Eating delicious food and suffering from eater’s remorse are no longer my partners in crime. After years of being obsessed by food and destructive dieting in an effort to stay thin, I discovered the answer to weight loss and control as I neared my thirties.

This healthy solution enabled me to pursue my passion – gourmet cooking. I have found a new and healthy form of creative culinary expression and I want to share it with you in this book.

So go ahead, taste, savor, and experience the joy of gourmet cooking again! This book will help you nurture the spirit and indulge the palate without the threat of gastronomic over indulgence, diabetes or coronary repercussion. Lighten Up – The Art of Low Fat Gourmet Cooking is my gift to you for your heart, healthy and soul!

Well, that was over 20 years ago, and a few things have changed as far as nutrition is concerned. First of all, I’d like to rename the book, Lighten Up – The Art of Healthy Gourmet Cooking. We need more than 20% fat. In fact, 30 to 35% of our calories should come from fats, with only about 5% of that coming from saturated fats.

You’ll also notice that I use very few whole eggs in my recipes. That’s because at the time the book was written, eggs where considered a very unhealthy form of dietary cholesterol. Fortunately for both humans and egg producers, the dietary cholesterol in eggs has very little if any negative affect on your serum cholesterol. In fact, the opposite has been found. A number of nutritional studies have found that the cholesterol in eggs actually lowers your bad cholesterol. In fact, eggs are the perfect food, low in fat and calories and high in all of the essential amino acids we need.

As a chef, being able to cook with eggs again is a god send. Baking without eggs was one of the hardest things I had to learn to do, especially given all of the wonderful strengths eggs add to cooking and baking. Eggs leeven, give structure, and add tenderness to baked goods, they thicken and enrichen sauces, soups, custards, mousse, and other desserts. They add color and flavor to so many different foods. So, if you see a recipe that only uses egg whites in this book, unless it’s an angle food cake, add back an egg or two.

I’ve also lightened up on foods like, butter, cream, and cheese. I use the real stuff in my recipes now, I just use a lot less!

How long has it been since you’ve had Cheese Stuffed Manicotti smothered in Sausage and Mushroom Ragu, Enchiladas, or New York Cheesecake and not felt guilty?

Now you can indulge in all of the foods you love but deprive your self of from heavenly cream sauces to sinfully rich tasting desserts. Lighten Up – The Art of Low Fat Gourmet Cooking includes:

• Over 250 sumptuous healthy recipes with step-by-step instructions

• Fast and healthy recipes for a quick in and out of the kitchen experience

• Informative guide to Understanding Nutrition and the FDA Nutrition Facts Label

• How to stock your pantry

• How to avoid the pitfalls of dining out

• Health smart shopping tips and much more!