Bored of CSIRO? Does Atkins give you bad breath? Weak with hunger from WeightWatchers? Bookshop shelves everywhere are straining under the weight of a new crop of diet books.
• The Dog Diet: What My Dog Taught Me About Shedding Pounds, Licking Stress and Getting a New Leash on Life, by Patti Lawson (HCI, 2006): "A shelter dog changed my life," says the woman who now drives a Mercedes E320 convertible with 'Dog Diet' on her licence plates.
• Our Lady of Weight Loss: Miraculous and Motivational Musings from the Patron Saint of Permanent Fat Removal, by Janice Taylor (Studio, August 2006): In which the artist author exchanges fat for art.
• Fat Girl, by Judith Moore (Profile Books, 2005): "You're too fat to fuck," she was told by a boy she fancied as they ate cheeseburgers together at a diner.
• How the Rich Get Thin: Park Avenue’s Top Diet Doctor Reveals the Secrets to Losing Weight and Feeling Great, by Jana Klauer (St Martin's Press, 2005): In which I discover I have an endomorph body type, a characteristic I share with Danny DeVito and Queen Latifah.
• Skinny Bitch, by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin (Running Press Book Publishers, 2005): From skinny Californian natives Rory and Kim whose all-teeth publicity photograph sets my teeth on edge.
• The New Orleans Program: Eat, Exercise and Enjoy Life, by David A. Newsome and Chef John Besh (Pelican Publishing Program, 2006): Is that the program where you hole up in the Superdome with thousands of others for a week?
• The Vice Busting Diet: A 12-Week Plan to Break your Worst Food Habits and Change your Life Forever, by Julia Griggs Havey, with J. Patrick Havey (St Martin's Press, 2006): From a self-described former "290-pound single mother".
• Japanese Women Don't Get Old or Fat: Secrets of My Mother’s Tokyo Kitchen, by Naomi Moriyama and William Doyle (Delacorte Press, 2005).
• Mediterranean Women Stay Slim, Too: Eating to Be Sexy, Fit and Fabulous!, by Melissa Kelly, Eve Adamson (Collins, 2006): What's next? "Sudanese Women Stay Slim As Well: 101 Ways with Millet"?
• The Sonoma Diet: Trimmer Waist, Better Health in Just 10 Days, by Connie Gutterson (Meredith Books, 2005).
• The Diet Code: Revolutionary Weight Loss Secrets from Da Vinci and the Golden Ratio (Warner Wellness, 2006), by Stephen Lanzalotta: In which you run like a crazy thing through the streets of Paris with Audrey Tautou?
A savvy publisher would follow the lead of romance novel factories such as Harlequin, which issue guidelines for would-be romance writers looking for love and a publisher. A savvy publisher would, on request, email out its diet-book formulas. Number 1 on the list would have to be the Tea and Sympathy Style Memoir, in which the once-immense author takes his/her readers on a journey through devastating playground jibes, teenage taunts, XXXXXL sizes, late-night binge-eating, serial relationship failures and then, the shining, life-altering epiphany that puts them on the speakers' circuit and into the Petite Sizes section of their local boutique and a convertible.
Then there'd be variations on The Wise Doctor/New Research Diet; The What My Mum From Cambodia/Albania/Mexico/Iceland Taught Me About Staying Thin and Sexy Diet; and the aspirational You Can Be as Rich and Thin as I Am Diet. And the genre I'd like to write? The How I Lost Kilograms/Pounds without Denying Myself a Thing Diet.
Until that becomes possible, I'll be cooking things like this dish from The New York Times writer Mark Bittman. (If you're smart, you'll notice that the fish in my photograph is not salmon. I tried Mr Bittman's spicy soy oil with a fillet of rockling baked in a hot oven for about 10 minutes. I don't think the fishmonger was good to me on the day but the soy oil certainly was. And, if you use salmon, please eat the skin ... it's the best bit.)
Roast Salmon with Spicy Soy Oil
Serves 4
2tbsp peanut oil
4 fillets of salmon, cut from the thick part of the fillet, rather than the tail
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp slivered garlic
2 dried red chillies
1 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 cup chopped green onions (scallions) or coriander (cilantro) for optional garnish
Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Place a nonstick, ovenproof frying pan over medium-high heat. When hot, add one tablespoon peanut oil; swirl it around. Season salmon with salt and pepper and place skin side up in pan. When salmon has browned (about a minute), flip over and transfer to oven.
Combine remaining peanut oil in a small saucepan with sesame oil, garlic and chillies, and turn heat to medium. Cook, gently shaking pan, until garlic colours lightly, about five minutes. Turn off heat and remove chillies. When sauce cools a bit, add soy.
Salmon will be medium rare after about six minutes in the oven. Cook for a shorter or longer period depending on your preference. Remove to a plate. Drizzle with oil, garnish, and serve.
