Easy Exotic : A Model's Low-Fat Recipes from Around the World

Rating:
Summary: gorgeous model? Padma?
Review: After reading most of the other customer reviewss, I noticed that alot of people commented on the models more than they did on the actual recipes. Minus the models, the book isn't much good. The so-called easy exotic recipes are not easy to make. The recipes are somewhat complicated to follow, take a long time to make and require many different ingrediants. When you're all done, you can count colories and find out they aren't very low-fat afterall.

Even the Provencale Tomato Potato Stew is very time consuming. The final results are good tasting dishes, but they're not fat free. And the mojority of them are not done in 30 minutes the this book claims.

Rating:
Summary: Great recipes...
Review: Another reviewer panned this book b/c she bought it simply to "know Padma better." This is a cookbook, not a biography. The recipes are delicious, low in cholesterol and low-fat. They are easy to make and the instructions are clear, so the book is accessible to new cooks but still interesting for those with more experience in the kitchen. I think this is a terrific book, the recipes I've used have all been delicious (especially the Spinach and Garbanzo Tapas). I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Padma's Kitchen
Review: Another reviewer panned this book b/c she bought it simply to "know Padma better." This is a cookbook, not a biography. The recipes are delicious, low in cholesterol and low-fat. They are easy to make and the instructions are clear, so the book is accessible to new cooks but still interesting for those with more experience in the kitchen. I think this is a terrific book, the recipes I've used have all been delicious (especially the Spinach and Garbanzo Tapas). I highly recommend it.

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Summary: Exotic Delights
Review: EASY EXOTIC contains recipes for both meat and vegetarian dishes from a variety of cultures--Spain, France, Italy, India, East Asia, Morocco (as well as a separate dessert section)--which are easy to prepare and wonderful to eat.

It is not a 'diet' cookery-book, but rather simply a healthy one. As the author states: '[n]o-one ever sticks to diets, because the often take away the pleasure of flavour...[These recipes are] "happy medium" food...it is not gravely fattening because it avoids things like cream and butter. What I will not do is eat food that does not taste good'. The book does provide a listing of the amount of calories, protein, fat, carbohydrates, cholesterol and sodium along with each recipe for those who are concerned with these things.

A sampling of dishes includes: Stuffed Bell Peppers (Spain), Sautéed Steak in Red Wine & Shallot Sauce (France), Fiery Farfalle (Italy), Tandoori Chicken Salad (India), Vegetarian Chili (India), Bali Baked Fish (Asia), Wild Mushroom Couscous (Morocco), Poached Pears with Raspberry Sauce (dessert), as well as numerous other exotic delights.

Another lovely addition to the book are the short passages at the beginning of each section and interspersed throughout in which the author recalls her time living in Spain, Italy, India, &c. The one leading the section on French dishes begins: "Each of us has a charmed part of our lives we remember with nostalgia as a carefree and idealistic time. For me it is when I was in Paris that cold winter of my first year as a model...." and concludes, "There were all sorts of discoveries, small and large, that I made on a weekly basis. Soon I began to know my way around Paris and my way around modelling as well. I can hear Tom Waits in the background and the sound of [my friend] chopping the onions as I slam the door on another day's round of casting".

*****

A non-culinary exotic delight of EASY EXOTIC is the inclusion of a number of photographs (though, alas! too few to my mind) of the author herself--the breathtaking model/actress Padma Lakshmi--cooking and shopping in outdoor markets.

Notably, Miss Lakshmi is also the current girlfriend of the Booker-Award-winning author Salman Rushdie, and is, in fact, transparently the model for one of the character in his latest novel, FURY. This character, Neela Mahendra, is described in FURY as "the most beautiful Indian woman--the most beautiful _woman_--he had ever seen. Compared to the intoxicating effect of her presence, the bottle of Dos Equis in his left hand was wholly alcohol free. Other women in the world were just under six feet tall, with waist-length black hair, he supposed; and no doubt such smoky eyes were also to be found elsewhere, as also other lips as richly cushioned, other necks as slender, other legs as interminably long. On other women, too, there might be breasts like these. So what?....Staring into the sidereal unreality of her beauty, which wheeled in the room like a galaxy on fire, he was thinking that if he had been able to wish his ideal woman into being, if he'd had a magic lamp to rub, this would have been what he'd have wished for". This poetic description may almost do her justice.

My one complaint about EASY EXOTIC (other than wishing for more photos) is that someone [the publishers?] seems to have felt compelled to have the scar on Padma Lakshmi's right arm airbrushed-out. I find this unfortunately, for, as Rushdie says of Neela Mahendra in FURY (who has a scar to match Padma's): "down the upper part of the woman's right arm there was an eight-inch-long herringbone-pattern scar....[that] made her more beautiful, that perfected her beauty by adding an essential imperfection. By showing that she could be injured, that such astonishing loveliness could be broken in an instant, the cicatrice only emphasised what was there, and made one cherish it....all the more".

