The Diabetic Chef: More Than 80 Simple But Spectacular Recipes from One of New York City's Top Chefs - Hardcover

Becker, Franklin

 
9780345476357: The Diabetic Chef: More Than 80 Simple But Spectacular Recipes from One of New York City's Top Chefs
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0345476352 ISBN 13: 9780345476357
Verlag: Ballantine Books, 2005

Inhaltsangabe

A master chef--and diabetes sufferer--presents a delicious and healthful assortment of recipes for dishes that emphasize simple and healthy ingredients, including complex carbohydrates, such as Poached Filet Mignon with Asian Vegetables and Egg Noodles, or Fettucine with Asparagus, along with helpful advice on what, when, and how to eat and shopping tips. 25,000 first printing.

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

FRANKLIN BECKER has worked as executive chef at several of New York City’s premier restaurants, including Trinity Capitale, Cucina, and Local. He was also private chef for Revlon magnate Ronald Perelman. Becker’s New American style of cooking has been praised by The New York Times and New York magazine. He lives in New York City.

Suzanne Rostler, Masters of Science, Registered Dietician, is a nutritionist and contributing health writer to books and magazines. She currently leads the pediatric and adolescent weight management program at Storch Nutritional Medicine in Florham Park, New Jersey. She lives in South Orange, New Jersey.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Introduction: I want to tell you a little bit about myself and why I decided to write this book. First of all, I am a professional chef at a high-end restaurant in New York City. I also happen to have type 2 diabetes.

My Life as a Cook

In 1993, I earned a degree from the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park, New York. I went on to work as the executive chef of several critically acclaimed New York City restaurants, including Capitale, Local, and Cucina. Today I run the food service program at the Tribeca Grand Hotel in lower Manhattan and am the executive chef of the upscale Trinity restaurant there. While I was at Capitale, it was named a Best New Restaurant by Esquire magazine. My new American style of cooking has also been praised by the New York Times and New York magazine.

However, I wasn’t always such an accomplished chef. Young cooks are notorious for trying to do more than they are capable of, and when I first started working in a professional kitchen, I wasn’t any different.

I began as a prep cook at the age of fourteen, performing such menial tasks as chopping carrots, slicing potatoes, and dicing onions. When I was nineteen, I was chosen by my fraternity brothers at Brooklyn College (where I majored in speech and public communications) to prepare food for the annual Country Fair held on campus every spring. I thought I was ready for the challenge, but boy, was I wrong! I decided to make crab cakes and barbecued ribs for our booth. Fifty pounds of crab cakes and two hundred ribs later, there was crab everywhere—on my mother’s kitchen ceiling, the walls, you name it—and an oven filled with ribs that were burnt black and completely inedible.

But that was nothing compared to the summer I spent at Hunter’s Run, a restaurant in Boynton Beach, Florida, after graduating from the CIA. I was a young hotshot with some professional experience under my belt, and I thought I knew everything. There was a sous chef named Moe who was tough on me because I was so arrogant, and he decided to teach me the lesson of a lifetime. One day he gave me a huge amount of prep work to do, from shucking bushels of clams and oysters to chopping up mounds of vegetables for dinner that night. I was falling way behind, so I decided to take a shortcut. I put most of the oysters in the freezer to cool down, which makes them easier to open. My plan was to work on one bushel while the rest were cooling. The only problem was, all the oysters froze to death and had to be thrown away. I didn’t lose my job, but as punishment I had to spend the rest of the summer doing prep work.

I also learned a valuable lesson: do not try to do too many things at once in the kitchen. When young cooks start to work for me, I always tell them to finish one task all the way through, and only then should they move on to the next job. Until you are comfortable multitasking in the kitchen, it is best not to attempt it, because you can start off preparing a nice home-cooked meal and end up having to order in pizza (as well as costing yourself a lot of money in wasted food). There might even be an angry sous chef named Moe looking for you.

