European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - November 4, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Spa cuisine blah cuisine by Jonathan probber new York times the ways in which res Laurants a Cecal our Good nutritional Inlet icons arc numerous and Well documented but to almost Don care. The Appeal of eating out involves an almost salacious sense of Access to the foods we forbid Ourso Ives at Home. Anal happens in restaurants1 How do Good foods vegetables for example become Signi tical sonic is of fat and Salt Well As ubi Matous As Lal is n Ihu typical Homo meal in is usually More so in the restaurant Kitchon. Someone decided Hal Broccoli or Green Beans look better and Are More Likely to be ordered Wilh a glistening Coal of fat. Usually Butler. In Many restaurant and hold kitchens the practice is Lobo a or steam Many Beans for the evening Ihen Shock them in a targe Container of ice water to Slop the cooking and set the color. The Means gone rally sir until service time. When an order is received a Cook grabs a handful tosses them in a saute pan Wilh a hunk of butter and heats them through. A Bil of Salt is sprinkled in. This technique makes the Beans hot shiny and altogether appealing. It also adds fat and Salt. Now whether Beans and other Green vegetables table boiler with butter and sail is a matter of personal preference. But the numbers Are not Good a Label spoon of Bullet has 100 calories or so since restaurant Cooks Are As a Rule generous Wilh taller you re gelling extra calories. This addition of fat is hardly confined to vegetables Many broiler Cooks coat their steaks with Oil before they throw them under the flames and alter Ward Brush on some Bulter to give an appealing gleam talk about carrying coals to Newcastle a at Laden Juicy Steak does quite weft in the lipids derailment on its own. Tie picture is even More Bleak Al family dining restaurants generally Large chains with moderate prices and huge menus. The menus Are so Large because much of the food is convenience canned Frozen or cooked and refrigerated. Eien simple items thai Don t come right from cans might have canned components. That plump Iresh looking Western Omedel might contain eggs As Iresh As All outdoors lopped with a High sodium canned Tomato Pepper mix sauces gravies and other accompaniments Are olten canned containing the huge amounts of sail thai Lood processors add Lomast everything. At the same Lime fast food companies Are becoming quite respectable. Null Lional Labelling unheard of even a Tew years ago is now widespread. Many fast food chains offer baked potatoes with a variety of toppings. Stay away from the processed cheese Tood and get Broccoli Wilh a Little sour Cream. Unless you specify otherwise you might Lind your potato swimming in Margarine or butter substitute. Salad bars or prepackaged salads Are Lound in Ell Erma Bombeck Tho major chains. Many have crocks of Low caloric dressings nestled among the crocks of the usual High fal. Sally sludge. Ii you arc a salad bar monster one who just heaps whatever is lying on the crushed Lea onto a groaning plastic Plale you might be belter off gelling a hamburger with lettuce Tomato and  there is probably no real Way to eliminate All lha at and Salt trom a typical restaurant meat nor would you want to because you might end up with a sorry dining Oul experience. But if you waylay the flagrant dietary marauders you can eat out Ullh a cleaner conscience. Dietary marauders by Marian Burros hew York times by is it that healthful nutritious food Tho so called american spa cuisine Seldom tastes Good most of the time this food designed to Rarric what is served at Many health spas is simply Bland and dry. As each new spa menu has been announced in the United states i have eagerly looked Forward to a meal of appealing Low Lalow calorie Low sodium food. With rare exceptions the food has been disappointing. Ii the Cooks cannot use a Quarter Pound of butter they use none at All. Instead of reducing the amount of sugar they get rid of it entirely. On the menu of the fates new York restaurant to feature spa cuisine there is a clue to what ails such Lood we use almost no fat of any kind in most of our cooking processes believing that their s enough Oil and fat inherent in the products we Are cooking Well there is no la inherent in most vegetables and some of them can use a touch of it Oil and butter need not be banished but should be used judiciously a Little goes a Long Way. In sauteing peppers the addition of a Tablespoon of Olive Oil 100 calories makes All the difference. Atler Many vegetables sliced onions Tor example have been sauteed Long enough to begin Browning and take on flavor they also id off enough moisture so that they can Cook in their own juices. True Acme vegetables if very fresh Are so flavorful that they Are perfect steamed. But when local vegetables Are no available Many of them will be vastly improved if dressed Wilh a Teaspoon or two of butter Olive Oil or sesame Oil per serving. And this hardly violates Good dietary principles. Salad dressings seem As much of a problem As vegetables. To be healthful the dressings do