Let’s talk turkey. Well, maybe not turkey. I don’t really like turkey. I think that may be because my mom was a horrendous cook, most renowned for her horrific mashed potatoes, second only to her infamous cinder block turkey.

Swanson’s TV dinners were a godsend in my house. Compared to my mom’s cooking, sitting down to that predictable, geometric aluminum tray of food that at least bore a semblance to what it was supposed to taste like was a welcome relief to the members of my family.

And you even got to have dessert! That teeeeeeny bite of brownie or apple brown betty was the best part because my mom’s limitations in the kitchen were not confined to main course disasters, but baking atrocities as well.

These prefab meals probably paved the way for my secret adoration of airplane food (when they still served airplane food) and my later lack of disgust for the Jenny Craig food phase I went through on one of my many weight loss endeavors.

So let’s not talk turkey*. Let’s talk french fries.

I would imagine that many people would rather talk french fries than turkey. In my opinion, french fries are the greatest food ever. I love them. They are the one food I would choose if I was stranded on a desert island.

If I had to choose a last meal before my execution… definitely fries. I’ve eaten french fries all over the world. My true attachment to fries is shown in a clip from the play, Leftovers, the Ups and Downs of a Compulsive Eater, but perhaps someday I’ll write a book, Fries I Have Known and Loved… and the Few Fries I Have Despised.

But why do I want to talk fries? For those of you who follow my blog, Tasty Morsels, you will know that once in a while I’m asked to review a book. I welcome these requests. I’m an avid reader, author, and blogger, and have a great deal of respect for the written word and those that venture into that domain.

I am flattered when someone wants my opinion about their labor of love and, of course, I’m also worried. What if I hate it? Who am I to write anything negative about someone else’s work, especially when it’s so obvious how hard they worked on it?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that my opinion has enough clout to effect someone’s book sales in either direction, but although I am honest to a fault, it would be difficult for me NOT to give someone a positive review.

When I was a university professor I had very rigid rubrics for grading; specific, clear criteria, like a nice Swanson’s TV dinner, each academic objective to be assessed in its own subsection and with its own grade percentage. If this hadn’t been the case, every student who showed up and didn’t fall asleep in my class would have gotten a B, and an A if they actually participated. But I didn’t want to be labeled an easy grader, nor did I want to overcompensate to the point where I was too strict, so I followed a set of carefully crafted guidelines.

When I write a book review, however, it falls into the realm of personal opinion, which often butts up against my political beliefs and subjective outlook on life. My evaluation of the book is not just whether the grammar, length, and structure of the writing fulfilled the assignment. Thus when I agreed to read a book sent to me by an author, I greeted it with my usual mixture of anticipation and utter terror.

The Book

So, the book arrives and, to my surprise, it’s a cookbook! I’ve never been asked to review a cookbook before and immediately wondered how many recipes I should try before I could accurately attest to the quality of the book.

I have to add at this point that, unlike my mom, I am told that I am an excellent cook, and despite my vast resume of things I am insecure about, I don’t have any reservations about my qualifications as a taster. I’ll match my taste buds up with the best of them! But there was another challenge in reviewing this book.

The title and illustrations on the cover and back of the book startled me.

Now, I had some wonderful exchanges with the author, Randi Levin, via email and Linked In, and I knew that her motivations for writing the book were to promote healthy eating habits in children and healthy food preparation habits in adults.

I really wanted to LOVE this book! Even as I read the forward, I tried to push aside my bristling as the author discussed weight and obesity in terms that were not syntonic with my point of view. Still, I felt I owed it to the author to thoroughly read her work before coming to a conclusion, so I pushed my reservations aside and opened the book randomly to a page… and would you believe it? I had turned to the recipe for french fries!

It was kismet! I liked that Ms. Levin explained that french fries did not need to be completely eliminated from a person’s diet and that she validated the absolute joy of the fry. Her recipe even included oil, not a cooking spray substitute, and the fries tasted amazing!

I randomly chose four other recipes to cook and each one was mouth watering, made of real ingredients, and did not attempt to fool me into thinking that I was eating a brownie that was not a brownie. In fact, the authenticity of the recipes was a wonderful asset of the book.

Ms Levin also acknowledges the difficulties that working parents can have with time management and that cooking frequently must be done on the fly. Hence the proliferation of the nostalgic, non-nutritious TV dinners of my past; but she offers some wonderful problem solving tips that address those concerns.

In the past month, three books about putting kids on diets have crossed my path. All three of them have a punitive feel, as if the child is to be blamed for being fat and that the stigma attached to them is excusable. All of the books just push for the kid to lose weight in order to be happy. And even though I don’t agree with all that Ms Levin has to say about childhood obesity, the book does speak out against size discrimination and cautions people and parents against shaming fat children

One of the biggest Risk Factors related to being an overweight, potentially obese or obese child is feeling the brunt or negative effect of another’s caring actions and words. Therefore please know that although most are made with good intentions, pointing out and telling a child that they are fat and must go on a diet is not only ineffective, it is mean and reinforces negative emotions and behaviors.

So, if you are looking for a resource for fabulous, healthy, and really delicious recipes, this may be just the thing to order off the menu, but as I told Randi, I would cut off the “crusts” of the title and book jacket before putting it on my bookshelf, skip the appetizers of childhood obesity theory, and go right to the main course and start cooking!

*Let’s talk turkey: Where did that expression come from?