How this Fast Diet Lifestyle works: Eat these meals tomorrow, for a calorie total of less than 600. On another day this week, eat the meals from a different post, another day of eating 600 calories or less. Eat sensibly the other days of the week. That’s it: a simple way to lose weight and be healthier. Join me in the Fasting Lifestyle.

Have you been gardening this season? Herbs in a window box; container-grown tomatoes; beds of perennial flowers; a kitchen garden, large or small — these are the domaine of Saint Fiacre, the patron saint of gardeners. He was born in Ireland in the late 500s and became a monk. In that vocation, he learned about medicinal herbs. After a few years, Fiacre decided that communal life was not for him, and he asked permission to be a hermit. Permission granted, he removed to a small ‘cell’ to live alone. Not so fast! People flocked to him to seek medical advice and to get his blessing. So Fiacre moved again, this time to France. [I’m amazed how fluidly people in the Middle Ages traveled from Ireland and England to North-western France and back again!] The Bishop of Meaux, Faro by name, a fellow Irishman, agreed to give Fiacre some land [a miracle involving plowing with a walking stick ensued] where he could live alone. Fiacre had a vegetable garden and an herb garden, and he settled down for a life of solitude, fasting, and manual labor. But no! Again people sought out the would-be gardener. He could heal by laying on his hands as well as with herbal potions. Fiacre gave in to the constant stream of visitors, and he built a hostel and a shrine to the Virgin. The town of St Fiacre-sur-Marne grew up around him. After his death, miracles abounded and the gardening saint became very popular. Skip to 1645, on the Rue St Martin in central Paris. An entrepreneurial innkeeper, Nicholas Sauvage, went into the business of renting large horse-drawn carriages. Since the business address was at Hotel St Fiacre, those carriages eventually came to be known as ‘fiacres’ which were still in use for transportation in European cities in the 1800s. Thus the saint became the patron of taxi drivers. Enjoy your garden and spend extra time enjoying it on August 31, Feast Day of St Fiacre.

Saint Fiacre was a healer and one of his most successful medical feats was curing hemorrhoids — so much so that hemorrhoids were nick-named “Fiacre’s Figs”. [Hope that doesn’t spoil your breakfast.] Our breakfast features leafy vegetables from the garden and — ahem — figs. Dinner is an Irish soup made from wild herbs. I’m sure that Fiacre would approve.

Fig & Chevre Plate: 153 calories… 8.4 g fat… 2 g fiber… 7.5 g protein… 13.4 g carbs… 163 mg Calcium…  NB: The food values shown are for the plated foods only, not for the optional beverages. PB GF  Simple, elegant, and more filling than it looks.

++ ½ hard-boiled egg++++ 1 dried fig = 0.65 oz = 16 g ++++ 1 oz chevre cheese ++++ ¼ oz baby spinach++++ Optional:  5 oz fruit smoothie or berry-yogurt smoothie [88 calories] ++++  Optional: blackish coffee [53 calories] or blackish tea or mocha cafe au lait [65 calories] ++

Rehydrate the dried fig by covering with water and microwaving or heating for 1 minute. Let the fig sit in the water for another few minutes, then cut in half. Arrange the spinach leaves in an oval. Dab the leaves with crumbles of the goat cheese. Plate the egg half and the fig halves.  HINT: I composed the plate the night before, covered it with a plastic bag, and kept it cool until breakfast. Instant breakfast!

Forager’s Soup:  271 calories…  17 g fat…   6 g fiber…   13 g protein…  29 g carbs…  250 mg Calcium…   PB  GF  Here is an Irish soup made with summer greens.  Did you say ‘weeds’?  A weed is a plant in the wrong place. The cook-pot is the right place, where they are splendid. The recipe is one of Darina Allen’s from Reclaiming Ireland’s Culinary Heritage, One Roast Lamb Or Sponge Cake At A Time.  HINT: The recipe makes 3 cups, enough for 3 servings.

2 tsp butter ———-½ c onion ———————— ½ potato = 4 oz ————– salt + pepper	Melt butter in pot over medium-high. When it foams, add vegetables, and stir to coat. Season. Turn down to very low, put parchment paper atop vegetables, to trap steam. Put on lid and cook gently 10 mins, until vegetables are soft but not brown.
1 c chicken stock ——— ½ c + 1/3 c whole milk	Heat stock and milk in a separate saucepan to simmering. Remove parchment from vegetables and add hot liquid. Simmer 5-10 mins to cook vegetables fully.
4 oz by weight = 2 c. wild greens: dandelion leaves; garlic mustard leaves; sorrel; chives —————– ¼ c ricotta	Add greens + simmer uncovered 2-3 mins until greens are just cooked through (do not cover pot or overcook, or else bright green color will be lost.)  Add ricotta. Purée until smooth. Taste for seasoning.
1 oz chorizo/ bacon per person	Slice chorizo and cook on low in a skillet until fat is rendered and meat is crisp, 5-10 mins. Drain on paper towels.
Edible flowers —–2 Finn Crisp per serving	At serving time, warm soup over medium-low heat, uncovered. Scatter chorizo/bacon bits on each bowl, and garnish with flowers.