By Larry Gordon
Tanya Rosen says that I can still eat my favorite foods and lose weight, and I am about to take her up on that challenge. Tanya and her assistant Basya were in our offices last week to discuss the successful diet being disseminated to their thousands of clients around the New York area and at their various offices, known as “Nutrition by Tanya.”
“So this is the thing,” I said during our meeting. “I’ve tried many diets over the last 20–30 years. Some have worked better than others, but the one thing they all have in common is that, slowly but surely, whatever the weight loss was, it all comes crawling back. So what is a dieter supposed to do?”
They had come to talk about their business and the plan to promote it in these pages, which is what I am doing right now by writing these sentences. Tanya, Basya, and their crew say that they have the answer to this dieting dilemma. This week, I have committed myself to letting them guide me on the path that will allow me to eat (sensibly, I’m sure), and at the same time knock off the 10–15 pounds that keep following me around no matter what I do or where I go.
Mark Twain said that quitting smoking was the easiest thing to do, and he knows that because he did it thousands of times. That is a recurring thought that has definite and certainly specific application to the concept of diets.
Granted, at this point I know very little about the science or the wisdom of the Tanya diet. I think I will know much more and be better-educated on the subject next time. So far, the idea that you can eat all your favorite foods has heightened my curiosity and I am certainly looking forward to it.
“People eat too little on many diets,” Tanya says, “and that does not facilitate weight loss. The reality is that you can eat and should eat and be able to lose weight at the same time.”
The Nutrition by Tanya diet features three meals and two snacks in the course of the day. At present, at the nine New York-area Nutrition by Tanya locations, there are about 4,000 people they are guiding and counseling through the weight-loss process.
On the matter of dieting, I am sure if you are in the same parashah, so to speak, you have often wondered why you cannot incorporate a weight-loss program successfully on your own. It probably can be done but our minds play tricks on us. It is imperative that we report to someone who can guide us in the right direction about being responsible and reasonable when it comes to our meals, snacks, and so on.
Like I said earlier, I am looking forward to the experience and reporting on it here periodically. I don’t know if it is going to be life-changing, but it certainly will be good.
More On Food
in addition to several other offices.
As long as we are on the subject of food, let me switch directions and write a few hundred words about two outstanding restaurants that we happened to visit over the last week.
Both are in the neighborhood of my childhood—Crown Heights—and I cannot help but marvel almost breathlessly and with awe at how this neighborhood and community has changed over the last few years.
The two eateries that we had the occasion to visit recently were the upscale dairy restaurant Basil and the Alenbi eatery that opened just a few months ago.
There is a bit of a history that I want to share with you that involves these two restaurants and my family. Basil is owned by Danny Branover, and Alenbi is owned and run by Yuda Schlass. Danny’s father, Professor Herman Branover, a’h, and Yuda’s father, Rabbi Moshe Schlass, may he continue to be well, were regular congregants at the Tzemach Tzedek shul in the Old City of Jerusalem. I had my introduction to that shul on Rechov Chabad after my father passed away on Chanukah in 1989.
At the time, we made the journey to Israel for the burial, which was on Friday morning. This meant that we would be there over Shabbos. At some point during the next 24 hours, we landed in the Tzemach Tzedek shul where we said Kaddish.
After that, we usually marked the yahrzeit for my father in that shul and I can vividly recall where Professor Branover stood while he davened and where Rabbi Schlass still davens, right near the bimah, to this very day.
So let’s talk about the restaurants. As you might have seen in last week’s edition of the 5TJT, Basil has introduced a special and unique new menu. We were there last Thursday evening and met with Chef Eran Harel who was here in New York for a few weeks but has since returned to Israel. He told us he will be visiting every few weeks just to make sure the menu is up to the standard that he has worked on and introduced here in New York over the last few weeks.
If you have been to Basil before, you will be overwhelmed with the menu; if you are going for the first time, then you are really in for an unusual treat that at this point is probably unmatched by any other kosher dairy restaurant in New York at present.
And then the other night we once again found ourselves in Brooklyn and on the spur of the moment decided to check out Alenbi. These days I rarely get to the new and improved Crown Heights, but my recollection has been that this part of Nostrand Avenue was one of the drabbest parts of the neighborhood for all these years.
It is still not that pretty or anywhere near upscale, but that is only until you pull up in front of Alenbi on Nostrand near Montgomery Street. The décor of Alenbi gives you that instant midtown Manhattan feel and, fortunately for us, Yuda, who I remember as a young child running around his parents’ apartment in the Old City, was there to bring us up to speed on the history of Alenbi. Yuda was always a foodie, since he was a teenager, and he will tell you that his passion was always innovative and state-of-the-art food service.
My wife and I had the best meat soup since we were in Israel. It is simply a dish to behold and it is served with lightly toasted pita which frankly makes it a meal unto itself. For the main course, we shared Marrakesh sparerib which features a harrisa glaze, Tunisian tershi, turnip confit, Moroccan couscous, and chickpea and apricot salad with onion dust.
The above description is straight from the menu. I do not know what most of these things are but I can attest to the fact that this was one super dish. And then there was dessert served with piping-hot nana tea. We selected the Rechov Soomsoom which is chocolate ganache, tahini cream, sesame brittle, blackberry paste, macadamia crunch, and fresh figs.
So do you see what is going on here? I’m sure Tanya Rosen of Nutrition by Tanya is going to read this and guide me for future reference as to what is on the new diet and what is not. I think we might have to take a trip to Basil and Alenbi with the diet team just to do some research; nothing else.
Comments for Larry Gordon are welcome at editor@5tjt.com.