Chiquis Keto (Spanish Edition) (Atria Espanol)

by Chiquis Rivera and Sarah Koudouzian

[annieb123]

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

Chiquis Keto is a tutorial guide and recipe collection by Chiquis Rivera & Sarah Koudouzian. Due out 4th August from Simon & Schuster on their Atria Books imprint, it's 208 pages and will be available in paperback, audio, and ebook formats.

The author has a very sassy Latinx style with a lot of humor and warmth. She includes a short bio-introduction with some of her emotional history with food and dieting (and I found myself nodding along). This book's hook is the emphasis on Latin culture and cuisine with a more relaxed and informal diet style (no urine testing to check for ketosis, no macronutrient counting or food logs, and an occasional indulgence).

The introduction covers the basics of the keto lifestyle/diet, including a basic primer on ketosis, tips, ingredients, tools, supplies, and how-to. The authors include lists of guideline foods (both desirable and undesirable) as well as their philosophy behind food journals and testing being mostly unnecessary. The following chapters include a 21 day meal plan quick start guide, recipes, a short chapter on physical workout activities which support the lifestyle goals, and a wrap up chapter on continuing the lifestyle.

Ingredient measurements are supplied in American standard measurements only. There's no conversion chart for metric measures included. The nutritional information is not included (the serving sizes and prep time are). Extra tips or recipe alternatives are listed in the recipes. The recipes themselves are fairly straightforward and are made for the most part with easily sourced ingredients. Many are very simple, none of them are overly complex.

The photography is non existent; none of the recipes are illustrated. I wish there had been more photographs and serving suggestions, but I do understand that extra photography increases the price of book projects very quickly and the lack is not crippling because the recipes are very simple with limited ingredients. The recipes themselves are wholesome and include keto-friendly versions of some Latin comfort foods including homage recipes (mostly substituting cauliflower for the carbs/nachos) for elote (street corn), nachos, tostadas and more.

Four stars. I really liked the attitude of this book, it's full of personality.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes