If you have a native-born American, English-as-a-mother-tongue father, you have my sympathy. It’s so boring. Having an Italian-born dad has its advantages. An outsider’s perspective on a bewildering country? Check. Interesting friends and relatives? Check. A place to stay in other countries? Ditto. Better food? Yup. Mangled but humorous colloquialisms in English? You got it.

This last couple of bits gave me the idea for this post. Nuccio, my dad, sometimes gets English expressions just a little wrong. “You must cry the consequences,” he once told me. I honestly don’t remember why he said that, but boy would it make a great country or Elvis Costello song title. And, “you must reduce.” He meant diet. And he’s right.

I never realized how active an office job could be. Or, at least, one based in Manhattan. And how not going to the office can affect your wellbeing. I walked a lot when I had a day job. To get there, I took a ferry, most often with friends, after which I took a .6 mile, or the more sexy 1 kilometer walk to the newsroom. The building was huge and occupied an entire city block. You had to walk a block to get to the bathrooms. When I got bored or sleepy in bad weather, I’d just take a walk around the block indoors. At lunchtime I did eat most often at my desk, but that was to save time for a brisk walk around lower Manhattan. And my web editor and I often took a mid-afternoon coffee break that involved a few blocks’ walk.

Now, not so much. I work out of my home office. My commute to my home office involves taking a few steps from the espresso machine and fridge in the kitchen. Slowly but surely, even when I managed to get out for exercise, I was packing on the pounds. It was like the proverbial frog in a pot of water. I didn’t notice I was cooked until it was too late. Almost.

Enter The Spartan Woman. She’d seen a similar gain, partly from stress, partly from an ear infection that kept her from her aquacise class. So she looked around, found the Weight Watchers app on her iPhone, updated it, and we were off. Only we’re talking about The Spartan Woman. She is decidedly not into plain steamed broccoli and tofu. We’re talking about someone who all her life has tried to game the system. (Don’t play cards with her if you aren’t a card shark. You will lose. Trust me.) Rather than limiting our diet, the regime brought forth an explosion of creativity. We usually split cooking duties, but for this, I was all too happy to just watch (and eat). She probably didn’t trust me anyway to use a light hand with the olive oil…

Can I share some of what she’s come up with? All of this is legit according to WW, and low in points. (I’m sure some of you know what I’m talking about.) And it’s working pretty well. (Downsides? I miss having wine with dinner every night, or having to earn it. But if it’s made the local liquor store sad, it’s had a good effect on our checking account balance, and I manage to be more alert most of the time. I’m not sure yet whether that’s a good thing.)

Here’s a lighter version of the Turkish classic imam bayildi. It’s slow cooked eggplant stuffed with tomatoes, onions and mint. The classic is cooked in lots of olive oil. This one isn’t, but manages to be pretty sensual.

Next up is a riff on ramen. This version has tofu, lots of vegetables and a soft-boiled egg.

Here we’ve gone for something a bit Brit (and something I put together): cold spring pea and leek soup with lemon and a dollop of (light) sour cream:

Next up, baked cod with sort of an Italian version of succotash—fava beans, corn, peppers, and I forgot what else. But it looks good, and it tasted good, too.

Gotta have dessert. Phyllo cups filled with chocolate flavored ricotta and chocolate chips.

Not bad, huh? I’ll keep this going. It’ll be a challenge over the summer to do it in Umbria, where temptations are everywhere. Gelato, anyone? And then there’s the aperitivo hour….