Italian for "The Sweet Life". Here are two more of my library books
Donna Leon "Trace Elements". This is the first of her novels I have read, featuring the Venetian detective Guido Brunetti. I really enjoyed it - good plot, good dialogue, and great descriptions of the city of canals. I found it witty and enjoyable, and plan to read more of these *****
The second book is by a husband&wife, restauranteurs Giancarlo Caldesi and his wife Katie. He suffered from Type 2 diabetes for 10 years, then went onto a low carb diet, losing 4 stone. 
Eight years on, he is fit and healthy and his diabetes is in remission. This book, which only came out last year, is a selection of low carb, tasty recipes to help with weight loss and the management of diabetes - and all of them fast. The book has a good section by diabetes specialist Dr David Unwin - with helpful explanations about nutrition.
It has two weekly menu plans [weight loss and maintenance] colourful pictures of all 100 low carb recipes, and recipe suggestions for feeding the whole family not just one person [or a couple]
I particularly liked the look of quick brown bread made with coconut flour [very similar concept to soda bread - no yeast, but eggs and baking powder used as raising agents] And the recipe makes a loaf, baps, breadstick or foccaccia.
Pasta is replaced with pezzi - the Italian word for pieces - made from shredded bits of Savoy cabbage. This sounds as if it has a bit more 'heft' tp it than the spiralised courgettes popular as a spaghetti substitute!
There is even a section about covid and lowcarb too. You can find many of the recipes on their website I plan to check some of these out. This book is well written, and has a good index. I know I keep banging on about indices - but they can save so much time when you are looking things up [esp when writing book reviews] I think that this book is a really good complement to Michael Moseley's blood sugar diet. *****. Yes, you can enjoy the Sweet Life without a lot of refined sugar!
One final thing - I am glad to have discovered Donna Leon. We watched the final Montelbano the other evening on the BBC. Bob and I have greatly enjoyed Andrea Camilleri's novels about this Sicilian detective. Our girls gave us a holiday in Sicily when we were 60. BUT the final programme really upset me. I really did not want it to end as it did. Not giving any plot spoilers - but I was quite frustrated by Salvo's behaviour, which seemed out of character, somewhat selfish and unkind.
Am I alone in this - or were others disappointed by the way it all ended?
I too have discovered Commisario Brunetti. There is an accompanying cookbook but it is Not necessarily suitable for low carb! I loved Montalbano but can't remember the last episode.
ReplyDeleteOh but I can read the cookbook and dream [Give me a Nigel Slater book and I am like on of Pavlov's dogs!]
Deletere Montalbano: yes! He's always been a flawed character, but what a cruel way to dump Livia. And his new sweetie was very blah, not interesting at all. I believe this is the way the books end too and it's hard to understand.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I understand, this is not how the books end, there are two as yet un-filmed. 8 million Italians tuned in to watch it when it was shown there, and many of them were Very Disappointed apparently
DeleteOh I need to get that diabetic cookbook — I am always looking for something to feed Mr. Stubborn — thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteI do like cookbooks with decent pictures, so I can see what I am aiming at.
DeleteI'm not familiar with Montalbano but I sympathize if the ending is not true to the book and not acceptable. One of my favourite books is "Christy" by Catherine Marshall, which is based on a true story, and one day it showed up on TV with a different ending, which had me fuming!
ReplyDeleteDid you read Catherine Marshall's first book, "A man called Peter"? It was a biography of her late husband. That was made into a film starring Richard Todd. In a subsequent book, CM describes her frustration when the director wanted to change the facts to suit HIS plot! I enjoyed Christy too
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