not have to be made exclusively with Tomato juice or Yogurt. And they do not have to be those Peculiar inventions of the Lood Industry called Low calorie dressings in which particles of seasonings Are suspended in some sort of colloidal mass that is As unappetizing to look Al As it is to taste. A Tablespoon of Oil mixed with an equal amount of an intensely flavorful vinegar like Balsamic or Raspberry is More the .1 enough to cont a Large serving of salad. The old saw Aboul being a miser for vinegar and a spendthrift for Oil one part vinegar to three parts Oil does not produce a belter salad dressing it makes an Oiler one. So oily in fact that the lettuce leaves slip off the plate. Substituting other seasonings for Salt is even easier than reducing the amount of fat. Fresh Field tomatoes for example and herbs Evan dried herbs make a wonderful sauce. Not a Sprinkle of added Salt is needed Lom Aloea have plenty of natural sodium. By that time readers eyes might Glaze Over when the suggestion is made to use Lemon or vinegar or hot sauce to liven up � dish when gelt has been reduced or eliminated. But those ingredients alone do not constitute an acceptable substitute. Herbs and spices garlic and onions Are needed to produce the Subtle combination of flavors that turns the blah into the inspired. Another problem with spa cuisine is sauces. Some chefs labor under the mistaken notion that thickened sauces violate the principles of Good nutrition. Red Pepper Puree seasoned with herbs Tomato sauce or any number of other vegetable purees make splendid sauces Lor spa cuisine. Nor is it inappropriate to thicken a sauce Wilh a Little flour cornstarch or arrowroot. Certainly the calories in such thickening agents Are hardly Worth calculating. Circumventing the use of Cream admittedly lakes a Iii lie Moro imagination. If there Are certain dishes the cry out for a Rich creamy texture think about a Rich creamy texture Hal comes from Low Lal Dairy products specifically Low fat Yogurt and Low fat cottage cheese. Equal parts Yogurt and cottage cheese will produce a thick sauce for a thinner sauce increase the amount of Yogurt. The mixture must be blended in a food processor or blender and it cannot be heated or it will separate. It should be at room temperature added to the hot ingredients just before they Are served. Yogurt alone can be heated if it is first mined with co starch to prevent separation a Tablespoon of cornstarch per cup of Yogurt. Fat and sugar produce satiety even in email amounts end that is Why hey Are essential. In their desire to produce healthful Lood Loo Many professionals have lost sight of the fact thai there is no Point in making virtuous dishes in no one is going to eat them. Erma Bombeck is on vacation. She left Behina some other favorite columns from the past the other night my husband and i took a guest from another country out to dinner. As we were poised Over the pasta from out of the darkness a waiter appeared Wilh a Pepper Mill the size of a league bawling trophy and wailed for instructions. Whal is that asked our guest. It s Pepper we said. Whal kind of Pepper he asked. Just  our guest reached for the Mill and the Wailer said. Ill do in for you  embarrassed he Sal Back and watched the waiter grind away. When the waiter started to leave the visitor said. My have some  you can serve yourself. It s on the  said the Page 16 the stars and stripes waiter and he disappeared into the darkness again. Our guest had never seen anything like it. I suppose you want some kind of an explanation for All  we said. He nodded. We did t have one. I Don t know when Pepper got to be right behind  a id myrrh in prominence. It used to be in a Little Jar that sat next to the Salt on the table and everyone passed it around sneezed and it was no big Deal. The next thing you know in some of the fancier restaurants waiters started carrying Pepper Mills around like they were a human sacrifice to be placed on the altar of a smoking Volcano. Ii Pepper were one of the jewels of the spice family i could understand Why someone would Dole ,1 out Grain by Grain. Salad bars do that with the shrimp. They put them in the Back Row. Behind All the lettuce and the Garbanzo Beans and then Angle the Glass shield so that you sever a main artery in you try to dip n spoon wednesday november 4,1987 into them. But Pepperl i think it was Johnny Carson who observed. The bigger the Pepper Mill the More expensive the  it has gotten out of hand. After a White they Are going to wheel them to the table on a Dolly. Frankly i would Welcome something to do White i m sitting there at the table. Eating has become so passive. Someone pulls my chair out. Flips my Napkin for me and places it in my Lap. And inserts a menu Between my curved fingers. I Don t have to pour my own wine spoon on my own Parmesan or bring my own flashlight to read the Check. They do it All. Our guest to put it mildly was intrigued by the ritual. After the Wailer left. He lifted the pasta to his lips and sampled in. I Don t taste the Pepper he said. That is because it never comes out Al those  i Don t understand " we told him eat 1c 1mt. To. Tryon Tom 5,