An interesting article:
Gordon Ramsay Shares His Healthy Appetite For Good FoodIt's hard not to get caught up in Gordon Ramsay's spirited passion for cooking and good food.
The many-Michelin-starred chef, known for his fiery temperament in the TV shows Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares, insists there's no excuse for eating poorly at home with the family. In fact he's spent the last 18 months authoring a cookbook with nutritious eating in mind.
It's called Healthy Appetite, and as Ramsay is quick to point out, it's not a diet book. Rather the uncomplicated recipes are a reflection of how he eats when he's at home with his wife Tana and their four children: plenty of fish and lean meats, fruit, vegetables, and whole grains.
"The biggest challenge to healthy eating is finding the balance," Ramsay explains to CityNews.ca in a recent one-on-one interview. "I don't want to feel guilty about what I want to eat. So, finding that balance. Very little cream, very little butter. And a really nice way of showing different techniques, whether it's stewing, steaming, braising, pot roasting, broiling, and more importantly getting humble ingredients and turning them into something quite glamourous.
"Healthy Appetite was a way of showing how I eat, down time, how I spend time with the family at weekends. It's healthy because it makes me healthy. I run, I work hard, I work long hours, but there's no excuse. You can go into a kitchen and cook something delicious within 20 minutes."
Ramsay started writing his latest cookbook before the global economy took a nosedive, but he suggests the timing of its publication couldn't be better. The challenge now is to use fresh, local, budget-friendly ingredients, he says, and he's bringing that approach to not only his cookbooks but his restaurants as well.
"Looking at the ingredients coming through the kitchen in the last six months, even in my professional kitchens, young chefs are starting to work with swedes and turnips, making a caramelized turnip soup, or a wonderful swede soup, or braising oxtail," he describes. "These were unfashionable ingredients, nowhere to be seen two, three years ago on menus. But now it's pretty apparent because of the downturn, everyone's feeling the pinch."
Among the recipes in Healthy Appetite: roast lamb with paprika and oranges, baked sea bass with lemon couscous, and spaghetti vongole. But there are also suggestions for healthy snacks and kid-friendly dishes. And yes, there are desserts, though Ramsay notes dessert is an occasional treat at his home. As for the common complaint that there's simply not enough time in the day to cook healthy meals, Ramsay won't hear of it.
"I guarantee you I can cook something in 15, 20 minutes, a lot quicker than it would be defrosting a ready-made meal or cooking out of a microwave. That kind of stuff is down-to-the-last-emergency sort of glitch, only. It may save you time but what does it do for you, in terms of benefit? Constant intake of that processed food, six, seven months down the line you'll start to see the effects," he opines.
"Whether you're making the most amazing roasted vine tomato soup or putting together a simple tuna pasta salad, it becomes lazy if you can't get off your butt and spend 20 minutes in the kitchen. It's not intimidating. The ingredients are mainstream, I think, and I've tried to focus on using local ingredients without becoming organic. We don't need an obsession with organic to make us feel better because it sounds better on the school playground. That's pants."
Ramsay is as famous for his food as his is for his foul mouth and fits of rage on Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares, but he makes no apologies for cutting the aspiring chefs under his tutelage down to size. The culinary maestro knows a thing or two about the restaurant industry after 21 years, mainly just how unforgiving it can be.
"Disciplinary action is in the process of learning. You can't read a cookery book and all of a sudden become a talented chef. To become a great chef you have to work for great chefs. There's no shortcut to that, let me tell you that. Having been at the coalface now for 21 years, trust me, I can spot a talented chef within 30 seconds in front of me. When someone's bull****ting or trying to pull the wool over my eyes, I can smell them out, big time," he remarks.
"I chose to work at the very, very top, and I push myself to the extreme. To become a chef, from a footballer's point of view, you want to win a FA Cup winner medal, if you're an actor you want an Oscar, if you're a chef it's a Michelin star. I got one star, I dreamt of two stars, then I dreamt of three stars. Once I won three stars, I won another three stars. I'd be a lot easier, and high-fiving, happy-go-lucky, but you know, it's Gordon Ramsay, I'm not the head chef at T.G.I.Friday's."
He explains that if he's especially tough on the Hell's Kitchen contestants, it's because he's personally invested in the outcome.
"I have a significant prize to give away, that I'd look stupid if I didn't find that right chef. Of course they're going to cast muppets and donkeys. Sadly 50 percent of the brigade are talented, the other 50 percent couldn't get a job at Dunkin Donuts coating the donuts in icing sugar or even making holes in them, depending on how big they are," he notes.
"The role of the chef today is far greater than it ever was before, and the demands on a chef are far greater. So the quicker we get off our asses and realize the pressure involved to make it in this industry. Tough, tough, tough job. So I expose my guys and girls, and I drop them into the deep end, for one reason: it's make or break."
So what are the chances we'll see a Gordon Ramsay restaurant in Toronto? The chances are good, the esteemed chef says.
"Doing a restaurant in Toronto means a lot in terms of not just the draw but the support we have here. If I do it I'll put money in, and take out an independent lease and run it as a proper business," he explains.
"Being at George Brown (Chef School) this morning, listening to the young chefs, and meeting them all and seeing that level of ambition and what they've got to do to become successful in this industry was great. A chance of drawing from talent like that and then utilizing the purveyors locally. I was in Whistler two weeks ago at the Araxi restaurant, which, the new winner of Hell's Kitchen gets a job there - they source everything within 100 miles. The food, the wine, and everything, all sourced locally. It's amazing. That's a template for every restaurant to follow. So, the chances of opening up in Toronto are pretty high, just have to find the right site."
Link includes a video interview: http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_32017.aspx
