Lettuce Books

I bought this book to replace a copy that mysteriously disappeared (someone obviously liked it too much!). The recipes truly are flavorful and unexpected and have helped me lose weight, end salad-boredom, tempt people who "never" eat salad, and earn a reputation as a super salad chef. Whether you need a refreshing main course for a hot summer day, or just some extra veggies in your diet, this book offers more ideas than you can imagine!

Who would have thought this small book on greens, salads and dressings would be indespensible? But it is! Do these authors ever go wrong? Every single cookbook of theirs', which I have read, is far and away the best on its respecive subject.

The authors of Lettuce in Your Kitchen are far better known for their grilling cookbooks than for the vegetable plate. That's a darned shame, because this cookbook is an excellent resource for those of us who want to add something more to the meal than a standard greens-and-vinegarette.

Let me point out one omission that may make a difference to you: to Schlesinger and Willoughby, a salad encompasses some sort of greens, even if it's only as a garnish. As a result, you won't find a whole chapter of pasta salads or a dozen potato salads. That's fine with me, but you should be clear about what to expect.

What you SHOULD expect are clearly written recipes for salads that you probably wouldn't have invented by yourself. The book is organized by simple salads; salads for the perfect tomato; vegetable salads; salads with meat and fish; main course salads; salads with exotic flavors; fancy salads; and salads for a crowd. It's prefaced by an extrememly useful section in which the various greens are identified (with line drawings -- not quite as useful as a photo but it works), and categories that help you discover that, should your market be out of spinach, you can use baby chard or baby beet greens instead. The book has only a few photos, but they're enough for inspiration.

But what about their recipes? I've tried two with excellent success, and I have a list of additional salads to try. My "starter salad" for Thanksgiving was watercress salad with plums and scallions and a hoisin-based dressing. (Most of the dressings are more than you need, and the authors suggest that, say, the hoisin dressing is a good dip for veggies or with roast chicken.) Every plate was cleaned off, even the token non-foodie (he was instructed that he could NOT bring his own Budweiser to the meal). I also truly enjoyed the salad of Boston lettuce, mango, cucumber and avocado, served with a creamy orange-spice dressing. It was no harder to put toghether than the mundane green salad you'd bring to a buffet, and far more tasty!

Naturally, you can get less exotic (escarole with bacon, eggs, and potatoes) or far more so (arugula with lobster and pancetta with a smooth avocado dressing).

But they all have one thing in common: they're VERY easy to put together. And, if you buy the ingredients in season and avoid the handful of expensive items (Mesclun with grilled fois gras, pears, and maui onion with port wine dressing?), it'll be a snap to pull together a meaningful meal with very little effort.

I'm sold on this book. I think you'll like it, too.

Whoever thought you could say that about a salad? But they do. They rock! For a niche cookbook, this one has a lot of variety in flavors. Each recipe gives lettuce alternatives, which is helpful if you live in an area that doesn't carry a large selection of lettuces. Some of the combinations are quiet unique, such as one concoction of watermelon, red onion and vinegar - sounds a little kooky, but once you taste it, it all makes perfect sense. This is a great book to try interesting and healthy new salad combinations. I hope you enjoy it.

I bought this book in hopes of having a real tool for eating better. So many cookbooks have a few ho-hum salad recipes here and there, and some of the other salad cookbooks I've seen have recipes that are just too elaborate for everyday cooking. This book has a broad range of interesting and tasty salads that are easy to make. You will never get bored, and your friends and guests won't either. The dressing part of each recipe makes a large amount so that you can have extra to use later (I always make half of the dressing recipe, toss the salad with just a few tablespoons, and still have a lot left over). So if you can only muster the energy to throw some lettuce in a bowl some night, you will have great leftover dressing to toss it with. Since I've been using this book, I have stopped buying bottled dressing and have even started growing my own salad greens.

I have been dieting for years. Johnny Flynn's light hearted approach tothis difficult subject just made me feel better about my own fight to lose weight and keep it off.

