Amore Magazine

Let me start by saying that I am not the easiest eater. I have been gluten free for 8 years. I generally don’t have any interest in cheese or milk. I don’t eat red meat and hardly ever eat potatoes. (I had enough as a kid). I buy mostly organic and enjoy drinking green juices. I bake with agave nectar and coconut oil. So because I am the one that does the grocery shopping and the cooking in my house my family ends up eating similarly. Do they eat regular pizza, cookies, and French fries when the opportunity presents itself? Obviously. Do the kids drink milk? Will I have a complete meltdown if they want to eat string cheese? I am not some maniac, people.

So Gwyneth Paltrow’s new cookbook “It’s All Good” is kind of in my wheelhouse. Her book does not include recipes that have coffee, alcohol, dairy, chicken eggs, sugar, shellfish, deepwater fish, potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, corn, wheat, meat, soy and all processed foods. Most of that is no sweat off my back, so I was intrigued and bought myself a copy. This way I could also report back to you.

Last night I had her recipe for turkey meatballs, which are basically ground turkey, 5 different fresh herbs, and arugula filled. I served them with some marinara and some quinoa penne (Ancient Harvest is the best brand) and broccoli. They were delicious. My kids ate them fine. My husband didn’t complain. For me that’s a win-win, mostly since my other half is quick to point out that he thinks my food is often “too healthy.” (Sorry, man, for trying to keep you alive).

Recipes I probably won’t ever make include Beet, Fennel & Apple Soup, Buckwheat Soba noodles with ginger-scallion broth, and savory broiled tofu. But I will definitely look into the salmon and the Thai chicken burgers, her herbed roast chicken, and the chicken soup with kale & carrots.

Now, we all know Paltrow. She’s pretty clueless when it comes to reality for most people. So the biggest problem with the cookbook is that most of the recipes are pretty expensive to make. You can’t just head off to the Safeway and expect to find yourself some gochugaru (course Korean red chili flakes), dried bonito flakes, or some duck eggs.

Because only Paltrow would eat omelets made with duck eggs, cremini mushrooms grown in Steven Spielberg’s backyard, and course sea salt flown in on a private jet.

Here is a run down of what it would cost to make two recipes. (Courtesy of Yahoo’s  Shine Blog):

Spanish Chopped Salad with Tuna and Piquillos with Spanish Salad Dressing:

Chickpeas         $3

Olive oil         $15

Sweet pimenton     $10

Coarse sea salt     $10

Butter lettuce     $4

Scallions         $1.49

Roasted piquillo peppers $13.50

8 oz oil-packed tuna $18.40

Italian parsley     $2

Dressing:

Manuka honey     $25

Sherry vinegar     $8

Oil from anchovies     $8.99

Total:            $119.38

Or:

Best Gluten-Free Fish fingers, Mustard + Old Bay Style

Vegenaise         $5

Coarse seeded mustard $5

Dijon mustard     $3.50

Gluten-free breadcrumbs $6

Old Bay         $3

Fine sea salt         $4

4 sole fillets         $45

Total:             $71.50

I would give it a thumbs up if you already happen to have a lot of the gluten free flour and you have your own herb garden. Also helpful if you have a bottomless checking account. Otherwise you are spending a good penny just to try a recipe that maybe only one person in your family finds tasty. Or you could just pick up Boston Market. Your call.

-Kate Casey

Kate Casey is a Pop Culture Lover. PR Pro. Soon-to-be New mom again. Comedy nerd. Celebrity gossip fan. Follow her on Twitter

She bugs. That’s the best way to explain it simply. Gwyneth Paltrow believes she is better than you. She’s able to maintain a marriage, be an exceptional mother, businesswoman, and friend while enjoying a fancy life, a perfect body and looks. It’s not her fault you can not keep up.

1. She eats better than you.

To be released April 2, “It’s All Good: Delicious, Easy, Recipes That Will Make You Look Good and Feel Great” is a collection of 185 “restorative” dishes that also come with a slew of food restrictions: recipes are sugar-free, non-dairy, vegetarian, wheat-free and non-alcoholic. So a real comfort food kind of cookbook. Great for miserable cookouts and you-will-never-have-anyone-come-back-to-your-house dinner parties.

