Although I tend to shop and cook seasonally, when you’re promoting a cookbook, you’re at the mercy of your book’s offerings and the recipes that members of the media/class participants/event planners select for their publication or special event. This means I sometimes have to make figs in a blanket in winter or, in this case, tangerine-lemongrass mimosas in June.

I hit the Trader Joes, which sells a delicious tangerine juice in the refrigerated section. But there was not a drop of juice to be found, nor a tangerine on the produce shelf. The sales clerk explained that for a few short weeks each spring there are absolutely no tangerines to be found for juice or otherwise.

I tried a farm stand I like, which happens to make its own fresh juices in hopes of snagging some whole fruit. Nada.

Next I tried a major chain supermarket, remembering that Dole makes an orange-tangerine blend. I figured that would do in a pinch. But alas, it seems that Dole was also sans tangerines.

So I strolled the juice drink aisle in desperation. And I found a new V8 product called Passion Fruit Tangerine Fusion. “Why not?” I thought. I also purchased fresh-squeezed OJ figuring I could blend it all together to make something more citrus-y.

I tried following the recipe for The Love Diet Tangerine-Lemongrass Mimosas exactly but using V8 instead of tangerine juice. With a little squeeze of lemon to add a bite, the drink was as good, if not better than the original. (In fact, when I served the leftovers to friends a few days later, adding a shot of pure passion fruit concentrate to the blend, the result was practically orgasmic.)

Best of all, the V8 layered additional nutrition to the drink–one of the main goals of The Love Diet program! By adding the juice blend to Champagne, each mimosa offered a half a serving of vegetables. Imagine, getting your veggies while drinking Champagne. Genius!

The experiment made me realize that the gift of The Love Diet could keep on giving. As I modify recipes to save time, money, replace forgotten ingredients or just stave off boredom, I could share them with readers.

Its so simple, really. Using the instantaneous communication of the Internet, The Love Diet can give readers something almost as useful as the book’s original contents: ways to modify recipes when they’re missing, allergic to or simply don’t like an ingredient.

In the book we encourage home cooks to try the recipe once the way it is written and then feel free to improvise on the second try. But I know many people aren’t comfortable, nor are they successful with improvisation.

So stay tuned for The Love Diet’s secrets to ingredient swapping. For a teaser, try my mimosas with V8 Fusion. Your body will thank me for that extra serving of veggies at cocktail hour.

The actually delivery of the book to our offices was a week later than anticipated due in part to hold ups on our behalf in getting the necessary items to the printer in the middle of a full-blown media scandal and also in part to a nation-wide shortage of paper. (Much of America’s paper currently comes from Chile and after the recent Chilean earthquake paper production and shipments were derailed. So despite the fact that Life of Reiley prints our books domestically, we were held up by a lack of Chilean paper.) So the book didn’t arrive until the day of its debut celebration. Talk about adding unneeded stress to your life!

The event went off nearly flawlessly, despite the fact that not only was my co-author absent but the two culinary students who were supposed to help work the event failed to show. But we are resourceful at Life of Reiley and when short of hand, we throw aprons over our friends heads and shove them into the mix. (What would we do without friends?)

The evening, which was not only put on to celebrate The Love Diet but to celebrate last month’s national release of Kiss My Bundt, was divided into two parts, the first an intimate afternoon tea for the media. Later in the evening, we opened our doors to those who worked on the book like our home recipe testers, industry innovators with whom we hope to collaborate, (including The French Culinary Institute’s Annette Tomei and artbites Maite Gomez-Rejon), as well as the friends who support us throughout our publishing exploits.

As with any good book party, good wine abounded. For the media tea there was Champagne Perrier Jouet and Love Diet Tangerine Lemongrass Mimosas. In the evening, we added a cake and wine pairing with Peju Sauvignon Blanc served with Kiss My Bundt Lemon Basil cake and Peju Cabernet Sauvignon served with the KMB Chocolate Bundt with Chocolate Glaze. (We also paired the Perrier Jouet with KMB’s award-winning Red Velvet, which took sensual eating to a whole new level!)

