A thoughtfully presented resource for eating well after bariatric surgery.
A veteran of weight-loss surgery offers an empathetic, healthy approach for those recovering from similar procedures and for anyone looking for low-calorie dishes.
In her intro, Belkin (The Cosmetics Cookbook, 2008) offers a modest disclaimer: “I am not a doctor or a nutritionist.” She is, however, a former bariatric surgery patient who can offer advice to those learning to live with their new digestive limitations. Belkin points out that bariatric surgery doesn’t make you instantly shed 40 pounds. Instead, the term covers a number of procedures that reduce the stomach size to the point where overeating or consuming sugar and fatty foods may cause extreme discomfort or illness. This reduced digestive area often requires half-cup portions, so Belkin’s meals are small, nutritious, and tasty enough to be “pouch worthy,” a term that may make the uninitiated reader slightly queasy. She succeeds in tantalizing with low-fat versions of traditional snacking favorites, such as spinach and artichoke dips; protein-rich, tiny zucchini-chicken croquettes, and mini-quiche bites she calls “cheese and chives brownies.” Also noteworthy are fresh takes on ethnic standards, like cheese latkes and “lazy perogy casserole” with low-carb crepes. Some of Belkin’s directions seem excessively nit-picky, such as the crab cake recipe that calls for two tablespoons of scrambled egg rather than just going for broke and throwing a whole 70-calorie egg into a recipe for eight crab cakes. Several recipes are unimpressive, like the one for strawberry lemonade, which calls for adding frozen strawberries to water and a couple packets of sugar-free lemonade drink. Overall, however, this cookbook may be a boon for some, and Belkin’s descriptions of her own experiences and the principles of a bariatric diet are especially useful.
A thoughtfully presented resource for eating well after bariatric surgery.Pub Date: May 11, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5255-2281-9
Page Count: 228
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: July 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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