Mediterranean Women Stay Slim, Too: Eating to Be Sexy, Fit, and Fabulous! (43 page)

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4.
To assemble the salads, arrange the endive on a platter or on four individual salad plates so that the leaves form a flower-petal pattern around the edge of the plate. Pile the salad greens in the middle. Arrange the beets on top of the salad greens and drizzle the beets with the remaining vinaigrette. Crumble the cheese over the top and sprinkle with freshly ground black pepper. You may serve it with crusty bread or pita wedges.

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Meal 4: Simple But Elegant

Sometimes women really need to treat themselves to something elegant. This meal will let you do that without loading you down with a lot of fat, calories, and carbs.

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Pissaladière

S e r v e s 4 t o 6 , o r m o r e a s a n h o r s d ’ o e u v r e

√This Italian vegetable mix featuring tomatoes flavored with capers and anchovies is heaped into a prebaked tart shell. If you use individual tart shells, this also makes a beautiful hors d’oeuvre for company. For your simple but elegant lunch, serve pissaladière with a simple salad of fresh greens and your favorite vinaigrette.

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 tablespoons chopped garlic

3 medium onions, peeled and chopped

1 pound ripe tomatoes, skinned and

Crushed red pepper flakes to taste

chopped, or one 14-ounce can

1 tablespoon chopped capers with juice

chopped tomatoes, with juice

2 fresh or canned anchovy fillets,

2 tablespoons tomato puree

rinsed, patted dry, and chopped

1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano

1 prebaked tart shell, puff pastry, or

1⁄2 teaspoon sugar

pizza dough shell

Salt and pepper to taste

1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme for

3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

garnish

1.
In a medium sauté pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat.

Add the garlic and cook until it is soft but not brown.

2.
Add the tomatoes and tomato puree. Sprinkle with the oregano, sugar, salt, and pepper. Turn the heat to low and cook until the moisture has evaporated, about 15 minutes.

3.
Mash up the tomatoes and stir in the cheese. Cook 2 more minutes, then remove from the heat and set aside to cool slightly.

4.
Meanwhile, in a separate pan, heat the butter over medium heat and sauté the onions until they are translucent and soft, about 8 minutes. Add the crushed red pepper flakes, capers,
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and anchovies, stirring to combine. Season with additional salt and pepper, and cool.

5.
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Combine the tomato mixture with the onion mixture and stir until incorporated. Spoon into the prebaked tart shell and smooth the top. Bake until the vegetable mixture dries a little on top and sets, about 20 minutes.

6.
Allow to cool slightly or to room temperature. You may wish to garnish with roasted peppers and olives and a sprinkle of thyme. Cut into wedges to serve.

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Thoughts on Dessert

When you were a kid, your mom might have served dessert after dinner every night, and we do tend to crave something sweet at the end of the meal. Sweet tastes actually signal your body that the meal has come to an end and help you feel less hungry.

But most adults can’t get away with high-fat, high-sugar desserts every single day. These desserts are for very special occasions. For some simple and healthy desserts, see chapter 15.

In the Mediterranean, special desserts such as cakes and pastries are also reserved for special occasions, but people in the Mediterranean indulge daily in fresh fruit. Whatever fruit is ripest and seasonal makes an elegant end to your meal. You can eat fruit out of hand or prepare it in simple ways, such as fruit salad, poached pears and apples drizzled with a simple sweet sauce, or a platter of fresh-cut fruit and cheese for your family to share.

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∂

4

Why Olive Oil Is Not Fattening

To really embrace the Mediterranean way of eating, you must embrace olive oil. It’s one of those basic ingredients essential to life in the Mediterranean and the main source of fat in the Mediterranean diet. For thousands of years, it has provided women living around the Mediterranean Sea with energy, flavor, and good health. Science now backs up those healthy benefits.

