Travel to southern Italy in your own kitchen, by making this grilled eggplant Parmigiana. This traditional preparation is essentially a rich vegetable lasagna that uses eggplant slices in place of pasta and combines them with mozzarella cheese, tomato sauce and basil leaves. Basically, all the quintessential ingredients of classical Italian cuisine.

My first trip to Crete, the Greek island considered to be one of the healthiest places in the world, was the beginning of my education about the true Mediterranean Diet. This island has some of the highest longevity rates in the world and the men here live to be the same age as the women.  As a matter of fact, when the first researchers went to Crete in the 1950’s they could only find one man on the island with any kind of heart disease.

After my mom died, I started overeating.  One meal in particular stands out in my memory.  My extended family and I were all at an Indian restaurant and I ordered a full meal and then started eating everyone else’s leftovers.  I was stuffing my grief.  Even before my mom died, I was struggling with my weight, but after she died I gained 20 more pounds and was the heaviest I had ever been in my life (256 pounds when I got married a year later).