It's no secret that I love a cookbook. I own hundreds, literally. Between the books and the ridiculous amounts of cooking magazines I subscribe to (Gourmet, I miss you!) there's barely room left in my tiny city apartment for, well, me.

Truth is, most of the cookbooks I own are...okay. They're passable. They each have one or two tasty-sounding recipes. Very few books make it to the "love it" tier of my not-so-complicated review process. For me, a "love it" cookbook must contain a few key ingredients (pardon the pun): beautiful images, an organized layout and at least 10 "I can't wait to try that" recipes.

Sadly, most cookbooks featuring calorie-conscious dishes don't make the grade. Seriously, if I read another recipe for tofu and quinoa, I might cry. Can't someone do better than this? Apparently, someone can. In his new book, Now Eat This!, Rocco DiSpirito tranforms 150 of America's favorite recipes (Fried chicken! Chocolate chip cookies! Macaroni and cheese!) into calorie-friendly meals that any dieter would drool over. We aren't talking foie gras or truffles (neither of which I give a hoot about anyway), but you do get to eat cheese and chocolate while losing weight. That's my idea of heaven.

The only thing I love more than reading a cookbook is talking to a chef. So, I tracked down Rocco to talk about his new book (all recipes are under 350 calories), his own weight loss story and his newfound love of...triathlons (Who knew?). Check out the interview below. Plus, Rocco shares some of his favorite recipes from the book!



Stephanie Snipes: Rocco, for all us calorie counters, this cookbook has the potential to be life changing.

Rocco DiSpirito: I really think it can be. I mean, it was life changing for me in many ways, you know. I wasn't looking to lose 100 pounds, but I lost a significant amount of weight, and it made me feel different. My doctors told me I remade my body from the inside out and was now like an 18-year-old again. When you hear something like that, then you know you're headed down the right path. And, I have to tell you, I'm sick and tired of people saying we can't eat these foods anymore. There's a lot of complaining, a lot of "no" and not enough solutions. I knew, as a chef, it was totally possible to make these foods over and make them healthy because I've been doing it myself. I've done it on The Biggest Loser. During my triathlon training, I slowly started changing how I eat ,and after a year into it I was like, "Oh, okay, I'm basically eating the same foods, they're just different." And, you know, there's just too many doctors, nurses, registered dieticians making decisions about the food we eat when someone just needed to consult a chef.

SS: I could not agree more.

RD: We know how to make food taste good; this is what we do for a living. I try very hard not to give medical advice because I'm not a doctor and I wouldn't know what I was talking about, but I know how to make food taste good.

SS:  Do you think it's rare for a chef to be open to doing this?

RD: I think it's rare, yes. Especially a chef who's had a three-star restaurant in New York, but that's what I think makes it particularly valuable because it comes from that kind of background. The one thing I know how to do is cook. I can do almost nothing else well. ... I'm late, I'm sloppy, but I can cook, you know? I think that's exactly what was missing. And, I think part of the reason it was missing is because chefs of a certain stature would feel it's too commercial for them; it's not prestigious enough, you know, that kind of thing. I've never been afraid of that. I've never been afraid of expanding the boundaries, trying new things and really doing things that I feel are very useful to the people who like me, the people who buy my books, the people who care about what I do. This is what they needed.

SS:  Honestly, I'm so over eating the same thing every day.

RD: Oh my God. How many flaxseed bagels can you eat in a lifetime? It's just not going to happen, you know? People are going to relapse because of precisely that: The foods you have, your alternatives, are not compelling enough to keep you on the path. That is the biggest problem. So, you will relapse every single time. You're going to tell me someone's not going to eat fried chicken for the rest of their life? It's not going to happen; it's not going to happen. People who love brownies are never going to have a brownie again? Never going to have a chocolate cookie again? People who love spaghetti and meatballs, you know, carbonara, all those things, you're going to have those. I know you are. And, you know, for people who count on those foods to make them feel good, make them feel loved, to make them feel like they were when they were a kid, those foods are as important as people in their life, you know? So someone had to do something about it.

SS: So, let's talk about this whole triathlete thing.

RD: Here's what's impressive about it is that it totally is a lesson in making the impossible possible. I couldn't walk a mile, much less run one or three or six or 13 and you know, I worked with these triathlon guys, trainers and people who just do it, and it's totally possible. I did it myself. I never thought I could do it, and it's just so wonderful when you cross that finish line the first time. It's just another way of reinforcing that you can do anything you want in your life--absolutely anything.

SS: I was surprised to hear you lost 30 pounds. I don't think any of us realized you went through that journey.

