Synopsis
The chef at Chicago's Miraval Life in Balance Resort presents a collection of low-fat recipes, emphasizing the use of fresh, healthful ingredients, and provides nutritional information for each dish.
Reviews
The very phrase "spa cuisine" holds the promise of luxurious food (at empyrean prices), dazzlingly presented and of course, more nutritious and healthful than you could ever imagine. To his credit, Neff, chef at Chicago's Miraval Life in Balance Resort, makes good on most of these superlatives in his book, which is as much a manifesto for a beautiful way of life-wholesome, elegant, flavorful-as it is a cookbook. Earnest and articulate, Neff is an able culinary innovator. In an entire chapter on low-fat sauces he coaxes strange bedfellows into happy marriages: carrot-cardamom sauce, saffron-chive sauce, beet-ginger sauce. All the recipes are low-fat, just daring any home cook to try sauteing a pound of protein in 1/4 teaspoon of olive oil. There is, of course, a catch in this too-good-to-be-true formulation: these are not simple dishes to prepare. Easy-sounding "Vegetable Casserole" calls upon four separate recipes dispersed throughout the book. And that's child's play compared to the side dish Layered Spinach, Wild Mushroom, and Carrot Mousse. Neff trained as a traditional chef, which may explain his assumption that readers have an army of prep staff and dishwashers awaiting orders. In any case, it seems clear that this is not a cookbook for the average weekday night-unless one commits to living with the "conscious cuisine" ethos ("to become more conscious or mindful of food") for weeks at a time, in which case one might have Toasted Fennel and Tomato Sauce, or Beet, Cranberry and Jicama Relish on hand at any hour of the day or night.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Opposite these books designed to get food on the table and appetites quickly satisfied lies the deeply caring Cary Neff's Conscious Cuisine. Neff thinks about every ingredient he puts on the plate. Not only must each item be high quality, it must meet the chef's exacting nutritional standards. Based on his experience in spa cookery, Neff strives for a menu of little fat, and every recipe inventories the dish's nutritional benefit. Although not exclusively vegetarian, Neff's cuisine uses meat sparingly and emphasizes fresh vegetables of the highest quality. A few examples of tofu and tempeh-based dishes appear, but they are only supplementary. His Dauphinoise potatoes achieve a semblance of the original's creaminess by using rice milk, almonds, and roasted garlic to sauce thin potato slices. Expert home cooks will enjoy the challenges here while they decrease their families' intake of saturated fats. Large-format photographs increase the foods' appeal. Mark Knoblauch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
"Conscious cuisine" is what Neff calls the food he cooks at Miraval Spa near Tucson, AZ, among the top spa resorts in the country. Here he presents dozens of recipes for the sophisticated but healthful food he serves-one of the major reasons for the spa's popularity. Dozens of color photographs, many of them full page, show off the gorgeous presentations that add to the appeal of Neff's boldly flavored dishes. For diet collections and others where spa cookbooks like Jeanne Jones's Canyon Ranch Cooking or Michael Stroot's Golden Door Cookbook have been popular.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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