All in all, an excellent book of delicious recipes which are not too fattening or difficult to make, complemented by photographs of the astonishingly beautiful author; made all the more interesting for the fact that Padma Lakshmi provided the inspiration for a main protagonist in a novel by Salman Rushdie, arguably the world's greatest living novelist. However, the recipes alone in EASY EXOTIC are well worth the price of the book.

Rating:
Summary: Just watch the show
Review: I admit that I bought this book because Padma Lakshmi is beautiful. I had heard of her from the gossip pages as Salman Rushdie's girlfriend, and I saw a gorgeous travel show she hosted that was a combination of National Geographic documentary and Food Finds. She does such a great job of making herself alluring -- dating prominent men, having a tv show, talking about her rise to fashion fame -- that I HAD to know her better.

So now that I've read her book -- pithy and pedestrian stories of growing up in India and being a food lover in an anorexic industry, along with a few recipes -- I am SO over her.

From the previous readers' comments, I thought this book would be chock full of glamour shots, erotic photos, etc. There are about five pictures of her in total. The recipes are pretty sad -- hello? instant ramen with vegetables? I too went through a stage after college when I simply loved to cook, as opposed to my friends who ordered take-out and cooked only their mother's recipes. This is simply a desperate collection of the few recipes she has put together in the spare days out of the year when she's not being a model/food tv host/famous author's girlfriend. In fact, she writes in her dessert section "since I have little experience in creating desserts, I have begged and borrowed recipes and combed my kitchen for a few as well. Unfortunately, these are not all low fat and perhaps a bit sinful to the waistline..."

And if you've ever seen her on the Food network, her cooking style is pretty sloppy. I really wanted to like her, and to find a book of wonderful recipes that could allow me to live vicariously through her menus. Unfortunately, I just can't bring myself to do it.

Rating:
Summary: NOT A GOOD RECIPE BOOK, ONLY NICE PICTURES
Review: If you're buying this book for the pretty models, then your doing ok, but if you're buying this book for low fat, good tasting and easy to make recipes then FORGET IT, this is not the right book. This book claims to have good tasting easy to make recipes from all around the world-WRONG! The only thing this book has is pretty models that are half dressed. The recipes are not easy to make, they are quite complicated and take way to long to prepare. And after you're done, you'll notice that you just prepared a dish with as much fat or as many calories as any other regular dish. I was so disappointed after reading this book, I really regret wasting my money.

I would like to recommend other recipe books which I enjoyed reading and got good recipe ideas from, one is "The best recipe" This book has over 500 pages with 700 different recipes, from desserts to veggie plates, pasta, salads, stews to pizzas and soups. Alot of these recipes are low fat and low calorie dishes. Also, other good recipe books for those of us who really want to watch our weight, yet eat delicious foods are recipe books written by Dr. Shapiro. His recipe books specialize with weightloss recipes that are easy to make and very delicious. Dr. shapiros books are well written and easy to follow.

Rating:
Summary: This is the greatest cookbook ever written!!!
Review: Lakshmi has obviously learned a thing or two about writing from her famous boy-friend, Salman Rushdie. As Rushdie did in his great "Ground Beneath her Feet", "Haroun" and "Fury", Lakshmi weaves a fantastical world, this one populated not by paraplegic rock stars and elephant headed gods, but by tangy spices and low-fat cooking oils. Her imaginative interplay between such magical characters as her Turmeric and Basmati Rice bring to mind the lost little boy and the sea faring old man of Haroun. Lakshmi, with her slim waistline and mere 21 years of age, coupled with her deep and meaningful relationship with the great 56 year old literary genius Rushdie, ensures that we will be seeing many more great works such as Easy Exotic for years to come. Let us all hope.

Rating:
Summary: Padma's Kitchen
Review: Padma herself had given this book to an ex boyfriend of mine (who kept it)and I have been dying to find it ever since. The recipes of her native Indian quisine are still lingering on my taste buds. The recipes I found to be foolproof and easy. I have impressed many guests with her simply delicious meals. I hope the Men who bought this book could look past Padmas beauty and media coverage and just expierience the quality of these delightful dishes. Her where to buy section is also very helpful but not Mandatory to get mouthwatering results.

Rating:
Summary: the pictures were great, the low-fat recipes were not
Review: The recipes in this book are somewhat of a task. They require many different and exotic, sometimes hard to find ingredients. After cooking some of these recipes, I noticed the low-fat content was not so low. With all the ingrediants combined, some of these recipes are pretty high on fat and sodium. I was not impressed with this book.

Rating:
Summary: Recipes are time consuming & difficult to prepare
Review: Unlike some of the other readers, i bought this book for the recipes, not for the pictures. I tried preparing some of the recipes and I found them to be time consuming, yes the food is exotic, but I don't have three or more hours of time to spare, which is what alot of these recipes require. The final results are good, you end up with delicious meals, I'm just saying they all take longer than the book says they do and some of the instructions are not clearly written.