Here's her poulet au champagne:

4 chicken breasts (with skin and bone)
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Chervil, tarragon, or thyme (optional)
1 shallot, quartered
1 cup Champagne (Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label Brut recommended)

1. Place the chicken breasts in a roasting pan, and season them. Pour 1/2 cup of the Champagne over breasts. Make a slit in each breast and insert a piece of shallot.

2. Place the pan under the broiler, skin-side down, for 3 minutes, until the skin is nicely browned. Turn and broil the other side for 5 minutes.

3. Remove the chicken from the broiler, baste with the pan juices, and add the remaining 1/2 cup of Champagne. Adjust the oven temperature to 475 degrees and bake the chicken for 30 minutes, basting once or twice.

4. Serve over brown rice. Sautéed mushrooms add a special touch and go beautifully with Champagne. (In a warm frying pan with a touch of olive oil, add clean, roughly chopped mushrooms, and cook for a few minutes. Add a few drops of lemon juice, freshly chopped sage, seasoning to taste, and 1 tablespoon of butter.) Pour the cooking juices from the chicken over the meat and rice. Serve the remainder of the bottle of Champagne (about 6 glasses) with the meal.

There was an article in Time about this a few weeks ago. And yes, the French ARE thinner than Americans--33% obesity rate for Americans, 10% for Frence. And yes, the freshness of the food has much to do with it, as does eating slowly and (a French friend of mine claims this as well--)RED WINE!

I've been following an American nutritionist for years who also doesn't believe in dieting and I eat when I want and what I want--especially in Europe--and can still get into my wedding dress (from 23 years ago)! Check out her website--CherylSindell.com.

Cigalechanta, thanks for the recipes. Sounds like you a fantastic cook!

In the Times piece she admits that there are fat French people, but none of them are her friends.

Where is that mousse au chocolat recipe? That's the one I'm waiting for...

Those vegetable soup diets are basically starvation diets. One cup of leeks has about 50 calories. So, you're eating at most, a couple hundred calories a day (very unhealthy). It's the water in the soups that make you feel like you've "eaten."

Not to pick on leeks, it's the same thing with the 8-day tomato soup diet, etc.

Mimi, thank you SO much for providing these personal revised versions of that recipe

I think it's safe to say that there is no 'one-size fits all' diet. There are many variations in metabolism, genetic history, food sensitvities, etc.
This lady seems charming, and is doing a great job selling her book, but she doesn't take the above factors into account (from what I've read in the newspaper articles) and,
after all, it's just another diet book, and like many diets could be discouraging to anyone for whom the particular approach doesn't work. Just as eating what one wants and when one wants might also spell failure for some. When you've found an approach that works for you, that's wonderful!

>Where is that mousse au chocolat recipe?<

American-Style mousse au chocolat

1 box Jello (or other brand) Instant Chocolate pudding mix.

Prepare according to package directions.

Put in little cups.

Top with Kool Whip.

Serve with appropriate beverage:
Sweet Ice Tea, or Coca Cola if you like bubbly.

((I))

ira,
I like Campbell's tomato soup, cheetos, and My-T-Fine chocolate pudding a lot, but I would never confuse the pudding with
mousse au chocolat. :)

elaine those are the Mme Guiliano's recipes not any revised by me.

Ira, thank you so much! You have hit upon the perfect diet mousse au chocolat recipe. I would never be tempted to eat a spoonful of it in a million years!

BennyB I will not be peaking on your leaks ;)

Cigale, that 4 chicken breasts recipe - for how many people? After all prior starvation it must be for 1 person for 1 meal! And what about those 6 glasses of champagne? Are we switching from wine diet to champagne diet?

Somebody call Amnesty International!

Now that I've actually looked at the 'recipe' for the soup, it basically is telling me that for two days, I should eat flavored hot water. Whether we call it 'mimosa' because it has lettuce or turnips in it, or we call it 'leek soup', ira is right, it is the same thing as a starvation diet for two days.
I might get other benefits if I just drink hot green tea for two days.

The health benefits of fasting can be debated, but I don't need this lady or her doctor to tell me that not eating for two days will lead to weight loss.
Gosh, has she got a good marketing team!

faina, it's cheaper to just fast for a few days (sip Fruit juice and then try to cut down what you usually eat.
Losing weight is like a bank account what you put in, (calories) must balance what you take out.
Sigh! My account is never balanced.

Elaine, there's really a lot more to the book than the recipes (though the recipes are very enticing, barring the two soups listed here). It's very interesting and funny story, rather, interspersed with a recipe here and there. I thought it was a very good read.

You make a good point, I was commenting only on the soup recipe and shouldn't have implied that there is no worth to the book esp. since I haven't read it!

Artslover: Here is the Mousse Au chocolat recipe.

Ingredients
4 ounces dark chocolate (80% cacao preferred)
1 tablespoon sugar
3 egg yolks
5 egg whites

1. Melt the chocolate in the top of a double boiler set over a pan of simmering water.

2. Remove the chocolate from the heat and add the sugar. Stir well and add the egg yolks, one at a time.

3. Beat the egg whites until stiff, glossy peaks are formed. Gently fold the whites into the chocolate mixture until well blended.

4. Pour the mousse into a serving bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight.

Serves 6 (1/2 cup per person)

Aside from th book, I must comment on her style. She has exquisite taste in clothes and jewelry. In maybe a dozen or so photos I've seen, there's not a clinker. Some of the things are so surprising for a woman 5'3" but she pulls it off.

