It’s 11 am and I’m waiting in the Community Bookstore in Park
Slope for cookbook author Rozanne Gold to arrive. We’re meeting
to discuss her latest book, "Healthy 1-2-3: The Ultimate
Three-Ingredient Cookbook," which was published last April,
and her upcoming and final cookbook in the series, "Desserts
1-2-3," due out this May.
Gold rushes in laughing and waving a hand. "Am I late? I’m
sorry if I’m late." Dressed in black from head to toe, she’s
slender with jet black hair and black framed glasses.
I received a call from her after a mutual friend mentioned that
I was writing for this newspaper. "Hi, this is Rozanne Gold.
Congratulations! Would you like to meet me one day?"
Who wouldn’t want to meet the "diva of simplicity,"
three-time winner of the James Beard Award for food writing and
entertaining columnist for "Bon Appetit" magazine?
I had been saving her recipes every month, and pouring over her
cookbooks for years.
We chatted for a minute and then walked toward the small garden
in the back of the bookstore. "Isn’t the coffee great?"
she says after I take my first sip. It is, but I don’t think
coffee is the reason for our meeting here. In the garden, behind
a fountain, is a large photo of Julia Child’s head. I commented
about the shrine-like setting and she said, "Of course it’s
a shrine! Everyone loves Julia! I love Julia! We go drinking
all the time!"
Besides drinks with "the French Chef," she is friendly
with many of the major players in the food world. Her "best
friend," is fellow Brooklynite and cookbook author Arthur
Schwartz who hosts the WOR radio show "Food Talk with Arthur
Schwartz." They can be found roaming the aisles of Costco
together.
Originally planning a career as a sex therapist, Gold switched
gears after graduate school. Why give up sex for cooking?
"I just loved food so much," she said. "Something
just propelled me to make a commitment to do that."
Whatever that something was, Gold has spent 25 years cooking,
writing and consulting, and has a resume that would make the
most hardcore over-achiever curl up and cry. At 23 she was hired
by Mayor Ed Koch to serve as the first in-house chef in Gracie
Mansion. She lived in the basement with the housekeepers.
"I’d come up in my bathrobe and I’d say, (making her voice
very high) "’Good morning your Honor,’ and I’d squeeze his
grapefruit juice and make his coffee."
She was the executive chef to the Lord & Taylor department
stores, changing the image of the blandly decorated Bird Cage
restaurants that served dismal food, into attractive, destination
dining for shoppers. It was Gold who recognized supermarkets
as vehicles for better quality prepared foods. Hired by the King’s
supermarket chain, she created all the dishes in their take-out
area enabling shoppers to buy a gourmet dinner along with a gallon
of milk.
She is currently the chef and director for the Joseph Baum &
Michael Whiteman Company, restaurant consultants who created
the Rainbow Room, and the late, great Windows on the World (she
was co-owner and consulting chef). Now married to Michael Whiteman,
they live "very simply" in a Park Slope brownstone
near Prospect Park.
Healthy cooking
Gold has written five cookbooks. "Healthy 1-2-3" and
"Desserts 1-2-3" are the third and fourth in her three-ingredient
series of cookbooks. Popular with home cooks and professional
chefs, the recipes are appreciated for their sophisticated combination
of flavors, the simplicity of shopping for the ingredients and
the ease in preparing the dishes. Several of the recipes involve
little more then slicing and assembling complimentary ingredients
to achieve dramatically delicious results.
The honeydew carpaccio with air-dried beef and Asiago cheese,
calls for simply slicing the melon and arranging it on the plate
with the beef and cheese. It’s a delicious trio of sweet, savory
and salty flavors that are, in Gold’s words "a sensory exercise
in flavor and aroma, and a wonderful example of ’less-is-more’
ingredient harmony."
"Recipes 1-2-3: Fabulous Food Using Only Three Ingredients"
and "Entertaining 1-2-3" both garnered James Beard
Awards for food writing.
Call three-ingredient cooking a gimmick, but it’s a gimmick that
works for Gold. Each of her recipes result in a dish that is
light, clean tasting and still luxurious to the palette. "My
goal in ’Healthy 1-2-3’," explained Gold, "was to make
[preparing food] easier for people, to unburden them, to lighten
their load in terms of the healthy message and in terms of the
ingredients. I don’t hit readers over the head with numbers [calorie
counting] and every single recipe is in one of three categories:
fat free, low fat or low calorie." The highest caloric count
for any recipe in the book tops out at 750 calories.
The book follows Gold’s "measure your pleasure" principle.
