Book Review: The Saint-Tropez Diet by Apostolos Pappas and Marie-Annick Courtier

In a not so distant past, the end of year holiday time between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve became little more more than a prelude for the truly most important season in American culture - diet season. The holidays divide us religiously, ethnically, philosophically, and financially, but diet season is the only authentic common ground for all Americans. Truly bipartisan.

And as a passionate devotee of diet season, I've already begun to "celebrate." As most of you know, diet season festivities begin with two key holidays. First comes the "Festival of Eating Everything in Sight" because "come January I'm going on a diet." And the second holiday is "The Day of Picking This Year's Hot Diet."

Let's face it. The last thing you want is to say "I'm doing such-and-such a diet" and then have some dressed in black fashionista respond with "Oh my god, that's so last year."

Personally, I'm more for the underground diet, the diet that wasn't promoted through full page ads in the big newspapers. I'm the word-of-mouth diet kind of guy, the diet recommended by real people experience rather than Madison Avenue and TV land.

Having said that, I must admit that my crash diet of choice is Atkins, but my most successful long term program is, and has been for many years, the Mediterranean Diet. The Mediterranean Diet is Atkins-plus: still focused on whole foods, healthy fats, and the more nutrient-dense vegetables and fruits, but with a lot more style.

Of course, most diets ultimately fail or fall out of favor for the same reason Christimas gets derailed - the Grinch. The Diet Season Grinch however is boredom, boredom it is, monotony I say, it comes late at night and causes such fright. (My apologies to Dr. Seuss.)

And then along comes what I believe will be the sleeper diet of 2007, the underground buzz diet: The Saint-Tropez Diet.

I must confess that Saint-Tropez, the French Riviera, and Provence are among my favorite places on earth, so when I opened this book, I smelled lavender and tasted sea salt - something you understand if you've been to that region of the world.

Article Author: Richard Rothstein

A native New Yorker with decades of experience in journalism and public. Born the same year as modern Israel and still with as many issues. We're both working on it.

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