Cookbook author and food writer Jack Bishop

DATE March 28, 2001 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Cookbook author and food writer Jack Bishop talks
about his latest book, "Vegetables Every Day"
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Mad cow disease and foot-and-mouth
disease might have you thinking more about vegetables. My guest, Jack Bishop,
has plenty of suggestions for making vegetable dishes that are delicious. And
he has advice on buying and storing vegetables. Bishop is the author of the
new cookbook, "Vegetables Every Day." He writes about food for The New York
Times, Cooks Illustrated and Natural Health magazine. His other books include
"The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook," and "Lasagna."

Although he's not a vegetarian, he says that vegetables are the heart of all
meals in his home. I asked him what he loves about them.

Mr. JACK BISHOP (Author, "Vegetables Every Day"): I think my favorite thing
about vegetables is the connection that you have with the seasons. I mean, if
you eat pasta, if you eat chicken, it's pretty much the same 365 days of the
year. Pasta is pasta, chicken is chicken. But when you walk into the produce
market, the vegetable aisle at the supermarket, you never know exactly what
you're going to find. And there's that element of surprise that you stumble
upon something that looks absolutely wonderful that you just have to take home
and do something with. There's also the connection to the season. And I
think we've certainly lost that, to a certain extent, with mass production of
vegetables all around the world and being able to enjoy many vegetables 12
months of the year. But I think, especially if you shop at farm stands or
places that are really focusing on local produce, it allows you to sort of
stay in tune with those natural rhythms.

GROSS: Let's talk about some of the best basic ways of preparing vegetables.
And why--why don't we start with grilling because I think that's becoming an
increasingly popular way of doing vegetables. And it's got a really
interesting taste and texture, if you grill them.

Mr. BISHOP: Well, one of the things I like about grilling is what you're
doing is it's a dry heat that is causing moisture in the vegetables to be
lost. So what you're really doing is concentrating the flavor. And if you
think about asparagus, and if you were to boil it, you're sort of losing a lot
of the flavor of the vegetable to the water, and then you pour the water down
the sink. But if you were to lightly oil the asparagus, maybe sprinkle it
with some coarse salt and throw it on the grill, you are concentrating the
flavor of the vegetables, the sort of natural sweetness and sugars in the
vegetables come to the forefront. You get that sort of lightly crisp
exterior, which adds tons of flavor, as well as texture. And almost any
vegetable can be put on the grill. And I think as more and more people do
their cooking of other things--whether it's the meat, the fish, the
chicken--on the grill, it just makes total sense to then do the vegetables on
the grill as well.

GROSS: Say you're--you're grilling zucchini, how would you oil them so that
they don't stick to the grill?

Mr. BISHOP: I...

GROSS: But--I mean so that they don't get too oily.

Mr. BISHOP: I usually just put the vegetables in a bowl, drizzle no more than
a tablespoon of oil, and then use my hands. They're the best tool to make
sure that you've completely coated all the surfaces. They just have to be
very, very lightly coated. It's just that you just want to prevent them from
sticking. There's no reason to add more oil than is absolutely necessary. If
you don't want to get your hands dirty, you can certainly put them on a baking
tray and use a pastry brush and brush the oil lightly over the surface. But I
find it more effective and quicker to just get in there and use my hands.

GROSS: What kind of oil do you recommend for grilling or for stir-frying?

Mr. BISHOP: Well, when I'm grilling, I really like to use olive oil. I
think, in--in all of my cooking, I feel like if you're going to add oil to
food, it maybe should bring something besides just fat. And I want some
flavor. So I use extra virgin olive oil. I think it has a wonderful flavor
that compliments almost all the vegetables. And when I stir-fry, I use a
roasted peanut oil, not a highly refined peanut oil, but one that may say
roasted or toasted peanut oil. And when you open the bottle, the oil
actually smells like freshly roasted peanuts. And it just adds a wonderful
flavor to a stir-fry.

GROSS: What are the advantages of stir-frying vegetables?

Mr. BISHOP: When we stir-fry vegetables, you get sort of concentrated flavors
that we were talking about in--that you get from the grill. But you also get
a sauce there. And I think that that's, you know, part of the appeal. You
can add anything. You can add orange juice and fermented black beans. You
can add lemon and ginger. And so you--you're cooking and saucing the
vegetable at the same time, and it's a sort of neat way of combining two
processes in one.