"This notion of ’measure your pleasure,’ I kind of like
that," she says. "You’re always balancing. Whatever
it is, whatever you choose to eat, it should really be good.
My husband bakes our bread and makes all of our marmalade, and
they are really delicious. But if I have bread and marmalade
for a snack, then it’s a light salad for lunch."
A recipe for carrot soup is a good example of healthy ingredients
balanced with a touch of indulgence. The soup starts with a base
of cooked, pureed carrots enlivened with the juice of fresh ginger.
Heavy cream is added, but just enough to thicken the soup and
silken it’s texture. You taste the cream, but it’s the clean
flavor of the carrots and ginger, and how well each plays off
the other, that make the soup soar. A drizzle of the cream on
top, and you’ve got a bowl of pure decadence. Who would guess
it was diet fare?
Another "fool your palette" dish that appears on the
cover of "Healthy 1-2-3," and would be comfortable
displayed in the finest bistro, is the little tomato-pesto "Napoleon."
Thanks to store-bought pesto, these Napoleons are a snap to prepare
and almost fat free. They’re gorgeous, with vivid stripes of
red, yellow and green, and taste like the essence of summer.
"Desserts 1-2-3," though not technically a low-calorie
cookbook, offers plenty of low-fat choices in the "keep
it simple" mode. There’s a summer plum and mint compote
with an icy almond-flavored sorbet, and a glazed pear and lychee
tart. The tart has a higher fat content then the compote, but
its lush factor is off the charts.
"The flavor duet of fresh pears and lychees," writes
Gold, "is fascinating because one seems to magnify the taste
of the other."
For those who desire a full-throttle splurge, there is a chapter
dedicated to chocolate. A recipe for a chocolate demitasse flavored
with Amaretto (a rich hot chocolate served in a tiny demitasse
cup) and topped with Amaretto whipped cream, will blow your diet
to bits. What a way to go!
Besides her work with the Joseph Baum & Michael Whiteman
Company, Gold will continue to make guest appearances on food
and style programs, and her writing is ongoing.
Asked to comment on her life in the food world she laughed and
said, "I’m in the business of pleasure, and even after 25
years, I can say, ’I love it.’ I do. I love it."
Tomato-pesto "Napoleons"
These intensely flavored layers
of vegetables stack up a rainbow of benefits: antioxidant, antiviral,
antimicrobial – but certainly not "antigastronomadic"
("gastronomadic" is a word invented by the French chef
Careme to describe tourists who are lovers of regional food specialties).
Bake these in custard cups and think of Provence. Delicious hot,
cold or in between.
8 ripe tomatoes: 4 medium red,
2 medium-large yellow, 2 medium-large green, about 3 pounds
2 medium-sized yellow onions
6 tablespoons pesto, homemade or store-bought
Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Wash tomatoes and dry thoroughly. Cut red tomatoes in half horizontally.
Lightly coat 8 custard cups with nonstick vegetable spray and
place tomatoes in them cut side up.
Peel onions and cut each into 12 thin slices. Top each tomato
with 1 onion slice. Spread 1 teaspoon of pesto over each onion
slice.
Cut each yellow tomato into 4 thick slices. Place a slice on
top of each pesto-smeared onion slice. Top with another onion
slice. Spread 1 teaspoon of pesto on top.
Cut each green tomato into 4 thick slices. Place on top of onion.
Top with another thin slice of onion. Spread with 1/4-teaspoon
of pesto.
Place custard cups on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake for 90 minutes,
carefully pouring off liquid every 30 minutes, and pressing down
on Napoleons with a spatula. Collect all juices in a small bowl.
When finished, let Napoleons cool for a few minutes. Place juices
in a small nonstick skillet and cook over high heat until juices
are syrupy – reduced to about 1/2 cup. Add kosher salt and freshly
ground black pepper to taste. Turn Napoleons out onto a platter.
Pour reduced juices over top and serve.
Serves 8
This recipe is excerpted
from "Healthy 1-2-3: The Ultimate Three-Ingredient Cookbook"
"Healthy 1-2-3: The Ultimate Three-Ingredient Cookbook"
by Rozanne Gold. (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2001, $35) can
be ordered at A Novel Idea Book Store [8415 Third Ave. (718)
833-5115] in Bay Ridge, Seventh Avenue Books [300 Seventh Ave.
at Seventh Street, (718) 840-0188] in Park Slope and BookCourt
[163 Court St., (718) 875-3677] in Cobble Hill.
"Desserts 1-2-3: Deliciously Simple Three-Ingredient Recipes"
by Rozanne Gold. (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2002, $30) will
be published in May.
