ArcaMax

Living ZLife in London

If you read last week’s column, you know I spirited off to London for a business meeting and to celebrate my birthday. The meeting was very important to the development of Plan Z the Diet by Zola. I was visiting the prestigious pharmacy that makes our ZR50 formula. It’s all designed to help people get through the toughest parts of dieting – comfortably.

The meetings took place over a couple of days but we had plenty of free time to spend a few days walking around London. London is such a fine walking town. It’s flat so you can go long distances without tiring. The only trick is to make sure you are looking the right way before you cross the street. So many foreigners get hit by cabs and cars because they look the wrong way, and since Londoners drive on the opposite side of the street to which we are accustomed, the city even goes to the trouble to print “look right” or “look left” on the pavement to remind us all which way to look so we don’t get injured.

I got away unscathed and enjoyed myself immensely.

I have seen all the touristy stuff in London. I have been there many times. This time we focused on just relaxing with long walks and good meals. I did, what I call, Living ZLife in London. That means I ate like a queen. I thought I’d report out today on how well you can eat on ZLife and still maintain your weight. I weighed in this morning just .7 of a pound more than when I got on the plane. And when you see the kinds of things I was eating, I am guessing some of you will be incredulous. I really ate like royalty. When you lose the weight on Plan Z we teach you how to eat going forward so you can eat with great pleasure and not have the fear of gaining the weight back or the guilt that our society has put on us when we go out and splurge. You just have to splurge on the right stuff.

Now, I know for some reading this it will look like I am speaking a foreign language. This was not American comfort food I was eating. This is international gourmet. My husband and I make a hobby out of dining at fine establishments and even reminiscing years later about a wonderful meal we had or a special bottle of wine. I say “we collect chefs”. So here is a bit of a report on the chefs we collected this trip and the meals we ate. This won’t be all of the meals. I can’t type all afternoon. This is just a few of the highlights, but they are indicative of every meal I ate on this trip.

Our first stop was a restaurant called simply, Fifteen. I have been waiting since 2002 to go to Fifteen. Fifteen is a restaurant by Chef Jamie Oliver. If you are a Food Network watcher you likely are familiar with Jamie. I admire Chef Jamie for opening Fifteen. He’s giving disadvantaged youth a chance at building a career, so this place is staffed by folks who could not afford culinary school. Many of them came from gangs or tough homes. They are taught proper restaurant service and cooking execution and they do deliver. Superb.

So here’s what I ate.

Beef, barley bun and horseradish cream

Crispy quail and pickled walnut ketchup

Pink fir apple potatoes, Lincolnshire poacher, baby chard and pickled onions.

Okay… so the horseradish cream was SO good I’m coming up with my own recipe soon. Imagine clotted cream with horseradish. The bun was poofy and amazing. The crispy quail turned out to be sort of a spicy Thai dish. Dusting the quail with cayenne was brilliant and I’ll never forget the walnut ketchup. It sounds creepy and weird, I know, but it was delightful. The pink fir apples dish was basically a plate of specially cooked baby potatoes. I’ll admit I spared myself the carbs and didn’t finish the plate but having a few felt really decadent and I got my fill.

We did have dessert too. I don’t recall what it was. Our strategy is to generally get one and split it. We both just eat a few bits and let it pass. We get our sugar and the fun of seeing what they did as far as presentation but we don’t pay heavily for it on the scale the next day.

Here’s a link to Fifteen. Just driving up in the cab I was smitten. The building is a quaint, Harry Potter-looking place on a quiet corner. So London.

My birthday dinner was celebrated in the newly-resurging area of east London. Lots of artists and young executives live in this area. It used to be sort of dodgy. Now it’s the cool place to hang.

The restaurant is called Galvin La Chappelle.

With this place, even the architecture is appetizing! As you scroll down in the link look at the background picture. This place is an old, hollowed out chapel of grand design. It’s just the right amount of old with soaring glass for the new. We had a perfect seat right in the middle of the first floor and plenty of action around us to take in.

Here we had them take three appetizers and split them into two portions for us. Each of them fit in a little bowl surrounded by a wide, white china rim. They all involved sauces poured over exotic ingredients. Then we both had entrees. We had dessert, of course. It was my birthday and they knew it. So they not only brought me the dessert we ordered to split, but they also brought some other little cakes and goodies on a plate with the words Happy Birthday spelled out in dark chocolate. My favorite part of that plate was the way they took one, single, little white candle and melted some wax on the plate so the candle stood straight up by itself. These brothers are so good I bought one of their cookbooks on the way out.

