Holiday goose, turkey, duck. All great, but in another week or two, and we'll be happy to get back to that tried-and-true weeknight chicken. Good thing in Poulet: More than 50 Remarkable Meals that Exalt the Honest Chicken there is plenty of interesting poultry recipe fodder for anyone stuck in a 2011 roast chicken rut. As a bonus, if you're not sure you want to fire up the grill mid-winter for those chicken thighs covered in blistered BBQ sauce, the fantastic photographs by France Ruffenach will put an end to that debate.

Author Cree LeFavour focuses on cooking the whole bird or the dark meat -- you know, the good stuff -- and includes recipes for complete dinner hour side dish inspiration (creamy polenta and roasted fennel; roasted Shishito peppers and black sesame rice balls). In the second "Bistro Chicken" chapter you'll find chanterelle chicken over egg noodles with sautéed asparagus, along with a mustard-crusted chicken that she serves with fingerling potatoes and a Satsuma orange-fennel salad. Or maybe you feel more like lemon chicken with crispy sage, Korean fried chicken with sweet and spicy sauce or preserved lemon chicken with olives? Yes, please.

Which gets us to the one thing we're not fully keen on: The chapter organization. According to a press release, the recipes are organized by "flavor profile." That doesn't mean spices, herbs or rubs as we were expecting when we opened the book (say, a chapter with recipes featuring tomato-based chicken dishes, another with intensely flavored spices such as ginger or dried chile peppers).

?Instead, "flavor profile" in Poulet essentially means cultural dividing lines -- something that works exceptional well if you're Paula Wolfert exploring The Food of Morocco in depth. But here, at times those recipe dividing lines come across as somewhat antediluvian.

For instance, the first chapter essentially defines "American Chicken" by using that phrase as the chapter title (fried chicken, chicken pot pie, chicken-fennel meatballs on angel hair with fresh tomato sauce). In the "Latin Chicken" chapter, there are some great recipes for chicken-goat cheese enchiladas and chicken tacos with black bean quinoa salad. All great, but why don't the very CalMex/TexMex enchiladas and tacos get to hang out at the same chapter dinner table with those Italian-American chicken-fennel meatballs in the "American Chicken" chapter? [Full disclosure: If it isn't already obvious, we watched The Help right before reviewing this book.]

Yeah, we're nitpicking about chapter/recipe organization for a Cookbook of the Week -- which means Poulet was great to begin with. Right. We'll stop babbling and let you get to your grocery list for this one pot coconut chicken recipe.

One-Pot Coconut Chicken
From: Poulet: More Than 50 Remarkable Meals That Exalt the Honest Chicken by Cree LeFavour.
Makes: 4 servings

One 2- to 4½-pound chicken
1 tablespoon peanut oil
1 can (13.5 ounces) unsweetened coconut milk
½ head garlic, cloves chopped
1 6-inch fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
3 cups chopped bok choy
½ red or orange bell pepper, cut into bite-size chunks
½ pound shiitake mushrooms, brushed clean, trimmed and coarsely chopped (about 5 cups)
½ teaspoon ground turmeric
1 tablespoon Thai fish sauce (substitute soy sauce if necessary)
2 cups water
¼ cup chopped fresh mint
¼ cup chopped cilantro leaves
Flaky salt for finishing

1. Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 450 degrees. Set the chicken on the countertop for 30 minutes or so to take the chill off before cooking.

2. Heat the peanut oil in a 12-inch or larger cast-iron frying pan or a 5-quart or larger Dutch oven. Set the chicken in the pan and cook over medium heat until nicely browned on the sides and bottom, about 10 minutes. No need to brown the top. Transfer the chicken to a plate and pour off any excess fat in the pan.

3. Skim the fat from the top of the can of coconut milk and add the fat to the pan along with the garlic, ginger, bok choy, bell pepper, mushrooms and turmeric. Cook over medium heat, stirring often, for 5 to 8 minutes, or until the bell pepper and mushrooms are soft and the garlic is fragrant. Stir in the fish sauce, coconut milk, and water. Return the chicken to the pot, breast-side up.