The recipes in this cookbook are designed to allow home cooks to move easily from one step to the next. Even the most difficult dishes can be broken down into a series of small steps, resulting in a finished product that you will be amazed came from your own kitchen.

Living with Diabetes

Like many of those who suffer from diabetes, it is a disease that runs in my family. My great-grandmother died of complications from diabetes, my grandmother went blind from it, and my father, mother, and uncle all have it. So it wasn’t a huge surprise when I too was diagnosed with diabetes.

While I was still a child, my doctor discovered I had high triglycerides, a type of fat that accumulates in the blood and is a risk factor for diabetes. It didn’t help that I grew up in a Jewish family in Brooklyn, where food such as lox, eggs, whitefish salad, bagels, brisket, and pizza were the norm. All of these things taste great, but none is particularly healthy for diabetics.

Of course, being young also meant I was stubborn, and I thought I could get away with any kind of lifestyle I chose. So there I was, a 240-pound chef stuffing my face with everything from frog’s legs to foie gras, eating my way through every kitchen, and enjoying life without a care in the world.

Inevitably, my luck ran out. In 1996, I was cooking in Italy on the private yacht of an American business mogul, and I began getting severely seasick. Not realizing that I was a diabetic, I treated my nausea with Coca-Cola and ginger ale. For ten days and nights I couldn’t see straight, and I knew something was seriously wrong.

Back on dry land, I made an appointment with my doctor. It soon became clear that I had what I always secretly feared—type 2 diabetes. My blood sugar registered a whopping 350. The doctor immediately put me on medication, and I was forced to severely limit my caloric intake. Imagine being a twenty-seven-year-old aspiring chef and being told to stay away from fat and simple carbohydrates! I thought my career was over. How could I cook if I couldn’t taste? And how could I help support my new fiancée and our yet unborn children?

Rather than despair, I immediately set out to do whatever it took to control my diabetes. I cut out simple carbohydrates from my diet—no more Coca-Cola or Frosted Flakes—and balanced my intake of carbohydrates, protein, and fat; within a month I had dropped 40 pounds. In 1997, my wife, Jennifer, and I were married, and today we live in Queens with our two young children.

My newfound discipline carried over to my work. I transformed my cooking style by cutting down on fat and carbohydrates, and today my recipes combine simple ingredients in a way that anyone at home can replicate. With my diabetes under control, it was also perfectly safe for me to taste the dishes I was preparing, so I could ensure that my food would be appealing to everyone who ate at my restaurant.

My Cooking Philosophy

When creating a dish, I focus on three things: the needs of my guests, maintaining the integrity of the main ingredient I am working with, and making sure the central component of a particular dish fits naturally with all the other ingredients on the plate. If a guest at my restaurant orders chicken, he or she should taste chicken, and whatever else is accompanying it should play a supporting role without overwhelming the palate.

I encourage you to take what you learn from this book and create something new based on the foods you like. However, that does not mean forcing ingredients together that do not seem natural; if a recipe does not sound appealing on paper, chances are it will not work on the plate.

I think the quality of ingredients should be more important than anything else when preparing a dish. Ask this question: can you eat a piece of grilled fish that is seasoned only with salt and pepper and still be satisfied? That does not mean the fish has to be served that way, but at least you are starting off with something worth adding to. On the other hand, I do not believe in forcing ingredients together if they are not meant to be.

If nothing else, I hope that anyone using this cookbook will learn to embrace this approach. Look for the freshest ingredients available, and examine all your products closely to determine their quality before purchasing them. If possible, spend a little more money for top-quality ingredients, and you will be rewarded with better-tasting and ultimately more satisfying dishes.

Eating Your Way to a Healthy Diet

While carbohydrates and fat are necessary parts of a diabetic diet, it is important to keep...

„Über diesen Titel“ kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Verlag
Ballantine Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2005
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0345476352
ISBN 13 
9780345476357
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
177
Kontakt zum Hersteller
SC
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/

CL MODESTO LAFUENTE 41
Madrid
Madrid
Spanien