What to Eat When You Don't Feel Like Eating

by James Haller

James Haller’s vast experience, unbounded enthusiasm, and compassionate nature make this cookbook an invaluable resource for those preparing food for people suffering serious illness. He tells how cooking can be simple, quick, and inexpensive. He groups various foods by colours and gives an uncomplicated understanding of nutritional values. More than this he stresses taste. "Most importantly," he writes, "the food has to taste incredible. Not just good, but the food has to be delicious. It has to taste like it was doing something wonderful for you, because that’s the essence of nurturing." Haller’s book is highly recommended by physicians, nurses and other health professionals worldwide.

124 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1994

About the author

Internationally acclaimed master chef, author, and presenter James Haller has written numerous articles, books, and personal stories about his journey to becoming an award-winning master chef. He was the executive chef, founder, and owner of the Blue Strawbery restaurant in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and the Lee Fontain Carriage House in Memphis, Tennessee. He also owned and operated James Haller’s Kitchen, where he taught classes and acted as a food consultant.

Haller opened his renowned Blue Strawbery in 1970 and in 16 years never repeated a menu. Today, creative cuisine abounds, but in Chef Haller’s time, he was truly an innovator, one of a generation of American Chefs including Larry Forgione in Manhattan, Lydia Shire in Boston, Jeremiah Tower in San Francisco, Alice Waters of Chez Panisse, who all pioneered the New American Cooking.

Haller is the author of several cookbooks, a food/fitness book, What to Eat When You Don’t Feel Like Eating, a book for feeding terminally ill people, which has sold almost 1 million copies, as well as Vie de France (2002), a book about the month he spent with friends in the Loire Valley for his sixtieth birthday, where he renewed his love of cooking.

His most recent book,

Reviews

[Lissa Notreallywolf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Technically this is a cookbook, but it is also a stealth guide to caretaking. I love how he dismantled the hospital meal of Salsbury steak for a cancer patient-too heavy, too canned and too much. Food serves as a metaphor in many instances for what hospice care, or convalescent care needs to be, minimal, fresh, colorful. Patients are so often depressed,and I actually wanted an apricot ice after reading this, although I am not overly fond of apricots. It's because this was the memory of ice cream as a happy place, the curative quality of food colors. It might be a good book to read if you are feeling blue, and not inclined to take care of yourself, diet included. I think it's a great book to read if you are a caretaker, make enough icecream for both yourself and the patient.
I have loved James Haller's cookbooks for years and have to keep ordering new copies because I give them to the uninspired or intimidated cooks I meet. They are full of a sense of wonder and discovery. Thhis little gems is a more spiritually serious work, but is uite satisfying, a little gem.

[Kristen · Rating 4 out of 5]

DH got me this while we were dating and I finally got around to reading it. It's written for cancer patients and those in hospice, but easily translated into everyday living. I liked the author's focus on easy prep and clean/whole ingredients. :)

[Marcia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This advice and cookbook got me through those "nothing appeals to me" times of chemo.