In Heavy Lettuce: Adventures Of A Journeyman Dieter, author Johnny T. Flynn draws upon a fifteen year struggle with respect to losing weight, and offers a humorous approach to understanding and dealing with the complex issues associated with dieting. Presenting "user-friendly" observational advice about simple weight-loss tactics, Heavy Lettuce provides the reader with a practical and strategic approach to dieting by addressing such relevant issues as responsible food choices, motivation for the long run, self analysis of eating behaviors, thinking outside of the box for variable strategies, winning the psychological struggles of dieting without therapy, creating a self-supportive system, exercising at a comfortable pace, and resisting the temptations of holiday seasonal meals and foods. Heavy Lettuce is very highly recommended -- especially for anyone in need of an intelligible, accurate, "reader friendly" book one dieting and weight-loss.

In Heavy Lettuce: Adventures Of A Journeyman Dieter, author Johnny T. Flynn draws upon a fifteen year struggle with respect to losing weight, and offers a humorous approach to understanding and dealing with the complex issues associated with dieting. Presenting "user-friendly" observational advice about simple weight-loss tactics, Heavy Lettuce provides the reader with a practical and strategic approach to dieting by addressing such relevant issues as responsible food choices, motivation for the long run, self analysis of eating behaviors, thinking outside of the box for variable strategies, winning the psychological struggles of dieting without therapy, creating a self-supportive system, exercising at a comfortable pace, and resisting the temptations of holiday seasonal meals and foods. Heavy Lettuce is very highly recommended -- especially for anyone in need of an intelligible, accurate, "reader friendly" book one dieting and weight-loss.

Reviewed by Beverly Pechin for Reader Views (7/06)

There is nothing worse than a skinny person writing about the trials and tribulations of being `fat'. How would they really know what it's like? Have no fear, as "one of our own" from the Growing Up Chubby Club has finally found the way to not only share ideas, techniques and facts but has managed to mix in a good dose of humor at a not always quite so funny subject.

You will thoroughly enjoy the stories of the author as he grew up `fat' and all of the crazy ways he tried to change himself for various reasons. Spoken like a true dieting guru, Johnny Flynn not only touches on some of the most detailed moments of his life, young and old, but shares some of the most successful ways to go about finally losing that weight and keeping it of.

Using facts and figures to show you the way, he includes some insights to various fad diets and some not so `fad' dieting programs, including Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig and eDiets. While he never bashes any of the programs mentioned he does comment on a time when he visited a Weight Watchers meeting with his sister. He tells of one woman who had finally reached her goal and gives quite a comical overview of his desire to boo her off the stage when she said absolutely nothing into the microphone but cried intensely. While the actual event itself isn't comical, the comedy itself comes from the fact that poor Johnny sat there wanting so badly to boo her off the stage for her meager attempt at sharing her ideas and ways but the fear of his sister smacking him into oblivion kept him quiet.

While Flynn never gives you an out and out, step by step diet plan; he does arm you with knowledge and techniques. He shows you how to manage your daily calorie intake, make healthy choices based on labels and knowledge and forces you to begin taking responsibility for your own decisions when it comes to food.

A wonderful, knowledgeable book of facts combined with a humorous look at not only growing up as a `fat kid' but laughing at ourselves at a nation filled with obesity and taking on the responsibility of changing our ways. Dieting tips, enlightening stories and my most favorite stories of chocolate (that demon so many of us fall to) that will leave you laughing calories away as you finally decide to take charge of your life and become what you've always wanted to become, a thinner, healthier you.

At 224 pages, I began reading this coincidentally at a time where at 224 pounds, I felt overweight. Heavy Lettuce takes a very unique approach in providing information to the reader on the subject of weight loss. Instead of providing the reader with a boring weight loss routine and a diet that we all know, Flynn discusses the pitfalls of going on any diet: gaining more weight when all is said and done.

The book's title, "Heavy Lettuce" is the perfect title to describe the "heaviness" of doing the right thing: eating right and staying healthy when there's a lightness or carefreeness in just eating one more slice of pizza or just one more twinkie, or "just" 4 more weight watcher diet chocolate ice creams.

The book takes a unique approach for a diet book in that it takes strong analysis of one's "obligation" or habits that lead to splurging on food and ultimately killing one's diet plan. It delves into the habits we develop over the years and helps the dieter understand why a diet that seems to shed pounds eventually fails.

