The Fast 800 | Michael Mosley #Health

Back in 2013, Mr Books and I embarked on the original 5:2 Fast Diet. It was easier and harder than we thought. We both lost the weight that we wanted to, we enjoyed the fasting days (weird but true) and we ate a much healthier diet throughout the whole week as a result of what we learnt. However we may have annoyed our family and friends with our evangelical approach to the diet!

Then we moved house halfway through 2015, and things began to slide. One of the booklets moved in with us full-time, and we lost our natural, easy fasting days. Our work routines changed as well and complacency set in.

We still eat well, but portion sizes have slowly crept up, fast days have crept out to once a month, instead of once a week and eating late at night has become a bad habit once again as changes at work have completely reworked our meal time schedules.

I bought a copy of the new and improved version, The Fast 800, when it first came out in Dec 2018. I read the first handful of chapters with the eagerness and excitement of a new year's resolution. But then book sat by my desk, unfinished and untouched, looking askance at me every time I sat down to blog, until I stacked a pile of books on top of it!

A recent clean up unearthed it. But, really, it was my soft, squishy, slowly expanding peri-menopausal tummy that made me open the book again. I want to get back on track and reclaim my waistline!

The Fast 800 differs from the earlier book with a slight increase in the calorie intake for the fast days. Mosley shares the research from studies that have been undertaken since the writing of the first book. For instance, 800 is the new magic calorie number as it's,

high enough to be manageable and sustainable but low enough to trigger a range of desirable metabolic changes.

He goes over information about carbs, insulin, the Mediterranean diet, rapid weight loss, food fads, junk food, sugar, exercise options and various food myths. Mosley also discusses the science behind the benefits of Time Restricted Eating (TRE) and High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). Practical, how-to information is suggested for how to get started and the last part of the book is dedicated to recipes with their calorie counts.

I'm now into week two of my new fast 800 and I'm feeling good. It only takes a little bit of extra thought and care to count and measure food options for the fast days. And I know from last time, that once I work out a few meal combinations that I particularly like, I will just use those as my go-to meals each week. The magic 800 means that I can also have a skim flat-white coffee (72 calories) on my fast days, something I couldn't do when I had to restrict my calories to 500 under the old regime.

My plan is to have a month (or two) of the 5:2 diet (or until my winter jeans fit more comfortably). Then I will move back onto the maintenance diet of 6:1.

And I hope, that by leaving the book lying around the house, Mr Books will be tempted to join me again.

In the Garden of Fugitives by Ceridwen Dovey

Don't let me mislead you into thinking that In the Gardens of the Fugitives is a book about gardening, food and recipes, even though I'm going to start with a recipe. 

Apparently one of the food items uncovered during the excavations of Pompeii, was a medallion of ham flavoured with bay leaves and fig slices. Normally a mere reference to a meal in a book wouldn't be enough to have me scrambling for recipes, except this week the Christmas ham has been on my mind.

I have a lovely recipe for a marmalade, dijon mustard & whole clove glaze that I inherited from a beloved aunt, that has been my go-to for the past decade. I'm not sure that family tradition will allow me to mess with this on Christmas Day, but I'm now dead keen to try the Pompeian version at some point. Boiling a ham and wrapping it pastry isn't my usual thing though (which seems to be how the Ancients preferred their ham), so I've found an online recipe that tweeks these old flavours by basically swapping them out with my usual ingredients. 

It looks a little something like this:

1 whole, cooked leg of ham
about 16 bay leaves
about 30 whole dried figs (I might even experiment with fresh figs in the autumn)

Glaze
1 cup smooth fig jam
1 tablespoon whole grain mustard
2 teaspoons dry English mustard
1 tablespoon finely chopped rosemary
finely grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
1⁄2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

The idea being to insert half a bay leaf into the scored sections of the ham, as one would the cloves, then cover with the glaze. Towards the end of the cooking time, add the dried or fresh figs to the juice in the bottom of the pan for about 15 mins.

To finish it off the meal, à la Romaine, float rose petals in one's glass of wine.

Sounds delish!

The flip side of feasting is death. The ancients had always understood that. A banquet is life in miniature. You arrive hungry, eat and drink your fill, make merry, then go to sleep. All feasts, all lives, must come to an end. Death, tugging your ear, says: Live, I am coming.

AD 45-79 | Still-life wall panel from the House of the Chaste Lovers |
Cockerel pecking at pomegranates, figs, and pears.

