Why was I in the Low-Fat Cookbook Biz?

Because I love food! Vivid colour, interesting texture, bombastic flavour and lots of pizzazz - I want it all. My passionate expertise centres on low-fat cooking, the result of my almost lifetime battle with obesity coupled with my enduring passion for food in all its glorious and fascinating aspects. My philosophy is no added fat - I don't believe in substituting one high fat regime for another - my aim is to help you achieve a total low-fat, high nutrition gastronomic lifestyle.

Eat with Joy and Gusto

I embrace healthy eating with great joy and gusto, but I'm not the food police; one must come to a health giving low-fat way of life of one's own volition. An enforced, unimaginative spell of low-fat eating against one's will means cottage cheese, naked slabs of steamed fish and grilled chicken breasts, piles of raw veg and undressed salads and no puddings at all. And the result? Dreadful boredom, followed, often, by a glum and desperate urge to binge. Nutrition without sensual enjoyment is grim indeed; healthy eating must be a celebration, not a punishment.

Techniques

I tried to teach technique above all. I hope that my readers will be able to apply these techniques generally to all their cooking, not just the specific recipes in my books. Take on board the oil-water spray, the stock saute, the flavour infusions, the sauces from vegetable purees and so on, and a low-fat kitchen lifestyle becomes easy and natural. Above all meals become pleasurable, colourful, vibrant and delicious; a well rounded fiesta of vegetables, fruits, grains, fish, lean meat and poultry. My recipes stress colour, excitement, pizzaz, and plenty of wonderful nutrition. I always want them to resonate with big, round intense flavours and fragrances. The lack of added fat means that the cloying, blunting quality of those fats (and oils) is gone, so that all those lovely, healthy ingredients burst into vivid life. What a pleasure!