Memories of Chez Michel

Memories of Chez Michel

By: Zola
Chief Dieter
Plan Z Diet





Back in the early 80’s my husband and I were courting. We loved to go to dinner at a beautiful restaurant called Chez Michel that was located on the far west side of Madison, Wisconsin.

The old farmhouse that held Chez Michel was located on the crest of a small hill, shaded with old oak trees. There was a lovely herb garden out front. The inside of the building had been gutted and made into a modern facility. The lovely art deco bar was upstairs and there were a couple of dining rooms on the first floor.

Whenever we ate at Chez Michel we smiled a lot, and not just because we were courting. The food was fabulous. We decided it was so fabulous that when we went to get married we decided to hold our wedding reception there. I had to talk the restaurant into closing down on a Saturday for our reception and that was difficult to do because it was a football Saturday and on football Saturdays restaurants do a huge business. Our wedding reception trumped football Saturday so we were set.

It was a grand occasion all around. We had about 125 people at our reception and that was all that Chez Michel could handle. The farmhouse was small.

As the years passed we got to know the owner Michael. Michael’s real career was as a nuclear-physician at the University of Wisconsin. Michael was a brilliant man but he had grown up in New Zealand, the son of an inn-keeper so having a restaurant to hang around in the evening made him a little less homesick.

Business was not good at one point so he decided to open another small restaurant upstairs. He converted the bar into a teeny Cajun restaurant. The Cajun place became our new favorite. We ate there about once a week and that’s a LOT for us.

I was first introduced to the Sazerac there. The Sazerac is basically a Cajun martini made with bourbon. Big YUM. My favorite choice Chicken Mamou. I ate that almost every time.

We loved the little Cajun place (and Chez Michel) so much that when we were talking to Michael one night we decided to volunteer our services to help him build that business. We owned an advertising agency at the time. Michael was game so we set about working on his advertising.

Not long after, business had grown so much the maitre ‘d decided to quit. Quit? Yeah, he said he didn’t want to work that hard and always planned to move to San Francisco, so he was out of there.

Now Michael had a problem. Two problems even.

Michael needed to find someone to run the restaurant. That would be a challenge. And now the restaurant was profitable. That was a problem.

How you ask? Well, the restaurant had been a tax write-off for Michael. It helped him to offset his huge salary at the University. Now he was going to have to pay taxes on the income from the restaurant too. So he either had to make it a BIG success in order to offset that or sell it.

He and I talked at length about our buying the restaurant. We could have put our offices on the top floor and save room on the first floor for one restaurant. I thought long and hard about it. I even consulted with our accounting firm. In that analysis we decided it would not pay off. The small building was located on a very large lot with a huge parking lot. More cars could park on the lot than the number of people that could fit in the restaurant. So we decided the property taxes were going to be too high and it wasn’t economically feasible to buy the building.

Michael had told me I had first dibs on the building but if I didn’t want it he had someone else who had made him an offer.

I broke the news to Michael that the deal was not going to work for us. I didn’t feel too badly because I knew someone else would come in and run the restaurant and we’d still have our favorite place to go to dinner.

That was, until one shocking day I learned that the other offer had come in from Uno’s.

Yep, my favorite was turned into a pizza place. I was restaurant heartbroken.

Well in order to get over it, I had to start to make my own Plan Z Diet Chicken Mamou. This recipe works great on The Plan Z Diet. When you want extra zip and have a hankering for Cajun food, this hits the spot. My version is lighter than the traditional, which is usually made with the dark meat of the chicken. This version works really well: Plan Z Diet Chicken Mamou.

Plan Z Diet Chicken Mamou

Enjoy!

Cheers,

To read more of Zola's blogs CLICK HERE or head over to https://www.planzdiet.com/blog/

Great Plan Z Diet Guacamole

Great Plan Z Diet Guacamole

By: Zola
Chief Dieter
Plan Z Diet





Guacamole seems to be a universal favorite in the dip category especially on the Plan Z Diet. What’s not to like? Avocado with some kick. That’s all I need on the Plan Z Diet. That, and one good chip.

There are so many ways to make guacamole and everyone has their favorite. Many a non-professional chef will put their signature items in their guacamole. It’s amazing how different they all can actually be.

And what you dip with and how you dip can be an important part of the equation.

In a famous episode of Seinfeld (the TV show) the George Costanza character is caught at a party double dipping his chip in a dip. Watch this. Hold onto your seat. It’s pretty funny.

So what’s wrong with double dipping? 1000’s of germs, that’s what. The guy in the episode is correct. It IS like putting your whole mouth in the bowl.

So why don’t people get sick at parties when there’s a double-dipper on the guest list? Reason is, most of those 1000’s of germs are the good kind that prevent illness, not pass it out, but I think you’d all agree it’s still gross.

At the Plan Z Diet by Zola, our theory is it’s okay to double dip. We just don’t think a communal bowl of guacamole is a great idea. We’d like to see you make little ramekins of guacamole so each partier can have their own. Or just spoon a portion onto your plate and eat it so you are not sharing the germ population as you dip.

We feel it’s actually important to double dip. When you don’t double dip, do you have any idea how many chips you consume before you and your mate have polished off a bowl of guacamole? Me neither, except my husband and I have been known to wipe out a whole basket of chips eating one bowl of guacamole. And that’s bad on the Plan Z Diet.

On the ZReboot portion of the Plan Z Diet by Zola the guacamole is fine. That’s good fat. It’s the chips that kill the whole deal.

One of our former Plan Z dieters came up with a brilliant idea. She uses Melba toast rounds with her guacamole. They’ve got some stability. More than a regular chip. She then dishes up her individual portion of guacamole and she can use her chip to dip, scoop off the guacamole with her tongue and re-cycle the chip right back into the guacamole. You could conceivably devour a whole bowl of guacamole with one chip.

So think about double dipping. In this case a Plan Z Diet double dip could help your waistline.

Cheers,

To read more of Zola's blogs CLICK HERE or head over to https://www.planzdiet.com/blog/

Your Kitchen Can be A Dangerous Place

Your Kitchen Can be a Dangerous Place

By: Zola
Chief Dieter
Plan Z Diet





One of my least favorite memories of my childhood comes from sitting at the kitchen table, watching my parents cook dinner on a Saturday night.

That’s the night they would sometimes get out the deep fat fryer.

I was just a little kid. Too small to help cook. I was told to sit in my chair and wait for dinner to be finished. The big table was smack dab in the center of the kitchen. It was one of those old metal tables from the 50’s that had a Formica top on it. The top was a mottled grey that I guess was made to look sort of like marble.

Sitting in the chair, my head stuck up over the edge of the table but that was about it. I was knee-high to a grasshopper.

I knew enough though to understand the danger of high heat. I suppose it could have been because my mother warned me repeatedly. I didn’t have to be told twice to sit still in that chair and wait for dinner. I was supposed to be happy. Mom and Dad were making French fries.

Why they decided that Saturday night was a night to make deep fried French fries I’ll never know. I liked the ones that baked in the oven just about as much, so why go to that trouble just for us small tykes? The big kids had dates on Saturday night so they weren’t around. It was just us young-ins.

My parents drank cocktails before dinner. And on Saturday nights there might be a bit more drinking of cocktails than other times. Combine too many cocktails and a deep fat fryer and you were just asking for trouble. Or at least that’s what I thought, even as a small child. I’d sit in that chair totally stiff, staring at that deep fat fryer, willing it to stay on the counter. I was afraid it would vibrate itself off the counter for one thing. When that thing was frying in full force it sort of jumped around. I was afraid it would get to the edge of the counter and my mother wouldn’t see it. She might not re-position it and it’s would come crashing to the floor with hot oil flying everywhere. Or she or my dad might sway just a bit and bump into it. Then they’d be burned on the arm or worse. They might bump it AND it might go flying. I was terrorized.

I ate my French fries though, and I was glad when dinner was over. I’ve never gotten over what never happened. Kids are like that.

So when Plan Z Diet Column reader Helen sent me this piece on kitchen fires I decided you all had to see it. Pay close attention. You could save your life and your home. It’s not exactly the same as the dancing pot of oil. It’s worse. If you listen closely you’ll notice she refers to it as “your chip pan”. That’s English for French fries. Be careful out there. Your kitchen can be a dangerous place.

Cheers,

To read more of Zola's blogs CLICK HERE or head over to https://www.planzdiet.com/blog/

I'm Gleeful for Ghee (pron. Gee)

I'm Gleeful for Ghee (pron. Gee)

By: Zola
Chief Dieter
Plan Z Diet





When I was in my early 20’s I spent a fair amount of time working in restaurants. I always had at least one part time job that took me to a restaurant after my regular 9 – 5 job. I worked in everything from a pizza joint that made the thick, double-crusted Chicago-style pizzas to some of the finest French restaurants or high-end steak houses. Each job presented challenges.

Most of the time I worked as a waitress. In one place, one night a week I was the sommelier. I really didn’t know that much about wine at that point but they were in a panic and at least I knew the list well enough to make recommendations.

I never held a full-time position cooking but I did help a couple of restaurants with menu and recipe development. And I did do a two week internship working on “the line” in a restaurant as part of my management training.