Okay, so how did we end up in Pompeii talking about figs and ham and rose petals?

I haven't read Dovey's first novel, Blood Kin, but I did read and adore her kookier second story collection, Only the Animals. This collection felt like an emerging writer still playing around with what kind of writer she wanted to be. The stories were fun and clever but they also showed that Dovey had some bigger ideas that she was prepared to play with. In the Garden of the Fugitives the writing and style felt more assured and the themes more autobiographical. It feels like she has now arrived as a fully-fledged writer.

Dovey explores, via a letter writing regime between the older mentor figure with regrets, Royce, and the younger, lost soul, Vita, themes of obsession, confession and atonement. As she says early on journeys need a point; a narrative arc. Both narrators, the letter writers, have very distinct voices and stories that intersect at times.

They are both lonely and seem to be overtaken by various forms of guilt, melancholia and nostalgia. Vita's story is more a coming-of-age one, whilst Royce is looking back on his life from his deathbed. Vita is still searching for a place or space to belong, whereas Royce spent his life trying to find someone to belong to. Neither of them ever seemed to feel at home in themselves.

Each and every one us contains a whole world of suffering.

Royce's voice sounded cultivated and charming. He was clearly educated and erudite. His letters were searching, teasing, insidious even. Vita's voice was more confronting. Harsh at times, sometimes cruel and to-the-point, she was often cool and distant. Their letter writing attempts to reinterpret, revise and reassess how they got to where they currently are. We all have a story to tell; and that story evolves with each retelling.

They both shared complex relationships with place. For Royce, place was caught up in how he felt about the people within the spaces. He said that it is impossible to experience a place like Pompeii outside the prism of your own desires. And certainly for Royce experiencing anything, including human relationships, outside the prism of his desires would be nigh on impossible. He had the emotional range typical of most narcissists.

However, his stories about his time in Pompeii, excavating the site known as the garden of fugitives, with his first obsession, Kitty, were utterly compelling. I could have had a whole story just about this time in Italy. 

Once you can inspect your own history like an artifact, you're a step closer to liberating yourself from it.

It took me a while to warm to Vita's story, even though I have shared many of her feelings of confusion about belonging. Perhaps it was the distance at which she liked to keep people, even her readers. Vita was often hamstrung by indecision, doubt and guilt. Her relationships reflected this muddle.  

One of the places that Vita was trying to fit into was Mudgee, NSW. The town I called home for 18 years. Naturally I was curious to hear what Dovey, via Vita, had to say about it.

To people just passing through, Mudgee is charming. The town's quaint sandstone buildings and wide streets, and, further out, the wineries and orchards in perfect rows, the shaded paths along the Cudgegong River. The natural beauty of the surroundings blinds most casual visitors to the town's unexpected strangeness, its schizoid social self. Itinerant labourers, gentleman farmers, amateur winemakers, corporate wine overseers, fly-in-fly-out mine workers, tree-changers, bogans, all bumping up against one another. 

There's the cheap cafe serving pies next to a hipster cafe serving artisanal brews. The old shitty pub with greasy carpets and pokies beside an organic wine bar. The farmers' market displays vegetables with authentically soiled roots and handmade cheese, but the explosions from the coal mines ringing the valley regularly destroy the peace. 

I fit in here because I, too, am caught between identities.

I suspect these comments are true of most small towns in Australia. Especially those that attract visitors and weekenders from the bigger cities around them. Mudgee is definitely one of those towns. But I lived there for a long time and never heard the sound the explosions from the coal mine at Ulan. Although it's quite possible that her character, living amongst the wineries on an olive farm, was on the Ulan side of town. Her descriptions made me think of the hills out past the cemetery and airport, on the way to the mines. Perhaps from there you could hear the blasts.

However a big part of Vita's story was about South Africa. She was born there, but her parents moved to Australia when she was young. She inherited not only their white guilt about Apartheid, but she suffered from her own version of guilt. Her time with a counsellor with an interesting excursion into

political will, individual culpability and responsibility. She not only reflected on the injustices and generational effects of Apartheid, but also the Australian colony experience, American slavery, Germany & the Holocaust. 

One comment struck me in particular, as I was able to relate it to the current debates around climate change politics. I hear many Gen Z's talking about climate change with a similar refrain. 

It wasn't me, I shouldn't have to feel responsible for decisions I didn't make. This way of thinking can lead to the false conviction that the injustices of the present are similarly outside your influence, that things will remain the same regardless of what you do or don't do.