There were also dishes from The Love Diet, including Juan-Carlos’ Sizzling Lemongrass Mussels, the Tomato and Avocado Picnic Sandwiches, first of spring veggies with Surprise Someone Soybean Dip, Parmesan and Soybean Grilled Cheese on whole grain bread, Vegetarian Albondigas (Spanish meatballs) and one of Juan-Carlos’ and my very favorite dishes, the Walnut and Blue Cheese Brittle.

If I had to say the evening had one disappointment, you know what it would be. (And no, it was not the fact that I couldn’t wear the stilettos I bought for the occasion! In fact, I think I pretty much rocked the air cast, adorning it with sexy, red turkey feathers.) I never dreamed I would have to toast our latest book without the company of my co-author. The bitter taste in my mouth was certainly not from our food; it was the life-changing circumstance under which our hard work debuted. But whatever the outcome of JC’s current position, it stands that our book is a beautiful collaboration and a great little cookbook if I do say so myself!

So I was THRILLED to hear that Redbook was going to run recipes from The Love Diet in their August issue. Actually, an editor originally contacted me because they were interested in a story on foods for a woman’s libido and I offered to give them recipes from my upcoming book. (Yes, I was trying to sneak in some publicity for the book–can you blame me? I mean, REDBOOK! What a great audience for The Love Diet.)

Now with any article there’s a chance that the story will be “killed” before publication. (Often there isn’t room for everything planned for the issue and sometimes stories are killed because of an error in accuracy. That’s life in publishing.) So when I was contacted by an editorial assistant for a final fact check last week, I was elated. That means the story is in! (Remember, a monthly magazine usually has to go to print weeks in advance of its publication date.)

Or maybe it doesn’t. Apparently, the final fact check is not the last word. It seems that the Editor-in-Chief didn’t review the issue until it had been fully fact checked and put to bed.

And when this Editor-in-Chief spotted the book that she’d seen in the media (she’s probably a secret TMZ junkie) she threw up her wildly conservative red flag. “Redbook will not allow itself to be associated with someone like this.” is how it was conveyed to me, (I probably paraphrased slightly. I doubt an editor would end a sentence on a preposition.)

As far as I was aware, the article was about my advice to women on food and libido, not a story on Juan-Carlos Cruz. So, are they saying that I am evil by association and they don’t want my cooties?

Huh. Kind of makes me want to do a background check on the friends and family of all the Redbook staff. If there’s a slew of parking violations or a shoplifting charge, should I be canceling my Redbook subscription? The mere thought of those cooties are creeping me out!

Ok, jokes and snarky jabs aside, Ms. Editor, this is a man’s life we are talking about. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?

Oh the ups and downs of book publishing!

In the meantime, I’m traveling this week to Peju Winery to offer a sneak preview of some of The Love Diet’s recipes at a special Auction Napa Valley event. I’ve taken a few of the book’s recipes and tweaked them slightly (mostly by altering the herbs and spices or the acidity) to pair with a few of Peju’s wines.

Planning the menu was great fun for me. It combined the two sides of my career. (In addition to writing cookbooks and speaking on aphrodisiacs, I’m also a wine journalist and often work with wineries on pairings.) The winery had a few specific wines they wanted to showcase, so the menu we’ll be serving on Thursday to an intimate group of about 30 wine lovers will include:

Passed

2008 Sauvignon Blanc
2006 Zinfandel
Parmesan Soy Bean Bruschetta
Souse Vide Salmon with Fennel-Apricot Slaw
Coffee-Kissed Buffalo meatballs with Espresso Oyster Dipping Sauce

First Course

2006 Cabernet Franc
Black Truffle Lovers’ Lasagna served with a Baby Green Salad and the One-and-Only Salad Dressing

Second Course

2006 Merlot
2002 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve
Seared Halibut with Mushroom “Cream” on a bed of Braised Celery

Third Course

2005 H.B. Cabernet Sauvignon
Selection of Cheeses with Blue Cheese Walnut Brittle

Dessert

2009 Chardonnay
Handmade Chocolate Truffles

I’m often asked how I change a recipe to make it work better with a wine. With an event at a winery, we want to make sure the meal really showcases the wine rather than competing with it for your attention, if that makes sense.

