We can guess that palace life has a lot of perks: servants fetching lost mittens, people running the bath so your tootsies hit water that’s just right. And we’re not envious! In fact, here’s a case where former royal rebel Sarah Ferguson got lots of help and we’re glad, glad, glad: “Dining With the Duchess,” the new cookbook from Weight Watchers (Simon & Schuster, $25).
A nod and a curtsy are certainly due the Duchess of York, who has left behind catty nicknames like “The Duchess of Pork,” hurled at her by a citizenry no longer willing to behead the royals, but happy to sneer them to death. Hard work and discipline evidently went into Sarah’s slimmed-down new shape.
But it’s a good thing she let Weight Watchers come up with the recipes (we tried a few– cheese popovers, steak frites–and were impressed). “I very rarely cook,” she confesses right at the start, and her connection to real-life chores seems tenuous. Yes, Sarah has a cook, who has lately been instructed to withhold the “sausage rolls” (think pig in a blanket), a favorite binge food, and to serve up tuna salad and frozen yogurt from the book instead. But two children and a “mad,” “hectic” travel schedule do tend to make one want to grab any old thing out of the luxury hotel suite’s mini-bar. Fortunately, the duchess has a personal trainer at the gym, frequent outings on horseback and skis, and the occasional naughty impulse to take the stairs (“It drives my security men mad!”).
The serenity she needs to manage poor eating habits comes from the peaceful countryside of Tuscany and Provence and the immense mountains of Switzerland. You tell it, sister! That’s the kind of inspiration we can use.
In the meantime, we’ll cut even more calories by gagging on all the fluff in this book–maybe working up an appetite for the recipes later.
