leave, something you like only

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moderately. You don’t
like
chocolate. You don’t

even
love
chocolate. Chocolate is something you

have an
affair
with.

—Geneen Roth, writer

You don’t have to walk out on your boss and defiantly go in search of a cafe. But you can stop what you are doing for fifteen minutes. You can eat something you brought from home or from somewhere that doesn’t require you to insert pocket change into a slot. And you can pay attention to what you are eating. If possible, leave your desk. Go outside. Sip a warm drink. Notice every bite of your afternoon snack, no matter what it is. Look around you. Soak up the sun. Chat with a friend about something other than work. This is what taking a
break
really is, and it is something people in the Mediterranean know how to do very well. Isn’t it time you practiced?

I hope you will accept that you can eat dessert if you really want to eat dessert and if the dessert is something really worth eating. But remember portion control. Moderation. The three-bite rule! A few bites of an amazing dessert or tasty sweet snack is all it takes to feel satisfied. Eating beyond those first few perfect tastes isn’t really about eating for hunger or pleasure, anyway. It’s usually about habit or because the food is there, or to fill an emotional void. If you are really ravenous in the midafternoon, you probably didn’t have enough lunch. If you are still that hungry after dinner, well, perhaps you needed a bit more dinner. Have a salad to wind down the meal, as they often do in the Mediterranean.

I encourage you to find a good local baker. Price does all our baking at Primo, and people know they can get delicious fresh breads and fantastic sweet desserts made with attention and affection from Primo. Most cities have a good baker. If you find one, then all your baking needs will be met! That being said,
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some people really enjoy baking ( just ask Price, who loves to bake even though he rarely eats sweets because he says they put him right to sleep!). For those of you who want to prepare delicious desserts for your family on special occasions, here are some of Price’s favorite Mediterranean-inspired recipes.

√ Cookies

Cookies are a wonderful way to enjoy dessert because they are preformed into a single serving size for you. Just eat one and enjoy it. And then stop. In the Mediterranean, crispy cookies are the norm, rather than the soft, gooey American variety.

Keep them in an airtight container and you’ll have the resources to turn your nose up at those grocery store, prepackaged, preservative-laden cookies. This is the real thing.

These cookie recipes all require the use of either a Silpat mat or parchment paper on a baking sheet. When I say Silpat, I mean either those silicone baking mats that are entirely nonstick and perfect for delicate cookies or those baking sheets made entirely of silicone. Or buy a roll of parchment paper and cut it to fit your baking sheets. The silicone baking mats are very nice to have, so you might consider investing in one if you bake often.

EVE’S STORY

Eve is this book’s co-author and she has been writing about the Mediterranean diet for several years now. She loves the idea of the Mediterranean diet, but in her life as a freelance food writer and single mom of two little boys, sometimes she slips into some bad dietary habits. “I write about food all the time, but I have very little time to actually cook it! Or, at least, I tell myself I don’t have enough time, and that’s when I pick up
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the phone and order a pizza. But when I eat a Mediterranean diet, I always lose weight. When I give in to convenience foods and rush through my meals, I always gain weight. It’s so predictable!” Eve said.

But Eve is about to turn forty and six months before that date, she started to make some permanent changes in her diet and in her life, embracing the Mediterranean style for good this time. “I decided I had eaten like a teenager for too many years and it was time to grow up and start eating in a way I know works for me and makes me feel and look better,”

said Eve. Step by step, Eve has incorporated regular exercise, more outdoor time, sit-down family dinners, and organic, unprocessed food into her diet. She eats a lot of fish but very little meat, and her backyard Iowa garden has supplied her family with lots of peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, salad greens, cilantro, tarragon, and apples from her two apple trees. She visits the farmers’ market every week all season and uses olive oil instead of butter or other oils in cooking and on salads. And the changes have been dramatic. “When I write a book, I always practice what I preach, but with this book, I can already tell the changes I’ve made are going to stick.

I already feel younger. My skin looks younger. I have much more energy, and during the writing of this book, I lost fifteen pounds. Best of all, I feel great knowing I am instilling healthy habits and yes, just a little food snob-bery, in my children. Whenever they take a bite of something new, I urge them ‘Taste! Taste! Don’t forget to taste!’ ”

Eve teaches her sons how to cook, how to choose fresh fruits and vegetables, and how to appreciate foods most kids don’t normally eat in America. Eve’s seven-year-old son, Emmett, recently made a comment that reminded Eve of Melissa’s early childhood experiences in the school lunchroom. Emmett said, “Mom, why do you put this stuff in my lunch?

Can’t I have normal food? None of the other kids have cold salmon.

None of the other kids even know what salmon is!” Eve just smiled and answered, “Well then, don’t you feel sorry for those other kids? You know, you’re the lucky one.”