GROSS: What do you think of steaming vegetables?

Mr. BISHOP: Steaming vegetables is a nice alternative to boiling, which is a
method that my mother used a lot. And I wish she had done more steaming when
I was a kid because it really preserves the texture and flavor better of the
vegetables. But once the vegetable steams, you really do need to do something
to it. Steamed broccoli, steamed green beans are a bit bland on their own and
really need a really highly flavorful vinaigrette or some other sort of sauce
to perk them up, to make them extremely palatable.

GROSS: Jack Bishop is my guest. His new book is called "Vegetables Every
Day." It's a guide to buying and cooking vegetables.

Well, let's talk a little bit about perhaps the most loved vegetables in
America, the potato. Mr. Popularity. You have a good alternative to French
fries in your book. It's--it's oven fries.

Mr. BISHOP: I love oven fries. I mean, it's on of those things that I do
not feel guilty feeding my children: oven fries. If they want them five
nights a week, I'm happy to provide them five nights a week. In addition to
the much-reduced mess--I mean, there's nothing like deep-fried french fried
potatoes, but you really don't want to be doing it every day. And to oven
fries there's just a couple of tricks that you want to use. You want to make
sure that you've got the oven really nice and hot; 425 is a reasonable
temperature to start out at. And you want to make sure that you've cut the
potatoes into fairly long wedges. I usually cut the potato lengthwise into
eight or 10 pieces. And you've got to oil them lightly and let the baking
sheet preheat in the oven so that when you--the oven comes up to temperature,
you pull out the baking sheet, you throw the potatoes on and they immediately
start to sizzle. Let them turn just once during the process. You want them
to get a nice golden-brown crust. And after about 40-50 minutes, they're
going to be absolutely perfect.

GROSS: So you just leave them in the oven, turn them once and it...

Mr. BISHOP: Just--just turn them once. I mean, I think a lot of times people
try to turn them too often and they end up not getting that nice golden-brown
crust on them. So I let them go at least 25 minutes, turn them. A pair of
tongs works nicely. Turn each piece. Get it on another side that's not brown
and then another 15 to 25 minutes, depending on the size of the potatoes. And
you've got perfectly cooked, nice, crisp oven fries. And you really--you can
probably cook two pounds of potatoes with maybe two tablespoons of oil, which
is really not that much when you're talking about serving four or six people.

GROSS: Do you have a good suggestion for improving on your basic microwaved
baked potato? It gets the job done, the microwave, but not in a very
interesting way.

Mr. BISHOP: I've got to say, it's one of the unkindest things you can do to
your poor potato is to put it in the microwave. And certainly, if you are
pressed for time, to turn on the oven to 450, cook the potato in the microwave
halfway, and then transfer it to the oven. I mean, my feeling is that a
potato that's cooked strictly in the microwave is just going to be very soggy
and flabby, and that you can cut the cooking time drastically if you start it
in the microwave and then finish it in the hot oven so that the exterior can
crisp up and more steam can escape. But, really, the oven the entire time is
the best way to cook the potato.

GROSS: How long would you be doing it in--in your technique, if you were just
doing the second half in the oven?

Mr. BISHOP: I would say about 15 minutes.

GROSS: That doesn't sound too bad.

Mr. BISHOP: No, it's not too bad. And, honestly, you think, `Oh, it's going
to take 45 minutes or an hour to bake a potato completely in the oven.' But
if you just put that in and do that first, as soon as you walk in the door,
odds are it's going to take you that long to sort of unwind, get ready to
really start cooking. And you can probably time it so that the potatoes come
out of the oven just as dinner's ready.

GROSS: Let's get to one of the more controversial vegetables, and I'm
thinking of broccoli. Some people just really think of themselves as hating
broccoli. Why do you think some people find broccoli so offensive?

Mr. BISHOP: Well, the--broccoli has a very unusual chemical compound that
once the broccoli is cooked more than about seven or eight minutes in boiling
water, this sulfur smell just becomes overpowering. And broccoli really is
pretty--I would say--I don't want to say disgusting, but it almost can become
inedible, if you overcook it, besides losing texture and becoming mushy and
becoming that horrible, drab gray color. So I think a lot of people--you
know, they think of broccoli they had in the cafeteria line at school that is
probably cooked for 20 minutes and just say, `Ugh, I can't possibly fathom
actually buying broccoli myself and making it.' But as long as you make sure
not to cook the broccoli much more than about five minutes, I think it's got a
wonderful flavor. I think broccoli can even be sweet.

