This is Landy's recipe for duck confit. Is it south beach friendly? An interesting question. I'd argue that with some nice lightly dressed mache on the side, it would be legal.

I asked Landy for this recipe, because I recalled his making it and how delicious it was... obviously not South Beach!

Philippe cooked this dish when he came home late. It was very fast and definitely fits into the definition of gourmet south beach!

We are back on South Beach diet, after our New Year's revels. So this should be the first of a series of recipes I will tentatively label "South Beach Gourmet" series.... Philippe and I love the south beach diet because it allows you to eat well while loosing weight. Although we do not eat the recipes in the book, because we love food way too much to use the prepackaged stuff recommended. I know they are for mom and pop America, but that's not really our bag... we're California meets France, and we want organic products and elegant combinations.

Crab cakes is a really easy recipe, unless you do it the way we did... we bought four live crabs, and then Philippe killed and shelled them. that's a project. But we learned 1 crab per person works out to one crab = 3 crabcakes = one person full (with a green salad).

It's Dungeness crab season right now in California, which means really good really cheap crab-- 2.99 a pound at the Mountain View Chinese grocery! Of course, one could buy just the meat-- but quality gets harder to assure then.

Philippe adapted this recipe from several, removing breadcrumbs and flour dredging-- which turned out to be quite unnecessary.

Johnson Oysters are crazy-cheap-- 6 bucks a dozen for smalls-- but incredibly dirty, and mild flavored (a.k.a. dull to some oyster fans). I'd recommend buying the preshucked jars, and frying them (though the extrasmall were ok raw.)

Hog island is a better choice for serving half-shell I think.