JOHN'S FOOD PAGE

John's Kitchen

"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well."

-Virginia Woolf

I used to be Mr-meat-and-potatoes, but over the last five or six years I have experienced a gradual shift away from meat: I don't buy red meat at all anymore but I do still eat chicken. Although I'm slowly drifting in the direction of vegetarianism, my real interest is not in avoiding meat per se but in reducing my consumption of saturated animal fats and in eliminating all hydrogenated vegetable oils (trans fatty acids) from my diet.

This is *not* a low fat diet; it is the Mediterranean diet of the early 1960s, as put forward by Walter Willett and his colleagues at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Oldways Preservation & Exchange Trust. Basically what I eat is: lots of plant foods (fruits and vegetables, cereals, potatoes, beans, rice, nuts and seeds); bread made without fat (which means I make my own for the most part because store breads contain hydrogenated vegetable oils); fresh fruits as dessert; olive oil as the principal fat (peanut oil and canola oil are also allowed); dairy products (principally cheese, skim milk and fat-free yogurt) consumed daily in small amounts; poultry in small servings two or three times per week; no red meat; wine in small amounts, normally with meals. Fish is allowed but I don't eat it (except for some occasional salmon) just because I don't like it. Sweets are rarely eaten.

Why do I do this? To promote good health and long life: by decreasing the concentration of LDLs while maintaining a high concentration of HDLs and, therefore, reducing the risk of coronary heart disease; and by reducing the risk of colon cancer and other diet-related chronic diseases, including high blood pressure, diabetes and other malignancies. Regular physical activity is included in my lifestyle (I'm a runner), as is the maintenance of normal weight. I must add that the Mediterranean diet is varied and delicious; I can eat as much as I want and I don't feel deprived in any way. If anything, I'm eating better now, and enjoying it more, than ever before.

Here are some Web sites that I have found to be useful:

Mimi's Cyber Kitchen, reputed to be the largest food site on the Web with a huge list of low-fat and vegetarian links.
Cooking Light, the magazine gone cyber, with recipes and articles from the print version.
Vegies Unite!, a searchable vegetarian cookbook with recipes galore.
UIUC Vegetarian Guide.
The Vegetarian Pages, a index to vegetarian resources on the web.
The National Pasta Association has good meatless and super low-fat, heart-healthy pasta recipes.
Epicurious, from the publishers of Gourmet and Bon Appetit.
Chocolate on the Web.
Yahoo's Food and Entertainment List.

Don't forget the wine: a really fine meal requires not just good food but also good friends and good wine:

Village Corner: Wine Sale Catalog, etc.
Robin Garr's Wine Bargain Page, a witty guide to tasting and buying good wine that won't bust your budget.
Take a virtual tour of the California Wine Growing Areas.
Wineries of Northern Michigan
Peter Ruhrberg's German Wine Page: an excellent overview of German wines.
Robert Kostelac's Wines of the Net: a *huge* collection of links to wine sites on the net.
Jarrett Paschel's Wine Page: many links and tasting notes.
Club Oenologie François Rabelais: is a French wine site with many links.

"Cooking is like love - it should be entered into with abandon, or not at all."
-Harriet van Horn

Here are ten of my favorite chicken recipes plus soup and salad:

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