The Real Food Daily Cookbook

Really Fresh, Really Good, Really Vegetarian
by Ann Gentry

Saying that Ann Gentry has “helped make vegan restaurants popular and chic,” as her rep puts it, is an understatement. Every time we eat at her Real Food Daily restaurant in Hollywood, we spot a celebrity. Last time, as we dug into our “Real Food Bargain” (the side of corn grain bread is delish with the peanut sesame sauce), we dined right next to Anthony Kiedis. We hope the front man of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers will forgive us this slight indiscretion. After all, it’s a positive thing, eating at one of chef-owner Gentry’s vegan-friendly hot spots. She uses no animal products, no dairy and no refined white sugar; everything is fresh, tasty and certified organic. The minus? Actually, we can’t think of one; the restaurant even serves wine.

Now, at last, comes the long-awaited cookbook. If you’re not a vegetarian, you probably have a hard time imagining that a plant-based diet can be hearty. Maybe that’s because you haven’t had the pleasure of Gentry’s satisfying red bean chili with butternut squash and okra. To Gentry, food has to be real, at every meal. And somehow, a “living lasagna” does seem more real than, say, foie gras (although we love fatty goose liver, and all the veggies in the world won’t cure us of that).

Surprisingly, we already have many of “the top twenty real foods to always have in your kitchen” in our pantry: oats, olive oil, brown rice, ginger, nuts and seeds, sea salt, soy milk, pasta, tofu, maple syrup, green leafy vegetables… That’s more than fifty percent! Among the more unusual foods you may cook with are the sea vegetable derivative, agar; arrowroot; the Japanese rice wine, Mirin; and nutritional yeast. With these goodies and others you’ll learn to make sea vegetable phyllo purses; black bean tostadas; and grilled polenta and vegetable stacks with tomato-saffron coulis.

Gentry has no other mission than to have people make and eat real, satisfying and healthful food. In this book (unlike in many raw food books we encountered) there’s no dogma. Gentry’s not trying to win you over or scare you with diet data. She doesn’t have to. She’s excellent at what she does, she’s vibrant and glowing and maybe soon we will be, too. Anthony Kiedis sure seems to be well on his way, judging from his wholesome complexion.

Reviewed by Sylvie Greil

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