“Fashion people are supposed to be scared of food!” joked fashion designer,  Zac Posen while promoting his new cookbook, ‘Cooking with Zac’  on a panel discussion at the Book Expo in New York, NY.

But apparently he’s not!

Somehow Zac Posen manages to find enough time to cook between designing his Zac Posen and ZAC Zac Posen lines, acting as the creative director of Brooks Brothers, and serving as a judge on Project Runway!  

For this fashion designer entrepreneur it seems ‘branzino’ is the new black as he puts designs on becoming a full-fledged lifestyle brand.

‘Fashion and food’ have always had a fatal, fabulous attraction—but Zac says “I don’t feel guilty about eating, as long as you do it in moderation.”

What are some other similarities Zac Posen sees between cooking and creating a garment?

“You have to start with good ingredients: good fabrics and good materials, a clear concept and the flow of it. A composition-flavor and taste, it’s like how a garment feels and wears. Then your dessert is your evening wear,” he says.

Honestly just thinking about Zac’s hectic lifestyle makes me want to order dinner from Seamless –  so exactly how does he manage to do it?!!!

“Basically, that’s how I de-fashion,” he tells Vogue.com over the phone from his studio, where he has taken a reprieve from tailoring a black wool dress.

While most of us might be surprised to find he’s written a cookbook his 1 million followers on Instagram, where he documents many of his culinary experiments. are not.

“If it had not been for the response from the followers on social media, I never would have taken the plunge and put a cookbook together,” says Posen. His hashtag, for those who are interested, is #CookingWithZac.

When did he start to cook?

“When I was growing up, my dad cooked for the family every day, and on special weekends, my mom would bake with me. I had trouble relating to my middle-school classmates, so baking became my escape. I made elaborate cakes,” says Zac.

His dishes run the gamut from the well-known (strawberry rhubarb pie) to the elaborate and experimental (Kenchinjiru, a Japanese Buddhist vegetable soup).  Whether you’re planning a meal or a fashion line, the goal is to create a masterpiece.

Finally, what cookbooks does Zac Posen love?

“Two cookbooks changed my life: La Varenne Pratique, which taught me techniques, and Martha Stewart’s first book, Entertaining. Now that I have the basics down, I don’t really use cookbooks—I can whip up dinner in an hour!,” says Zac.

Zac Posen’s Molasses-and-Sesame-Seed Cookies

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup almond flour
2 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 cup salted butter
1 cup caster sugar
1 large egg
1/4 tsp. water
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup sesame seeds

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Sift all the dry ingredients together in a bowl. In a larger bowl, beat the sugar and the butter until fluffy. Stir in the egg, water and molasses. Then mix in the dry ingredients to form a dough. Using about a tablespoon-and-a-half of the dough each time, roll the dough into balls with sesame seeds. Slightly flatten the balls with the palm of your hand and place on a tray. Bake for 10–15 minutes and allow to cool for 5 minutes.

Zac Posen (Cooking With Zac – Rodale), Girls Who Code founder Reshma Saujani (Girls Who Code: Learn to Code and Change the World – Penguin Young Readers), and Veronica Roth (Divergent series) appeared on a panel to discuss their views on creativity while sharing insights into their newest books.  Ben Dreyfuss, Senior Editor, Growth and Engagement of Mother Jones, will be the moderator.

More Divabetic Book Expo Buzz 

Three additional buzz-worthy books that caught my eye at Book Expo in New York  were ‘The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo’ by Taylor Jenkins Reid and ‘Single But Dating’ by Sexologist, Relationship Expert,  Dr. Nikki Goldstein and the American Diabetes Association’s ‘The Diabetes Carbohydrate & Fat Gram Guide’ by Lea Ann Holzmeister, RD, CDE.

Pop Sugar calls ‘The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo” is a wildly addictive journey of a reclusive Hollywood starlet and her tumultuous Tinseltown journey comes with unexpected twists and the most satisfying of drama.” 

Although the book’s cover boasts “a spellbinding novel about love, glamour, and the price of fame, what grabbed my attention was the storyline’s similarity to last year’s Mister Divabetic Mystery podcast: ‘Suspect Boulevard’! 

Don’t let diabetes kill Romance (in a digital age!)  

Diabetes takes an often unspoken toll on a woman’s sex life. Close to a third of women with diabetes report low sexual satisfaction, according to a recent study in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology, and women who take insulin for managing diabetes are nearly twice as likely to say they aren’t satisfied sexually as their peers who aren’t living with diabetes.

Improving diabetes management can help improve intimacy, but still single women diabetes may find they need some ‘extra’ help besides a good lubricant and blood glucose monitor to navigate the dating scene in this age of smartphones. If that’s the case, Australia’s most popular sex therapist, Dr. Nikki Goldstein has  an array of practical steps to regain a vibrant sex life!

Dr. Nikki Goldstein says, “t’s important to challenge the ideals that surround you to become the most dateable version of you and to make the best decision for yourself, enjoying this single but dating life along the way.”

Dr. Nikki Goldstein dispenses  advice on how to tackle a broad variety of relevant topics like how to let go of outdated beliefs around what it means to be single, how to become technosexually savvy, how to know if you are overtexting, when to enact a man-ban and how to deal with new dating phenomena like ghosting.

Finally, I stopped by the American Diabetes Association(ADA)’s booth to find out what new offerings there are for ‘Divabetics’ from the publishing world. I hate to admit it but the ADA’s marketing geniuses think the best way to package invaluable diabetes education and advice is to put it in a brown paper bag. There’s no glitz, no glamour to spark your interest! Maybe they should consider publishing a Divabetic-style book for people with diabetes with a ‘glam more, fear less’ attitude?!

If you don’t judge a book by it’s cover then the pocket size, user-friendly ‘The Diabetes Carbohydrate & Fat Gram Guide’  is a great addition to any Divabetic’s bookshelf. The guide describes how to use many generic and brand-name foods in meal planning and teaches you to convert carbohydrate grams into carbohydrate exchanges. Nutrient counts for food planning, how to understand grocery store food labels, and how to incorporate different sources of food-count information into meal planning are also covered. Lea Ann Holzmeister, R.D., C.D.E., is a nutrition consultant and a certified diabetes educator, and is widely published in diabetes education.

TUNE IN: May’s episode of Diabetes Late Nite on Tuesday, June 13, 2017, 6 PM, EST. Guests include singer Alfa Anderson, Diabetic Macular Edema patient Maryanne Kass, Artist Bryce Chisholm, the Charlie’s Angels of Outreach, Poet Lorraine Brooks and Mama Rose Marie. Throughout the podcast we will be featuring selected songs from several of several of Maxwell’s albums courtesy of SONY Music