The Brain Boosting Diet
My soul sister and dear friend Norene Gillette is amazing! Just when I was wondering, wow, twelve books, how on earth does she do it, her massive new book arrived from her publicist. Norene’s Magnum Opus: 600 pages.
Her adoring fans are used to her prowess as Food Processor Queen. I bought her Food Processor Bible for all my children and to many friends when they set up their own home.
Norene is a true renaissance woman and one of the most multitalented people I know: teacher, mentor, food consultant, dear friend and pun master (Fishful Thinking, haha, brilliant!) all rolled into one. All the lucky people in her orbit have greatly benefitted from her abundant wisdom and generous guidance.
Brain Boosting Diet: Healing by Eating!
Norene is ideally suited for this epic latest book. Owning it and referring to it is like getting a nutrition crash course, packed with solid and solidly documented research about all the foods that correlate directly to Brain Health (Feed Your Memory). The result of this investigative project is this encyclopedic volume: A treasure trove of recipes using brain-healing foods in every shape and form. Everything conventional medicine gives short shrift to gets utmost respect and attention here. There is no health related topic Norene has left out. Wherever in the vast spectrum of diet and nutrition you belong in, Norene walks you through it to exploit your options to the hilt. Can we actually achieve prevention, maintenance and healing by eating delicious and exciting foods? On my way! I can do this!
The book starts with a thorough chapter aptly entitled Memory Loss and Cognitive Decline (and what to do about it): description, solution, preparation: it’s all in! The book will quickly become an indispensable resource to you!
Brain Boosting Diet: Healing by Cooking!
All recipes are supremely simple, approachable, doable and fun, all ingredients supremely functional. They all include nutrition information, detailed description and trivia (did you know boxes) and thorough listing of the benefits of every single ingredient she uses, thanks to her close collaboration with Dr Edward Wein. Remember all those outlandish foods we would not get near? Well get ready to enjoy them to the max now, without any urging: All Good and Good-For-You! Norene is the diva of simple sensible cooking. You will love all the variations Norene lists on many recipes. It is remarkably that the size of every chapter is commensurate with the place and space it actually takes in the prescribed way of eating and cooking. So it is no wonder that the healthy breakfast chapter (or the salad, fish and soup) chapter is humongous, tons of grain-based dishes, while the poultry is a medium size, the beef chapter modest, and the dessert chapter small.
Desserts
I will make an exception for the dessert chapter, several of which lists the “sweeteners” interlopers that fly in the face of the book’s philosophy and remain vague and ambiguous. This chapter consists of only a handful of recipes. Surprising that Norene does not tinker with all the healthy and natural alternatives to the problematic Splenda. She can be excused for this very short intruding chapter. It is mercifully- and overwhelmingly – outweighed by hundreds of wholesome dishes. It should be noted that the offending Splenda never appears in any of the wonderful and extensive breakfast chapter, which make extensive use of naturally sweet ingredients such as fresh and dried fruit.
Beautiful Pictures!
Seriously: Thank goodness you won’t find a picture for every recipe, or else you would need to cart the book on wheels to carry it!
What to cook first?
I feel like a kid in a candy store. Any breakfast treat, any spread, soup or fish will do for a start. All soups come with a water option as “stock”. I started with the Better Breakfast Chapter: One recipe more exciting and wholesome than the other: Dried-fruit- sweetened Granola, cottage cheese muffins, Bran-ana chocolate chip loaf, blueberry cinnamon pancakes, mix-and-match smoothie bowl. Can’t wait to make pumpkin chummus, black bean dip. Well the list goes on for miles, so I will stop right here: at this point I trust you get the gist of the importance, caliber, quality and breadth of this masterpiece!