And one more meal just to tease you.

We decided one day to do a contemporary Italian meal. We were going to the Brick Lane that evening for Indian food. I knew the Indian food was going to be inexpensive, so this day we put our budget toward lunch. We did a leisurely lunch including wine and then took a luxurious nap before dinner. My kind of vacation.

My first course at Murano included: Roasted scallops, curried parsnip puree, apple chutney and macadamia nuts. The parsnips taste as sweet as sugar to me now and the light curry really set them off. I had never thought to put roasted macadamia nut bits with roasted scallops. I won’t forget going forward. You’ll see a recipe someday... I’m sure.

Chef Angela Hartnett is in charge at Murano. She’s earned numerous awards including the famed Michelin Star.

For my entrée I chose a high carb dish. I don’t often do this. I tell people I eat potatoes about 4 times a year. They are a very special occasion dish for me. So I ordered the baked potatoe gnocchi, fontina, wild mushrooms and smoked speck.

This was not a big dish. It’s not like Olive Garden where they pile on the pasta. I had about a dozen little pillows of gnocchi and I savored each of them. I took my time eating this dish, swirling the poofs of potatoes around in my mouth. The fontina gave it a gooey texture, the speck added the saltiness and the mushrooms gave it the forest depth-of-flavor. My mouth went nuts!

I got two inspirational ideas from this place for dessert. First of all they do “pressert”. A pre-dessert offering like a palate cleanser. This one was grapefruit and Campari. I don’t like grapefruit or Campari on their own. This combo was really tasty. My husband kept staring at my little container so I gave in to him and let him finish mine. He was overjoyed.

Then I got the idea of little baby biscotti. I love biscotti and don’t often eat them cuz of the sugar. I think I will be able to develop a recipe using almond flour to cut the carbs way back. The little tiny ones were about the size of half of a small finger. Eat a couple of those and you’re satisfied.

So there’s the culinary tour for today. I could come up with more. I lost track of the number of times I ate pate’ or fois gras mousse. We had great views at some places and intimate dinners at others. We even checked out Jamie Oliver’s Italian place in Covent Garden one day for lunch. So that rounds it out. I had one happy birthday. I can tell you that!

For today’s recipe I’m offering up a recipe I designed just before I left. I had my friend Bill Mann in mind when I designed this one. He misses cereal. If he takes the time to make a batch of this, I’ll have his cereal craving covered.

Peanut Butter Craisin Granola

Craving breakfast cereal? Try this instead! Have it with unsweetened coconut milk.

Also makes a YUMMY parfait. To do that...put a ½ cup of unsweetened yogurt in a bowl or large glass. Stir in one teaspoon of Truvia to sweeten it. Then mix in or layer the granola.

Notice this is 10 servings; a half cup each. (about nine grams per serving of carbs). That’s not bad. Just take it easy and don’t eat it too often. This batch should last a good week if kept tightly sealed. You can freeze it in little batches too so it will last longer.

1.5 cups cashews
1.5 cups pecans
1 cup flax seed meal (you can get this in the grocery store. Look for Bob’s Mill brand)
1/4 cup chia seeds (these are really good for preventing cancer. Order on line or get in health food stores)
1/3 cup vanilla whey protein powder (we order this on line and use it in smoothies too. Keeps you full all morning)
1/3 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup granulated erythritol (I use ZSweet. You can order this on line too or it is in some stores)
5 – 8 drops of liquid stevia (most stores have this now)
¾ cup of craisins
1/4 cup water

Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit and line a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a food processor, process cashews and pecans until they resemble coarse crumbs with some larger pieces. Transfer to a large bowl and stir in flax seed meal, chia seeds and vanilla protein powder.

In a small saucepan over low heat, melt peanut butter, butter and erythritol together until smooth. Remove from heat and stir in stevia extract.

Pour peanut butter mixture over nut mixture and stir well, tossing lightly. Stir in water. Mixture will clump together.

Spread mixture evenly on prepared baking sheet and bake 20 minutes, until golden and beginning to crisp. Turn off oven and let sit for another 20 minutes and then break up. Store in a container with a tight lid.

Enjoy!
Cheers,
Zola