The New Sonoma Diet The Reinvention of Love

BOOKM A RKS
By Carolyn Camilleri
68
YAM MAGAZINE
The New Sonoma Diet
The Reinvention of Love
By Dr. Connie Guttersen, RD, PhD
By Helen Humphreys
Sterling Publishing | Hardcover, 400 pages
HarperCollins | Hardcover, 320 pages
It’s January, a popular time to start
new regimes of all sorts, including diets.
As always, there are a lot of weird ones
out there (apparently the Hormone
Injection Diet from the 1970s is making
a comeback). Fads aside, even the
more moderate diets can be frightening
depending on who you are and how you
think about food. My biggest complaint
about most diets is that the food is bleak.
And that’s where The New Sonoma Diet
is different — the recipes are beautiful!
How about lunching on a toasted quinoa,
chicken, corn, and avocado salad? For
dinner, try mushroom and chard-stuffed
flank steak, or grilled tuna with rosemary.
Even the desserts are wonderful: nectarine
blueberry galette, almond cherry biscotti,
and creamy lime ricotta tart.
Besides the recipes, the other thing
that really caught my attention, and,
in fact, sealed the deal, were the wine
recommendations. That’s right, wine is
not just permitted — it is encouraged! But
perhaps this is not so strange when you
consider that Guttersen lives in the heart of
California’s wine-growing region. If nothing
else, it keeps her neighbours friendly.
Like most diet books, this one chatters
on and on about how good the diet is, how
wonderful you will feel, and how amazed
you will be with your own success (diet
brainwashing?). However, there is also
some good information about super foods,
or rather “Sonoma Power Foods.”
Overall, the diet itself is a happy mix
of a South Beach or Atkins low-carb
(although Guttersen denies this) and
the Mediterranean Diet, famous for its
healthfulness. Portion control is strongly
emphasized, which is a challenge when the
food is so tasty, and though the recipes are
easy, this diet is probably best for people
who are already food focused — and that’s
not everyone’s cup of tea, or should I say,
glass of wine.
In honour of Valentine’s Day, I thought it
appropriate to include a novel — a good, wellwritten novel — about love. Turns out that
finding a book about love that met what I felt
were the minimum criteria — and written in
this century — was a very ambitious project.
And then I came across this jewel of a novel by
Kingston, Ontario, writer Helen Humphreys. It
was exactly what I was looking for.
The Reinvention of Love is based on the
passionate romance between French literary
critic Charles Sainte-Beuve and Adele Hugo, the
wife of the legendary writer Victor Hugo. The
story, which covers 30 years, is told in the first
person, alternating between Sainte-Beuve’s
perspective and Adele’s, with a section of letters
written by Adele’s youngest daughter, Dédé.
Though it is a work of fiction, it describes —
according to the author’s note — the actual
events and, wherever possible, the actual
words of the characters. How much is fact and
how much fiction, I don’t know, but it doesn’t
really matter. It is an excellent exploration of a
spectrum of love relationships: between lovers
and friends, husbands and wives, parents and
children. It describes love that frees and love
that traps, unrequited love and obsessive love,
physical love and spiritual love, love of art and
literature, selfish and selfless love, love beyond
death — you name it, it’s in here, along with
one of the best definitions of love I have ever
read: “A backwards swoon down a darkened
staircase.”
While it is deeply emotional, full of sadness
and joy, loneliness and fulfillment, it is not
a soft, mushy melodrama. It is surprisingly
witty in places and has a generous helping of
interesting twists.
I suppose it could be called an historical
romance because it is set in 19th-century Paris,
but it has a timeless quality, and Sainte-Beuve
and Adele are very convincing characters, with
thoughts, feelings, and experiences that are not
confined to their era. “Who sees love arriving —
but who doesn’t see it leaving?” What could be
more timeless than that?