Cooking with the Diabetic Chef: Expert Chef Chris Smith Shares His Secrets to Creating More Than 150 Simply Delicious Meals for Peop (Paperback)

~ American Diabetes Association (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Culinary Institute of America graduates don't often worry about food's nutritional values. But CIA product Chris Smith has diabetes, so he understands that for himself and his fellow sufferers, the food they consume can indeed be a matter of life and death. Nevertheless, the diabetic in no way must endure a life of bland, uninteresting food. Smith has taken the principles of the best contemporary cooking (fresh ingredients, ethnic variety, eye appeal, multiple textures, and assertive flavors) and applied them to a tightly carbohydrate-controlled diet. To emphasize the importance of fresh ingredients, Smith organizes recipes by season to take advantage of the market's best-quality output. Recipes vary in complexity from sophisticated Grilled Apple Pear Soup to a simple Meat Loaf free of the usual starch binder. Collections lacking good contemporary recipes for diabetics would do well to add this volume. Mark Knoblauch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Description

Many cookbooks for people with diabetes are written by nutritionists or dietitians, but while those books might present well-balanced and nutritional recipes, they often fail to focus on recipes that are flavorful and easy to prepare. Author Chris Smith is not only a trained restaurant chef and a graduate of the prestigious Culinary Institute of America--but he is also a person with diabetes.

You will find more than 150 recipes--everything from appetizers to entrees to desserts--arranged by season so that the freshest ingredients can always be used. You will also discover a simple and convenient way to organize meals up to a month in advance using the Diabetic Chef's unique meal planner.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 169 pages
• Publisher: American Diabetes Association; 1 edition (May 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580400434
• ISBN-13: 978-1580400435
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #332,887 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Epinion Review!, July 16, 2001

By	E. Sequeira "Lee Romano Sequeira" (Philly, PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Still hot off the press, "Cooking with the Diabetic Chef" is the first diabetic cookbook actually written by a chef who suffers from diabetes. As someone who has recently read a lot of diabetic cookbooks (blech!), I am quite impressed.

Several months ago, when I first learned that I was a Type 1 diabetic (I have to inject insulin several times a day), I ran around to the library and several bookstores looking for some cookbooks that might allow me to return to normalcy. I was pretty horrified by what I found. While there were a lot of books to choose from, they really didn't contain the sort of food that you might want to eat every day, or that someone else (a non-diabetic) might want to share with you.

Cooking With the Diabetic Chef puts all those other books to shame. I've read the whole book and made several of the recipes and it seems to contain nary a clunker. What makes the difference is that it was written by someone who actually eats the food and is a chef to boot.

Chris Smith, the author, begins with a forward that explains how devastated he was as a student at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) when he discovered he was a diabetic. Apprenticed at one of New York's most prestigious restaurants, Le Cirque he was unable to keep up with the fast paced environment, feeling tired and run down. When he learned what was wrong he was quite plainly horrified but soon discovered that with proper management he would be able to pursue his dreams.

His new book, published by the American Diabetic Association, proves that healthy food doesn't have to be flavorless and bland. One of my favorite recipes so far is the Cajun Sweet Potato (very spicy and to die for). I have also made several of the more normal (which is what I had been looking for) recipes such as blueberry muffins, banana pancakes and crab cakes. All of them were excellent (the lunch crowd at work begged for tastes of the leftovers), not a bit bland or blah, something you would be proud to serve or share with non-diabetics.

It's an attractive paperback with photographs that will make you want to try all the recipes. If you know someone who is diabetic, this book would make an excellent gift. It has a good mix of fancy recipes (something you might feed company) and recipes for simple comfort food. It is one of the best cookbooks I have ever read or used and it is THE BEST diabetic cookbook I have ever seen.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A "must" for all diabetic cookbook collections., August 5, 2000

By	Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

Cooking with the Diabetic Chef shares a chef's secrets for creating over a hundred meals, focussing on meals which can be produced quickly and including color photos of finished results. Calories, fat, and exchange details are included in sidebars of information to accompany dishes of appeal to the entire family.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Bitter Disappointment, January 11, 2002

By	KayPac (Harrisburg, PA USA) - See all my reviews

Cooking is a joy and a hobby for me, when accurate instructions are provided. Regrettably, I was no further into this book than page 8 before discovering a substantive error: Chicken Breast Roulade clearly must require more than 1/8 cup (2 Tbsp.) Chicken Stock in order to produce final portions of 1-1/2 Tbsp. for each of four servings, particularly after it has been reduced by half. Pages 11 and 12 show lovely photographs which, regrettably, are mis-identified. With such careless editing, how can one trust anything else in the contents?