4. Put the chicken in the oven and braise, uncovered, for 30 minutes before either inserting an instant-read thermometer into the thickest part of a thigh or cutting into the thigh with a paring knife. The thermometer should register 175 degrees. If using a knife, look for clear, not red or pink, juices running from the spot where you pierce the meat and opaque, barely pink flesh at the joint. If the chicken isn't done, cook for 5 to 10 minutes longer and check it again.

5. When the chicken is done, remove the pan from the oven and let the chicken rest for 5 minutes before you carve it. (Do this right in the pan, if you can manage.) Pour the liquid from the pan into a fat separator. (You can also use a heatproof jar and use a spoon to skim off as much of the fat as possible.) Serve with jasmine rice, plenty of the sauce, the mint and cilantro, and a pinch of flaky salt.

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"Here's one woman who can tell you how to cook, using romance as the main ingredient."--"Ivanhoe Broadcast News" "These lively recipes, each with a sexy reputation, can turn a meal from sedate to sizzling."--Rona Cherry, Editor-in-Chief, "Love" Magazine "The Seduction Cookbook" offers tips and techniques for shooting Cupid's delicious arrow straight through the heart of a lover's sensual appetite. Great lovers are inspired by passion, as are great chefs. With nearly 90 recipes, "The Seduction Cookbook" delivers alluring menus and foods styled to fit your seduction method, whatever it might be. Grow an erotic herb garden and get warmed up with seductive starters. Start the morning after with breakfasts to rekindle the passion. "The Seduction Cookbook" contains all of the menus indispensable to making the mood magical. And remember...if all else fails, showing up naked with the dessert course should get things moving in the right direction!

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The good news about legendary chef Jacques Pepin: he’s still got it. Even better – you can get it. Pepin’s latest, greatest cookbook Essential Pepin features more than 700 of Pepin’s “all-time favorite” recipes AND a how-to-do-just-about-everything DVD. Pepin will turn 76 years young on December 18 and he is as engaging as ever.

The cookbook is laid out in a friendly, readable type with titles in blue and instructions and ingredient lists in black. The recipes are written simply. Thank you, Jacques! There are no photographs of food – they would not fit within the 685 pages. But there are many of Pepin’s own small, whimsical sketches of food. Photos of Pepin enliven the end papers of this sizeable volume.

Pepin has been promoting this new cookbook tirelessly on television and radio and at major food events. I wouldn’t be surprised if the last page of this book that reads “la fin” is far from the end of Pepin’s contributions to the world of cooking. Essential Pepin by Jacques Pepin (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: 2011) available locally from Books & Books in Westhampton Beach and online. $40.

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Well, there’s no getting away from the season of giving. So, if you’re looking for a perfect holiday gift for your foodie friends, grab these lip-smacking food books and they will thank you no end. These books are written for gourmet enthusiasts, cooking and baking aficionados, culinary students, professionals, chefs and newbies who simply want to know more about our food culture and compile their own favorite recipes. “Linamnam: Eating One’s Way Around the Philippines,” by Claude Tayag and Mary Ann Quioc, published by Anvil Publishing Inc.

“This is a culinary travel guidebook that tells you what and where to eat from Ilocos to Davao. It’s like a culinary mapping,” says Claude Tayag. Yes, this book presents the traveling-eating adventures of the popular foodie couple around the Philippines. In this book, not only do they lead the reader to the best eats every region has to offer, scouring the length and breadth of the archipelago, but they also learn the whys and hows of what makes each dish distinctive and exceptional.

As committed advocates of traditional Philippine cuisine, the couple celebrates the variety and intricacies of our multifaceted cuisine, offering readers a clear understanding of what Pinoy eating is all about and challenging those who say Filipino cuisine is all brown, oily and unappetizing. Indeed, there’s more to it than adobo, pancit and lumpia. “This book is very special to me since it records a good four years of our prime years traveling and eating our way around the country,” adds Claude.

