| OCR Text |
Show TheKaltLake @_ CUISINE QUEST, B-3 Chef Whips ybreak @ COMICS, B-8 Mi TELEVISION, 8-9 fOTlOy, WEDNESDAY JUNE 14, 2000 Ml ANN LANDERS, B-9 >» FOOD Up Lookat Professional Cooking Cookbookauthor believes in food as medicine BY RUSS PARSONS LOS ANGELES TIMES It’s hard to think of a profession that has rocketed so quickly in public estimation as that of chef. Only 30 years ago, chefs were still considered essentially blue-collar workers, The handful who achieved success and fame were almostall (a) French, (b) working in Manhattan and (c) over 50. The vast majority ofcooks labored BYKATHYKAPOS STEPHENSON Is it a headacheor a hangoverthat ails you? Maybe it’s a cough or congestion. Look for relief in the pantry, says Ogden native and awardwinning author Rebecca in close, sweaty, hazardous environments, more akin to a factory assem- blyline than to an artist’s studio. Today, chefs are regarded with aweas part artist, part scientist, part saint; they are creative, they are proficient, they ennoble us. Parents debate whetherto send their kids to an elite private college or a culinary Wood. “It’s delicious to use everyday food medicinally,” said Wood, whose first cookbook, The Splendid Grain, won the James Beard school (they can cost about the same). cooking classes in Salt Lake City and Moab.Shealso will have a reading at the Borders Bookstore in downtown Salt LakeCity. “What she has to say appeals to me,” said Salt Lake City’s Anita Ca- tron, with the Macrobiotic Friendsof Whole Foods Encyclopedia, an A-to-Z guide on how to select and prepare miliar — grains, fruits, vegetables, spices and herbs. Wood aimsto help readers appreciate how food affects howtheyfeel. “Mostpeopleeatstale, canned, frozen, leftover, packaged andold food, and that’s how theyfeel,” she said. “Freshly prepared foods not only spected as a good place toeat, butit is nota place from which one expects to But she crosses the border to her homestate ona regular basis. Shewill return in August to give her unique Salt Lake City, which sponsors the author’s visits. “She really promotes eating grains and a vegetable-based diet and really just how to treat your bodybetter.” more than 1,000 familiar — and unfa- Bourdain’s muchtalked about, brutally honest “Kitchen Confidential” (Bloomsbury Publishing, $24.95). It is a breath offresh, albeit slightly overheated, air. Bourdain is a secondrung chef in Manhattan. His restaurant, Les Halles, is generally re- Cooking School out of her kitchen. International Association of Julia Cooking Professionals award in 1997. Last year she published The New welcome the arrival of Anthony of them.” Wood,56,lives in Creastone,Colo., where she runs the Be Nourished Child/ and Wehave books exploring not only chefs’ cooking but:the inner workings of their souls. One chef even offers “lessons in excellence,” adding self-help guru to an alreadylonglist of expectations. The whole thing is beginningto seem little overdone. Givenall this, one cannothelp but and makeyoufeel better, but because they are more satisfying, you eatless THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE taste better Wood's interest in “food as medicine” began on her grandfather’s farm in Tremonton in the 1950s. As one of six children in a typical Mormon family, Wood remembers walking the fields with her grandfatherto check the sugar beet crops. She foraged for pine nuts and mushrooms with her cousins and feasted on “made-from-scratch” food baked by her mother, aunts grandmother, emerge transformed.It is the book’s signal blessing that Bourdain understands the difference and even enjoys it. Although he apparently comes from .a relatively privileged background (og referencesare veiled, be+ yonda de ription ofan early family trip to France andallusions to time misspent in the Ivy League),it is the blue-collar aspects of cooking that See HEALING, Page B-2 seem to appeal to Bourdain the most. There are precious few moments ofartistic inspiration in this book but plenty of exuberant appreciation of The Whole Foods Encyclopedia by Rebecca Wood is touted as a guide to healthy liv- Photo Illustration for Paul Fraughton / TheSalt Lake Tribune ing and healthy