Unlike other weight loss books written by people who probably never had to go on a diet to begin with, Flynn's "expertise" at having, at one point, looked beyond his belly to see his weight at around 265 pounds, gives the reader a sense of realism and a new friend with an author whose words of wisdom give hope to the futility of dieting.

When you read a weight loss book from a person who was at where you, the reader, are currently at, the author's tone comes off as one of true empathy and integrity, even as an encouraging friend trying to brainstorm with you the correct manner in losing weight that is perfect for you.

Flynn delves into his life from when he was a child to when he began dating to explore the complexities of both weight loss and weight gain. It looks at how the "weight issue" affects one in college, the professional life, and looks at people's perception of a person on a diet both prior to losing weight and after losing weight. Then it looks at the contibuting factors to gaining weight: stress, greed, changes in lifestyle, proximity of 7-11 locations, and excuses.

He provides many humorous real life anecdotes that everyone can identify with.

There are many heart felt passages that the reader, who is trying to lose weight, will identify strongly with: for me, his theory on the inflated weighing scales at all doctor's offices made me laugh.

Then there are moments where Flynn looks at the dark side of gaining weight: how depression sets in when one cannot lose weight, how the world treats one when heavier than normal, how obsessed one becomes with food, and in those dark passages, he successfully manages to rescue the reader out of these difficult moments with excellent wit and humor such as his passage on giving his weighing scale a name and how he gives real life attributes to one of the book's major antagonists: the television!

The book provides excellent online resources and tools in the appendix section; and the author goes into specifics of various weight loss programs that allows one to look at the options out there.

Ultimately, the book does not corner you into taking any weight loss program, but provides the dieter with the proper mindset and mental framework to succeed in dieting.

Having lost 16 pounds since I read this book, I'd say Flynn's guidance is the best I've gotten from any weight loss book.

This will not be a weight loss book that will get lost in your pile of books. It will be one that you will refer to often, especially when you find yourself at a crossroads between exercising or eating that extra slice of pizza. Instead of pondering like Hamlet, "to eat or not to eat", get this book and suddenly the perspectives are much clearer: "do what is the best for your health."

Great read. A permanent one in my collection of reference guides.

Mike Marine has written the funniest book in America, "101 Ways to Get Rid of a Lettuce Head Doll". While this book recieved major media coverage, distribution was spotty and it became difficult to find. But what a find it is! If you think these Cabbage Patch Dolls are ugly and commercially exploited, you will laugh you belly off reading this spoof. The drawings are endearingly sketched by a renowned Washington Post editorial cartoonish. They capture perfectly the tone of the funniest book I have ever read. It is so funny, I insist that every one that enters my house sit and read this and some are in tears - they laugh so hard. Destined to be a collectors item, get yourself this book and don't let anyone take it from your shelf - unless they want to read it. It may be dated, but the humor is fresh and timeless. Enjoy............

Marine is a genius and great talent. Not only can he poke fun at those dumb dolls, but he lampoons cuurent society. This was great fun. Don't miss it.

This is a great spoof of the Cabbage Patch Doll. It is a collectors issue. Loved every page!

As an older brother it is your duty to swear by the book, "Stamp them out before they multiply!" This is original, funny, and very characteristic of the litigation free 80's. I mean, "Wow!" Topics handled in this book were never for kids. Today this is on the TV all the time. I scanned some images, but some, I just can't put here. Not much text, the cartoons are a riot. I can't believe he said that, and that, and that...OMG. Chain-saw surgery, near-sighted rabbi, send it to San Diego w/an ear ring...unbelieveable. I'm thinking compulsive editiorial cartoonist, however the dedication page is true to the underlining theme of the book, 'Dedicated to Americans...who'll buy anything'. If you don't like it, grow up.

Mad Mike is a friggen genius. This book is hilarious. I am going to invite this guy over my house for a seder!

This very funny short by Jarod Kintz is definitely a celebration of surrealism. Each poem and random thought is a delight to the subconscious mind, but I think it would be even more effective if you read this while fasting. Just kick up your feet and let your mind go and enjoy!