“At the end of this long adventure, one could only conclude that the Philippines is not only beautiful by virtue of its natural wonders, but also because it is endowed with one of the warmest, most hospitable and happiest people on the planet, and having one of the most malinamnam food there is. The book made us discover the richness of our cuisine despite the regional differences. It is our common love of malinamnam food that binds us together.”

This resource book is delightfully easy to read with 200-plus dishes, descriptions and history per region, phone numbers and addresses of restaurants, definitions of culinary terms, and chapters on different kinds of longanisa, okoy, pancit, tamales and popular homegrown bottled sauces, etc. Asked what was the most exciting destination he visited in this book, Tayag says: “I have no personal favorite place. They’re all equally good in their own way. But, I guess it’s the serendipitous discoveries that excited us the most, and that’s the challenge to our readers to find their own (culinary) adventure. ‘Linamnam’ simply shows the way.”Available at National Book Store and PowerBooks branches at P250. Edited by Alya B. Honasan “The Coconut Facts Book: A Practical Guide to Using Virgin Coconut Oil,” by Cris C. Abiva, published by Anvil Publishing Inc.

Are you aware of the many uses of virgin coconut oil? If not, then grab this book and learn about the beneficial elements of this versatile oil to one’s health and well-being. The 79-page book shares over 30 everyday recipes using VCO, from beverages to breakfast food and desserts. Interesting dishes include Mushroom-Scrambled Eggs with Salsa, Buko-Chicken Soup, Pan-Fried Chicken with Coconut Curry Sauce, Tres Leches Cake and Coconut Panna Cotta, among others.

The book also offers VCO users various ways of including the oil in their daily diet. Some interesting ways: as additive to salad dressings, soups and other hot beverages, or as substitute for butter in baked dishes.

“The Coconut Facts Book” also explains how other coconut by-products (juice, meat, palm), which contain the same healthy ingredients as the oil, can be used in different dishes. Nutritionist and food editor Cris Abiva has also included useful information on the different applications of VCO, such as sunscreen, moisturizer, antiseptic and exfoliant. Available in all leading bookstores nationwide at P195. “In My Basket Cookbook: Travel Collection and Recollections,” by Lydia D. Castillo, published by Anvil Publishing Inc.

Lydia D. Castillo, former travel executive and now food columnist, presents her second cookbook, “In My Basket Cookbook: Travel Collection and Recollections.” It talks about her journey around the globe and her encounters with all kinds of dishes, including the exotic and unfamiliar fare she has tried out in her kitchen.

Her vast recipe collection from her trips—some original, others enhanced and given a twist (Pan-Roasted Loro Fillet with Prawns and Leek Potato Gnocchi in Frothy Saffron Sauce, Chinese Noodles with Spinach and Kikiam, Teriyaki Beef Rolls with Kuchay, Veal Cubes with Red Curry Sauce, just to name a few)—is interspersed with interesting anecdotes. The cookbook is spiced with Castillo’s recollections of visits to country markets from all corners of the world, Michelin-rated restaurants, international hotel chains, large commissaries and home kitchens. All the recipes in Castillo’s book have been kitchen-tested. There’s nothing not doable.

The book, with 128 recipes, is categorized according to region, starting with neighboring countries—HK, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, Japan. Each country is given an introduction, a culinary background and how its cuisine evolved through the years. For instance, how Chinese food was influenced by Indian cuisine, or how adobo came from Mexico, not Spain.

Castillo also dwells on Singapore’s curry and what it has in common with Malaysia and Indonesia. Then, there’s Japan’s favorite sushi and sashimi, and how the culture of eating raw food has also crept onto the dining table of many Filipinos. Also in the book are dishes from Australia, Egypt and other European countries.