eating. Below, Wood in her Colorado home. the rough-and-tumble camaraderie of the professional -kitchen. “Kitchen Confidential” is being billed as a tabloid tell-all (it's subtitled “Adventures in the Culinary Under- and Lemon-drop Cookies belly”). Given that context, the two chapters excerpted so far in New Yorker magazine were actually pretty disappointing: “Don’t order fish on Monday.” Well, duh. On the other hand, anyone whohasspent any time at all in a professional kitchen can’t help but admire the way Bourdain effortlessly evokes that colorful, gritty, sometimes even borderline crimi- nal, world. There is little artistic and certainly nothingspiritual in his view of the trade, yet the result is oddly in- spiring. (That's the funny thing about honesty.) Brutish though it may sound, he is saying, this is what professional cookingis really like. While we may fantasize about the chef dreaming athis stove, inventing new works ofart,’ in reality, restaurant work is much more aboutthe endless repetition of small perfections. And this is where Bourdain shines. There ig more genuine appreciation of the chef's craft in his description of the dance of the line cook — choreographed by years of performing dangerous chores at high speed in close quarters — than in mostof those culinary hagiographies put together. 8 cups medium-or short-grain brown’ rice flour* % teaspoon tees soda ¥4 teaspoonsea salt ¥% cup (1 stick) caster melted butter cup honeyor maple syrup 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract Juice andgrated zest of 1 organic lemon 15 blanched almonds, halved Heatovento 375°.Sift the flour,salt andbaking soda together. Combine the butter, honey or maple syrup,vanilla, lemon zest, and juice. Mix the wet anddry ingredients. With your fingers, form into small rounds. Place on a greased cookie sheet and press each down with moistened fork tines (or dampfingers) to 24 inches in diameter and 4-inch thick. Press nut meatinto the centerof each cookie. Bakefor 10 to 12 minutes,or until the / Hangover Soup 2.cups water \ teaspoonchile powder ¥4 cup chopped tomato 2.chopped scallions % cup chopped fresh epazote leaves* 2eges Bring all the ingredients but the eggs to a boil. Simmerfor 15 minutes. Dropthe eggsinto the simmeringsoup and poachuntil firm, about 10 minutes. Take care not to break the yolks. Servehot. Serves 2. : *Epazote, also called wormseed, can be purchasedat a natural foods store, bottoms are lightly browned. Makes 30 cookies. *purchase ata natural foods store. The New Whole Foods Encyclopedia The New Whole Foods Encyclopedia Gone are the timid, tiny frames that evoked vintage 1900. Today's sunglasses are big, bold and full of personality — think Jac- LOS ANGELES — Theyare like an iMac for your eyes. Thelatest sunglassesare little bundles of technological and design wonder, uh: 22. Pe f queline Kennedy Onassis, Audrey Hepburn andevenElvis, whose aviator sunglasses are this season’s hottest style. Shades are now as packing in everything from virtually un- much status symbols as a hot new handbag, breakable titanium frames to tints that mimic the body’s melanin pigment. And, of course, they come in cool shapes and colors, While this new generation of sunglasses maynotlook radically new,the cutting-edge shades are pricey —$150 to $300 plus — because designers aré using new materials to achieve innovative,if subtle,effects. They're combining new andold technologies to make glasses that look and act differently. New chain of upscale eye wear stores. wraparound lenses have deeper curves, lenses are colored with funkier tints, and frames have more plastic layers that appear to change colors, depending on the light, \ cell phone or Palm Pilot. “People want to have a great look, something that’s fun, exciting and new, but they also wantprotection,”said Bill lon, presidentofthe Optical Shop of Aspen,a national With new collections from Chanel, Prada, Helmut Lang, Chloe, Kate Spade and Romeo “Gigli, fashion designers are adding to the hipness quotient and making sport glasses, vintage frames andclip-ons look dated. The high-performance features that were once available only in sport glasses are now See SHADES,Page B-4 \ \ |