I also learnt about psychohistorians. I didn't even know it was a thing, but learning about the 'why' of history and examining the differences between stated intentions and actual events sounds exactly like something I'd like to explore further.

The rallying cry of psychohistorians is that history repeats itself because of the propulsive effects of humiliation....They believe that the traumatised country, like the traumatised individual, has a psyche that is fractured. It has an unconscious. It buries painful memories, It indulges wishful fantasies through national myths....The Germans have developed an entire vocabulary and classification system for the different kinds of guilt suffered by different generations.

There's a whole lot of stuff about archaeology and Pompeii and Royce's reasons for feeling guilty and remorseful, that I haven't gone into here. Both Kate & Lisa explore these angles further, if you're interested. Like both Kate & Lisa, In the Garden of Fugitives will be added to my best books of 2019 list.

Kate @Books Are My Favourite and Best review.
Lisa @ANZLit Lovers review.

Favourite Quote:

Not one of the wise elders whose path I was privileged to cross in my years there ever said to me: No human being should have to go through life alone; do everything you can to find your person, the one who makes it bearable, the one who will love you back. Or everything else will be for naught anyway.

The Belly of Paris by Émile Zola

Le Ventre de Paris (also known as The Belly of Paris - a direct translation, or The Fat and the Thin
referring to one of the main ideas explored in the story) is not only an extremely visual story, but a visceral one too.

Zola's descriptions of the food markets at Les Halles are colourful, very detailed and lengthy! He leaves no basket or barrow unturned. Every smell is documented including the decaying, the over-ripe and the composted.

The political and social injustices of the times are also symbolised in the Les Halles markets and reinforced by the various natures of the people who live and work there.

Many of Zola's standard themes are explored here - moral ambiguity, excess, waste, realism, gluttony, materialism, decadence, the haves and the have-nots. Consumerism, in particular, is placed under the Zola microscope in The Belly of Paris, as is the whole idea of spying, voyeurism, surveillance and gossip. Everyone watches everyone else and everyone discusses it with anyone who will listen.

One of the curiosities, for me, in this story and the previous Zola, La Curée is the whole push & pull against the renovation of Paris by Haussmann. On the one hand there is a real sense of loss and nostalgia for 'Old Paris', yet there's also an appreciation of the improved sanitation and open spaces that the clean up achieved. Zola writes about the tension between the corruption and the dynamism inherent in this process in all of his books.

It makes me think of the current concerns many Sydney-siders feel for the major road work and light rail projects happening around the city right now. I hear lots of people bemoaning the changing face of Sydney and the loss of old Sydney and that things will never be the same again. That it will make things worse not better. As a devotee of museums and history, I know that these exact same sentiments were expressed in the 1920's when large areas of The Rocks and North Sydney were pulled down to build the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

No-one in Sydney, or visiting Sydney, could now imagine it without our beautiful, graceful bridge spanning the harbour. It is instagrammed and hashtagged on an hourly basis all around the world. Just like we now love and appreciate the beautiful, graceful boulevards and open spaces created by Haussmann in Paris. Neither city misses the slums or narrow, crowded streets that were razed to create these beautiful new spaces.

At the time, the fear of change and sentimentality stopped many of the locals from seeing the possible beauty or improved functionality that would result from the change. They could not imagine that future generations would be grateful for the sacrifice and upheaval required to update, move forward and 'future-proof' their city.

I'm not suggesting that our current west connex, north connex & light rail projects will ever be considered beautiful, charming and elegant by future generations, that might be stretching the friendship too far, but they will add (in part) a functionality to our city that is currently lacking. Sadly our particular project is not being managed by a larger-than-life character like Haussmann. His bold vision is sadly lacking in Sydney. But then a large factor in his work was to make it easier for governments to police the city and stop the barricades - a practical, controversial consideration that upset many at the time. Yet the Champs Elysee was born. And who could now imagine Paris without the Champs Elysee?

Une Boutique de Charcuterie (1873) by Edouard Jean Dambourgez

To get back to Zola's main theme in The Belly of Paris, though, let's start with Claude Lantier (the artist based on Paul Cezanne) during his 'Battle of the Fat and the Thin' discussion,

In these pictures Claude saw the entire drama of human life; and he ended by dividing everyone into Fat and Thin, two hostile groups, one of which devours the other and grows fat and sleek and endlessly enjoys itself.