Available at leading bookstores for P195. Goldilocks Bakebook: Favorite Recipes from the Philippines’ Best-Loved Bakeshop,” published by Goldilocks Bakeshop Inc. Those who grew up enjoying Goldilocks’ fluffy mamon, cheesy ensaymada, ever-soft chiffon cake slices, classic polvoron and mocha roll will be happy to know their favorite sweets are now available in a recipe book, complete with delectable pictures. “Goldilocks Bakebook” has a collection of 108 recipes with 211 pages of stunning photos, and an overview of the company’s remarkable history. The introduction was written by Pinky Trinidad Yee, Goldilocks marketing director, and preface by sisters and founders Milagros Leelin Yee and Clarita Leelin Go.

Well-loved and considered a true Pinoy icon, Goldilocks has long accompanied each birthday, wedding, baptism, graduation, anniversary, or just about any Filipino gathering, promoting a uniquely Filipino passion for sharing and giving through good food.

Milagros and Clarita, and their sister-in-law Doris, had shared a passion for baking, cake-decorating and cooking, and opened the first Goldilocks store along Pasong Tamo, Makati, in May 1966. The two sisters pursued the same passion toward perfection by carefully developing each Goldilocks recipe, and by building the company into what it is today.

This cookbook, which marked Goldilocks’ 45th year in the business, is a fitting tribute to Milagros and Clarita. These two women have tirelessly and relentlessly pursued excellence in each Goldilocks product, much to the delight of their loyal customers.

Recipes in the book include Meat-Filled Bun, Classic Brownies, Butterscotch Bars, Lengua de Gato, Cassava Cake, Ube Macapuno Cake, Marble Roll and Crema de Fruta, among others. Toward the end of the book, there are heartwarming stories and photos of loyal clients, who also share their family experiences with the No. 1 bakeshop in the country.

Available at National Book Store branches and select Goldilocks outlets at P799. Food styling by Heny Sison and photography by Neal Oshima. “Home-made for the Holidays: Over 60 Treats to Enjoy at Home or Give as Gifts,” by Aileen A. Anastacio and Angelo F. Comsti, published by Marshall Cavendish  Looking for a different way to serve food, or whip up treats to give away or enjoy? This handy book helps you do just that.

As the book suggests, “Nothing expresses your thoughtfulness and love more than something appropriately home-made.” Thus, “Home-made for the Holidays” is a do-it-yourself luscious gift-suggestion book. The 155-page, full-color book is packed with fresh ideas for sweet and savory food gifts you can easily work on, personalize and create, whatever the gifting occasion may be. Each gift idea in the book is accompanied by a recipe. There’s also a rundown of gift combinations to make a thematic gift basket, as well as bonus gift tags serving as templates; or, one can simply cut them out and attach to the gift. The book brims with colorful photographs, plus recipes of Chicken Liver Paté, Chocolate Mint Cupcakes, Taisan, Rum Raisin Bundt cake, Candied Nuts, Peppermint Meringue and Holiday Sugar Cookies, among others.

Available at National Book Store branches at P895. “Festive Dishes with Family and Friends,” by Nora V. Daza, published by Anvil Publishing Inc. Here’s another addition to Nora Villanueva Daza’s line of best-selling cookbooks. “Festive Dishes with Family and Friends” shares some of her favorite home-cooked dishes, with additional recipes from family and friends. The dishes are highlighted with photographs, including some personal letters to go with the dishes. The 201-page book also offers amusing anecdotes and useful cooking tips. The recipes are kept as traditional as possible. Both substitutions and conventional ingredients are given, as well as both simplified and traditional methods of cooking.

Daza’s first-ever cookbook, “Let’s Cook with Nora,” has become a household bible for millions of housewives in search of easy, simple yet delicious meals for their families. The cookbook has traveled far and wide, carried by Filipino expatriates abroad as their essential guide to indigenous home-style cooking. The culinary icon then followed her best-selling cookbook with two more recipe books, “Galing Galing Philippine Cuisine” and “Nora V. Daza: A Culinary Life.”