This short absolutely blew me away. It is the funniest thing I have read in a long time, the sort of thing you can't put down once you start reading. Very nice.

Growing up Lutheran, I've experienced my share of potlucks. It always amazed me how diversified the dishes were - rarely were two alike and there always seemed to be a healthy balance of the important food groups (with the exception of an overabundance of Jello).

As I read Mr. Kintz's latest short, it immediately brought back memories of those potlucks from my childhood. After my initial salivations, I marvelled at how varied and unique each of his thoughts were, yet together they created a most satisfying literal feast.

Okay, so there were some thoughts in "A Letter to Andre Breton" that were totally "off-the-wall"....much like my Aunt Mildred's infamous Dishwasher Fish (yes, she really cooked it in her dishwasher!) But all in all, Mr. Kintz's short is a fabulous smorgasbord, without all the indigestion afterwards.

I like my fiction straight-up like Hemingway whiskey and I like my poetry the same way, like raw vegetables straight from the dirt, the kind Bukowski used to cook. And that's why I liked Jarod Kintz's latest publication, "A Letter from Andre Breton, Originally Composed on a Leaf of Lettuce With an Ink-dipped Carrot". If cucumbers were similes and onions were metaphors then this Short Salad would fill a family of hungry muses. When Kintz turns a phrase, he really turns a phrase- loose. His figures of speech get legs and they run. Sometimes they run into offbeat places like The Fountain of Youth and sometimes they just sit and chuckle with the Mythical Mr. Boo.

I liked the way Mr. Kintz laced his poetic narratives with flavorful commentary spiced with humorous digs. This Short is a good meal for the mind-- funny, original and fresh. Rave on Jarod Kintz.

There's just something about the combination of the crunch of bacon, the coolness of lettuce and tomato, and the chewiness of a good, rustic toast. Comfort food at its finest, and it is well explored in this book. All the flavors of a BLT in a variety of forms, including soup, salad, and, of course, sandwiches.

Great pictures of the food, too.

Jack Long is, for me, a master of horticultural crime, and his latest work, "The Case of the Missing Lettuce" is up there with some of the classics of the genre. I'm talking about such masterpieces as Agatha Christie's "Miss Marple and the Mystery of the Misshapen Marrow", Polanowski's "One of our courgettes is missing", and of course Conan-Doyle's seminal "Sherlock Holmes and the stolen carrots".
In "The Case of the Missing Lettuce" the reader is kept guessing as to the whereabouts of the crispy-leafed vegetable right up until the final page - and the tension that has built up over the previous 8 pages is almost unbearable. Was it Jones, the farmer? Was it Bill Binkley, the loveable greengrocer? Or was it Mrs. Smith, the sprightly, love-lorn pensioner? If you don't buy this marvellous book, those questions will haunt you for the rest of your life. Buy it now. Now!

I haven't tried all the recipes in this book but the ones I've done have been very well received, particularly the main-course salads in hot summer weather. Clearly written recipes, very tasty- enough that I can overlook the, umm, slightly corny name of the book

It's refreshing to read a children's book that is a story with a beginning, middle, and ending, a structure that has been missing from the many books I've read to my 4 year old since she's been born. I loved it and so does my daughter. Thanks Ms.Taylor for your adorable tale of duck, goose, rabbit, and friends. Where's the next one?

It looks great on my kindle! It is a full color book on Amazon.

The Compendium of Barley Diseases (2nd edition), Compendium of Conifer Diseases, and the Compendium of Lettuce Diseases are all recent additions to this excellent series published by the American Phytopathological Society. These compendia are packed with expert opinions by plant pathologists on both infectious and non-infectious diseases. Details on symptoms, causative organism or agent, disease cycle and control along with references for further reading are all provided in a concise, easy-to-use format. These compendia are very attractive with high gloss pages and an abundance of both black and white and full color photographs. The text is easy to understand and geared to a wide range of users that may include plant pathologists, agricultural extension personnel, researchers, and growers themselves. These titles are a great value at a reasonable price and are highly recommended for agriculture libraries as well as the personal professional collections of those working in applied agriculture or forestry.