Mediterranean Women Stay Slim, Too: Eating to Be Sexy, Fit, and Fabulous! (38 page)

They are proud and they love their lives. Life is very food centered, so it seems that almost everything people do is somehow linked to nourishment. For instance, they really appreciate the antipasto part of the meal. I grew up with this tradition in my own family. Meals began with these great platters of delicious bits of cooked grains, marinated vegetables, salads, and dips for vegetables. It was really more about the social coming together of the family than anything. It was about sitting around the table with your friends and family and eating things that please you. In Sicily, they still participate in that savory tradition.

Where I Come From

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One of the reasons I love to visit Spain so much is because of the huge variety. They serve lots of different plates, each full of flavor, and they are so much more adventurous about what they will try, from unusual vegetables to seafood many Americans have never heard of before. All over the Mediterranean, women eat so many more different kinds of vegetables and fruits and meats and especially seafood, things we either can’t get or, more often, would never dare to try. But can’t we all use a little bit more daring in our diets? A little more excitement? More flavor and sensuality?

Lots of little dishes are great because you can turn the leftovers into something else. Chickpeas in your salad one day become a dip the next day. Leftover vegetables become part of an antipasto or a meze platter. This transformation of leftovers is fun and convenient—cooking enough on one day to make three days of delicious meals.

In the Mediterranean, particularly in the smallest towns and villages, life is still very basic. The women and their families with whom I talked are perfectly happy to live apart from the rush and stress of the city. They have enough to do. Their lives are enough, and that’s how I feel about my life here in Maine.

That’s how I feel about my life as a whole, the way I have built it and the way I live it. This is how I stay slim, healthy, and happily satisfied with my busy—but not too busy—life.

Anyone can find this same pace and learn deep in her own soul how to eat and live the Mediterranean way. Imagine what your world would be like if you slowed down, paid attention, and embraced every moment of sensual pleasure. Imagine knowing exactly where every bite of food you put in your mouth came from. Imagine feeling with ultimate clarity how the food you eat affects your body and letting your body’s wisdom guide your choices. Imagine your body glowing with vibrant health and energy. Imagine feeling happy, slim, content, loved.

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In this book, I lay out all the components of living and eating in the style of the Mediterranean, including the most luscious and wonderful recipes that will help you take full advantage of your local resources, live wide awake, and really taste and enjoy every bite of food. These are the keys to energy and health. If you need to lose weight, you will. You will feel better. You will lessen your risk of disease. You may even live longer. And I can practically guarantee you will look more beautiful.

One of my favorite Italian sayings is
A tavola non si
invecchia
—“At the table, one never grows old.” At a table with good food, good friends, a loving family, and an abundant variety of fresh, locally grown food, I would also add that while a woman might easily fill up on passion, she need never grow fat.

There is no end. There is no beginning. There is

only the infinite passion of life.

—Federico Fellini, Italian film director

It’s all part of
la dolce vita,
the sweet life, the Mediterranean life, and a whole new yet magnificently ancient key to life, health, and the body you’ve always wanted.

Where I Come From

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Good Taste

T H E S L I M M I N G P O W E R O F H I G H F L AVO R

Food and life are inextricably linked. Aristotle, the most famous Mediterranean philosopher, wrote, “To nurture the soul is to feed it.” I couldn’t agree more. Right at the crossroads where food and the soul meet is vitality, meaning energy, good health, good feeling, a spiritual connection to your life, and a body you feel good to be inside.

What are you feeding your soul? Aristotle wrote these words in 350 B.C., proving how essential the food–life link has been for thousands of years in the Mediterranean. To nurture the soul is to feed it, and to feed the body well is to nurture the soul. In the Mediterranean, the symbiosis of eating and being has evolved through the centuries to produce the most healthful and diverse diet on the planet. But knowing about it isn’t enough. Eating a

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salad now and then isn’t enough. You have to embrace vitality in all its facets. This chapter asks you to consider how well you feed your soul, how much you understand about your relationship with food, and how you can go about improving that relationship so that you can stay or get slim.

The beginning is the half of every action.

—Greek proverb

√ Your One-Day, Three-Step Pleasure-Eating Meditation What do you eat? Do you even know? Mindless eating is a common habit, and most Americans do it to some extent. I see entire families mindlessly eating all the time. Women eat on the go just like they put their makeup on while driving. They eat while watching television, or walking to work. Women eat while sitting in front of their computers, surfing the Internet for entertainment, or they snack while working at the computers in their offices. A lot of women spend their lunch hour working and eating at the same time.

I admit to having an advantage here. I eat all day long because I am forced to taste food and really pay attention as part of my job. If I’m sampling dishes we are going to serve at Primo that night, I’d better be paying attention! I don’t want to serve food that is bland, boring, or bad. I want what I serve to be fresh, bright, and deliciously alive in the mouth. If that’s not what I get, I start over again.

But for most American women, noticing what they eat isn’t nearly so easy. My three-step process will let taste work for you.

Contrary to what you may think, really wonderful tastes help you eat less, not more. When we eat, we seek energy, of course, but we also seek pleasure. When our pleasure is fulfilled, we are
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fulfilled and can stop eating. But if we aren’t getting pleasure from our food, we keep on eating (searching) to find that pleasure. And we eat too much.

The other thing that happens is that we eat while getting

“pleasure” (or at least a distraction) from something else. The problem is that we miss the opportunity to get pleasure from our food, which is such a life-sustaining source of pleasure, and we tend to eat too much. You know what I mean. Surely you’ve been sitting in front of the television eating a bag of potato chips and suddenly you realize the whole thing is gone. Where did all the chips go? Didn’t you just have about four servings there in front of you? You consumed calories and fat you didn’t need and you didn’t even get to enjoy it because you were too busy paying attention to something else. Is this feeding your soul?

