So on the one hand, there’s the practical The Washington Post Cookbook (see below). And on the other, there’s It’s All Good: Delicious, Easy Recipes That Will Make You Look Good and Feel Great by Gwyneth Paltrow. As the Post‘s Monica Hesse explains, it’s not exactly practical:
While waiting for my pre-breakfast Best Green Juice to finish draining—“Just about as energizing as a cup of coffee,” Gwyneth has promised—I begin the recipe for my actual breakfast: Millet Fig Muffins. I dutifully measure out my gluten-free flour, my raw millet, my unsweetened almond milk. I grind flax seed, pinch fine sea salt, toss chopped figs in a spoonful of the dry ingredients, line my muffin tins with paper liners. It’s only noon, and I’m almost done cooking my first meal of the day.
Hesse doesn’t skewer Gwyneth—to the contrary, she loves the Oscar-winning actress and takes the recipes with a grain of fleur de sel. That’s just the way she is, Hesse reasons. But it’s not the way most of us are:
On Goop [her website], Gwyneth prances about wearing Alexander McQueen skirts ($855) and carrying Valentino iPad cases ($795). She extols thousand-dollar throw-blankets, hundred-dollar journals, four-hundred-dollar nesting bowls. On the site’s current home page, Gwyneth stares soulfully into visitors’ eyes and encourages them to buy “beautiful, rad” jewelry from a new collection, starting at $1,250 for an earring shaped like a safety pin.
Following a severe migraine, Paltrow is told by her doctor to go on a new diet: “No coffee, no alcohol, no dairy, no eggs, no sugar, no shellfish, no deepwater fish, no potatoes, no tomatoes, no bell pepper, no eggplant, no wheat, no meat, no soy,” Hesse quotes her as saying. (When Michael Ruhlman hears this, his head will explode.)
She’s a terrific actress and beautiful. But for cooking advice, I’ll stick with Cook’s Illustrated.
Photo courtesy of Jared Purdy