A new study in 2005 shows that olive oil has antiinflammatory properties similar to pain relievers such as ibuprofen, offering beneficial effects for people with arthritis and other chronic pain. Olive oil may also protect against heart disease, stroke, and certain cancers.

Olive oil may be why women in the Mediterranean have incredibly low levels of heart disease and cancer. Olive oil contains primarily monounsaturated fats—the kind that increase your good cholesterol and decrease your bad cholesterol. Olive oil contains oleic acid, which has been shown to block some of

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the processes in the body linked to breast cancer. Olive oil also gives body and flavor to plant foods, so you don’t feel deprived.

People in the Mediterranean whisper about the secrets of olive oil for healthy hair, beautiful young skin, and well-lubricated joints. Studies may yet back up these claims, but just look at a gorgeous Greek woman with a celestial figure, or at Sophia Loren in all her Mediterranean agelessness, and ask yourself if olive oil isn’t worth a try.

I think—and research supports this—that olive oil is crucial for weight loss and weight maintenance because of the satisfaction factor. A study of overweight men and women compared one group eating a low-fat diet with another eating a moderate-fat diet with the fat coming mostly from olive and canola oil, peanut butter, and nuts. Both groups had the same number of calories. Only 20 percent of the study participants in the low-fat group were able to stick to their diet, whereas over 50 percent of the moderate-fat group stuck to theirs. Participants who stayed with their diet lost about 11 pounds in one year, but the moderate-fat group kept the weight off. The researchers attrib-uted the moderate-fat group’s success to greater satisfaction with their food. The people in the moderate-fat group sponta-neously increased their consumption of vegetables and fiber as well as protein. It seems including olive oil in the diet may even spawn additional healthy habits.

I find all this interesting, but what really intrigues me about olive oil is the taste. Olive oils aren’t all the same. They come in a wide variety of styles, colors, and flavors, from rich, buttery Spanish olive oils to sharp, pungent, green Tuscan oils. Once almost exclusively the product of Italy, olive oil now comes from many different Mediterranean countries. California has a healthy olive oil industry, too. Besides Italy and Spain, other countries that produce good olive oils are Greece, France, Por-Mediterranean Women Stay Slim, Too

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tugal, Turkey, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, and beyond the Mediterranean, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, and Ar-gentina. The two brands I use the most and recommend heartily for their wonderful flavors are Nuñez de Prado, my favorite 100

percent organic Spanish olive oil, and delicious Les Moulins Mahjoub from Tunisia, produced by the Mahjoub family. Both are fantastic.

I love to cook with olive oil because it makes food more satisfying and delicious, imparting that distinctive Mediterranean quality to food. You might be put off by the taste of a very strong olive oil the first time you try it, but many mild olive oils, particularly from Spain, have a beautiful and subtle flavor that adds just the right complexity to cooked foods and raw salads.

Olive oil helps boost the natural flavor in food and makes you feel satiated without having to eat too much. That’s where it can help you with your weight-loss goals.

The Mediterranean diet is
not
a low-fat diet, and olive oil is the one and only reason for this. Olive oil may be fat, but it doesn’t make you fat. It actually makes you healthier, keeps your arteries clean, and contributes to a strong heart. I’m no doctor, but I’ve read many studies and accounts from health professionals that state in no uncertain terms why olive oil is better for your body than other types of fat, including butter and vegetable oils, which are primarily polyunsaturated fats. As so often happens, ancient wisdom emerges as very sensible in the modern world.

The whole Mediterranean, the sculpture, the

palm, the gold beads, the bearded heroes, the wine,

the ideas, the ships, the moonlight, the winged

gorgons, the bronze men, the philosophers—all of

it seems to rise in the sour, pungent taste of these

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black olives between the teeth. A taste older than

meat, older than wine. A taste as old as cold

water.

—Lawrence Durrell, novelist

√ All About Olive Oil

If you browse the store shelves for olive oil, you will probably see a lot of choices. Because olive oil’s health benefits have been so widely publicized, most grocery stores carry many different brands from different countries. But what’s the difference, and how do you know which oils to choose?