Thas is why the Veuve Clicquot was a widow. She served her husband that leek soup and he dropped dead.

This is an hysterical title and thread! I am intrigued and want to read her book now..... LOL :)

French Women Don't Get Fat, but Southren women do.

See
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...uthern_staples

Eat whatever you want in reasonable quantities and as fresh and unprocessed as possible and walk miles everyday; I always lose weight when I go to Paris.....
so her book is not rocket science.......

Bits of these are quite funny:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/15/re...-guiliano.html

She answers ten questions from readers.

>3. Beat the egg whites until stiff, glossy peaks are formed. Gently fold the whites into the chocolate mixture until well blended.

4. Pour the mousse into a serving bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight.<

Watch while your guests develop intense stomach cramps and die of salmonella poisoning from eating uncooked egg whites. :)

((I))

Today's New York Times Op-Ed page has an article called Inhaling Their Food.
It is written by someone who is, tongue-in-cheek, skeptical about and irritated by the Frenchwomen Don't Get Fat book. Today's writer says the not getting fat may be less due to savoring small portions on fine china, and more due to heavy smoking--as the trend for smoking declines, the trend for obesity is increasing.

>as the trend for smoking declines, the trend for obesity is increasing.<

Ay, there's the rub. Do we continue smoking and die of emphysema or give it up, become fat and die of emphysema?

((I))

At my nutrition class in school I learned that where the food is less processed it has natural worms in it and so the people have worms to help them digest their food and stay slim.

In a country like the USA the worms are all chemically taken out of our food so we don't have natural worms in our bowels.

Peeky, in the 1920s, you could buy tapeworms so that you too could benefit from a "tapeworm" diet.

Hmm, maybe it's the steak tartare that keeps Frenchwomen slim. (Just kidding.)

My professor did mention eating raw meats and veggies to keep those worms. I didn't post this before because I thought it would upset people.

We don't have worms in our stomachs and that's why we are getting fat? I can't buy that.

The reason why the French are thinner is the same old, same old.

1) Normally, they don't live in huge houses with lots of storage. Storage as everything else is limited. This means two things: a) you tend to store only those items which are absolutely necessary for cooking and eating (no junk food!) and
b) buying fresh food every day or every other day

2) They have to WALK to the local market and back and they have to HAUL all their food purchases home by themselves. How much food would you be able to haul home on your own? This keeps the portion size down.

2) Those who live in the cities don't have cars or, if they do, don't drive everywhere, so they tend to take public transportation, which provides a healthy degree of walking.

Same old. Same old. Smaller portions and lots of walking exercise.

I have the book but can't get past chapter 1. It's that leek soup diet! Forget it! :)

I think the worm theory isn't it, either. I had steak tartare last month in Paris at Le Bouillion Racine and it hasn't done a single thing to my figure! I'm neither thinner or fatter.

Ewww!!!!!! I don't think the answer is worms either but don't think our food doesn't have them. When those little crawly things appear in cornmeal or flour..what ever, they don't crawl in from somewhere else, they are there to being with but just in egg form. We eat them all the time and don't see them because we usually eat the product before the eggs hatch. Oh yuck. Yes, it's true.

Most steak tartare in France is not going to be infested with tapeworms - that's why I put "just kidding". However, raw meat does have some risks, including the possibility of catching a parasite or tapeworm. And it's true that in the 1920s women did deliberately infect themselves in hopes of losing weight from that plan.

With all the diet fazes going around I think it is a good business to get in on the ground floor.

I am going to introduce the Peeky Worm Diet, I can sell them flash frozen like they do in a tropical fish store or in convenient pill form.

You guys are missing the point! The leek soup is fabulous. It has tons of nutrients in it, for example iron, magnesium, manganese, B6 and folate. I felt great after eating it for a weekend. So I made it again. I did spruce it up with some good quality chicken boullion, and I didn't fast, I just ate lightly for the weekend. I love her book, I've lost ten pounds since February and feel great. And still losing. I took her most basic suggestion and stopped eating so many sweets.

The most beautiful thin French (and American women) I have met smoke alot and move their food around on their plate. Dining with them is not fun. I wish I could break bread with MFK Fisher and Colette.

Like the second response and PalQ have said -- it comes down to portion control, calorie intake, and moving around more.

The French enjoy smaller portions of more (delicisou) items. The idea of a huge portion of something is off-putting, and they enjoy what they eat. They don't do six-story desserts -- a few bites of something wonderful are enough. Nor are they impressed with having enough on the restaurant plate to take home -- that's not what dining out is about. A restaurant recommendation from a Frenchman will always talk about the quality of the food, not "They give you a lot" or how great a 16-oz steak was (like some recommendations I get in the U.S. But admittedly, I've never had as a good steak in France as in the U.S., and my French colleagues agree.) The typical portions are more than adequate for reasonable dining, but also scaled to allow enjoying multiple dishes.

...And I adore champagne...

Yes, women get heavier with age, even there, but hardly at the scale you see in the U.S. (and don't blame Mcdonald's -- no one forces anyone to eat there.) In the past few years, the French bureau of standards (I forget its name) has done a re-measuring of thousands of French women to understand how "average" sizes have changed over time, and advise the clothing industry accordingly. Yes, women have gotten heavier (and taller) as most cultures have, both due to lifestyle changes but also improved availability of foodstuffs.

And anyone who thinks of ANY food as a magic bullet for losing weight, especially chocolate mousse, still isn't thinking well about food and nutrition.