Mediterranean Women Stay Slim, Too: Eating to Be Sexy, Fit, and Fabulous! (55 page)

2 eggs

parsley

2 teaspoons whole-grain mustard

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1.
Preheat the oven to 400°F. Season the lamb chops with salt and pepper. Set aside at room temperature.

2.
In a bowl, mix the eggs with the mustards, and season with salt and pepper.

3.
In a separate bowl, mix the bread crumbs with the garlic, parsley, and 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. Season with salt and pepper.

4.
Put the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil in a heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Sear the lamb chops until they are brown on all sides. Remove from the pan and let sit 3–4 minutes to cool.

5.
Brush each chop with the egg mixture, then dredge in the bread crumb mixture. Place the chops on a rack over a baking sheet or roasting pan and bake until browned, 7–10 minutes. Serve with roasted fingerling potatoes and wilted swiss chard (recipes follow).

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Roasted Fingerling Potatoes

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√Fingerling potatoes are very popular in restaurants lately, but you can substitute any small potatoes that look good.

11⁄2 pounds fingerling, red, or yellow

1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary

fin potatoes, halved

2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

1.
Preheat the oven to 400°F. Toss the potatoes with all the other ingredients.

2.
Put the potatoes on a baking sheet. Roast for 30 minutes, or until tender.

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Wilted Swiss Chard

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√This versatile and high-nutrition wilted chard makes the perfect bitter contrast to rich meats such as lamb and beef. You can substitute other greens, too—collards, beet greens, kale, spinach, or whatever looks good.

1 bunch fresh Swiss chard (red, white,

1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

or rainbow)

Salt and pepper to taste

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

3 garlic cloves, peeled and minced

1.
Tear the Swiss chard leaves from the ribs and wash them well (they tend to be sandy). Pat them dry with paper towels.

2.
Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.

Add the garlic and cook 2 minutes, but do not let it brown.

3.
Add the red pepper flakes and chard. Season with salt and pepper, then add the butter. Let the chard wilt, turning it while it cooks, 4–5 minutes. Drain on paper towels and serve.

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Fruit Sorbet

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√A multicourse meal doesn’t need a fancy or rich dessert. Fruit sorbet is just right, as a refreshing sweetness after a light meal.

I don’t suggest ever feeling guilty about anything delicious you decide to eat, but you certainly won’t feel guilty about this dessert. The sweetness and flavor come almost exclusively from the fruit. You can use any fresh fruit puree. Just cut ripe fruit into pieces (remove pits) and puree in the food processor with a little water or juice until smooth. (Peeling the fruit first is optional, except for mangoes.) This recipe gives you some suggestions and shows you approximately how much fruit it takes to make 4 cups of puree.

4 cups fruit puree (see directions above)

1–2 tablespoons freshly squeezed

11⁄4–2 cups simple syrup (equal parts

lemon juice

water and sugar, simmered over low

1–2 tablespoons liqueur such as

heat until the sugar is dissolved—

kirsch, Grand Marnier, or

use 2 cups for a sweeter sorbet or

Frangelico

when using a tarter fruit)

Pinch of salt

1.
Mix all the ingredients to taste. Whisk well and chill overnight, or for at least 3 hours.

2.
Churn according to your ice-cream machine directions.

Fruit Equivalents

Mangoes: Approximately 7 mangoes equal 4 cups puree.

Peaches:

Approximately 4 pounds equal 4 cups puree.

Apricots: Approximately 3 pounds equal 4 cups puree.

Plums:

Approximately 3 pounds equal 4 cups puree.

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Whether your family dinners are simple or complicated, quick and easy or several courses long, I urge you to implement this tradition in your home. Even if you live with just one other person, sit down together as often as you can. If you live alone, invite friends or family over to share meals with you at least a few times every week. If you meet friends or family in a restaurant, you are still sharing food together, eating with laughter and love, and building memories. It will be worth every bite, worth every moment.

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10

Water and Wine

In the Mediterranean, eating is very important, but so is drinking—drinking water and drinking wine. Although some Mediterranean countries do not drink wine, to many—

including France, Italy, and Spain—wine is more than just a beverage; it is an integral part of meals and an essential aspect of social gatherings. Water, too, is essential to life—anywhere of course, but Mediterranean women drink water all day long.

Let’s look at these two vital beverages and a few others while considering how they might help you get more vitality out of your life and even how they can help you stay slim.

√ Water, Water Everywhere...

Water is life. We are made up largely of water and cannot live long without it. Water is in almost everything we eat and drink, but in its pure unadulterated form, it is one of the most power-

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ful weight-loss tools you have at your disposal. Drinking plenty of water every day makes your kidneys work more efficiently to flush waste from your body. It gives you more energy, it keeps your skin glowing, and it helps your whole body work better.

Most American women don’t drink enough water. We take a bottle to the gym with us or drink it in restaurants, but many people don’t drink it throughout the day. What a waste! Instead, many of us get our “water” from beverages such as coffee and diet soda. When you make water your main beverage and drink it all day long, you don’t get any of the calories, chemicals, or caffeine in other beverages. Water is so easy to drink and so wonderful for your body. Do you know why you don’t drink it?

Because you aren’t in the habit! The more water you drink, the more you will enjoy it and even crave it. And the more you will learn to tune in to your body’s cues that it needs water.