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Beata Zatorska learned to make pierogi and other Polish recipes in her grandmother’s farmhouse kitchen, in the remote village in the foothills of Poland’s Karkonosze mountains where she grew up. When she returned years later, her beloved grandmother was gone, but she found her handwritten recipes for preparing traditional Polish dishes, and for preserving the precious fruit and vegetables grown in the family garden.

Those recipes make up a most charming new book, “Rose Petal Jam: Recipes and Stories from a Summer in Poland” (Tabula Books, $35), together with Zatorska’s memories of her childhood in Poland in the ‘60s and ‘70s, along with the story of her journey with her husband, Simon Target, to discover the Poland of today. The reminiscences, along with accompanying photographs, are reason alone for picking up this new cookbook. The recipes prove to be a bonus. Check out a recipe from the book: Polish Beef Goulash
For her latest public television series, Lidia Matticchio Bastianich takes viewers on a road trip into the heart of Italian-American cooking today, as only she can. Bastianich started with a question: How did Italian immigrants put beloved recipes from their homeland on the table for their families in the New World that was America? This one question began Bastianich’s coast-to-coast journey toward uncovering how and why Italian-American food has become what it is today.

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With the holidays at hand, publishers around the country have released a wide range of new cookbooks they hope will make ideal gifts for friends and family members on yuletide shopping lists. Three of the new cookbooks feature Bay Area culinary talent. Chef and author Aaron French, in “The Bay Area Cookbook” (Voyageur Press, $30), tells the stories of farmers who rise before the roosters to bring fresh produce, meats and cheeses to area farmers markets. He also profiles chefs who kick off the day with an early trip to the market and wrap it up late at night after feeding hundreds of appreciative diners.

The stories of these farmers and chefs are sure to foster an appreciation for the hard work that goes into creating local, seasonal food. This new cookbook from French celebrates some of the best homegrown food in the Bay Area, profiling 26 chefs who work together with local farms to incorporate the freshest sustainably grown ingredients into their menus. Chefs profiled include the Bay Area’s Michael Tusk (Quince), Amaryll Schwertner (Boulette’s Larder), Laurence Jossel (Nopa), Phil West (Range) and Craig Stoll (Delfina).
In “Eat Good Food” (Ten Speed Press, $32.50), Sam Mogannam, owner of San Francisco’s popular Bi-Rite Market, and food columnist Dabney Gough guide the home cook through the grocery store one department at a time, and explain how to identify incredible ingredients, decipher labels and terms, build a great pantry and reconnect with the people and places that feed us.

The Bay Area authors offer new ways to look at food, not only through the ingredients to buy but also how to prepare them. Featuring 90 of Mogannam’s favorite recipes — including many of the dishes that have made Bi-Rite Market’s in-house kitchen a destination for food lovers — you’ll discover exactly how to get the best flavor from each ingredient. Dishes such as Farro Salad with Mushrooms and Butternut Squash, Spaghetti with Tuna, Capers and Chile Flakes, Sumac-Roasted Chicken, Moroccan Lamb Meatloaf and Citrus Olive Oil Cake reflect an honest and uncomplicated cooking style that home cooks of all levels will find accessible.
Napa author Janet Fletcher collaborated with Erik Cosselman to write “Kokkari, Contemporary Greek Flavors” (Chronicle Books, $40). Cosselman, chef/owner of Kokkari restaurant in San Francisco, shares recipes from the restaurant (and from Greece) for home cooks. Beautifully illustrated, it includes entrees like Fish Roasted with Tomato, Potato, Fennel and Olives (Psari Plaki) as well as mezze and sides like Oranges with Rose Water, Cinnamon, Dates and Spiced Walnuts. Check out a recipe from the book: Oranges with Rose Water, Cinnamon, Dates and Spiced Walnuts

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In a nutshell: If you've ever wondered if it's worth the time, tears and flour-covered kitchen in the quest to bake the perfect baguette, this is the cookbook for you. Reese, author of tipsybaker.com, explored these topics when she lost her job and set out to economize in the kitchen. From hot dog buns to Pop-Tarts, she reveals whether it's better to buy it or make it, accounting for the cost, hassle and rate of success. Happily, she dispenses this practical know-how with a crackling sense of humor, making this book a fun read. Take a taste: Recipes for pot stickers, marshmallows, English muffins, eggnog, Nutella, pancetta.

