Body Conscious Ramblings

I first heard about Tosca Reno and Clean-eating from a friend who had a subscription to the Oxygen magazine. I gave it a try and soon started buying the magazine each time it came out. Then came the cookbooks and books on clean-eating. I’ve enjoyed them all, scaled back on the magazines, since they became repetitive. The books don’t really bring anything new either. Nevertheless, I did purchase the latest cookbook that’s entirely devoted to recipes, which I greatly appreciated. All in all it’s a good cookbook, very nicely presented, with shiny pages, hardcover and clear and concise recipes. I do like the presentation a lot. Pictures are not always of prime quality, but most are appealing.

There are couple of things that do bother me about this particular cookbook:

1.  The use of obscure terminology and spices – it seems like she wants to create mystery and at the same time confusion by trying to integrate other cultures in the recipes. I’m not closed to the idea of trying new spices, but she goes overboard with it, since some of us if not most of us, don’t have access to fancy exotic ingredients.

2. Another thing that really gets to me is the impression I get after flipping through the book that she is desperately trying to appeal to the North America consumer who cannot envision a  meal without potatoes! I found about 15 recipes that called for some form of potato! I understand she is trying to make them into healthy meals, but the truth is potato is a mostly useless starch that sends your pancreas into an overproduction of insulin, especially when mixed with fats and protein. So my only conclusion is that she is trying to make sure that the cookbook will be well received by North Americans wanting their fill of potato.

3. Another pet-peeve of mine, which is strictly speaking me being picky, is misuse of the French language – it should read “beans à la Tosca” not “beans alla Tosca” *

If you don’t mind the potato overload in the book, you will like what she has to offer. Now, I have not tried out all the recipes yet, so I cannot judge the ease of use or weather or not the meals come out as promised. I do have a favourite, though. It’s the Hazelnut espresso cookies, they are divine, but you do have to restrain yourself from eating a whole batch at once, after all it’s just egg whites and brown sugar.

Enjoy!

* Point taken from the publisher : Tosca is using the italian version of the expression “à la”, so I withdraw my pet-peeve.