I’ve pasted below first the original version of The Love Diet Black Truffle Lover’s Lasagna and following it is the altered version we will serve on Thursday. If you want to see the difference it makes with the wine, try getting the Peju Cabernet Franc and taste like a pro!

black truffle lovers’ lasagna
vegetarian
makes 4 servings
The scent of black truffle is very similar to that of a male pheromone. (Pheromones are human, sexual scents that unconsciously register as attraction in possible mates.) And we know women who swear by as little as a single whiff of truffles as producing the… ahem… desired effect. Because we can’t afford to run out and buy black truffles every time we’re looking for action, we’ve created a dish that uses black truffle oil and salt in such a way that it releases that aroma of desire into the air.

Black Truffle Lover’s Lasagna
from The Love Diet by Juan-Carlos Cruz and Amy Reiley
makes 4 servings

1 1/2 c eggplant, chopped
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp black truffle-infused oil
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 portabella mushroom cap, minced
2 medium zucchini, chopped
2 c baby spinach salad leaves, roughly chopped
1 tsp black truffle salt
1 tbsp fresh basil, chopped
1 c part skim ricotta
6 no-cook lasagna noodles
1/4 c Parmesan, grated

1. Sprinkle the eggplant with the 1/2 tsp salt, set aside for 10 minutes. (Eggplant will discolor slightly.)
2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees, and coat an 8 or 9-inch square baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.
3. Heat oil in a large, nonstick pan over medium heat. Sauté garlic for 1 minute.
4. Add mushroom and sauté for an additional minute.
5. Stir in eggplant and zucchini. Gently sauté for 10 minutes, until vegetables are softened.
6. Stir in spinach and truffle salt then remove from heat when the spinach begins to wilt. 7. Add basil and ricotta and thoroughly mix.
8. Spread 1/4 of the vegetable mixture on the bottom of the baking dish. Top with 2 noodles, followed by 1/4 of the vegetables; then 2 more noodles, repeat, then finish with the last 1/4 of the vegetables.
9. Top with grated Parmesan, cover pan with foil and bake for 20 minutes.
10. Uncover and cook for an additional 5 minutes. For a crunchy top, put under the broiler for an additional 3-5 minutes, until cheese is deep golden.

Black Truffle Lovers’ Lasagna
makes 9 servings
paired with Peju Cabernet Franc

1 tbsp and 2 tsp black truffle-infused oil
2 clove garlic, crushed
2 portabella mushroom cap, minced
3 c eggplant, chopped
1 tsp salt
3 lg zucchini, chopped
4 c baby spinach salad leaves, roughly chopped
2 tbsp fresh basil, chopped
2 tsp black truffle salt
1 1/2 c part skim ricotta
2/3 c crumbled chevre
10 no-cook lasagna noodles
1/3 c grated Parmesan

1. Sprinkle 1/2 teaspoon salt over eggplant, set aside for 10 minutes. (Eggplant will discolor slightly.)
2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees, and coat a 9-inch square square baking dish (with high sides) with nonstick cooking spray.
3. Heat oil to medium heat in a large saute pan. Sauté garlic for 1 minute.
4. Add mushroom and saute for an additional minute.
5. Stir in eggplant and zucchini. Gently sauté for 10 minutes, until vegetables are softened.
6. Stir in spinach and truffle salt then remove from heat when the spinach begins to wilt. 7. Add basil, ricotta and chevre and thoroughly mix. Season with more truffle salt if needed.
8. Spread 1/6 of the vegetable mixture on the bottom of the baking dish. Top with 2 noodles, followed by 1/6 of the vegetables; then 2 more noodles, repeat until all noodles are used, then finish with the last 1/6 of the vegetables.
9. Top with grated Parmesan, cover pan with foil and bake for 22-24 minutes.
10. Uncover and cook for an additional 5 minutes. For a crunchy top, put under the broiler for an additional 3-5 minutes, until cheese is deep golden.