What's hot: The scope and utility of this book make it worthy of space in your collection, especially this time of year when you're looking for fast and interesting gifts to make in the kitchen. Plus Reese's honesty is refreshing and inspiring; she goes from a hilarious review of the 1970s Earth-mother bible "Laurel's Kitchen" to making a modern-day case for baking. "You can look like an R. Crumb and smoke Parliaments while drinking Sanka spiked with Jim Beam, and still bake amazing bread." Right on! What's not: The book has no photos, which would have been helpful with some of the technique-oriented recipes.

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For all the complex, multi-stepped recipes that give French cuisine its daunting reputation, everyday French home cooking is filled with countless utterly simple dishes as perfect and impressive in their own way as the hautest restaurant cuisine. Wini Moranville’s new book, "The Bonne Femme Cookbook: Simple, Splendid Food That French Women Cook Every Day," proves this with recipe after recipe. La bonne femme is French for “the good wife,” the introduction tells us, but in French cuisine, “it refers to a style of cooking – namely, the fresh, honest, and simple cuisine served at home, no matter who does the actual cooking, femme, mari (husband), or partenaire domestique (significant other).”

Dorie Greenspan says, “It’s les bonnes femmes who keep the culinary traditions of France alive. Cooking the simple classics and the daily meals that form the canon of the cuisine.” And, she adds, “Wini has given us everything we need to do the same, whether our table is in Paris or Peoria.”

Flipping through our review copy of "The Bonne Femme Cookbook," I could see exactly what Greenspan means. One recipe after another caught my eye, both as something wonderful to eat and something totally doable in the kitchen, honest and non-fussy. I’ve said in the past that if we get one really good recipe out of a cookbook, it’s earned its place on our bookshelves. I can already tell that we’ll be cooking many dishes from this one.

As we slide seriously toward winter, the recipe I decided to make first was of course a summery salad, with room temperature cooked lentils, Belgian endive, watercress, butter lettuce and a mustardy vinaigrette, topped with warm roasted shrimp. I winterized it, though, serving the lentils hot and dispensing with the vinaigrette and most of the greenery (I kept the Belgian endive for its nice bitter edge). The result was a warm, satisfying, season-appropriate dish. No one flavor took over, but occasionally, a bit of tarragon or the crisp greenness of a scallion matchstick would make its presence known, then meld with the other flavors in the dish.

We’ve proselytized for lentils on these pages in the past – most recently when Marion made Turkish Style Red Lentil Soup with Chard. Besides being healthy and quick cooking, they’re just plain good to eat. To cook the French green lentils (Lentilles du Puy) that form the base of this dish, I sautéed some garlic in olive oil, then added the lentils, some water and some salt to the pot and simmered everything. That was it – no stock, no herbs, no onions or other root vegetables. I expected nothing much when I sampled a forkful for doneness from the pot, but they were already delicious.

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As you might imagine, I love cookbooks. And I have plenty of them, on all sorts of topics, by all sorts of experts. Rick Bayless on Mexican food, Julia Child for French cuisine, Mollie Katzen and Deborah Madison for vegetarian fare, and plenty of other more esoteric topics.

I love to read them, and I have a stack of new ones on my desk right now, from "Cook Like a Rock Star" (Clarkson Potter, $27.99), by the Food Network's Anne Burrell, to "Vegan Pie in the Sky" (Da Capo, $17), by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero.

The authors all offer lots of possibilities (especially the over-the-top Burrell), and I've been flipping through and flagging recipes I want to try. But where do I go when I want to find a new dish that I know will be good?