'Cain', he said, 'was a Fat man and Abel a Thin one. Ever since that first murder, the big eaters have sucked the lifeblood out of the small eaters. The strong constantly prey on the weak....Beware of the Fat, my friend!'

Gavard is Fat, but the sort that pretends to be Thin....Mademoiselle Saget and Madame Lecœur are Thin, but the kind to beware of - Thin people desperate to be Fat. My friend Marjolin, little Cadine, La Sarriette, they're all Fat. They don't know it yet, because they're so young and innocent. It must be said that the Fat , before they get older, are charming creatures.

Zola not only sees the modern trend in a division between the haves and have nots, the takers and the givers, but relates it back to the very beginning of human story. Since the beginning of time, we have been creating stories to bring to light our differences; what does it say about us, I wonder, that we are still telling the same stories thousands of years later?

Are we slow learners? Do we never learn from the lessons of history? Does every generation have to re-invent the wheel? Or are we just eternally interested in ourselves and our stories?

References to Les Halles are everywhere throughout the story and read like paintings. Fortunately many, many artists have painted these scenes, including the one chosen for the cover of the Oxford University Press edition by Victor-Gabriel Gilbert, The Square in Front of Les Halles 1880.

Brian Nelson in his Introduction explains that Zola 'combines the vision of a painter with the approach of a sociologist and reporter.' Below are a few of my favourite examples.

Les Halles 1895 by Léon Lhermitte

The opening to the Rue Rambteau was blocked by a barricade of orange pumpkins in two rows, sprawling at their ease and swelling out their bellies. Here and there gleamed the varnished golden-brown of a basket of onions, the blood-red of a heap of tomatoes, the soft yellow of a display of cucumbers, and the deep mauve of aubergines.

Les Halles

That church is a piece of bastard architecture, made up of the death agony of the Middle Ages and the birth pains of the Renaissance....There it is with its rose windows, and without a congregation, while Les Halles keep growing next to it.

Les Halles 1879 by Jean Beraud

A huge arcade, a gaping doorway, would open to his gaze; and the markets seemed to crowd up one on top of the other, with their two lines of roof, their countless shutters and blinds...a vast Babylonian structure of metal wonderfully delicate in its workmanship, and criss-crossed by hanging gardens, aerial galleries, and flying buttresses.

Les Halles and St Eustache by Eugene Galien-Laloue

The giant markets, overflowing with food, had brought things to a head. They seemed like some satiated beast, embodying Paris itself, grown enormously fat, and silently supporting the Empire.

Still Life with Cheese 1870's by Antoine Vollon.

The warm afternoon sun had softened the cheeses; the mould on the rinds was melting and glazing over with the rich colours of red copper verdigris, like wounds that have badly healed; under the oak leaves, a breeze lifted the skins of the olivets, which seemed to move up and down with the slow deep breathing of a man asleep.

Favourite Character: Maybe not my favourite character, but certainly, for me, the most memorable was La Belle Lisa 'she was a steady, sensible Macquart, reasonable and logical in her craving for well-being.' Quietly ambitious, determined, hard-working, voluptuous. Lisa embodies the bourgeoisie sensibility of looking out for oneself and turning a blind eye to the larger problems within society as being none of her business and beyond her control to do anything about anyway.

Favourite or Forget: As I slowly read Zola's books in chronological order for Fanda's #Zoladdiction each year, they all become forever burnt onto my memory. The abundance of food descriptions and Zola's play with homographs (trifle, ripening, fruit, sweetly etc) made this one a fun read. I think this particular OWC cover is my favourite of all the Zola covers.

Facts: Le Ventre de Paris was serialised in the daily newspaper L'État from 12 January to 17 March 1873. It's the third book in Zola's Rougon-Macquart series.

Tokyo Style Guide by Jane Lawson

Thankfully Jane Lawson's book, Tokyo Style Guide is more of a walking tour of Tokyo than a pure style guide, as my interest in shopping is minimal. Unfortunately, it's also a hardback book, so it didn't get to come on holidays with me. I browsed it a little before leaving, but have thoroughly enjoyed going through it properly now that we're back - it has helped to make sense of some of what we saw and experienced as well as providing fodder for next time! 

This is not a comprehensive travel guide for all the things to see and do in Tokyo.
It's best used in conjunction with other guides (unless you're a complete shopping junkie, then Jane is your guru!)

