Chef Paul Prudhomme's Fork in the Road

My wife was sent to the nutritionist recently by her doctor, and this nice lady asks her, "So what did you eat last night?" My wife says, "Well, baked acorn squash with apples, shrimp, leafy greens, lots of spices, a little bread crumbs, and a pinch of Parmesan on top." The nutritionist's jaw drops. "How much fat?" "Oh, well, just the cheese, really." The nutritionist now asks if it was tasty? "Oh yes, excellent. It's a Paul Prudhomme recipe, you see." The nutritionist now begs for a copy of this recipe. I should note that I had eaten this dish (and I hate squash) and thought it was delightfully full of fat. Oops! Okay, not every recipe in here is spectacular. But most of them are incredible. Your pantry will fill with things like apple juice, evaporated skim milk, and the like, but you will eat very well and not look like Paul Prudhomme (I'm sure he'd think this funny, and you know what he looks like). The baked squash with shrimp is worth the price of admission right there, because you'd think it was seriously bad for you. You can taste the butter, you see, and the cheese. Of course, there isn't any, and it's amazingly healthy. If you ate this every day, you'd probably lose weight, but people would be begging to come eat with you. The guy's a genius. Let's face it, if you mastered all these recipes you could open a health-food restaurant and make a mint. Serve up a lot of hard-core fattening food that just happens to have no fat at all. And they'd line up. A couple hints. You really do need a bunch of non-stick pans. The insane heat with no fat thing doesn't work so well without non-stick. Get the best quality you can. For an extra-special treat, put a tablespoon of olive oil in the bottom instead. That's the kind of non-fat we're talking about: a tablespoon of olive oil is a big jump. If you're making the browned flour to produce fat-free roux, go very slow and don't expect really dark colors. It works, but it's definitely a halfway measure. Magic Brightening is surprisingly effective. Don't knock it until you try it. Remember that this is way pre-Atkins, so it's low fat but not low-carb. If you're a carb [...], go eat a steak and shut up. If you're into delicious food with very low fat, buy this book. About 50% of the recipes here are brilliant, absolute genius. About 25% are very good indeed. The rest are a mixed bag, but I must mention that I don't have a dehydrator so the whole "turkey jerky" thing just passed me by. So what you do is you buy this and you buy "Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen" and you alternate. You have "Fork in the Road" health food for two days, which is no hardship, then you have something totally evil and decadent from "Louisiana Kitchen" for a night, and then, feeling guilty but full, you start again on the "Fork in the Road" health food. There are other Cajun cookbooks, of course, but what for? Eat 'em and weep.

I can't believe this book is out of print. My wife and I own a couple of shelves full of cook books, everything from The Joy of Cooking to the Moosewood books and books of regional quisine, such as Turkish. When we don't know what to cook, this is the book we turn to. We've never made anything out of this book that we didn't like.Some of the recipes, as other reviewers have commented, can be involved. Many are not. The best part, the food is wonderful and you don't have to feel that twinge of guilt from just having added to the clogging of your arteries.

Chef Paul Prudhomme creates that Louisiana taste, but without the gobs of butter and other oils that usually go into this rich, flavorful cuisine. Because Chef Paul had already developed a system of layering flavors (with spices, herbs, stocks, other juices) he was able to translate this knowledge of deep flavors to compensate for the absence of fats in the dishes he normally would make. Fat carries aromas and flavor to our nose and taste buds. And it produces a certain feel to foods. Chef Prudhomme replaces the lost ingredient with fruit juices, intense but fat-free stocks and mixes of spices that are added in series to preserve their intensity and build the taste.So, you don't have to stare nightly at a plate of lettuce, steamed chicken breast and rice if you don't want to. You can make oven fried fish, turkey and many other tasty dishes that will still be within your dietary restrictions.Because this is a chef's book, the methods are sometimes time-consuming (like making stock.) And the very method of layering takes some time as well. So this is not a quick-to-the-table book but one that can teach techniques to enhance your own recipes.

This book's recipes are the best tasting low-fat foods I've ever eaten. The cooking techniques are what make it happen. I wouldn't suggest this to cooking newbies either, and the recipes do take awhile to prepare, but if you are serious about *delicious* low-fat eating, this is your book.

Paul Prudhomme has done it again--only lighter, healthier and easier. Those lip-smacking feasts from the bayou have been trimmed of fat and sodium, yet they're easy to make. Chef Prudhomme's artistry with spices and cooking techniques brings out the very best flavor of each dish. From breads to desserts, this is a book for cookbook collectors and cooks. You'll want to try every recipe--and your friends and family will certainly encourage it! Low-fat cooking will never be the same. Thanks, Paul.