Heck, he's on a freakin' rotisserie! Will the slanders and misuses of my hero's name ever stop? First it was all those people claiming to be "doing Atkins" when they hadn't read word one of the book and were just making it up as they went along. At the same time we had all the "journalists" who criticized the diet without bothering to read it either. (You could tell because they'd always claim that "The Atkins diet only allows 20 grams of carbohydrate a day!" as if Induction were the whole diet. Either that, or they'd call it a "no-carb" diet, or an "all-meat" diet.)

Several weeks back, a reader named Sally asked:

I have two unrelated questions for you. First, what would you order at a Chinese restaurant? My family loves to go out for Chinese but so far everything I've tried to order seems to make me puffy and moody the next day (never mind the extra 3 or 4 lbs.). Of course I skip the rice, and sweet sauces, but I think there is corn starch in most everything else. Any ideas?

Another smoothie! This one has a caramel-butterscotch flavor. Yummy!

Caramel-Vanilla Smoothie

3/4 cup cottage cheese
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup sugar-free caramel or dulce de leche coffee flavoring syrup
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 ice cubes

Throw everything but the ice in your blender. Run till it's very smooth and frothy. Then drop in the ice cubes, one at a time, and run the blender till they stop making noise. Pour into a tall glass and enjoy.

I have long felt badly about my Low-Carb Smoothies book. Why? Because the recipes rely heavily on Carb Countdown carb-reduced milk, which has since become unavailable in much of the country. (If you live near Hood dairy, on the East coast, you may be able to find it under the name Calorie Countdown. Same stuff.)

But just this weekend I tried a new way of making a smoothie -- after all, summer is here, and a cool and yummy smoothie sounds like a perfect breakfast -- and it worked out better than I dreamed. What did I use? Cottage cheese.

Just when I thought nothing could be worse than KFC's "Famous Bowls" (bowls of mashed potatoes with every other gloppy, carb-y thing they serve piled on top), Domino's invents --
Bread Bowl Pasta. That's right, pasta served in a bowl made of bread. White flour served on white flour! Mmmmm.

They want $5.99 for this. I'm guessing that it contains roughly 15c worth of flour, plus, of course, some cheap nasty shortening, and oh, a teeny bit of animal protein and/or a smidgen of vegetables in the sauce if you choose the right variety.

In the interests of full disclosure, it should be stated up front that I take supplements. A lot of supplements. A whole big darned pile of supplements. I have also been known to sell supplements, having spent much of my 20s in the health food biz. I am manifestly not unbiased on the subject. On the other hand, being wildly opinionated has served me well so far in my writing career, so why should today be any different?

Exciting news! As of today, I am a featured staff writer for CarbSmart, the biggest, best, and oldest low carb etailer. Andrew DiMino, the founder and owner, and I have been pals for a decade now, and I'm jazzed about this collaboration, which will let me reach a new audience. I'll be writing a couple of new articles a month, and also reprinting past articles on the Carb Smart site.

Cool stuff!

The verdict is in: The new KFC grilled chicken is quite good. I got a drumstick -- I vastly prefer dark meat to light -- and it was juicy, tender, and flavorful. And according to the KFC website nutrition chart, it has 0 carbs. If you're looking for the convenience of a bucket of chicken, I say go for it!

KFC was my favorite fast food place for a while. Their Tender Roast Chicken was quite good, and a couple of pieces with green beans on the side made a great fast low carb lunch. Then they discontinued the Tender Roast, and I haven't darkened their doorstep since.

I roasted a huge honkin' leg of lamb just for That Nice Boy I Married and me. Accordingly, I am up to my armpits in leftover lamb! I had a Leftover Lamblet for breakfast -- the recipe is in 500 Low-Carb Recipes, though I pretty much winged it:

Okay, we've talked about ham and eggs. (Mmmm. Ham and eggs. Sounds good. Too bad I've already had breakfast...) Let's talk about candy.

So lets talk about eggs.

You're likely to be hard-boiling some to dye, so why not make lots? My mother always said that she couldn't think of any cheaper way to entertain a whole gang of people for the evening than boiling a few dozen eggs and setting out the dye, crayons, and other Easter-y craft supplies. And heaven knows, having hard-boiled eggs in the fridge is like having money in the bank for a low carber.

A useful thing to know is the best way to hard-boil eggs. Having experimented quite a lot, I have had my greatest success thusly:

Hey, look! I actually remembered that it's Easter this coming weekend! Wow!

You know what that means, right? Three things are all over the grocery stores: Ham, eggs, and Easter candy. Two of them are great for us, the other? Not so much.

So let's have a little chat about all three, shall we?

Ham is super-yummy and reasonably low carb. It is not, however, carb-free. I have yet to run across a ham that did not have some sugar added. Reading the labels will help you to find the lowest carb ham. Hint: It is not going to be one that is heavily coated with a honey glaze!

The first time I ran the recipe in this column, I got a furious email from a reader who took me to task for being so culturally insensitive as to run a non-kosher recipe for Passover. Quite simply, she was wrong. You'll want to use kosher-for-Passover mayonnaise and bouillon concentrate, but this recipe is definitely kosher. I ran it (and the whole column) by Rabbi Meisels, who is Hassidic, and he approved it. If you'd like your kugel to be parve, you may certainly use vegetable bouillon concentrate instead of beef bouillon concentrate. And please, don't think you have to be Jewish to enjoy this kugel!

Here, from my friend Rabbi Hirsch Meisels, of Friends With Diabetes , is a list of low carb sweeteners that are kosher for Passover:

Sugar Substitutes - Kosher for Pesach

Pure Aspartame (not Equal)

Gefen, Kojel Kosher L'Pesach Sweet'N Good with Aspartame (powder)

Kosher L'Pesach Sweet'N Low (powder) with the O.U.-P

Pillsbury sweet-10 (liquid)

Sweetie with Badatz supervision from Eretz Yisroel

American Liquid Sweet'N Low (Liquid)

Kojel kosher L'Pesach Liquid Sweetener (Liquid)

Zees from Ungar's Food.