George Stella - Eating Stella Style

ALSO BY GEORGE STELLA

Livin Low Carb: Family Recipes Stella Style

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SIMON & SCHUSTER

Rockefeller Center

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright 2006 by George Stella, Inc.

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

First Simon & Schuster paperback edition 2006

SIMON & SCHUSTER and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Designed by Charles Kreloff

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Stella, George.

Eating Stella style : low-carb recipes for healthy living / George Stella with Christian Stella.

p. cm.

Includes index.

1. Low-carbohydrate dietRecipes. 2. Weight loss. I. Stella, Christian. II. Title.

RM237.73.S74 2006

613.2'5dc22 2005054196

ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-8521-6

ISBN-10: 0-7432-8521-2

ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-9049-1 (ebook)

I dedicate this book as I do my life, to my family and anyone who might be inspired by our story and heartfelt recipes.

This book is a combined family effort with the pages bound by our individual strengths and achievements.

I count my blessings every day for my amazing, supportive, and loving family. I can never thank my wife, Rachel, enough, for not only keeping the house running but for shopping and tirelessly testing all of the recipes in this book and still finding the time and energy to be at my side after twenty-five years.

Proud thanks to my son, Anthony, who devoted months toward creating our supportive Web site stellastyle.com and then researching to ensure detailed, accurate nutritional information for every recipe.

To Christian, who I have learned is quite the polished writer, I send gleaming thanks for helping me get this book together, working day and night and making my stacks of notes into something legible!

My family will always be grateful to our friends Dr. Timothy OLeary and his wife, Kathleen. From the start they have unselfishly sacrificed and paid it forward by helping us continue to share our story to help others.

Warmest thanks to my wonderful friends at Simon and Schuster: to Amanda Murray, our editor, who I love like a sister. She has made writing books a pleasurable experience, allowing us to often forget that it is actually hard work. Thanks to Sandra Bark, who worked hand in hand with Christian to make this the best book it could be, and to take out some of my nonsense before you would think I was crazy or something! (Bet they take out that last line, too!)

Many thanks to my friends in the marketing department: Elizabeth Hayes and Deirdre Mueller for always being there to help whenever I need it, especially free books! (I have a lot of relatives, you know.)

Continued thanks go to my literary agent, Susan Barry of the Barry-Swayne Literary Agency, for her continued support.

It was our sincere pleasure to have our food so deliciously caught on film by Mark Thomas of Mark Thomas Studios once again. Big thanks to Nancy Micklin Thomas, prop stylist, and Anne Disrude, food stylist extraordinaire, for making our food look fit for a king!

Thank you to a true great and a truly great guy, Frank Veronsky, for the amazing cover photograph. Frank made it easy, fun, and real; we had a blast!

Speaking of the cover photograph, very special thanks go to two new friends here in Norwalk, Connecticut. First thanks goes to Tess Abalos and Wild Oats Market for supplying all the outrageous food in the picture. Wild Oats is by far the best and most up and coming whole foods market in the country. If you are lucky enough to have one nearby, you will love it! Neighborly thanks to Meredith Miller and CLARKE Distribution Corporation, New Englands luxury kitchen and bath resource, for unselfishly and freely opening your kitchen wonderland to us to take photographs!

Most of all, I am thankful to be here. I have been given another chance to enjoy my familymy lifeand I will never let it go again.

Eating Stella Style

Where to start, where to start?

Lets start fresh.

Im George Stella, professional chef and champion of fresh, healthy foods that taste great! I call it Stella Style.

It seems like only yesterday that I tipped the scales at a whopping 467 pounds. Thats right, 467 pounds!

Now, Im healthier than Ive ever been!

Over the past seven years, my family and I have dropped a combined total of 560 pounds. Weve exchanged our old habits for new, healthier ones, and weve never felt better! Im traveling in airplanes without having to ask for a seatbelt extender. Im fitting into smaller and smaller clothes, and no longer have to shop from specialty big mens catalogs.

I feel like Im finally living the life I always should have had.

Even now, after losing more than 260 pounds and keeping the weight off for years, its still painful for me to think back to what my life was like then. When my whole family was overweight, we couldnt do anything without attracting attentionthe stares of strangers were something we came to expect! Now, when Im spotted in the fresh produce section of my local grocery store, Im not getting glaring looks, and children arent hiding behind their mothers legs. When people point at me, it isnt because Im fat; its because Im the low-carb chef from TV.

Sometimes, when I need a few ingredients for my newest recipe, a trip to the store can take hours! Seems everyone knows my name! Seems everyone has been inspired by my familys weight loss and are hungry for more. More often than not, theyll ask

Where should I start? Or...

How do I get started? Or...

How did you start?

Stella Style is, quite simply, how we did it. It is our recipe for weight-loss success.

My familys fresh start began the moment my wife and I decided to give the low-carb lifestyle a try. We swapped our sugar-filled highly processed packaged foods for wholesome fresh foods that were naturally low in carbohydrates. We rethought the way we cooked, shopped, and ate. We rethought the way we lived.

Over the years, our eating philosophy evolved into something we call Stella Style. What began as a strict low-carb diet has grown into a flexible lifestyle that allows us to eat a broad range of healthy and fresh foods that taste great.

For me, Stella Style means preparing simple meals using the best kind of food fresh food. Theres no reason to sentence yourself to tasteless, monotonous menus: With Stella Style, youll eat low-carb meals, snacks, and desserts that are delicious and satisfying. Most important, youll eat food that you love, without pinching on the portions!

With Stella Style, youll learn to:

Eliminate all the white stuff from your diet. This means refined sugars, white flour, and potatoes.

Replace processed foods with fresh, healthy choices.