√ Eating to Be Sexy, Fit, and Fabulous! √ √ Mediterranean Women Stay Slim,Too C Chef Melissa Kelly with Eve Adamson Produced by Amaranth √ To women everywhere seeking a healthier, more beauti- ful, more conscious way of living: mothers, daughters, sisters, and grandmothers, links in the chain of healthy vibrant women throughout the United States, the Mediterranean, and across the globe. And to the men behind us who encourage and love us: our partners, our fathers, our sons, our brothers, and our grandfathers. Salut! Map Contents Map Alpha 1 1 Where I Come From 7 2 Good Taste: The Slimming Power of High Flavor 24 3 Abundant Variety 51 4 Why Olive Oil Is Not Fattening 77 5 To the Market and in the Garden 95 6 Tapas Tastings: Color, More Flavor, Texture, Aroma 113 7 Going Whole Grain 131 ~ vii ~ 8 Madonna of Moderation 150 9 To the Table, Famiglia 175 10 Water and Wine 197 11 Take It or Leave It 218 12 What’s Good for Your Heart 236 13 Nothing New Under the Sun 254 14 Artigiano 265 15 Baklava and Biscotti 283 16 Long Life! 311 Omega 319 Index 321 ~ viii ~ About the Author Credits Cover Copyright About the Publisher 1 Alpha You don’t have to speak Greek to know that alpha symbolizes beginnings. The first letter of the Greek alphabet, alpha implies potential and all that lies ahead. To me, alpha also represents the beginning of a journey, a transformation, and an adventure. Are you feeling adventurous? Are you ready for a change in your life? Do you want to come along with me? Where would you like to go, and how would you like to look and feel when you get there? Are you thinking southern France, where chic French women spend hours browsing through the local open-air market to find the perfect piece of fruit? How do they find the time, and how do they acquire such good taste? How do they prepare food so that it is just perfectly délicieux? Maybe Italy is more your style, with its passion, gusto, and boisterous meals that last for hours con la tua famiglia. Or per- haps you are enchanted by the thought of Barcelona, where you can sip sherry and nibble on tapas and gaze upon the magnifi- ~ 1 ~ cent architecture with your animated Spanish friends. Esto está eccelente! Or maybe you imagine yourself as a Greek goddess with gorgeous curves and flowing robes, strolling through the ruins of an ancient civilization: Paradeisos. Maybe you like the idea of exotic Morocco, with its alluring spices and mysteri- ously compelling people? Tagine, anyone? I could go on and on...but perhaps you are starting to see the lay of the land. Whatever your Mediterranean dream, maybe you, like me, think about this part of the world with longing and wonder be- cause you sense that somehow life is different around that blue- green sun-drenched sea, different than it is here in America. And you would be right...in a way. But in another way, you can capture that Mediterranean essence—that lifestyle and that passion—without ever booking passage to Marseille or Valencia or Naples. You can live in the Mediterranean spirit right here, creating the timeless beauty and commonsense joy of living so famously captured in the independent flight of the Venus Winged Victory, the playfulness of Mona Lisa’s smile, the clas- sic features of Helen of Troy and Sophia Loren! What lies ahead for you as you embark on that journey into your own life, attitudes, and kitchen? The journey starts with you, but it will take you to faraway places. No, we won’t liter- ally be going anywhere, but in spirit we will be relaxing in the sun and gazing at the sapphire expanse of water to better learn the secrets of that widely varied collection of cultures where women have a rhythm of life, eating, moving, and social- izing that isn’t quite like anywhere else on the planet. Mediter- ranean women have a natural vitality, grace, warmth, and earthiness—a style that embodies sensuality, embraces mother- hood (Madonna!), imparts wisdom, and exudes confidence. Mediterranean Women Stay Slim, Too ~ 2 ~ √ A Trip Around the Sea The diverse Mediterranean includes Barcelona and Beirut, Al- giers and Alexandria, big cities such as Rome and tiny islands such as Crete, Malta, Cyprus, and of course, right at the tip of Italy’s boot, Sicily...one of my favorite places on Earth. What can so many cultures have in common, and what can so many different cultures have to teach us? Different as they may be from one another (just as we in America dwell in a na- tion of cultural diversity), the women living around the Mediterranean Sea do indeed have some secrets that really could change your life for the better. With that in mind, sit back, relax, and get ready to take