Rating: 
Summary: Riding Oprah's coattails
Review: The Healthy Kitchen has all the elements of a smartly packaged cash grab... The Healthy Kitchen is, basically, a general foods cookbook with very little to separate it from most other typical cookbooks. The problem lies in the fact that it is presented as being all about health (mind, body and spirit). The recipes and the book do not offer much insight into healthy living and the concept of a spiritual connection is virtually non-existent. the phrases "healthy" and "mind. body and spirit" are merely catch-phrases used to draw in a wider readership. I was hoping to get some more interesting writing or, at the very least, beautiful photography, but instead I got a typical cookbook with typical recipes and a tired, watered-down message. Rosie Daley has had her time in the spotlight...
Rating: 
Summary: Healthy??
Review: The number of meat and dairy recipes in this book make the title an absolute misrepresentation. Chicken -- though most doctors aren't telling their patients this, and I don't know why Weil isn't either -- has as much saturated fat and cholesterol as beef -- even if the chicken is skinless. Shrimp (used for a few recipes) tops beef in terms of cholesterol, and dairy products are high up there in both saturated fat and cholesterol. If you want a healthy cookbook, try "The Peaceful Palate" by Jennifer Raymond -- easy, delicious, low-fat, and cholesterol-free. *That's* "a healthy kitchen."
Rating:
Summary: flaws
Review: This book is beautifully done and I've enjoyed a lot of what I've read, but right now I'm following directions for the first recipe I've tried in it and it doesn't seem to be very well proof-read. The directions raise too many questions, too many things contradictory or unclear. It's a shame so much care was taken with the layout and appearance and not with making sure the recipes were correct.
Rating: 
Summary: These recipes are great!
Review: This book is wonderful! I've cooked two of the recipes already this weekend -- they were easy and took me about 10 minutes to do. The tomatoe corn soup and the broccoli and avocado salad turned out great and my friends loved them. Bravo for teaming up a world-class chef with a doctor who knows about healthy cooking and eating. I'm sold!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Good Information, Poor Proofing
Review: This is an excellent book -- full of great information ... the only problem is that all of the recipes I have tried so far are lacking something or have an error in the measurements. I am shocked that none of the other reviews have mentioned this. I have always found Dr. Weil's books to be interesting and informative and this book is no exception. Rosie Daley adds a delightful and educational point of view as well. This could be a great cookbook but I am frustrated with having to scrutinize each recipe. I would like to see this book reprinted with the correct recipes.
Rating:
Summary: A coffee table book for Rosie and Dr. Weil fans
Review: This is not so much a cookbook as a coffee table book for fans of Rosie and Dr. Weil. We are meant to buy it because of the authors' credibility and the publishers play this angle to the hilt. We see photographs of Dr. Weil's herb garden, Rosie in a sexy little black dress spoon feeding Dr. Weil, and numerous attractive studio shots that have little relationship to actual cooking. Even Rosie's hands appear in most of the not very helpful how-to photos as evidenced by several distracting bracelets. This constant presence of the authors distracts from the recipes, but that is the point, to capitalize on the successes of their previous books and semi-celebrity. As a cookbook it is mediocre. You've already seen all of these recipes. As noted by many reviewers, most recipes use numerous, expensive, and sometimes exotic ingredients. Editing errors are numerous. In some cases the error is obvious and the home cook can adapt, but this leads one not to trust other recipes. Are there critical steps or ingredients missing? There's no way to tell and I hesitate to commit twenty dollars of ingredients to a dish that may not turn out. Some recipes call for specific brands of products that are not available in my part of the country. Substitutes are not suggested. The book layout is visually appealing, but impractical. The numerous colored callouts with comments and tips interrupt the flow of the book. Recipes that could easily have been kept on a single page span multiple pages because of all this extraneous material. Maddeningly, recipes that span more than one page are not even on facing pages. Plan to flip pages while cooking. If cooking is your hobby or you are a particular fan of these authors you may enjoy this attaractive coffee table book. If you need reliable recipes for every day that you can make from ingredients found at a well-stocked neighborhood supermarket, you'll be disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting hybrid of philosophy and recipies........
Review: This is not your standard cookbook and if it's bought with that expectation, the buyer will no doubt be disappointed in it. The book serves as much as a philosophical treatise on healthy eating as a cookbook, and from that standpoint it's interesting and successful as both a resource and motivational statement. However, the philosophizing takes up quite a bit of space and that results in a surprisingly small number of actual recopies. That scarcity would be a problem if there were a lot of stinkers in the mix, but that is definitely not the case--this is very definitely a "quality over quantity" effort. I gave this to my wife for her birthday early this year and we've tried quite a lot of the recipes, and all have been delicious. Some caveats: These are by and large recipes for the more sophisticated palate--don't expect to find a lot of things that children will like very much. Quite a few of the recipes are time intensive. Planning is essential. One the more intricate offerings, plan to do them on the weekend or when you can take the time to do it right. My personal advice is, when the authors have different visions of how to proceed (a common event here) go with Dr. Weil--Rosie tends to like thing on the blander side. Finally, this isn't really constructed to be a "full meal" cookbook. While there are sections for all major meal sections, there isn't often tremendous harmony on a "whole meal" basis. In other words, pick what of this work you want to use and work around it. This is, essentially, a specialty cookbook. Use it that way and you'll find it's a gem.
Rating:
Summary: less recipes than I hoped, but they all taste great,
Review: This isn't an encyclopedic book of recipes. Just a couple of each category of cooking. Yet everyone that I have prepared is delicious. I especially enjoy the main course recipes--the chicken, salmon and tofu main course recipes are quick, healthy, and delicious!
Rating:
Summary: Healthy? Kitchen
Review: We have several of Dr. Weil's books, and receive his monthly newsletter. We are immensely disappointed in this so-called "healthy" cookbook. My husband and I are vegetarians, but have always found his recipes to be vegan-friendly. There is not much for a vegetarian here; and the fat content of the recipes! The Greek Salad recipe is 375 calories per serving with 18g of fat! The Portobello Burger is 471 calories with 33.5 g of fat. Buyer Beware!!!
Rating:
Summary: Good ideas, but lots of fat and flaws
Review: While I have tried and enjoyed two recipes from this book (Santa Fe Chicken; Bean Thread Noodles with Mango, Corn and Tofu), I have to agree with the other reviewers about some serious flaws. First, many of the recipes are quite high in fat and calories. Though much of it may be "good" fat (monounsaturated), it's still a whole lotta fat. Second, flaws in the directions are annoying. The chicken in the Santa Fe Chicken recipe needed to be cooked much longer than stated and got tough on the outside (though it tasted fabulous). The bean thread noodles in another recipe did not soften up after being soaked for 20 minutes in the somewhat vague "hot water" specified in the recipe. After I added boiling water, they softened instantly. I still plan to use the cookbook, but I'll probably have to work through the recipes' flaws first. And many of the recipes are simply out of the question, due to their high fat/calorie content.
| 
