Discover the Thai approach to food and wellness-and use nature's elements to eat for optimum health, beauty, and spiritual well-being

The traditional Thai philosophy of diet and health involves eating meals planned around your "home element"-earth, water, wind, or fire-as well as the weather, time of day, and other factors. In this book, award-winning author Su-Mei Yu explains this age-old philosophy and gives you information and recipes to help you prepare meals that will promote better physical, spiritual, and emotional health.

She describes the personal characteristics related to the each of the four home elements, as well as the tastes, flavors, aromas, and natural ingredients best suited to them. She shows you how to identify your home element and eat foods that accommodate it through different times of the year and different times of the day. Beauty treatments geared to your home element will help you to relax, rejuvenate, and feel renewed.

This beautifully designed book

• Includes an interactive wheel that helps you calculate your elemental sign
• Explains how to plan meals appropriate to your home element
• Offers tempting recipes for every home element, season, and time of day
• Shares dishes with a delicious variety of ingredients and flavors, from Cold Soba Noodles to Stir-Fried Chicken or Port with Watermelon Rind
• Contains beauty, mind, and spirit sections with recipes for face masks, hair treatments, and massage oils based on each home element
• Features more than 120 full-color photographs of finished dishes and life in Thailand

Written by the IACP Award–winning author of Cracking the Coconut and Asian Grilling, the simple, inspiring recipes and straightforward, easy-to-follow advice found in The Elements of Life will inspire you to live according to the elements and follow a traditional path to health, beauty, longevity, and inner peace.

About the Author

Su-Mei Yu was born in Thailand to Chinese parents and lived there until she was fifteen, when she was sent to boarding school in the United States. After stints as a social worker and an assistant professor, in 1985 she opened Saffron, the first Thai restaurant in San Diego, which has received national acclaim. Yu writes frequently for food magazines including Food & Wine, Fine Cooking, and Gastronomica. Also the author of Asian Grilling and the IACP Award–winning cookbook Cracking the Coconut, she lives in La Jolla, California.