ArcaMax

Glitter Duds Galore...

The party was such fun.

It's always nice to see your staff dressed up. At least it is for me. I suppose there are some companies with CEO's who rarely get to see their staff dressed in casual attire. For me, it's just the opposite. And when they come dressed in formal wear I find it a real treat.

I decided to do our party at our house instead of a restaurant because: A, a lot of the people attending were going to be on The Zola Diet (not 'cuz I made them do it, but because they wanted to do it); and B, because I didn't want to drive a restaurant nuts with 14 people, half of whom were probably going to make a request to change something on their plate; and C, 'cuz I love to cook.

I treated everyone to a surprise and hired a pianist to play the grand piano at cocktail hour. I love to hear the house filled with piano music. Turned out the lady-friend of one of the guests is a singer in a club. She sang a few songs for us. That was a big surprise and a wonderful treat I could not have anticipated.

Mitch Henck, our spokesperson for the diet on the radio in Madison, Wisconsin came. I invited him because even though he's not an employee I consider him part of the team. I had not seen Mitch in about two months. In the time since I had seen him he'd lost over 40 pounds. He looked amazing. It's incredible how much healthier someone can look when they eat properly and lose a nice chunk of weight like that. Although Mitch has more weight to lose he almost doesn't look “fat” anymore. The drop has really improved his appearance. He's happy too and dating again. He feels good and can't quit talking about it. Now that he's on the ZReboot portion of the diet he's even treating himself to an occasional chocolate bar and he's not gaining any of the weight back. His body has really adapted. He had to buy a new tuxedo too.

Amy used to work for us in the office. We still see her regularly and she does all kinds of things for us. She's fabulous at "coaching" new dieters along on our web portal. Amy's lost about 60 pounds on the diet and she looks marvelous. Amy's big thing these days is she has to keep buying new clothes! She's been shrinking so much. She arrived in a beautiful new black cocktail ensemble. She was proud, and believe me, she looked very pretty.

We enjoyed a huge meal. We had 4 appetizers to choose from. The entrée was a pork tenderloin roast with a mustard-shallot cream sauce with shitake mushrooms. We had cheddar broccoli timbales and salad garnished with a gouda goat cheese. That was my new discovery of the week. I didn't know anyone made a gouda cheese from goat's milk. Quite tasty.

Dessert was a buffet. We had the chocolate cake you are getting today. We also had warm pears with a brandy cream sauce and a lemon cheesecake with a blueberry pie sauce. Once you lose the weight and go into the ZReboot phase of the diet you can eat like that and not gain. Then if you have more weight to lose you can go back on the reduction portion of the diet and lose another chunk. Works pretty darn nicely and no one seems to feel like they have anything to complain about.

I surely didn't. I was very proud of everyone sitting at the tables for dinner. I gave my little speech and looking around at them all touched my heart. I think this is going to be a good year.

Flourless Chocolate Cake

Once you have worked to lose weight on The Zola Diet your craving for sugar is diminished. Your sweet tooth doesn't need so much sweet to make it happy. It's like your taste buds got re-set and they don't need the big zing from sugar. So this dessert suits that just fine. if you are one of those people who like dessert, crave chocolate but prefer that dense, deep chocolate flavor this one will be for you. And if you need the extra sugar, you can kick this up with some sweetened whipping cream.

A flourless chocolate cake is not like a regular cake. This will be dense and not puffy like a regular cake. It does have a bit of flour in it but in restaurant terms this would still be considered "flourless". I guess it's a relative term based on how much flour. I never did exactly figure out why they say it that way. I just went along with it.

Ingredients:

1.75 sticks of butter

6 oz of bittersweet chocolate. Seventy percent cacao. Chop the chocolate fairly fine

10 packets of Truvia (stevia sweetener)

5 large cold eggs

2.5 Tbl of all-purpose flour

Pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Generously butter a 10-inch springform pan and dust with flour.

Melt the butter and chocolate in a heavy sauce pan over very low heat. Then remove from heat and whisk in each egg, one at a time. Put in the Truvia and stir vigorously two or three times about five strokes each, and then gently fold in the flour and salt. Pour the batter into the pan and then hold the pan about three inches above the kitchen counter and drop it on top of the counter. Thwack. This process breaks up air bubbles in the cake.

Bake about 15 minutes or until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean. Don't be surprised if you see butter bubbles around the edges or that the cake might be very puffy in places and look uneven. This is fine. The cake will settle as it cools and will have a cross between brownie and fudgy consistency.

Run your knife along the edges of the cake to loosen it and then unmold and cool on the counter. Slide it onto a platter to serve.

You can also serve this with a dessert sauce or fresh berries. Or even just dense and straight.

Cheers
Enjoy,
Zola

Send email to Zola at zolacooks@gmail.com.