I took up a serious appreciation for people who work in wait staff positions as well as those that cook behind the scenes. Both of those jobs are HARD.

One restaurant I worked in had a chef that took a liking to me. He let me work Sunday mornings in the kitchen helping him with brunch. This as a French restaurant so brunch was pretty fancy. One thing the chef liked me to do was “decorate” the salmon. He’d put out a full-sized salmon on the buffet and people could serve themselves chunks of it. The salmon was decorated with all kinds of sliced veggies and then there was a lot of cream cheese piped along the edges. The salmon always looked like it was dressed. Sort of like it was wearing a fancy outfit. Really pretty. I was good at squirting cream cheese.

One thing I observed anytime I was around the restaurant in the early morning was the prep work. I watched as the chefs made themselves ready for the big crowds to come in later. A necessary project every day was to make clarified butter.

The chef would pull out a fairly large soup pot. Then he’d put in blocks of butter. We’re talking probably 12 – 15 POUNDS of butter were loaded into the soup pot and the heat was turned on fairly low. All he was doing was melting butter. Seemed kinda crazy to me, until later. When the butter was fully melted there was an almost white foam on top that the chef would skim off and throw away. I didn’t get it. I just observed. The result was this huge soup pot full of golden liquid.

When the chef commenced to cook, he’d take each order and prepare it. Most of the fish, chicken and even the steaks were prepared in the sauté pans. The first thing to go into the pan was a small ladle full of the golden liquid (clarified butter).

There were a few reasons the chef used clarified butter. First reason is it’s the purest butter taste. The bad fat was removed with the skimming of the foam. All that was left was the purest part of the butter. Clarified butter also has what’s called a higher flash point. That means the chef can cook at a higher temperature and the butter does not burn. That’s who so many dishes in a restaurant have the buttery, crispy crust on them.

The people of India take it to another level. They make a thing called ghee. Ghee is clarified butter that has been processed another step so it can be shelf stable. I had never made it. I bought some at Whole Foods and love it. The problem I notice was the price. Compare butter to ghee and you’re talking about $13 for ghee. Ouch.

So I thought about making my own. I knew from my restaurant days that clarified butter didn’t last. The chefs tossed any that was left at the end of the night. They didn’t take any chance that it might have been contaminated while sitting on the stove. I supposed it would last a few days but not long.

I told my doctor I was thinking of making my own ghee and not long after he sent me this link. This is a guy with an Indian heritage. His family knows well how to make their own ghee. So he was kind enough to pass this lesson along over the internet on how to make ghee. I think I’ll always make the version that has to be stored in the refrigerator. I don’t have to have it fully shelf stable, but this is really a great idea. You will also learn in here how good ghee is for you. It’s MUCH better for you than butter. You can use it in so many ways especially on the Plan Z Diet. Anytime you see a recipe that includes butter you can substitute ghee; with the possible exception of baking. I have not tried backing with ghee yet. I just thought I’d open up a new bit of the world of cooking for you today. Here’s how to make ghee.

I thought some of you might be disappointed if all I offered for today’s recipe is one for ghee, so here’s a bonus. This is one of my most recent Zola Diet inventions. People tell me this is the most flavorful diet they can imagine. When they follow our full program they lose as much as 30 pounds in 37 days and they get to eat things my Plan Z Diet Italian Crockpot Chicken

Plan Z Diet Italian Crockpot Chicken

Enjoy!

Cheers,



To read more of Zola's blogs CLICK HERE or head over to https://www.planzdiet.com/blog/

The Things We Hate

The Things We Hate

By: Zola
Chief Dieter
Plan Z Diet





It all started with lima beans. My mother dared to foist them on me. The rule at our table was, if it’s on your plate, you eat it. You stay at the table until it’s eaten. No whining. No negotiation. I resorted to swallowing the lima beans with milk. I pretended they were large pills.

There wasn’t much variation in the meals at our house, except for the infrequent lima bean episodes. We had chicken most Mondays. Tuesday was likely meatloaf. Friday was definitely fish. Saturday was a crap shoot of leftovers and Sunday was more often than not, spaghetti. Or if my mom wasn’t feeling great we might have one of those little pot pies. My brother and I loved them. When we had pot pies we were allowed to eat at TV trays in the den where the TV was. Those things were so hot I thought I’d see flames shooting out between the steam clouds but once it cooled off we snarfed them down.

I didn’t eat many “exotic” things until I was an adult and moved away from home. I remember once I had a boy friend who insisted we have oysters Rockefeller. This was on a fancy date. That was my last oyster. I tried to bite it in half. Those things should have come with instructions!

Then there was the time I tried to eat a whole leaf of an artichoke. No one told me to just dip it in butter and sort of scrape off the good parts with my teeth. I did learn later how to eat an artichoke and I learned to love them especially on the Plan Z Diet.

I tried making clam chowder for another boyfriend once. He loved it. I gagged each time I was near it. Even while I was cooking it I would run into the kitchen to stir it and run back out before I added an unexpected element to the pot. I managed not to vomit, but it was a close call.

One of my least favorite smells on the planet is that of cooked cabbage. Terrible thing really. When you are Irish as I am, you are expected to love corned beef and cabbage. And as Irish as I am, I’ve never eaten it. And don’t get me started on the smell of sauerkraut. They used to try to force that stuff on us in grade school. The whole cafeteria reeked!

So then there’s the cabbage cousin, the Brussels sprout. I used to just tell people they were little cabbages so you better just keep those away from me. I’ve tried eating them a few times at dinner parties and the faces I was tempted to make weren’t pretty. I did manage pretty well with them once when they were drowning in butter. Butter helped.

At another dinner we were served Brussels sprouts that had been caramelized. Now you’re talking! By caramelizing them they get rid of that nasty cooked cabbage smell. They are nicely browned and they take on a sweetness.

The other day my husband was in the produce department negotiating to be allowed to bring home Brussels sprouts. He LOVES them. I told him he could bring them home if he cooked them. “How many should he get?” he asked. I said to get as many as he wanted plus maybe one or two for me. I’d try one. If they passed for caramelized maybe I’d have a second one.

When we went to cook them he was wishing he had bought some bacon. Bacon and Brussels sprouts make a good combo. There was no bacon in the drawer so we decided to experiment with pepperoni. The results was SO good, you are now the beneficiary of the recipe below for my Plan Z Diet Caramelized Brussels Sprouts with Pepperoni Bits.

Plan Z Diet Caramelized Brussels Sprouts with Pepperoni Bits

During dinner I not only ate the one Brussels sprout, I ate the second one, and I negotiated with my husband to share more of his. He smiled and handed over more. I smiled back.

At this time of year many of us have a start to our family gathering where we tell the group what we are thankful for. This year I’m thankful for my improved health and the joy that comes along with starting The Plan Z Diet. We have so many blissfully happy Plan Z dieters. They write each day to tell us they haven’t felt better in years. They are off of meds they’ve been taking for diabetes, acid reflux and so much more. One guy said he’s been whistling in the halls at work since he has been on the Plan Z Diet. He hasn’t done that in years, but he feels young again and he’s losing weight like crazy. And that makes me thankful.

I hope you enjoy your celebrations this year too.

Cheers,

To read more of Zola's blogs CLICK HERE or head over to https://www.planzdiet.com/blog/

The Pain Highway

The Pain Highway

By: Zola
Chief Dieter
Plan Z Diet





I am now a believer in acupuncture. If you have pain, I suggest you check it out.

I have been plagued with bursitis in my right hip. I had no idea how debilitating that could be! My surgeon, at first, thought the pain was coming from scar tissue that had formed around my spine after my back surgery. The MRI confirmed the scar tissue was there, but it didn’t really explain the pain ratcheting up in my right leg.

I could no longer get sleep. I was not comfortable laying on either side. Laying on my back didn’t work either after awhile and my stomach was off limits. The surgeon made me promise to never sleep on my stomach. It’s really bad for your back.

So when the pain got really bad, the surgeons resorted to steroids. They found the culprit in my right hip. The pain shooting down my leg, around my knee and into my shin was not coming from my back. It was coming from my hip. It was also shooting up into my lower back which was scaring the daylights out of me.

The steroids didn’t last long. Less than 10 days and the pain was back. I quit my physical therapy because that seemed to make it worse. I thought if I just laid low, didn’t walk far and let it heal I’d get better. Didn’t happen.

I finally decided I had to take action. I needed to be more mobile, so I “resorted” to calling the spa where I do my Pilates and Yoga to check out the acupuncture they recently started to offer.

I signed up.

Kathleen was my acupuncturist. She had a Master’s Degree in Chinese medicine. She’s one smart woman. All I asked was that she explain everything she was going to do. I am an analytical and curious person who always wants to learn and I knew squat about Chinese medicine. I had seen the pictures of people with needles sticking out and I had heard it doesn’t hurt, so I was game. Needles don’t scare me. Even if they did, I could just shut my eyes.

The whole experience was really easy. Instead of putting needles in my hip she ran them down a line that followed where the pain would rear up in my leg. She used the analogy of a car accident. She said my hip socket is like the scene of the accident. Instead of running straight into the accident she said the first option is to “clear the highway.” So I had a trail of needles.