“My indulging is a fresh baguette with cheese and a glass of red wine or french fries and fried zucchini. Or a turkey burger.’

Routinely does diet detoxes consisting of seven-day juice diets. Perfect if you want an energy boost and constant diarrhea.

“I’d rather smoke crack than eat cheese from a tin.”

So don’t send her a canister of kettle corn.

2. She is a better parent.

“I am by nature a very creative person, and I really can only do one movie a year because my kids are so small, and if I miss even two days of their lives, they’re gone.”

Translation: For me it is a sacrifice to get paid $15 million to star in a studio picture that will require me spending 12 days on a movie set in a luxury location where day care and luxury accommodations will be made available.

Speaking to InStyle magazine, the mother-of-two said Apple was ‘cross’ as ‘I only let them watch TV in French or Spanish’. She added: ‘When I’m in France, I go to [Boulevard] Beaumarchais and buy all their cartoons.’

That is unlike you, loser, who lets your kids watch Sesame Street or Wizards of Waverly Place. She doesn’t buy plastic toys that require batteries.

They read literature. They do children’s yoga. They help the poor.

Your kids eat paste.

3. She has better friends.

Look, I am sure your Bunco group is a hoot and those friends you met at the park are great. But Goop runs with ballers. Ever heard of Jerry Seinfeld? Steven Spielberg is her godfather. Cameron Diaz considers her a life coach of sorts. Kate Hudson clings to her when she’s in London. Beyonce and Jay-Z are among her best friends. She won’t hang out with a reality star or someone who is still considered a struggling actor or God forbid did not attend school in Greenwich or a boarding school in the Swiss Alps. Lunch with Anna Wintour? Oh, yes, of course. Would she ever be caught dead engaging in conversation with you at Starbucks? Jesus, no. Don’t be crazy.

4. She lives better than you. You get that, peasant people?

“I am who I am. I can’t pretend to be somebody who makes $25,000 a year.”

It is because of this she saw an opportunity to charge people a fee to access the kind of information only available to someone who lives a very blessed life. You need her to explain to you what you are missing out as you sit in your house and pay your bills, feed your kids pizza pockets, and sport Banana Republic chinos you bought on the sale rack. Her life is aspirational, you see. Goop is a lifestyle newsletter and website.

“I have this incredible, blessed, sometimes difficult, very lucky, very unique life, and I’ve gotten to travel all over the place and to work and live in different cities. … I go on tour with my husband and go to cities I would never necessarily go to. So I started accruing all of this information. I am the person my friends call when they want to know: “I am redoing this bathroom, and I want a sink that looks midcentury, but a contemporary version of a midcentury. Where should I go?” or “How do I make your (recipes)?” So she can explain to you the point of detoxing, how to hire a chauffeur when traveling to Cannes, and charge you upwards of $515 for a Goop labeled sweater.

“A little trip away in the summer is exciting and rejuvenating, especially if you can’t take all of August off like the Italians/French do.”

Because you do that, don’t you? Just cancel all your appointments and take the month of August off so you can tour four-star hotels throughout Europe. I am sure boss would totally get it.

5. She never embarrasses herself.

“I think they’re the idiot people and I’m the normal person. But I don’t really go to parties where … I don’t really have drunk friends. My friends are kind of adult; they have a drink. But they hold their liquor. I think it’s incredibly embarrassing when people are drunk. It just looks so ridiculous. I find it very degrading. I think, ooh, you’re really degrading yourself right now, to be this pissed out in public.”So don’t get any ideas bringing your bottle of vodka over to her mansion. You have one drink and it will have plenty of ice and would never have a sugared rim or an umbrella.

She will do karaoke, but only sing hits that compliment her vocal range.

She will gladly laugh at you but never at herself.

She’s annoying. You get it. I get it. She will never get it.

-Kate Casey

Kate Casey is a Pop Culture Lover. PR Pro. Soon-to-be New mom again. Comedy nerd. Celebrity gossip fan. Follow her on Twitter