RD: I wasn't in the 60 percent of America that has a real serious issue with weight, but I was getting there. And I'll be honest, I was getting to the point where my doctor was saying: "Hey, you know these things are starting to creep up. You really have to exercise, you have to start watching it." And I'm like: "Really? I'm at that point in my life? Oh my God. I never thought I'd get here." So, that was part of it. Then, you know, as you lose weight, people start to compliment you and all of that, and it all feels so good. But, luckily for me, I discovered the triathlons at the right time because the amount of calories you burn training for that is very helpful in that process; losing weight is about eating less and moving more. There's no question about it; it's a combo for most people.

SS: All right, let's get back to this book. How did you come up with these recipes? There are so many I want to try!

RD: I'm glad you like the selection. I have a lot of people to credit for that. ... My last five books were all original recipes, so I
didn't really have to do this kind of research, but when I decided this book would best serve the readers--being makeovers of foods they already love versus original healthy recipes--I decided I better know what those foods are, and the best way to do that right now is to ask them. And, thanks to Twitter and Facebook, you can ask and get a response immediately. So, we had this really wonderful dialogue going between me and my Facebook followers and Twitter followers for about three months last spring and summer about what America's favorite recipes are. I would ask questions like, "What are your top 10 favorite soups that are ready to be made over? What are your favorite desserts? What ethnic entrees have to be in the book?" And, I'd get 50, 100 responses. People are very passionate about this. ... And there were some surprises like beef Wellington, lobster bisque, tortilla soup--so I'm really thrilled that I asked. ... It made the book a lot more fun to write.

SS: You use Greek yogurt a lot in your recipes. Seems to me this might be the world's next superfood.
 
RD: Yes. Greek yogurt is amazing. Butter has 1,600 calories a cup; cream has 800 calories a cup. Zero percent Greek yogurt is 85, I think. ... The thing we love about fat, and especially dairy fat, is not just the flavor--the flavor is great of course. Butter tastes amazing, and I could eat butter by the stick, but it provides a mouth feel; a richness, a texture in a dish that we love. We respond to rich, thick, creamy textures, so how do you get that without adding fat?

I think most of the country doesn't even know that yogurt comes without fruit on the bottom, but it's getting more and more known, which is great. And, I've seen it in stores more than just New York and L.A., so that's great too. I think that'd be the only obstacle of the Greek yogurt is that it's not something everyone knows about, but hopefully we can get everybody to know about it.

SS: Anyone who's familiar with you knows that your mom is queen of the meatball. Is she sincerely happy with your low-cal version?

RD: Yes, very happy. Well, no, to be fair she is happy with everything I do. I don't know how objective she is anymore, but she did taste them. We went through about six versions. It actually came from having to make vegetarian meatballs for people at Rocco's. We used to use eggplant as a base--turns out charred eggplant is a good base for a lot of meat replacement dishes. Ground turkey and charred eggplant made a good combo. Charred eggplant also has this kind of mucilaginous texture to it, so it's got gooiness and chewiness, so it really turns ground turkey, which is ordinarily very dry and pretty bland, into something extra, something different. I think they're great, and the calorie reduction is 1,200 calories. That's a big difference. I mean, my mom's meatballs are amazing, there's no question about it. But, you know, they're made with ground pork shoulder and ground beef that's 80 percent lean. There's a reason they're so good.

SS: Okay, so if you were going to say, "To hell with calories!" and splurge on something, what would it be?

RD: You know, I'm pretty simple. I love pizza so much. I've always loved pizza, and my first jobs were in pizzerias. I think half the reason those jobs worked out for me was because I could eat all the pizza that I wanted. I love day-old pizza, heated up the day after--burned almost--with extra cheese and pepperoni. That's my splurge. Yes, three or four of those. In the book, I have a pretty good pizza recipe that's very healthy obviously and I'd say very satisfying.

SS: I can't believe you have chocolate chip cookies and creme brulee in the book too.

RD: Okay, this is the one place where the recipe beat me a little bit. There were a couple times in the dessert section [when] I was going to give up because they are hard. Oh my God, if you're trying to remove fat and bad carbs from food, you get to the dessert section and all that's in them is fat and bad carbs. There's literally nothing else of nutritional value in dessert. It was tough. [For the rest of the book], I would do about a recipe a day--in a good week, eight recipes in a week. I got to the desserts, it would take three weeks. It took three weeks to figure out the brownies, about two weeks for the chocolate chip cookies. It was amazing the difference. And, now of course, I want to do a dessert book because it's very challenging. I think this is really where people would benefit because the desserts are the killers, you know? People get very weak when it comes to chocolate mousse and chocolate chip cookies.

Try five of Rocco's favorite low-cal recipes!

Read more of Stephanie's blog posts