Here is Gary in action that night being interviewed by the awesome duo Mike Langford & Jeff Cutler of NomX3

NomX3 with Garyvee: Wining, Dining and Signing

Me & Gary. I was SO excited to meet him, I just wanted to squeeze the crap outta him!!!

Bet ya’ll wanna know what in wrote in my book huh? Well, I’m not telling!  Though, I will say that I’m the only gal in Boston with this honor. (well, at least that’s what he told me)

Follow Jeff @jeffcutler.  I think he was a little nervous because I stalk him on twitter. Don’t worry Jeff, I only bite a little.

The modern day cupid.  Follow Thomas @urwingman ( he has the most piercing eyes)

Isn’t she adorable?! LOVE her! Follow Tamsen @tamadear !

The head tweeter at Tweetworks and incredibly sweet.  Mike’s nose for wine is so good, he can actually smell ass in it. True story.  Follow Mike @mikelangford

This lady is fabulous. She knows cupcakes, coffee & lip gloss.  She’s perfect. Follow Karen @vanillabean45

My neighbor & strategist extraordinaire! Follow Todd @btrandolph

My goals of the night were to meet Gary, get my book, and meet some very special tweeters.
Mission accomplished.

My parting words to you is go buy CRUSH IT! It will rock your world!

The first thing I liked about it is its paperback.  We don’t have one of those fancy schmancy cookbook stands that holds the book open so with a paperback I can fold/crease it to stay put (if I were cooking that is).  Flipping through it I noticed that there were not very many pictures, it was broken down into breakfast, lunch, dinner sides/appetizer, dessert and each recipe only took up one page.  Pretty Basic.  But just my style.  Because while I can appreciate a beautiful cookbook with food-pornesque pictures, I prefer one that I’m not afraid of getting dirty.  I need my cookbook in the thick of things, fingerprints, stains and all.  However for this review I didn’t do the cooking, I did the eating.  Hubby, toddler & I all picked out the recipes that tempted our taste buds (well, toddler really only wanted dessert so I *helped* her choose) and we set out to have a nightly taste test.

Each recipe page includes the serving size, prep time, a cooking or nutrition tip, exchanges (ie. 2 starch, 1 veg, 1 lean meat) and nutritional breakdown.  Nothing is overly complicated and with the exchange information it would be easy to substitute foods if one wanted/needed to.  The selection of recipes is smart, the authors chose basic favorites and adapted them for healthy eating (ie Nachos Supreme – Yum!).  I mean, who doesn’t want to be able to eat the foods they like without the unhealthy consequences?

Here are the recipes we all chose:

Hubby
Curry Chicken Wraps
Balsamic & Feta Pizza
Red Onion Steak

Toddler
Strawberry Oat Muffins
Peanut Butter Granola
Fish nuggets

Me
Hot ‘n’ Spicy Crab Dip (I love dips)
Black Bean Burgers (the reason for my squawking)
Pumpkin Pie French Toast
Banana  Bread Pudding

So as you can see there was quite a feast going on at Fitarella Headquarters.  All of the recipes were delish and came out perfectamente! Even toddler had a fun time helping make her fish nuggets and ate 5!  In this house that is a super success for fish!

The only thing that I questioned was the use of Splenda in almost all of the dessert recipes.  While I will admit to sometimes using Equal in coffee (yes, I know about the studies/chemicals but if I’ve had 4-5 cups of coffee in a day I can’t use sugar in all of them or I will be Zoomin!…and yes, I know 4-5 cups of coffee is a lot, but its my body and i’ll caffeinate it if I want to) I’m a little leery about cooking/baking with an artificial sweetener in large quantities.  So for the Banana Bread Pudding hubby used Brown sugar and it was HEAVENLY.  But knowing that others would want to know how to make the yummies without Splenda I asked the authors for a substitute.  Chef Jennifer Bucko suggested this:

Substitutes for sugar or artificial sweeteners:

Agave syrup: (will have a honey- or corn syrup-like effect making food a little chewier.)
  * Use 1/3 cup of agave syrup for every 1 cup of sugar or sugar substitute in the original recipe.
  * You may want to reduce the quantity of liquids in the original recipe to account for the moisture in the agave syrup
  * Is a good substitute for Splenda Brown Sugar

Stevia:
Natural substitute for sugar and sugar substitutes. Comes in powder or liquid form. Is very sweet and can become bitter if too much is used. Can mix part stevia with part turbinado (raw cane sugar) or regular sugar to be an equivalent for Splenda for Baking. May have to play around with it to get the exact quantity right depending on your tolerance for sweet taste.

The authors have made themselves available to take questions from YOU!  Wanna ask about carbs? healthy carbs? food for diabetics? recipes? food?  Ask away in the comments!  They are also giving away a free copy of The Healthy Carb Diabetes Cookbook  to a reader so be sure to say hi below.  A winner will be chosen on Sunday June 15th 11pm EST.

So the official verdict from this family is a YAY! The cookbook is practical, user friendly, and full of great recipes that you can either make as is or taylor to your buds.  Buen Provecho!