Most of Lawson's walks feature specific shops and areas of Tokyo renown for their stylish wares or style icons, but there's also a lot of important, practical stuff, like where to get a good coffee, yakitori and tasty dumplings. Lawson also includes temples, parks, markets and other interesting sites that the first-time, overwhelmed visitor to Tokyo might miss. We skipped most of the shopping experiences in this book but I still found lots to inspire me in planning where to go and what to expect.

Lawson stresses the 'magic' of finding your own way, 'getting lost in Tokyo is to be expected, so take a deep breath and make it part of the fun.' I was very grateful to have read this particular section BEFORE going to Tokyo. We only got a little bit lost once, although one or other of us got bamboozled by directions numerous times, just luckily not both of us together! (Which probably what makes us such a good travelling combo). It's not always easy to go with the flow when you're tired and stressed in a strange country, but Japan was certainly one of the easier countries in which to do so.

What I really loved about Tokyo Style Guide though were the pages and pages of fabulous, colourful street photography. They prompted me with good ideas before heading off as well as giving us lots of good memories when we got back home.

Lawson's other helpful tips included wearing slip on shoes and checking your socks for holes.

She went through some useful phrases which included the Japanese characters so that you could feel confident about walking into the right toilet block or out of the correct doorway.

Some of the train travel info was out of date as the big wide world of phone apps has made this much easier in just two years.

Tokyo Style Guide was a December 2016 publication - a lot can happen in Tokyo in 18 months!

My Top Ten Foodie Books

The Broke and the Bookish host a weekly meme called Top Ten Tuesday.

Each week they nominate a topic to encourage those of us who love a good list to get all listy.

This week it's all about food.

My Top Ten Foodie Books 

I've been on a healthy food journey for most of my life.

Trying to find the balance between eating well and satisfying my sweet tooth has been a lifelong challenge. Combined with my environmental concerns about production, pesticides and waste, I have spent a lot of time researching, reading and trying to put into practice a sustainable way of living my life.

1.
The two books that got me started on my food journey were gardening books purchased in the same year.
I was 24 years of age and had just moved into my own (permanent, non-uni) townhouse and I couldn't wait to start my own little herb garden.
These two books inspired me to move beyond the usual herbs as well as attempt to have a pesticide free garden (Companion Planting by Richard Bird).
What Herb is That? by John & Rosemary Hemphill also gave me recipe suggestions for how to use all those delicious herbs I was now growing.

2.
A decade later I stumbled upon In Praise of Slow by Carl Honore.
Ten years into my professional career, life was hectic and I was feeling a little out of a control.
The title of this book screamed at me to buy it NOW!
In Praise of Slow helped me to get back in touch with seasonal living and helped me to rediscover the joy of growing and preparing fresh, homegrown foods.

3.
A chance find in a second-hand bookshop, took me down the next path to eating well consistently.
Changing Habits, Changing Lives by Cyndi O'Meara really did change my life - slowly but surely - just as O'Meara said it would.

4.
It wouldn't be a foodie book post without a book by Michael Pollan!
When I 'discovered' him in 2012, I was more than ready to hear what he had to say.
I started with Food Rules: An Eater's Manual.
Everything he said made sense and seemed practical.
It was quick and easy to read as well!

5.
In Defence of Food by Michael Pollan was read in preparation for Pollan's visit to Australia in 2012.
Sadly, I don't remember very much about this book (& my post doesn't enlighten me either!)
A reread may be on the cards.

6.
Love and Hunger by Charlotte Wood was recommended to me by good friend & fellow blogger, Girl Booker.
Charlotte Wood (as in the author of the dystopian novel The Natural Way of Things) is also a foodie.
This part memoir/part ode to comfort food/part joy in the sharing of meals together was just what I needed as I settled into my new role as wife and step-mum.

7.
The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan took a while to read as it was my swim-bag book.
Curiously every time I think about this book, I smell chlorine!
The slow read gave me plenty of time to absorb and reflect on all of Pollan's thought-provoking points.

8.
I still feel a little dubious about I Quit Sugar by Sarah Wilson, but it encouraged me (& Mr Books) to cut sugar out of our coffee and it changed my breakfast routine, so for that reason alone it deserves to be mentioned here.
I still make a toasted muesli based loosely on Wilson's granola recipe.
But I refuse to give up fruit or dried fruit completely.

9.
Given my desire to practice a more mindful and slow approach to food, The Fast Diet by Michael Mosley and Mimi Spence may not seem like a logical choice.
But we were a perfect match from page one.
The 5:2 diet is one that suits my lifestyle and the science seemed reasonable too.