I was amazed.

I was done and out the door in about an hour. It was even a restful experience.

I was tired in the evening. She said to expect that. I felt sort of like I had been tossed in the dryer and put on tumble dry. A bit beat up. But then I fell into a deep sleep. I was astonished that I had no trouble sleeping at all. I could lay in any position I chose and felt no pain. Absolutely no pain.

Today I woke up and no pain. None.

I don’t know if it will last a long time. She said it might take a few sessions to really get it under long-term control. Besides that, I know darn well I need some re-hab in my hip and leg. It has gotten so weak because of the chronic pain that I will have to build it back up again. That means more Pilates and Yoga but I’m game. Those things are relatively new to me too, and I love doing it. I have a personal trainer who monitors me and coaches me as I go along so I don’t overdo.

If any of you check out acupuncture, I hope your experience is as good as mine was. Even one night of pure sleep made it all worth it.

Today’s recipe is for my Plan Z Diet Dark Chocolate Peanut Clusters. Think a nutty, chocolaty treat. For a low carb diet this is perfect. I have made it for guests a few times. The servings I gave out were generous and I figured no one would finish. Ha. Everyone snarfed up every bit. This is perfect for a party. People love the fact that it’s so light and yet decadent.

Plan Z Diet Dark Chocolate Peanut Clusters

Enjoy!

Cheers,

To read more of Zola's blogs CLICK HERE or head over to https://www.planzdiet.com/blog/

New Taste Buds

New Taste Buds

By: Zola
Chief Dieter
Plan Z Diet







While on the Plan Z Diet I have developed a wholly enhanced sense of taste. For a food writer, that’s saying a lot. I thought my palate was sensitive and somewhat talented before. Now it’s down-right fine-tuned.

My husband was always the one who could decipher what mystery ingredient was in a dish. That was not a talent I possessed. I was, I thought, fairly good, but he was better. He could identify a bit of oregano when I just knew it was Italian. I could taste a wine and know there was lemon, or pineapple or even hints of vanilla. I could tell if a red wine had tannins, plum overtones or even some earthly elements. I thought I was pretty good.

Now, I can tell the nuances in apples. That’s news for me.

I’ve never been a big fan of apples. I preferred bananas. They were portable and peelable. I could eat the middle and toss the rest. When it came to apples, watermelon or even oranges, if it squirted juice that got on my face or left me with a sugary “smile” I was not happy. That aversion started as a child at backyard gatherings. When they fed us kids a piece of watermelon it didn’t come with a wet rag. We were expected to eat and enjoy and then go play. I hated having a sticky face and fingers. Big yuk. So after that I didn’t want to bite into an apple either. I hated peeling oranges because they squirted and I had to work around the pith. I had no tolerance for pith, so an orange was a project. I’d rather eat mandarin oranges from a can. I probably sound like a finicky kid and I was never labeled that. I just wanted to eat food that didn’t involve me getting sticky. It wasn’t just fruit. You can add barbecued ribs to that list too. This particular trait has carried on into adulthood.

With the Plan Z Diet, an apple for dessert has become a mainstay. I can slice it up. I can sprinkle stevia on it, then some cinnamon or better yet, pumpkin pie spice and I feel like I’m almost eating apple pie. My newest discovery on the Plan Z Diet is to sprinkle on some vanilla powder that I bought once at a specialty store. Vanilla apples are a real treat too on the Plan Z Diet.

I was a Granny Smith eater until recently. Growing up, we ate Red Delicious. I decided years ago that I didn’t like the Red Delicious skin. My “boyfriend” at the time (who later became my husband), turned me on to Granny Smith apples and I was hooked. I baked and cooked with them for decades. With the advent of the diet I have expanded my horizons. I’ve tried some Galas. Love the color. Not hooked on the apple. I’d rather decorate with them. Golden Delicious is a wonder. I love that one because it has a very delicate skin. The skin chews well and doesn’t end up stuck in my teeth. Love that. A mild apple. And my newest favorite is Honeycrisp. It’s the crunch that got me. I bit into that thing and went slightly deaf for a second. The crunch was loud. And juicy! I was standing in the grocery store at a taste-testing table and even though the juice ran down my chin, I was still happy! I bought a bag of those darlings on the spot. I could taste the difference, too.

I know the apple experts out there are laughing right now. The variety of tastes in apples has been known long before I went on this diet. Why else would grocery stores stock so many? I’ve always wondered that very thing. I wonder less now.

Cheers,

To read more of Zola's blogs CLICK HERE or head over to https://www.planzdiet.com/blog/