I know it’s crass, but I have a serious problem with overweight chefs. Actually, I don’t think she has any culinary training, so I’m not sure whether she considers herself a “chef.” As readers, how can we be expected to admire a chef and utilize his or her recipes, and feel good about the food, if the chef herself is overweight? Are Ina’s recipes really so full of saturated fat that they cause her and anyone who emulates them to blimp out?

Unfortunately, I can’t prove or disprove my own rhetorical question since I’ve never cooked anything of hers except for her herbal tea mixed with apple juice for sweetness and served over ice. YUMMY! I serve it whenever I have a luncheon. Since my husband belongs to a cookbook club, they always send us the “featured selection” unless we instruct them to do otherwise. Lately, I haven’t kept up with declining the selections so this Christmas season we were bombarded with books we never ordered. Subsequently, my dog ate the invoice off of two of the packages and then actually tried to get into one of them by shredding the cardboard. We ended up opening them to discover one contained Ina’s latest, Back to Basics. I couldn’t have chosen a better book from her series if I’d tried since I’m all about quick and easy meals. However, I have yet to attempt any recipes because I’ve been suffering from morning sickness, or in my case, all-day-into-evening sickness, so I haven’t been cooking anything for the last three months. Lucky for me, Cal’s been cooking and this week plans to make Ina’s Chive Risotto Cakes out of Giada’s leftover Dirty Risotto.