Extra-virgin olive oil is the kind you have probably heard about the most. “Extra-virgin” refers to the level of oleic acid in the olive oil. The higher the level, the lower quality the oil.

Extra-virgin olive oil has the lowest level, which must not exceed 0.8 percent. Back when olive oil was regularly pressed in big wooden presses, extra-virgin olive oil was from the first pressing. The oil from later pressings was of lesser quality. But now that most olive oil companies use more modern equipment, that definition no longer applies. Extra-virgin olive oil must be extracted through natural (mechanical but not chemical) means and is usually the most intensely flavored of all the olive oils.

Virgin olive oils are also extracted naturally, but those graded as “virgin” without the “extra” are those with an oleic acid content below 2 percent. They’re better for cooking because they are less expensive and don’t taste as interesting, whereas the pricier extra-virgin olive oil is best for eating raw, as in salad dressings or drizzled on vegetables, where you can really feature that olive oil flavor.

Other olive oils that aren’t labeled “virgin” are chemically refined oils, so these processed products have a blander taste.

They are sometimes called pure olive oil or refined olive oil.

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Products labeled simply “olive oil” are usually a mix of refined oils and extra-virgin olive oils. A lot of the olive oil produced around the Mediterranean is of a low quality, so it has to be refined to make it suitable for human consumption. By the way,

“first press” and “cold press” aren’t official terms. Anyone can use them, so don’t make these a reason to buy an oil. And don’t be fooled by “light” or “lite” oil, either. All oil has the same amount of fat and calories. “Light” is an unregulated term, meaning the oil is light on flavor. In other words, tasteless. Because I am so committed to freshness and eating unprocessed food, I prefer to use extra-virgin oils that are not refined in my cooking.

And what about color? Color isn’t always linked to taste, but it can be. Green oils are made from younger, less ripe olives. Yellow oils are made from more mature, ripe olives. Green oils sometimes have a sharp astringent taste, but sometimes they are very mellow. Some have a grassy bright flavor, and some will make your palate tingle. Yellow oils may look like melted butter, but some of these are also quite sharp. Others have a rich mellow flavor. The key to discovering which brands and flavors you like best—both for eating raw and for cooking—is in tasting.

√ Tasting and Cooking with Olive Oil

Part of the joy of olive oil is its versatility. But you can’t know how to use it well unless you learn how to taste it. You can start by browsing for olive oils in the store and noticing how different their colors appear. Prices vary, too, as olive oils can be quite expensive. Price isn’t always indicative of quality. If you have the luxury of buying a few small bottles, you can taste them for yourself. Some gourmet food stores have samples they will let you taste, too.

Dip bits of French bread in each type, or taste with a spoon,
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and really notice the differences. Taste how some oils are harsh or tingly on your tongue. Some even feel prickly on your throat.

(This is oleocanthal, the antiinflammatory substance in olive oil.) Some are rich and full, some light with barely any taste, some very reminiscent of olives, some less so. When you are cooking, you can think about what kind of tastes will match the foods you are preparing. For instance, mild oils are best when you want other subtle flavors to come through, as in a relish with roasted vegetables. Stronger oils balance zestier flavors or can be more interesting on salads.

Except the vine, there is no plant which bears a

fruit of as great importance as the olive.

—Pliny the Elder, ancient Roman

philosopher

Some women find the taste of olive oil too strong at first. If you don’t care for the taste of a strong oil, don’t just assume you don’t like olive oil. Look for an oil with a mild or fruity flavor.

Spanish oils tend to have a mild flavor compared with oils from Italy, so you might try one. The more you use olive oil, the more you are likely to begin to appreciate the unique flavor it imparts to food. You can even bake with mild oils instead of butter. Try my Olive Oil and Lemon–Scented Semolina Cake (page 303).