Gwyneth Paltrow Has A Lot of Balls

Confession: I am an ironic subscriber to Gwyneth Paltrow's "lifestyle" e-newsletter, unappetizingly entitled "Goop." Its tagline, "Nourish the inner aspect," invariably causes me to silently add, "While malnourishing the outer aspect in order to fit into that size-zero Stella McCartney." Her personal and guru-solicited musings on philosophy are both hippy-dippy and airy-fairy, and her fashion advice can only be described as economically tone-deaf. But once in a while a recipe of hers looks. . . potentially halfway decent. To her credit, she always gives attribution to the many friends and chefquaintances who are the real authors. Recently, I received a Gwynethgram featuring a family Sunday-night dinner with these meatballs as the centerpiece. They seemed.. .maybe. . .kind of tasty. And given my husband's neverending quest for healthy food, in eternal conflict with my kids' desire for kid stuff, turkey meatballs appeared to strike a nice compromise.

Gwynnie's recipe (I feel like we're besties now!) uses only a pound of ground turkey. I had three. So I optimistically made three batches of Paltrow Balls, hoping they'd be a hit and I could freeze some for later. Plus, In These Straitened Economic Times, I was happy to use up all of the pricey fresh herbs I had purchased for the recipe. They rocked. While I'd be happy to rescind the Oscar for the assy "Shakespeare In Love," I'd give her a "Kiss the Cook" apron for the meatball recipe, which filled the house with herby fragrance. The killer ingredient: lemon zest. I browned my two superfluous batches, froze them individually on a cookie sheet, and bagged them up for future tastiness. To be served: during a filmfest-style screening of "Shallow Hall" and that one karaoke movie she did with Huey Lewis.