FOREWORD I vividly remember my first visit to 403 East 12 New York City.’ Anyone could do this.” Street. As soon as I stepped in the door, I was “C’mon,” I said as I pointed to my vegeta- met with curious questions. ble salad, which was ethereal and juicy (not an The first was: “It’s really assy, right?” adjective I use for salads), easily one of the best “Grassy?” I asked. salads of my life. “No . assy,” Marco repeated loudly, over He laughed and waved a hand dismissively. the bustle of the bar. “People say, ‘Oh my God! This is amazing!’ Just It was true. The red wine that Marco had dress it while the vegetables are warm—it all handed me smelled just like a barn. The hints soaks in. Pour the oil on after the red wine vin- of wet horse ass were unmistakable. This egar, and add salt and pepper. Anyone could do excited me because (a) the Chinon (Bernard this.” Baudry, 2010, Loire Valley) was the best caber- And that’s the beauty of Marco. He can net franc I’d ever had, and (b) I’d finally found a show you how to “pull the wool over everyone’s wine descriptor I could understand. eyes” in wonderful, ethical ways. Can simple Marco Canora, of course, is co-owner and food be elegant? Can delicious food be fast? executive chef of the James Beard Award– Can a three-ingredient dish—slapped together nominated Hearth, where we now stood, just in five minutes—taste like it took hours to inside the entrance. He’s also executive chef make? Yes, and, believe it or not, it can all be and partner of Terroir Wine Bar. Prior to strik- good for you, even if it tastes like sin. ing out on his own, he held various positions I was introduced to Marco in 2009 because at Gramercy Tavern and the famed Cibreo in he’d lost 25-plus pounds experimenting with Florence, Italy. He was Tom Colicchio’s right- the Slow-Carb Diet® as described in The hand man as the original chef of Craft restau- 4-Hour Body. He’d tweaked and fine-tuned rant, which won a James Beard Award for Best the guidelines to complement his incredible New Restaurant during his tenure. culinary skills. It was a formidable combina- all in his kitchen and—more important—with of Bruce Lee: “Absorb what is useful, discard By the end of the evening, I concluded what tion . and a delicious one. He went from a size his stomach. He’s added his own inventions, what is not, add what is uniquely your own.” many others had: Hearth is the most under- 40 waist to a size 35 waist without ever being turned a few things upside down, put a twist You are in great hands. Enjoy the ride. rated restaurant in all of New York City. hungry or bored. on the classics, and created what you now hold Pura vida, “Cooking is not hard. Cooking is not hard.” But Marco’s not rigidly dedicated to one in your hands: a guide to making masterpieces Marco repeated this five times during our eve- “diet,” per se. without being a master. Tim Ferriss, ning together. “I feel like I’ve pulled the wool Marco has cherry-picked his favorite Marco is a pioneer, and I’ll recommend that author of The 4-Hour Workweek, over everyone’s eyes as a ‘successful chef in aspects of many books over the years, testing it you follow in his footsteps. In the wise words The 4-Hour Body, and The 4-Hour Chef 8 | A GOOD FOOD DaY FOREWORD | 9 introducTiOn My Daily Bread cuts loaded with fat, growth hormones, and I’ve been a professional chef and cook for antibiotics—or starch-heavy food like pasta twenty years, the last sixteen of them in New and garlic bread. Vegetables? Maybe a small York City. I’m a lifer, and I love it. But being a pile of lettuce as an afterthought, but not much chef means crazy hours and even crazier eat- beyond that. ing habits. There’s no such thing as “listening Amped up by another cigarette and a final to your body” when you’re a chef in a profes- large cup of coffee, I head into service. Six sional kitchen in New York. Awareness of my hours of bright lights, heat, speed, and con- health and eating habits did not possess an stant stimulation whiz by. Though I tasted iota of my brain space. dozens of bites and ingested a full dinner’s This is what a typical day for me, a working worth of calories, it never feels like they add chef, used to look like: I wake up at 10 a.m. and up to a meal. Service winds down, and I’m hit the coffee. I don’t feel hungry for breakfast thinking about relaxing with a smoke and a because I was out last night, after dinner ser- drink. After a few of each, I start to get hungry. vice, eating and drinking with chef buddies I ate lunch at 4:30 p.m., so now that it’s 1 a.m., until 2 a.m. Coffee is my sustenance until I get I’m ready for dinner. It’s how plenty of people to the restaurant in the afternoon—and that’s feel when they finish their day of work, but for when I start in on the bread. Loads of fresh most it’s 6 p.m., and for me and the rest of the bread arrive daily, so I swipe a heel of bread working chefs it’s 1 a.m. and continue picking at it for a few hours. Now At this hour, I’m not going home and whip- it’s time for a cigarette. I started smoking at age ping up a salad. I head to Corner Bistro for a nineteen, but never considered myself a hard- few beers topped off by a cheeseburger, or go core smoker. As long as my first cigarette isn’t to Great New York Noodletown for a late-night until the late afternoon, I’m doing all right. So, Chinese feast of roast baby pig. On the nights it’s now 4:30 p.m. and, if you’ve added it up, the I don’t go out, I stop by the 24-hour bodega, only thing I’ve put in my body is the question- order ham and cheese on a hard roll with mus- able trinity of coffee, bread, and cigarettes. tard and watery lettuce, smash some potato Staff gathers for family meal at 4:30 p.m., chips in it and nail that for my 1:30 a.m. dinner my first meal of the day. Family meal is meant just before bed. I also make up for skipping the to be cost-effective and fit for a crowd. It’s deli- morning cigarettes by smoking ten in the last cious, but not exactly the stuff Dr. Oz is preach- three hours of my night. ing about. We’re talking a lot of meat—and not Remarkably, this was my routine for nearly the local grass-fed variety, but the cheaper twenty years. I was overcaffeinated, dehy- | 11 drated, overstimulated, full of starch, sugar, cany, where good food is central to everyday trainer. That trainer was the first person to fill fatty meat, alcohol, and nicotine. Until my life, and much of it comes from the land just my head with solid nutrition advice— eating body started to stage a revolt. outside the kitchen window. So, while every- breakfast, switching to lean meats, putting Quite the glowing setup for a book on one else was grooving on breakfast cereals vegetables back in my diet, etc.—but I still healthy eating, isn’t it? As we all know, life has and bologna on white bread, my sister and I didn’t change what I ate. I thought by working a way of kicking you in the ass. Being forced were eating frittatas with zucchini and basil, my ass off at the gym three days a week rack- to make a significant shift in my own diet or warm string bean and potato salad, all made ing up hours of cardio, and cutting down on forced me to rethink what it means to cook with fresh vegetables from the garden and the late-night food fests, that the slim and trim and eat healthy. You’ll be happy to know that dressed with good olive oil and red wine vine- Marco would appear. it sure as hell doesn’t mean deprivation or gar. I carry this with me in my own restaurant, But he didn’t. I had more muscle definition, bland, pathetic-looking steamed vegetables. Hearth, where I’m fanatical about preparing but I was still busting out of my pants and feel- Eating nutritious foods that support feeling the absolute best-quality ingredients for our ing bone-crushingly tired in the afternoon. good isn’t enough—these foods should satiate guests. When it came to feeding myself, though, And yeah, I was forty, and I knew things slow you and taste so good that you look forward to my only requirement was that it be delicious. down as you get older, but I thought I had made eating them. With the right arsenal of recipes, And for me, like many people in this country, every effort to see real results.