For presentation, cut into 9 squares and serve with small baby lettuce salad on side.

We have worked closely over the past nine months on The Love Diet. I know him as a giving individual who is passionate about inspiring others to change their health through diet in the way Juan-Carlos changed his own.

It was this passion that sparked our collaboration on The Love Diet, a book that combines our love for food, his knowledge of diet and mine of aphrodisiacs and sexual health to get home cooks excited about eating well by eating for a better libido. In fact, leading by example, Juan-Carlos even speaks candidly in the book about the role of health in maintaining a loving 30-year relationship with his wife.

It is because I still believe that, no matter the outcome of this situation, it is a good book filled with great recipes and valuable information, the publication of The Love Diet will continue on schedule. The Love Diet will be released on June 15, 2010. I hope you can look past this terrible situation and see the book and its recipes for how fantastic they are.

–Amy Reiley

Our testers are the best! They play a vital role in creating a final cookbook that is easy, practical and (relatively) foolproof. But there is just one thing that has made me want to go into several of their homes and steal one piece of equipment that these zealous, fanatic, type A cooks cannot seem to keep themselves from doing: peeling. As in fruits, vegetables (and even shrimp).

When they see the word unpeeled, most of our testers see (un)PEELED. If I write do not peel, they see PEEL. If I say nothing, as in wash and cut your potato, they see wash, PEEL and cut your potato. UNLESS WE’RE TALKING ABOUT CLOTHING I AM NOT RECOMMENDING THAT YOU TAKE IT OFF. (Just to protect myself legally, for those of you who now intend to cook in the nude, you should always wear an apron when working with hot oil.)

You know, I can forgive the sweet potato eaters who chose to wash their nutritious skins down the drain because they hallucinated extra instructions, I totally get the girl who peeled the pears before adding them to a smoothie but the one I will never be able to get over is the tester who peeled the shrimp before cooking them in rock salt. (The shells act as a vital barrier between the sweet shrimp flesh and the salt in which they are baked.) He emailed to tell me that he thought the dish was awfully salty. Ya think?!?!

Now, I love him dearly. I love them all for sharing with me that the average American loves to peel. (Seriously, who knew?) But HOW am I supposed to finish a cookbook with lots of dishes calling for unpeeled ingredients in a world full of peel freaks? If anyone can suggest to me an alternate wording for keeping your skin on in which the world “peel” does not appear in any guise, I’d be so grateful I’d send you the first copy of The Love Diet off the press, on me!

I’d always made brittle with water and sugar as the base of the recipe but as I pulled ingredients from the pantry, JC started the recipe by sprinkling the coating of sugar on the bottom of a heavy saucepan. Huh? (I was later told by a friend that this is the same method for flan but since I avoid making all foods with mucus-like texture, I am devoid of flan knowledge.)

I watched as JC’s methodical – dare I say it? tantric – stirring spun sugar into gold as the grains melted into a caramel goo. As the sugar melted, he continued to sprinkle in more, until he had two cups of caramalized deliciousness in the pan. Keeping the pan over the heat, we stirred in the walnuts we’d coated in blue cheese earlier and rolled the whole thing out to cool. The final touch, which we didn’t figure out until the second try, was to sprinkle the top of the brittle with coarse sea salt when it was rolled out but just a little bit sticky to create glassy, textured crystal’s on the brittle’s surface.

