Forget What You Can't Have

This week our friend Cynthia is embarking on an extremely strict diet. She's been feeling lousy, and her doctor figures that if she eats nothing but brown rice, beans, fruit, and some vegetables for a month, they'll be able to determine what's making her feel bad. Cynthia is not thrilled to be facing a month of severely limited eating, but Kevin, Tim, and Ruth are going to try to come up with recipes to make the month more delicious.

As any weight watcher can attest, one of the big problems of a limited diet is the perception that you're being deprived. Other people are enjoying deep-fried cheesecake, while you must make do with six green grapes (not even that if you're still following the Atkins Diet). But if you can focus on what you have rather than what you're missing, the deprivation disappears.

For this to work, you need good food. 

We were thinking about this last night while leafing through The Garden of Vegan, a great cookbook by two Canadian writers, Tanya Barnard and Sarah Kramer. A lot of people would never buy a vegan cookbook for fear of tasteless food and self-righteous attitude, but this book is a treasure, full of simple recipes that look so well-thought-out and flavorful that we're sure even a meat lover would forget that she's not eating meat. Who needs meat when you have Spicy Szechuan Noodles, Balsamic Roasted Sweet Potatoes, and the Most Amazing Chocolate Pudding? 

We'll be trying them in the weeks to come and keeping you posted on what we find. In the meantime, please help us come up with recipes for Cynthia.