A Change of Appetite

Book excerpt: What happened when one of today's best-loved food writers had a change of appetite? Here are the dishes that Diana Henry created when she started to crave a different kind of diet - less meat and heavy food, more vegetable-, fish-, and grain-based dishes - often inspired by the food of the Middle East and Far East, but also drawing on cuisines from Georgia to Scandinavia. In her year of good eating, Diana lost weight, but this was about much more than weight loss - lead by taste, it was about discovering a healthier, fresher way of eating. From a Cambodian salad of shrimps, grapefruit, toasted coconut, and mint or North African mackerel with cumin to blood orange and cardamom sorbet, the magical dishes in this book are bursting with flavor, with goodness and with color. Peppering the recipes is Diana's inimitable writing on everything from the miracle of broth to the great carbohydrate debate. Above all, this is about opening up our palates to new possibilities. There is no austerity here, simply fabulous food that nourishes body and soul.