Epicurious. I've said it before, but being able to read recipe reviews and advice from real cooks is invaluable. And just a few reviews aren't enough; I'm looking for recipes that are so good that they've inspired dozens -- even hundreds -- of cooks to rate them highly and post reviews.

I found one recently that filled the bill, and then some, with more than 600 reviews. I was in the post-Thanksgiving food doldrums recently, tired of turkey and longing for something different. Inspired by a delicious curry I had recently at Cafe Django in Bloomington, I went looking for a bold recipe that I could have fun with, and I found a winner with Chicken Curry with Cashews, adapted from Charmaine Solomon's "Complete Asian Cookbook" (Tuttle Publishing, $29.95).

It was released in paperback about five years ago. It originally was published in 1976, and the recipes have stood the test of time -- especially my chicken curry dish. Yes, the whole house smelled like curry, but the dish turned out great. And even though I haven't cooked many curries, this one was a real success, even with a few tweaks that I couldn't help making.

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The creator of the Sonoma Diet never planned to be a diet-guru. She was on track to becoming a professor in Texas when marriage brought her to California and the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), where she was hired to design a course in healthy cooking techniques.

She recalled how when she first arrived at the CIA the students shunned her, fearing she would take away their sugar, fats and salt. In "The Sonoma Cookbook" Guttersen hopes to inspire readers with delicious recipes paired with wines and explains why she considers her eating program more of a lifestyle than a diet.

Q: What prompted you to write your first book?

A: "Well my dad had passed away. I had watched him, a doctor, struggle with his weight his whole life. So I decided I was going to write a book in his honor."

Q: How does the Sonoma Diet differ from South Beach?

A: "South Beach is very good, but it is physician driven. Mine is from more of a culinary background, more of a dietitian. South Beach is not flavor driven or celebrating a way of eating that becomes a way of life. And I think wine is an important part of life as is a fairly moderate amount of carbohydrates.

"The differences really are that the food is delicious, you can have a glass of wine and it is written with a passion for food and wine and a lifestyle and not so much as a diet."

Q: What about the wine on this diet?

A: "Well, you see I don't think of it as a diet. I think of it as a lifestyle. I mean I live here in Napa where wine is just part of life. We are all sitting down with friends enjoying great food and wine. And that's why the recipes are paired with wine. There are a ton of health benefits associated with wine in moderation."

Q: California is blessed with an incredible array of fresh fruits and vegetables. What about those who are not so fortunate?

A: "I am very conscious of menu development and realize that not everyone has access to the same foods that we do here. "The Sonoma Cookbook" has plenty of recipes that use frozen or canned foods, so that if you're in say Kansas City, it still isn't a problem to eat well and healthfully.

Q: What about those who are short on time?

A: "(There is) this whole idea of how do you embrace a healthier way of living but you're a working mom and you sure would like a glass of wine every once in a while. That's why there are family friendly recipes as well as food and wine pairings throughout. I know what it means to be a working mother. I have two children of my own."

The Gigi (30 minutes and yields 4 servings)

2 cups hearts of palms sliced

2 cups orange segments

1 cup jicama (a sweet root vegetable), julienne

1 pound shrimp, peeled and cooked

1/2 cup Citrus Vinaigrette (see below)

1/2 cup pomegranate seeds

1 California avocado, cut in quarters lengthwise, then in 1/4 inch pieces

1/4 cup scallions, thinly cut on bias

2 cups butter lettuce, cut into strips

4 flatbreads

2 tablespoons slivered almonds, toasted

Salt and pepper to taste

Combine heart of palm, orange, jicama, and shrimp in a bowl. Toss with salt and pepper. Dress with 4 tablespoons Citrus Vinaigrette. Gently mix in pomengranate seeds, avocado, scallions, and lettuce. Serve on top of warm whole-wheat flatbread. Garnish with almonds.

Citrus Vinaigrette (4 servings)

1/2 cup orange juice

1/4 cup grapefruit juice

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon orange zest

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon agave syrup

1 pinch chili flakes

1 tablespoon olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

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