10.
To finish up my top ten, I'm heading back into the realm of food fiction.
The best foodie novel I've ever read goes to Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel.
Recipes that promote love and good will and end with amazing sex...what's not to like?

What's your favourite foodie read?

Previous post - #AusReadingMonth Q&A
How much do you know about Australia?

Man by Kim Thuy

Earlier on in the year I attended an author event with Thuy and read Ru. I adored it. It was beautiful, heart-felt and poetic.

Last week I was in need of some beauty and picked up Thuy's latest book, Man in anticipation.

Once again, Thuy explores the immigrants story. The search for self, family and belonging is teased out thoughtfully via our narrator, Man.

Language and its many vagaries are played with, although sadly, I suspect that reading this book in English means that we miss many of the subtleties between Vietnamese and French.

Thuy/Man also talks about this issue of language,

To grasp the nuances between two related words, to distinguish melancholy from grief, for example, I weigh each one. When I hold them in my hands, one seems to hang like grey smoke while the other is compressed into a ball of steel. I guess and I grope and the answer is often the right one as the wrong one. I constantly make mistakes.

I confess that Man's story failed to engage me in the same way as Ru. It was an interesting, enjoyable tale, but it lacked the vibrancy and beauty that I experienced with Ru.

Perhaps the autobiographical nature of Ru added that personal touch that gave its story an extra edge or immediacy. Maybe the love story at the centre of Man felt unbelievable. I also wanted more food stories.

But there is no denying Thuy's ability to create unique word pictures in both books:

I had learned how to fall asleep very quickly, on command, so that my eyelids would serve as curtains over landscapes or scenes from which I preferred to be absent. I was able to move from consciousness to unconsciousness with a snap of the fingers, between two sentences, or before the remark that would offend me was spoken.

The Last Banquet by Jonathan Grimwood

What a surprise.

This scrumptious, treat of a novel is full of evocative tastes, smells and textures. The language is rich with flavour and detail.

Set in pre-revolutionary France we follow the life and times of Jean-Marie Charles D'Aumout from orphan to scholar to lover to zoo-keeper to spy to recluse and, last but not least, chef.

The common thread throughout this book is Jean-Marie's desire for taste & interest in food.

His willingness to try anything and his ability to describe each taste in his journal is more entertaining than tantalising.

His search for new tastes & flavours leads him down many dangerous roads and into the arms (or should I say between the legs) of many a young woman!

The Last Banquet is sexy, heart-warming and riveting - give it a go - I dare you!

The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan

I never thought I would find myself regaling my family and friends with tales of apple seeds, tulip mania and the merits of marijuana around the dinner table.

I never thought I would chat with friends over a glass of wine about Prohibition, cider production and Johnny Appleseed.

The Botany of Desire is more than a simple discussion about four common plants and their relationship to human beings. It's about the impact we've had on each other - how we've adapted to the plant and how it has adapted to us. We meet the apple, the tulip, marijuana and the humble potato. It sounds scientific, and it is, but mainly it's just plain fascinating.

There are times within each of the four sections where Pollan suddenly shines out as a master storyteller. His language soars to new heights and for a brief while I forget that I'm reading a non-fiction book about the cultivation of food and its impact on the environment, humans and history.

For a moment I'm spellbound by story!

Try it; you wont be disappointed.

Love and Hunger (and High Tea) by Charlotte Wood

Love and Hunger caters to my current food obsession perfectly.

It provides elements of the Slow Food movement, the common sense of Michael Pollan and the appreciation of good food and cooking as a way of living life to the full.

Charlotte (notice I use her first name familiarly! Having shared a High Tea with her last weekend at Better Read Than Dead, I don't feel right referring to her coldly as Wood anymore.)
Anyway...Charlotte weaves family anecdotes and personal vignettes together with her favourite recipes.

I have already made Charlotte's hedgehog slice to great acclaim and I have the puys lentils and chicken stock firmly in my sights.

Charlotte reminds me that cooking is an act of love. That food, the aroma of it cooking, the taste and textures of it, stay with us for life. Food is memory. 
Sharing a meal is a lovely way to bring together family and friends, to create a mood, a memory and magic.

