COOKING WITH Andrew Weil

Can you judge a man by his kitchen? I traveled to a secluded ranch house in the desert to find out.

WHEN I READ BOOKS ON NUTRITION, I find myself wondering how the authors really eat. Often these books are written by a doctor who gets a dietitian to concoct some recipes that fit into the plan, and then tries to convince you that you'll be happy eating steamed millet and broccoli. When I read Andrew Weil's books, though, I get the sense that he genuinely enjoys food. Still, my restaurant background, which taught me that "fat is flavor," makes me suspicious of people who claim to like only what is good for them. To see how Dr. Weil really puts his philosophy of nutrition into practice, I went to his ranch near Tucson and cooked lunch with him.

Andrew Weil's kitchen is literally at the heart of his home, which is fitting, because he really does love to cook. There's a walk-through pantry on one side, and a newly built breakfast nook with floor-to-ceiling windows on another. It's a good working kitchen, not large or fancy; square, with just enough room to walk around the worktable in the center. The most striking feature of the room is the walk-in refrigerator with its heavy wooden door. Weil's home was once a working ranch, and he thinks that sides of beef may have hung in this ranch house cooler. Now it's filled with sun-dried tomatoes, fresh mushrooms, greens, and other produce, much of it from his own garden. (With a gardener to help him, Weil, who started his academic career as an ethnobotanist, grows a grocery list of vegetables: kale, collards, eggplants, tomatoes, pumpkins, Tahitian squash, onions, basil, and peppers.) In fact, evidence of the garden is all around the modest stucco house, from the zinnias on the dining table to the heirloom pumpkin on the living room hearth, to the garlic braid hanging by the kitchen sink. On the counter in a corner stands a 5-gallon bucket for garden compost. What you don't see in this kitchen are a lot of high-tech gadgets--no bread machine or gelato maker. And no junk food in the cupboards.

We had decided ahead of time to base our lunch on recipes from Eight Weeks to Optimum Health (Alfred A. Knopf, 1997). The idea was for us to cook together, but Weil was so efficient that I was hard put to make myself useful. We made the Cocoa-Banana Frozen Dessert first so it could chill while we had lunch. Then we started the Pasta With Greens. (These recipes and some of his other favorites follow.) Weil went to work on a huge bunch of collards, and in no time had them cleaned, stemmed (an important step for tough greens, he says), and chopped. While I peeled the garlic and grated some Parmesan, he cooked the pasta, plumped the tomatoes, sliced the onion, and started sauteing. We tossed a salad, adding some mustard greens for spice, and sat down to a delicious lunch.

During the afternoon, friends and associates popped in, caterers dropped off Moroccan stew and couscous for a dinner Weil was hosting that evening, his three dogs circled the kitchen for scraps, and the photographer continually snapped pictures. Weil was like the eye of the storm, as calm and composed as the desert landscape outside. While we cooked and ate, I asked him about what constitutes a good (and bad) diet and how you can motivate people to eat better. Here's what he had to say:

CSS: Do you feel optimistic about the way America is eating today?

AW: We've come a long way in so many areas, eating more fish, eating less meat, having decent bread available in many places. You know, when I was growing up, you never got edible bread; it was all fluff. Now we have real foods that are at least an alternative to the fake foods that were dominant in the '50s.

What would you say is the worst thing about American eating habits?

Fast food is the worst, for a whole lot of reasons. Not only is it loaded with fat, it's high in high-glycemic index carbohydrates [foods that quickly raise blood sugar to a high level], and has low quality ingredients, a lot of salt--it's bad food. And it's one of the important factors in the epidemic of obesity in America.

But people love it.

I know. But my contention has always been that you can preserve all the qualities people like in food in healthier versions. I think it would be perfectly possible to make healthy fast food that people wouldn't even think of as healthy, but just as good food. There are all kinds of possibilities; you could do really good soy burgers, healthy coleslaw, oven-baked fries. I have a great recipe for oven-baked french fries. [See recipe on page 148.]

Do you think there's one diet that's best for everybody?

Well, I strongly think that there are individual needs and differences, and it's very risky to say that this is the way everybody should eat. Of the diets that are out there, it looks as if one that is broadly applicable and easy for Americans to follow is the Mediterranean diet [emphasizing fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, and olive oil, along with moderate amounts of wine]. The other one that looks very healthy is the Japanese diet, but it's got a lot of unfamiliar foods that are less accessible to us.