Drinking water is the most natural thing in the world. If you can make it your quintessential beverage—always defaulting to water except on special occasions or for a rare treat—your body will feel so much better, and chances are you’ll lose weight more quickly. Women in Europe drink water throughout the day, but they don’t carry a bottle with them wherever they go. They don’t drink water on the run, in the car, or while walking down the street. Throughout the day (and by now, this probably won’t surprise you), women living in the Mediterranean stop what they are doing, pour themselves a refreshing glass of water, sit down, and drink it. Yes, when Mediterraneans drink water, they really drink water. They pay attention to what they are doing. When they are finished, they move on with their day.

What a great way to enforce little breaks into your day, to stop your body and your brain from their normal crazy pace and just relax into the full attention of drinking the earth’s most precious and life-bestowing beverage.

Women in Europe tend to drink their water at room temper-Mediterranean Women Stay Slim, Too

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ature rather than ice cold. Some believe ice-cold water is bad for digestion. I like my water closer to room temperature, too, as it goes down more smoothly. Cold dulls the taste of most foods, and a really great mineral water is better at a higher temperature because you can appreciate its subtleties.

But it doesn’t matter what kind of water you drink, as long as it is clean and pure. If you don’t like water, try mineral water, which adds trace nutrients and tends to have a silkier mouth feel and more flavor. A wedge of lemon will help cleanse your body with natural citrus. (Those “flavored” waters are more likely to contain artificial sweeteners and other additives with no nutritional benefit.) You might even try a “water tasting”

with different brands of spring water and mineral water. When you really tune in, you might be surprised at how different waters taste from each other.

Experts recommend different amounts of water, although the standard you have probably heard is that most women should drink eight to ten glasses of water each day. That’s about one-half gallon each day. Most women don’t have trouble drinking that much water if they just make it a habit. You don’t need to drink any more than that. Fill up a gallon jug with puri-fied water every other day and finish it in two days (keep it on the counter if you like it at a higher temperature, or in the refrigerator). You’ll be tapping into one of the secrets of how Mediterranean women stay so slim, strong, and healthy.

√ Aperitivo

People in Italy wouldn’t think of ingesting a big meal without first preparing their system for food with an
aperitivo
. This before-dinner drink might be a “martini,” which in Italy is simply a glass of vermouth—hold the gin or vodka. Or it might be a nice moscato d’asti—a sweet, sparkling wine—or a glass of
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Madeira. Dubonnet with soda, French vermouth, Byrrh, Coin-treau, the light, fruity Lillet, or a small glass of cognac might precede a meal in France. Champagne is another wonderful before-dinner drink, especially for celebratory meals.

Spanish sherry is more likely to warm the stomach before dinner in Spain. Typically, these little drinks are served in very small amounts and are sweet, so they don’t appeal to everyone.

But women in the Mediterranean don’t doubt the important digestive influence of these beverages. They don’t add a lot of calories or an intoxicating influence because portions are so small. Just a few ounces to put you not only in the right physical state for digestion but in the right state of mind, easing you out of your workday into the friendly, sociable state best for sharing a meal with the people you love.

To practice this tradition, you certainly don’t need to drink liquor if you don’t want to. Nevertheless, I urge you to practice the tradition of preparing for the meal physically and mentally.

Many people use their juicers to prepare before-dinner cocktails of fresh juice, no alcohol required. Try a concoction such as carrot-orange, apple-celery, or banana-pear. The most important thing about an
aperitivo
is that it be small and lightly sweet or gently dry, or even a little bitter, to get those digestive juices flowing. Sit. Enjoy your cocktail, whatever it is. Clear your mind and refocus on the meal to come rather than the work of the day.

√ Wine and Food: A Heavenly Pairing

In some Mediterranean countries, wine is not a part of regular life, but in the western Mediterranean, particularly in Spain, France, Italy, and Greece, a meal without wine is like . . . well, it isn’t much like a meal! The pairing of wine and food is truly ancient in this part of the world. The Greek harvest goddess
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Demeter is also the goddess of wine and agriculture, which has long been the livelihood of the Mediterranean region.

The way women drink wine and other drinks in the

Mediterranean is very much in the spirit of the harvest and the table—much different than the way most people drink them here in the United States. Wine is filled with ritual and tradition. It is thought to mingle with foods in a very particular way and, most importantly, it always goes with food. People in the Mediterranean would never stand around at a party drinking wine all night without eating food! That’s not how it works at all.
Claro que no!

In the Mediterranean, women typically have one small glass of wine with dinner, and that means about 4 ounces! Not much compared to the big bowl-shaped glasses brimming with wine we tend to drink in the United States. Hundreds of studies have demonstrated the positive effect of moderate wine consumption on heart health, stress levels, blood pressure, and even longevity.

The key is moderation. Just a little bit and
always
with food.

That’s the Mediterranean way. It’s also the way to enjoy the great health benefits of wine without subjecting yourself to too many calories from alcohol or (and this is important) alcohol’s tendency, when consumed in excess, to make the drinker eat much more than she really needs.

What is it about moderate wine consumption that is so healthful? Some people believe it is the plant compounds found in red wine, while other studies demonstrate equally beneficial effects from white wine and even from liquor and beer consumption—but always, of course, in moderation.

Muslims in the eastern Mediterranean most certainly do not drink alcohol, yet still enjoy good food and good health. If you don’t drink or don’t want to drink with every meal, that is, of course, perfectly fine. I don’t drink wine every day. Daily drinking isn’t nearly as much a part of our culture as it is in the
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western Mediterranean, where even children sometimes get spoonfuls of wine in their water glasses.

In France, wine is thought of as food, so

necessary to life that nobody is too poor to go