Sadly, Charlotte had lost her voice for the High Tea and most of her observations were made via her good friend Stephanie Clifford-Smith, who filled in admirably.
Even with a large group of virtual strangers gathered around a bookshop table, food (and tea and maybe a glass of wine or 2) had the power to bring us all together, opening up about our food stories and sharing our food memories. 

The best part, though, was sharing this fulfilling experience with the lovely Thea and the wonderful GirlBooker and her partner.

Michael Pollan on How to Eat

Last week I attended a night of Ideas at the House with Michael Pollan - the venue Sydney's beautiful Opera House - the topic 'How to Eat'.

In preparation I read In Defence of Food, started The Botany of Desire and checked out his website.

Thanks to my research I didn't really learn anything new about Michael Pollan's views on food, but he is a very entertaining speaker and it was a pleasure to listen to him in person (we had great seats only 10 rows back from the stage!)

If I'd had a chance to read further through The Botany of Desire, I would have asked Michael how his wild apple seeds were fairing as his chapter on the history of the apple was incredibly fascinating. I found myself quoting it to my husband and friends whenever they gave me an opening.

I also made the mistake of taking In Defence of Food on holidays with me! My long-suffering husband was treated to several soap-box harangues about food, politics and the environment that decreased in coherence as the intake of pool-side cocktails increased! 

I am definitely a convert to the cause of eating well, ethically and responsibly. It's a no-brainer really. Pollan's research also clearly shows the health benefits for us and for the other animals and plants with which we share our planet.

The hard part will be convincing two teenage step children the advantages for them in eating more fruit and vegetables!!

And finally, a few random words from Pollan, from the other night...

"TV is designed to pin you to the couch - it is not motivational. We watch more sport and cooking shows than we play sport or cook!"

"We eat and shop thoughtlessly, unconsciously. By devoting more time - asking questions, growing our own food - paying more attention to our food and the process of preparing food - it's not a hardship; it's a pleasure."

"Quality not quantity."

Finally here's a link to the interview so you can see and hear for yourself.

Changing Habits Changing Lives by Cyndi O'Meara

Last Easter, I discovered this book by Cyndi O'Meara in a second-hand bookshop in Mornington.

I've been reading stuff about food, where it comes from, how to eat properly, stay healthy etc for years and years.
Where I can, I make changes in my daily eating habits.
Some of these changes stick; some don't.
Some work; some don't.

I employ a healthy amount of scepticism (and research) before doing anything drastic. I also use a certain amount of 'gut-feeling' (no pun intended!) about what makes sense and what doesn't.

This books works for me.

A couple of quotes might help to explain why.

"This is not a revolutionary diet...it's an evolutionary diet. It is not something new - it's something quite old...as a consequence, this is a diet which our bodies thrive on."

"A healthy diet is not just about the number of calories or the amount of fat; it should take a holistic approach. This book is about changing your lifestyle, the way you feel, the way you think about food."

"Most diets expect you to change everything overnight. That's why most people stick to such a diet for 2-6 weeks, and then go back to their old ways. The way to use this book is to read a chapter and then make a change...Once you've mastered that single change of habit and it becomes a part of your life, go on to the next change."

Makes sense doesn't it?

I've had this book for 13 months now and I've just completed chapter 10 "Go Back to Butter".

Some of the chapters were easy for me as they were habits I already had, or partially had. A couple were completely new ways of approaching things and took time. And Chapter 3 on eating slowly is still a work in progress!

Chapter 6 is about healthy reading. The main focus of the chapter is to read the information labels on the food you buy more closely. However I also took on board the idea of reading more about food and health to confirm/deny O'Meara's theories.

There is a lot of conflicting information out there. And a lot of it is sponsored research from multinational companies that make food products!

There are also people like Michael Pollan - a journalist and family man interested in healthy eating who decided to research what kind of food he and his family should eat.

The result has been several books such as 'The Omnivore's Dilemma', 'In Defence of Food' and 'The Botany of Desire'.

He is coming to Australia in July so I've been going through his book called 'Food Rules: An Eater's Manual' .

It has been a great complementary read to O'Meara's book.

Here's a few simple rules that I particularly like...

"Eat only food that will eventually rot".

"It's not food if it arrived through the window of your car."

"Eat your colours".

"Eat animals that have themselves eaten well."

"Don't eat breakfast cereals that change the colour of the milk."

"Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself."

"Have a glass of wine with dinner."

Speaking of which, my husband is serving up our homemade spaghetti bolonaise right now, which is my cue to pour 2 glasses of wine...and eat well.

Bon appetit!