For professional reasons, I'm routinely assaulted by galleys and review copies of the latest and hottest in various books, including diet books. And having waded through the latest celebrity, best-selling author and friends/trainers of celebrities contributions to the 2007 diet season, I can report that The Saint-Tropez Diet is the hidden treasure and secret pleasure among them.

This diet book is a no-nonsense, short and easy to digest (couldn't resist it) collaboration between a food scientist/biochemist and an award-winning French chef, combining cutting edge nutritional science with the art and pleasure of eating.

The author, Apostolos Pappas, Ph.D. has taken the best of the best diets from Atkins to the Mediterranean Diet to the Provencal Diet and reduced them to a quick and easy handbook. As a food scientist and biochemist, Pappas has analyzed the why and how of the benefits of the various programs and fine-tuned them using the latest research on nutrition, metabolism, fatty acids, and nutraceuticals.

He then worked with a team of his favorite Mediterranean French chefs from award-winning restaurants to design a menu plan and cookbook section that deliver all the art and pleasure of the region's cuisine, but reshaped according to cutting edge scientific guidelines.

While the low-carb gurus led by Dr. Atkins understood the essential role of healthy fats in nutrition and weight management, Dr. Pappas has used his studies in food science and biochemistry to focus the role that fatty acids play in enhanced nutrition, weight loss, weight management, and energy levels.

He tells you what to eat and when to eat it.  And his chef collaborators make it worth eating.

As a proud multi-tasking devotee of attention deficit disorder, I can report that Dr. Pappas does not succumb to eye-rollling passages on "spirituality" and "philosophy." He understands that I want to understand just enough science to get healthy results and how to prepare the kind of food that will banish the Grinch of Boredom.

The Saint-Tropez Diet also delivers an eight-week day by day detailed eating plan and a 147-page cookbook of recipes designed by great chefs of the French Riviera and Provence. And last but not least, my favorite chapter - "Why Wine is Good for Your Diet."

So when your friends are boasting about their best-selling program from Oprah's personal trainer, you can describe your dinner of Loup de Mer au Gingembre et Citron Vert accompanied by Tomates en Millefeulles and followed with a spectacular Apostolos Crepes au Chocolat - all enjoyed after an exhausting afternoon of shopping for Saint-Tropez bikinis.

Pappas proves that science is far from boring and he leaves new age, alternative medicine babbling to the self-proclaimed gurus who fail to understand that intellectual and spiritual exercises are no substitute for a good glass of Cabernet Sauvignon and an artful and sensually pleasurable meal.