Food Swings: 125+ Recipes to Enjoy Your Life of Virtue & Vice

In a friendly voice Seinfeld encourages readers to take her approach to what she calls “food swings” and eat without guilt. Or, she concedes, to eat with less guilt. The book is divided into the virtuous recipes, which appear to be nutrient rich and lower in fat and calories, and the vice recipes, which focus on flavor and indulgence. Seinfeld explains her food-swings concept as an honest approach to eating. Readers will find oven-baked fried chicken under virtue and, no surprise, fried chicken listed under vice. Seinfeld manages to make chicken for dinner seem exciting again, with subtle tweaks to classic recipes, including peach and sriracha chicken over coconut rice and orange chicken with rosemary. The virtuous recipes are the stars, of which a variety of quick but innovative breakfasts will stand out to those bored of yogurt parfaits. Seinfeld and her cocreator Sara Quessenberry layer flavors creatively, which makes the virtuous recipes truly appealing. The virtuous desserts tempt with their vicelike allure, including Seinfeld’s family-movie-night treat that she makes “when I want my family to like me”: chocolate-popcorn almond clusters. Vice desserts are, not surprisingly, equally desirable, such as Seinfeld’s lemon-macaroon pie. However you divide up the recipes, this is a great day-to-day cookbook with tasty-looking recipes that are approachable and simple to prepare. Agent: Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, WME. (Apr.)