Rosa Jackson's Edible Adventures

I'm a big fan of the irreverent tone of French Elle magazine. What started as a guilty pleasure turned into a subscription when I realized that it actually makes quite intelligent reading (well, intelligent enough for the long train ride to and from Paris). Despite the occasional irritating article - this week's issue claims that anti-cellulite creams really will get rid of our lumpy flesh - I have come to see it as a sort of bible, one that keeps me well-informed enough to hold a conversation with any French person. 

So, when I decided it was time to shed a couple of extra kilos before spring, it was natural to turn to my extensive collection of Elles. I am not normally one to follow diets, but my eating habits had been getting out of hand lately with all the temptation I face in my daily life: I could hardly write a feature on new Paris patisseries without testing each one more than once, could I? I remembered seeing a one-week detox diet in an early January issue of Elle, which was designed to get the body back on track after the excesses of the holiday season. With three hearty meals and an afternoon snack every day involving plenty of vegetables, fruits and grains, it sounded just right for me.

I started by going shopping for the first two "purifying" days of the diet. After two hours of ticking off my list at the market and three specialty shops, I had spent triple my weekly food budget and filled my shopping caddy to the brim. Then the cooking started. For lunch, there was a salad of (bottled) artichoke hearts, spinach and chick peas with brown rice, followed by an organic banana and a mandarin orange. Half a pound of spinach seemed a huge quantity even after I had wilted it in the frying pan, but I gamely munched my way through the heaped plate. I had the strange impression that I was eating more than usual, but thought there must be some logic to it. By 4pm I was hungry enough for the snack of a sheep's milk yogurt with defrosted blueberries and an infusion of fresh lemon and thyme honey. So far I could not say that I was feeling deprived - in fact, my whole day had involved shopping for food and cooking.

Dinner was more of a challenge: a soup made of a zucchini and half a pound of arugula tasted inedibly bitter to me, though I forced down a bowl of it, leaving the rest for the very cooperative Philippe. Root vegetables sautéed in a little olive oil with curry powder tasted more monotonous than they sounded, and again there was far too much for one person. The day's cooking also left me with half-used vegetables that never appeared again in the week-long diet. By now I was grumbling about the recipes, but I decided to continue because I had gone to the considerable trouble of buying the ingredients and liked the sound of the next day's dahl.

The dahl again involved cooking at lunchtime - do none of the Elle's readers work, or are they all food writers? - but its deliciousness completely redeemed the diet. The serving size was generous enough for both me and Philippe, though I was enjoying it so much that I could probably have eaten it all (see below for the recipe). This meal had no dessert, but there was a snack of prunes, dried apricots and a freshly squeezed orange and carrot juice in the afternoon. At some point during day 2, I realized that I was starting to enjoy the feeling of following instructions rather than deciding for myself what to eat. Dinner was spiced squash soup, stir-fried cabbage and broccoli with soy sauce and lime, and tropical fruit salad - exactly the sort of food I like to eat anyway, even if at €7 for a pineapple flown in from Africa I don't often indulge in tropical fruits.

Each day started with the juice of a freshly-squeezed lemon in warm water followed by a pot of green tea, a ritual I enjoyed so much that I have kept it up after the end of the diet. Breakfast was either two pieces of whole wheat toast with honey, a bowl of yogurt and muesli with berries or a fruit salad - on the fruit salad days, I cheated and also had a piece of toast to get me through the morning.

After the near-disastrous first day I was happy with all the recipes, though I soon decided that it was fine to take liberties here and there and even to switch things around for convenience. The diet gradually introduced small quantities of fish and white meat, which I sometimes left out if they didn't seem to add much to the dish. There was far too much shopping and cooking for anyone who isn't used to spending most of her time in the kitchen, but the experience did teach me a few things:

- Lemon juice in warm water followed by a pot of green tea is a great way to start the day.

- Whole wheat bread with an intense-tasting honey (I used forest honey instead of thyme) makes a surprisingly satisfying breakfast.

- If your diet is based on grains, pulses, vegetables and fruit, it's OK to eat quite a lot of all these foods.

- If you eat good quantities of healthy foods at regular intervals, you are unlikely to feel deprived.

- You don't need to follow a "diet" to eat this way most of the time.

- Life is better without alcohol, at least periodically.

Of all the recipes I tried that week, three are likely to stay with me even as I re-introduce meat, the occasional glass of wine and - hooray! - cakes back into my diet.

Thai salad

Soak 50 g (2 oz) rice vermicelli in a large bowl of warm water until soft. In a bowl, mix 150 g (6 oz) slivered white cabbage, 2 grated carrots and 1 thinly sliced red onion. Marinate for 30 mins with 1 tbsp fish sauce (I used a little more) and 1 tbsp rice vinegar. Drain the vermicelli and cut into shorter lengths with scissors. Toss with the vegetables. Add chopped coriander, 1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds and 100 g (4 oz) steamed chicken breast.
Note: To me this salad was crying out for crushed roasted peanuts, diet or no diet.

Red lentil dahl with vegetables

Sauté 1 sliced onion, a chopped garlic clove and 1 cm fresh ginger root, chopped, in 1 tbsp olive oil. Add 200 g (7 1/2 oz) red lentils, 1 sliced carrot, 1 pattypan squash cut into chunks (I substituted 1/2 red pepper) and some diced eggplant. Cover with water and cook at a simmer for about 15 mins, until the lentils have collapsed into a purée. Add 1/2 tsp turmeric, some chopped coriander and the juice of a lime.

Orange and ginger salad

Peel an orange and cut into slices or segments. Top with a little grated fresh ginger.

Tags: Fruit, Health, Magazines, Pulses, Vegetables