a brief tour around the Mediter- ranean. I promise this will be much faster and cheaper than one of those Mediterranean cruises (you know, fourteen days, four- teen countries, just $10,000). Let’s look at just how varied the cultures around the Mediterranean really are. The Mediterranean Sea is much wider than it is long, stretching at its westernmost point from the Strait of Gibraltar, between Spain and Morocco, all the way to Lebanon on the east side. Little pockets here and there have other names. The west coast between Sardinia and Rome is technically the Tyrrhenian Sea. Between the sole and the heel of the boot that is Italy, bor- dered by Greece on the east side, is the Ionian Sea. And the east coast, between the back of the Italian boot and the land from Croatia to Albania, is the narrow Adriatic Sea. Also, the inlet between Greece and Turkey is the Aegean Sea. But really it’s all connected to the Mediterranean, all just divisions of one great sea. Let’s loop around the coastline. We’ll start in my favorite spot, the little island of Sicily, smack in the middle of the Mediterranean. Sicily—Palermo is its biggest city—still seems to me to exist in a more ancient time, where people live simply, Alpha ~ 3 ~ governed by the weather, the season, and the earth. South of Sicily is another, much smaller island: Malta. Two other little is- lands, Gozo and Kommuna, nestle up to Malta’s main island. Moving east, you’ll find Greece and its myriad tiny islands, including Crete, where the very first study on the Mediter- ranean diet was based in the 1950s, unveiling to the world that the people of this tiny region were living longer and healthier than anywhere else. Further east you will find the long southern coast of Turkey, with the island of Cyprus just west of Syria’s western border. Moving south, you’ll find Lebanon, Israel, Jor- dan, and Egypt, where the Mediterranean Sea feeds the Red Sea (via the Suez Canal) and the Nile River. The northern coasts of Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia (famous for its superspicy cuisine) make up the Mediterranean’s southern shore. In the southwest, Algeria cradles Morocco, and with a look north, you’ll see Spain. Valencia and Barcelona are the biggest cities on the Mediterranean’s far west Spanish coastline, and out into the sea just east of Valencia are the Balearic Islands. Moving north again, France’s southern coast, including Marseille, touches the Mediterranean, then we reach gorgeous Monaco. Finally, you’ll find northern Italy (just above the islands of Cor- sica and Sardinia). Almost all of Italy’s borders touch the Mediterranean—along the east side, down the west side from Genoa to Rome to Naples, and all the way back south to Sicily again. √ The Mediterranean Way of Life What could all these countries possibly have in common? Just look at where they are located—islands and coastlines all facing one another, all studded with olive trees and grapevines, open- air markets, and relaxed, friendly people with unfurrowed brows and unhurried lifestyles. Life really is different here— Mediterranean Women Stay Slim, Too ~ 4 ~ slower, more deliberate, with more presence and attention to the land and each other. You don’t see the kind of chronic stress and urban isolation in the Mediterranean that seems to be a common feature of American life. And you don’t see the same levels of obesity and overweight, either—at least not among those who still follow the traditional Mediterranean way of life. That’s not to say that every single woman living in the Mediterranean is skinny. Certainly not. People come in all shapes and sizes, with different appetites, activity levels, and genetic predispositions. And in the last decade, rates of obesity all over Europe have risen sharply, especially in children, as eat- ing and lifestyle habits move from traditional Mediterranean ways to American ways that include a sedentary lifestyle and more processed food. The European Union is so concerned about this problem that in March 2005 they launched a new in- formation campaign called Diet, Physical Activity and Health— a European Platform for Action to try to convince people to return to a more traditional Mediterranean lifestyle. In fact, one recent study based in Barcelona showed that the more closely people’s diets resembled the traditional Mediterranean diet, the lower their body mass index (a measure of weight and body fat). Conversely, the more they strayed from that traditional diet toward a more “modern” diet, with greater amounts of ani- mal foods and processed foods, fewer fruits and vegetables, and less olive oil, the heavier they were.