The result? We think its delicious (in particular because of a secret ingredient) but you’ll have to wait till the book comes out to find out for yourself.

Since a picture’s worth a thousand words, I’ll just say that Mr. Cruz used to fill in for the breakfast chef when he worked in hotels. Today, this is what he produces when you ask for an omelet.

It was a hard call to decide whether or not the book needed color interior illustrations. The intended audience for this book falls into two camps. It is a diet book and will easily fit into the diet and self-help section of any store. But at the end of the day, Life of Reiley produces gift books, perfect for gourmet food stores, gift baskets and those little quirky gift stores everyone on our creative team loves to browse.

Now diet books, unless they’re fat hardcover numbers, don’t all that often have food photos. But gift books… well, gift books have to have something to offer besides text. The final decision was to take a flirty twist on a pretty classic solution: illustrations. In other words, the interior of our book will be dotted with more of the wonderful works by our favorite artist, Kersti Frigell. (If you thumb a few of the diet paperbacks produced over the past decade, you might be surprised to discover that many are warmed up with illustrations. So our decision really pulls from both of the markets we wish to cover – but on our terms with sass and sensuality.)

So why, then, do photos at all? As much as we love our little pen and ink art moments, my book designer Deborah Daly and I still understand the power of a juicy, color photograph. With our previous two works (fork me, spoon me and kiss my bundt), the cover sells the book. As much as I like to think its the brilliant recipes, its Deborah’s covers that get books off the store shelves and into shopping bags.

And so, we get to the heart of this blog post. Last Sunday JC and I gathered with Deborah, photographer Margeaux Bestard and her assistant Courtney. I first met Margeaux when she attended a cooking class in my test kitchen. (She came with her sister, Nicole, who is a very savvy wine publicist I’ve known for years.) Margeaux sent me some of her images and I was captivated by her ability to give food a soul. I knew she’d be the perfect photographer to put a title like “The Love Diet” into a single image. I also knew that as long as I had Margeaux and her equipment, I wanted to get a few food shots, a little back cover surprise to whet the buyer’s appetite.

The cover image was going to be the toughest, so we jumped straight in. Deborah and I had been talking about the image of an apple, the symbol of both love and health as the heart of our message. Without really knowing exactly how that apple was going to look on our cover, Margeaux started scouting for the right background while Deborah played with JC and Courtney’s hands, moving them as though they were living, breathing clay. They next thing I knew, we had a heart made from two hands, with a polished apple resting at the center on a background of intertwine, creeping fig vines. (I am a control freak but sometimes, when I just give myself over to Deborah’s creative instinct, we achieve things beyond that which I dare to dream.)

Cover image put to bed, we moved on to food shots. For the shoot, Deborah and I selected three dishes that were not only photogenic but also intended to give the reader inspiration that this was not your mama’s grapefruit diet. Our photos showcase a 4 layer chocolate cake, salt-crusted shrimp and a raspberry champagne cocktail. “Yes, these are the kinds of foods to expect on our diet!” we hope they will scream.

Food can be difficult to photograph. Slick, big-budget magazines may have us snowed into thinking food is always beautiful, but I’ve seen way too many cookbooks and low-budget commercials to know that it takes a special eye and ability to use light to give food eye appeal on the page. The food photography for our books always stresses me out – that is until I look into Margeaux’s lens and see something that somehow looks completely different than what appears to my untrained eye. The girl always manages to find this certain light, a certain angle – even if it means scrunching into the tightest space, balancing arched backwards, contorting into impossible forms, she always seems to capture something more magical than just a plate of food.

Lastly, we captured the very necessary author photo. Shoulder to shoulder JC and I stood (apples in hand, of course) as Margeaux snapped away from above, below, straight on until our smiles dissolved into the rowdy play of children.

The day ended with champagne and cake. Yes, readers, the best thing about photo shoots sometimes isn’t the images, its the leftovers! Yum.

whatever it takes

mmmmm CAKE!