Conscious Cuisine [Hardcover]

Neff (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2002

Good for the body doesn’t mean bad for the soul. From the top-rated spa, Conscious Cuisine is bold new methods fused with vibrant fresh tastes to create extraordinary food.

"Chef Cary Neff’s passion for purity utterly oozes from the pages. His recipes are extremely healthy--better still, they explode with bold flavor. I would recommend this innovative work to anyone who wants to eat well."
--Charlie Trotter, Chef and Owner of Charlie Trotter’s Restaurant

Voted #1 spa diet/cuisine in a 2002 Condé Nast reader’s poll
Voted #1 destination spa in a 2002 Zagat Survey Miraval Life in Balance Resort and Spa

From Chef Cary Neff
"Cooking is one of the most memorable, creative, romantic and caring gestures you can make for another or for yourself. Whether it’s a simple bowl of cereal for breakfast or a several-course feast to celebrate a special occasion, great food created with love and care nourishes the heart.

The goal of Conscious Cuisine is to encourage you to become more conscious and mindful of the food you eat and prepare. It is a simple act of noticing and embracing the unique flavors, textures, aromas, presentation and healthy benefits that food provides.

Conscious Cuisine provides you with recipes and techniques that will help you discover new healthful foods, cooking methods and nutritional awareness. Cooking terminology is explained to help you better understand how professional chefs adapt new recipes with ease. You too will learn to cook with confidence, creating sinfully delicious foods without the use of excessive fats and calories.

I have also included a full nutritional analysis of each recipe to illustrate the benefits of Conscious Cuisine. I’m certain you will enjoy the descriptive and colorful photos that come alive within the pages, demonstrating to you that Conscious Cuisine is as visually appealing as it is delicious.

I also have included information on: how to shop seasonally for food; how to outfit your kitchen with healthful foods; how to procure hard-to-find natural ingredients; choosing the foods that are the least processed; learning some of the countless ways of preparing vegetables and whole grains; complementing meals with animal proteins rather than having them as the main ingredient.
It is my hope that Conscious Cuisine will unleash for you new approaches to cooking and eating every day and that it will open your senses to new possibilities."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The very phrase "spa cuisine" holds the promise of luxurious food (at empyrean prices), dazzlingly presented and of course, more nutritious and healthful than you could ever imagine. To his credit, Neff, chef at Chicago's Miraval Life in Balance Resort, makes good on most of these superlatives in his book, which is as much a manifesto for a beautiful way of life-wholesome, elegant, flavorful-as it is a cookbook. Earnest and articulate, Neff is an able culinary innovator. In an entire chapter on low-fat sauces he coaxes strange bedfellows into happy marriages: carrot-cardamom sauce, saffron-chive sauce, beet-ginger sauce. All the recipes are low-fat, just daring any home cook to try sauteing a pound of protein in 1/4 teaspoon of olive oil. There is, of course, a catch in this too-good-to-be-true formulation: these are not simple dishes to prepare. Easy-sounding "Vegetable Casserole" calls upon four separate recipes dispersed throughout the book. And that's child's play compared to the side dish Layered Spinach, Wild Mushroom, and Carrot Mousse. Neff trained as a traditional chef, which may explain his assumption that readers have an army of prep staff and dishwashers awaiting orders. In any case, it seems clear that this is not a cookbook for the average weekday night-unless one commits to living with the "conscious cuisine" ethos ("to become more conscious or mindful of food") for weeks at a time, in which case one might have Toasted Fennel and Tomato Sauce, or Beet, Cranberry and Jicama Relish on hand at any hour of the day or night.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

"Conscious cuisine" is what Neff calls the food he cooks at Miraval Spa near Tucson, AZ, among the top spa resorts in the country. Here he presents dozens of recipes for the sophisticated but healthful food he serves-one of the major reasons for the spa's popularity. Dozens of color photographs, many of them full page, show off the gorgeous presentations that add to the appeal of Neff's boldly flavored dishes. For diet collections and others where spa cookbooks like Jeanne Jones's Canyon Ranch Cooking or Michael Stroot's Golden Door Cookbook have been popular.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc. (October 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1570719268
• ISBN-13: 978-1570719264
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 9.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #659,027 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

84 of 86 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Delicious 5-star In Your Own Kitchen March 22, 2003

By K. Johnson VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Those who love good foods can keep "Conscious Cuisine" on the shelf for a long-time to come. There is lots of variety, and most of the savoring dishes and sauce recipes are low in sodium, carbohydrates, and sugar. Worth noting, is that this is not for the quick throw-together at-home food enthusiasts. It's a step up into a little more planning and stocking. But the results will give you 5-star dishes such as Saffron-chive sauce, Carrot Mousse, Layered Spinach, Wild Mushroom, are a few of the many high-end cuisine you can create in your own kitchen.

82 of 89 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A "Conscious" way of eating January 12, 2003

By L. Felton

Format:Hardcover

I have tried several recipes in this book. My favorite is the Margarita Cheesecake. The recipes are perfect for anyone looking to improve their eating choices as well as those who have had gastric bypass. They're low in sugar, carbs, sodium, but full of flavor!!!!!

84 of 92 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Best of the Best in Healthy Cooking January 4, 2003

By michael

Format:Hardcover

Having experienced the tastes of what is now one of the best resorts in the world on a first hand basis, this book is for everyone that wishes to experience a world of intricate details, fine dining, into a healthful and refreshing way. Experience 5 STAR resort healthful eating right at your own home. Chef Neff has brought together a passion and love of food that he has refined into a healthful and abundantley tasteful book. Finally food for those of us that love it, and want the tastes of real food without fealing guilty. I know that this has taken him years to perfect to bring to the rest of the world, but like all fine things in life.. perfection takes time.