Back to the three-step process. I want you to try something for one day. Just one day. Just to see how it sits with you. This one-day plan isn’t hard, but you may struggle with it because it isn’t the way you are used to doing things. Consider it your One-Day, Three-Step Pleasure-Eating Meditation. That doesn’t sound so bad, does it? Every time you eat, I want you to:

1.
Stop doing everything else.

2.
Focus totally on the taste of every single bite.

3.
Chew every bite thirty times.

Let’s look at what these steps really mean for you.

Step 1: Stop Doing Everything Else

If you stop doing everything else, the only thing you are doing is eating. No eating while reading the newspaper or a magazine or even a really great novel. (One pleasure at a time, please!) No
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eating at your desk at work if you are even looking at any of your work. No talking on the phone while you eat or listening to music. Turn everything off. Take the phone off the hook. If you are at work, leave your desk and go outside or perhaps to the lobby. Or get in the car and drive somewhere. (But no eating while driving!) Or just turn your chair away from that pile of work.

To make this step easier when you are at home, you can des-ignate a spot for eating. Did you ever consider the dining room table? Clear it off and reserve it for your one day. Whenever you eat anything—even a bite, even a taste of something—go to that spot, sit down, breathe, relax, and focus.

What about your partner, your children, your coworkers?

Sure, you can eat with them. They are eating, too. You can talk to your family, but when you take a bite of your food, taste it.

Talk about it! See what the other people in your life think about the taste. Don’t talk about anything else while you are actually eating—just talk about the food.

Step 2: Focus Totally on the Taste of Every Single Bite Now for the pleasure part. Since you’ve eliminated all distrac-tions, I want you to pay attention. Look at your plate. Look at the food. Notice the color, the texture, the aroma. Take a big whiff. It’s okay to go, “Ahhhhh!” This is your pleasure day, remember?

Now take a bite. Take a long, slow, languorous bite. Really taste what you are eating. Feel the texture in your mouth, the flavor, the way the aroma mingles with the taste . . . revel in the whole experience.

Just imagine eating like this all the time! Guess who does that? Yes, Mediterranean women.

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Step 3: Chew Every Bite Thirty Times

Chewing is an important part of good digestion. Gulping down your food sends it into your body before it is ready. Not only do you stress your digestion, but you miss out on a lot of the pleasure. Once the food is out of contact with your taste buds, the experience of that one beautiful bite begins to fade. So make it last. Chew slowly, savor the food, and only swallow when you’ve chewed at least thirty times.

I understand that some food doesn’t require much chewing, and you may not be able to chew it thirty times. Just consider it a goal to see how long you can keep each pleasurable bite in your mouth.

Follow these three steps for every single bite of food you take for one full day. Believe me, you’ll be more satisfied by your meals and you’ll eat less food. Who can argue with those results?

If you followed these steps for one day, couldn’t you possibly do it for two days? Or three? How about for most of the meals you enjoy for the rest of your life? Now you’re eating in the Mediterranean spirit!

What if the taste experience is unpleasant? What if you eat something you thought you liked and suddenly it doesn’t taste very good? Maybe it isn’t very fresh or crisp or juicy, or maybe you detect a chemical taste (common in processed food to those paying attention to taste). Maybe you just think the food is boring. Then don’t eat it! Push it aside. If someone else is serving the food, just say that you are full.
J’ai mangé à ma faim, merci.

When it comes to taste, I give you full permission to be a food snob. Your body deserves only the very best.

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√ Little Tastes of Big Flavor

In the Mediterranean, food is both seasonal and unprocessed, not only because that is what is available but because seasonal, fresh food tastes so much better. You wouldn’t eat asparagus in the winter, peaches in late fall, apples in the spring. And canned peaches? Only if you canned them yourself using peaches from your local market! While processed food has become more popular in some parts of the Mediterranean (that trend toward

“Americanization” ), in small villages along the sea and in places such as Sicily, the notion of canned food and tasteless frozen dinners would seem absurd.

Taste is the essential focus of the Mediterranean diet. But the palate is a funny thing. You would think that foods taste a certain way to everyone; however, taste doesn’t seem to work that way at all. Instead, the palate is ever-changing, ever-evolving, and every palate is a little different. What your mouth appreciates may be directly related to your past experiences, so what you like may be completely different than what I like.

What I taste, even in a simple dish such as minted yogurt or tomatoes with fresh tarragon, may be different than what you taste.

For people who aren’t used to strong, bright, clear flavors, Mediterranean cuisine may feel like an adjustment. Is food really supposed to have that much taste? Is it supposed to be so passionately intense in its color, texture, and flavor?
Sí, señora!

If you are used to bland, overly salted, processed food, canned vegetables and fruit, or only a few basic tastes in your everyday eating, then you are in for a treat! You won’t believe healthy eating can be this seductive.

The more you sample and savor flavors you’ve never tried before and taste combinations that are new to you, the more your palate will learn to get excited by new sensations. If your
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palate is used to potato chips or processed “diet” foods, well . . .

maybe it’s time to broaden your palate’s experience.

I was lucky enough to start eating high-flavor food as a child, but some of you may not be used to this kind of eating.

You might wrinkle your nose at the strong smell of garlic or the concentrated tang of sun-dried tomatoes. Or maybe you think these tastes are thrilling, or hope they will be. Now is the time to start discovering, testing, and challenging your own palate.

In this chapter, we will look at and taste some of the most basic flavors of Mediterranean cuisine. This is way beyond salt and pepper, mayonnaise and ketchup, my friends. This is garlic and lemon, parsley and mint, tart yogurt and sweet balsamic vinegar, toasted coriander and cumin. This is flavor.