The Goshen News - Today's Entertainment
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/475195
Daphne Oz is all about enjoying whatever she eats, no matter the calorie count, so she shudders when she hears people talk about the fad diet they're on. "Having been on every fad diet under the sun when I was younger before I figured out that a healthy lifestyle plan was really going to be the smartest choice for me," says Oz, a co-host with Mario Batali, Carla Hall, Michael Symon and Clinton Kelly on ABC's weekday food show "The Chew." "I know that I don't feel good in my own skin even if I'm skinny or having lost a lot of weight or whatever it is, if I'm constantly focused on the food and constantly focused on what I can't have. You never feel good in that place. So it's really a matter of getting to a great place eventually and then making the small but meaningful changes that go a long way." Oz, the 28-year-old daughter of Dr. Mehmet Oz ("The Dr. Oz Show"), made the changes when she was in college, adopting a life plan that allowed her to eat anything she wants that enabled her to trim 40 pounds from her 180-pound frame. And the plan revolved around a very simple concept: don't deprive yourself. "Sometimes to our detriment," she says, "we look at health in black and white, and we think that if something has butter in it or has sugar in it or isn't pure vegetable, it's not healthy and then it goes in the bad pile. And my thought is, look, if I can swap in some ingredients that are maybe lower calorically or less saturated fat or more fiber, then I can still have the dish I want but not feel guilty about it. "So for instance, I love a pasta dish but I almost never eat a pure pasta dish. I'll have something like orecchiette with broccoli rabe and garlic and chili oil and parmesan cheese. That sounds really indulgent and decadent and exactly what you want. But for half the pasta I'll substitute white cannellini beans, and that to me is a great way to get the flavor sensation that I want but not do it in a way that makes me feel I've done something bad for my body." What book are you currently reading? "My aunt got me a book ... . It's about anthropologists off of Australia. 'Euphoria.' ... I'm about a chapter and a half in now but it's really interesting and quite cool and I think making the rounds on people's bedside tables right now." What did you have for dinner last night? "I had a really delicious piece of fish with cherry tomatoes in a white wine broth and olives. And for dessert, I had salted caramel ice cream in a sugar shell." What is your next project? "I will have a new cookbook coming out in the spring of 2016, and it's all going to be about fun, flavorful family meals." When was the last vacation you took, where and why? "Well, I'm in Florida right now, actually. You are speaking to me from the Palm Tree Grove (laughs) ... in Palm Beach, Florida. ... Anything that is not frozen New York is fine by me." BY GEORGE DICKIE 'CHEW' ON THIS: Daphne Oz dishes about ditching the fad diet With the caliber of the talent involved, you'd hope "Seventh Son" would yield something better than it ever comes close to doing. It puts us back on that now-very-familiar fantasy turf where a novice demon fighter runs up against an ancient demon, with the sound and the fury ultimately being too overblown for you to care much about anyone in the film – and with Jeff Bridges, Julianne Moore and special-effects veteran John Dykstra ("Star Wars") involved, that's not a happy conclusion to have to come to. Bridges plays the last survivor of a group of vanquishers of evil, with Moore as a sorceress who has a habit of transforming into a dragon and back. The blood moon that's her power source emerges once a century, and it's about to happen, so Bridges needs to find someone to succeed him to oppose her. And fast. The candidate is a pig farmer – really – portrayed by Ben Barnes (seen recently in the "Sons of Liberty" miniseries), and one of the movie's many stretches is that you have to buy the notion that Bridges would see him as the prime candidate to rid the world of one of its prime threats. (Evidently, no ice-cream-truck drivers were available.) Actually, the fact that the farmer can see the future is a plus in his favor, though that still doesn't mean he'll be up to the task of fighting the literal femme fatale played by Moore ... who brings her typical conviction to the part, but she's nearly upstaged by the CGI around her, and more than once. There's a sort of perverse humor to Bridges' performance, but it's likely that's accidental rather than intentional. He milks his well-known "Dude" persona again, and while that might work if this was supposed to be a spoof of the genre, that doesn't appear to be the aim. In sad fact, the aim is pretty much off throughout "Seventh Son." When you look at something that is such a misfire, and the money that clearly was spent on it, you understand why so many independent films are celebrated these days for their modest budgets and big accomplishments. You also have to wonder what studio executives were thinking in approving projects. For 2015 so far (though the picture was supposed to be released in 2014), "Seventh Son" pretty much stands as Exhibit A. O A 'Seventh Son' battles a literally witchy woman Page 8 March 9 - 15, 2015

