I can’t give you a life you love, but I might give you a book after the jump.

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I enjoyed hot chocolate, a great table, and good conversation with Elizabeth Bard at Angelina’s near the Louvre on my trip to Paris last year Look, there are her fingers!

Elizabeth came to Paris almost a decade ago and never really left. While she was studying abroad, she fell in love with a Frenchman, eventually married him, and slowly learned how to make a life in the city of lights. Her story is told in her new book Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes which includes dozens of recipes that marked special moments during her transition. These include recipes for seduction, meals to warm you up when your apartment doesn’t have central heat, and slimming summer recipes for the bikini days of French vacation.

I talked to Elizabeth about her book and particularly about what anyone can do to make their kitchen more “Frenchie.” You can catch up with her on the Lunch in Paris Facebook fan page.

Q: One of the most obvious traits of French cooking that I noticed in your book was the [...]

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This is just a reminder to let you know my digital camera giveaway ends after this Sunday, January 31. I’m giving away a shiny, new, red digital camera! All you have to do to enter is buy a copy of my book, Half-Assed: A Weight-Loss Memoir between Thanksgiving 2009 and January 31, 2010. Get full details here.

Big thanks to all of you who have already entered. I truly appreciate the support!

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My recipe for Capp-oat-ccino Delight aka Oatmeal Espresso was recently published in Dave Grotto’s new book, 101 Optimal Life Foods. Some of you may remember that I entered a recipe contest after the Quaker Oats Living Proof Blogger Weekend in Chicago. My win included the prize of an ill-fated unvacation to the Colorado Oatmeal festival as well as the publication of my recipe in Dave’s book.

Dave was kind enough to send me a copy of the book which I’ve flipped through. It’s a guide to what foods will help you manage or prevent various illnesses. I took special note of the chapters on headaches and chronic pain. It’s a handy little guide, and Dave Grotto is a registered dietician dietitian, so he knows what he’s talking about. Roni from Green Lite Bites has some recipes featured in the book too, so you can double the blogger love even if we don’t get any royalties :)

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Photo by gerrysnaps / CC BY-NC 2.0

I had completely forgotten this until I read DietGirl’s blog this morning, but today is my five-year fativersary! It was five years ago today that I started my big fat weight loss attempt. DietGirl and I have the same weight loss anniversary, which would seem weird if not for the millions of people who start losing weight in January.

So, it’s five years later and I’ve maintained 75% of my highest weight loss. I’m working on making that percentage higher, but for now, I’ll take it! Woot! Some people think the five-year mark is a statistically significant indicator of your likelihood to keep the weight off. A quick Google search couldn’t find any articles that stated this, so it might just be folk wisdom or a total figment of my imagination.

All I know if that there was a guy who commented on the blog about two or three years ago saying he wouldn’t buy my book until I’d kept the weight off for five years. I only remember this because [...]

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