And I think that, you know, strong-flavored vinaigrettes and sauces are
gonna--I mean, I love to do a little spicy balsamic dressing with black
olives. So I just steam the broccoli. It comes out of the pan. I toss it in
a bowl with vinaigrette with balsamic vinegar, hot red pepper flakes, a little
garlic, some red wine vinegar, some olive oil and some pitted and sliced
kalamatas. And it's a really great counterpoint to the broccoli flavor.

GROSS: Give us another suggestion, too, for--like a really simple way of
preparing tasty broccoli.

Mr. BISHOP: Well, the other way is to stir-fry. I think that broccoli, with
a sort of sesame stir-fry, which is a Chinese restaurant classic, is
remarkably easy. And I just saute the broccoli till it's sort of bright
green. And then I'll add a sauce with--a little soy sauce, a little sesame
seeds, maybe some garlic and some ginger. Throw the cover on the pan to trap
some of the heat and the moisture and to really cook the broccoli through.
And let that sauce reduce down a little bit and you've got a great, quick
stir-fry.

GROSS: Now one of the problems about broccoli is that it's kind of hard to
digest. It can cause a lot of intestinal gas. Do you have any suggestions
for making it easier on the stomach?

Mr. BISHOP: The suggestion is frequency of eating. I mean, with broccoli,
with legumes, which give some people problems--I mean, I see all these things
out there you can add to your food. And they might work; they might not. I'm
not sure. But I found that the more you eat these things, the more your
system becomes accustomed to them. So if you have broccoli once a month, odds
are--I mean, if broccoli gives you problems, it's probably going to continue
to give you problems. And there's not a lot you can do in the cooking
process that's going to reduce that. But if you eat broccoli on a regular
basis, along with legumes and all these other things, your system will learn
to tolerate them. Even if you think that that won't happen, it really will.

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Jack Bishop. He's a food
writer who writes for several magazines and The New York Times. His new book
is called "Vegetables Every Day."

Let's take a short break here, and then we'll talk more about buying and
cooking vegetables. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: My guest is Jack Bishop. He writes about food for several magazines
and for The New York Times. His new book is called "Vegetables Every Day."

Let's talk about carrots. You know, I--you said that carrots have more
natural sugar than any vegetable except beets. And I figured, oh, no wonder I
use carrots so much when I'm preparing dinner. It's--it must be the sugar.

Mr. BISHOP: It is the sugar. I mean, that's the reason why kids like
carrots. They're--they have that sweetness. But I think, you know, that
carrots are pretty rock hard and people think, `Oh, well, I might nibble on
some carrot sticks.' But they think, in terms of cooking carrots, there are
very few things that people do. They sort of do that sort of sugar-glazed
carrots, if they do anything with carrots. And I think that the flavor and
that sweetness lends itself to so many treatments.

I mean, one of my favorite things to do is to just peel the carrots, cut them
into small dice, maybe half-inch pieces, and then boil them till they're
tender, but not mushy, maybe eight or nine minutes. Drain the carrots and
then toss them with a light vinaigrette. I mean, I might do something with
North-African spices that's got a little olive oil, lemon juice, some sweet
paprika, some cumin, some cinnamon and then a final flourish of some parsley
or cilantro. And you can take the same idea and do Indian spices, Asian
spices. And it's a really lovely side dish with a roast chicken, a--most
anything.

And--and it's one of those things that people say, `Oh, carrots. I never knew
you could do that with carrots.' As I said, you know, that sort of
maple-glazed or honey-glazed carrots seems to be the only thing people know
and they think, `Oh, it's a holiday dish.' But I think carrots--you can do so
much more with.

GROSS: You know, the--the problem I find with like the honeyed carrots is if
carrots is already--are already sweet, why make them sweeter? Why not use the
sweetness as a counterpoint to something else?

Mr. BISHOP: Well, right. And that's why I think the spices work really
nicely. I mean, to do curry or to do some schezuan peppercorns to sort of
take it in a different direction. I mean, I think that maple-glazed
carrot--it's, you know, a holiday thing where all you do is do sweetness. And
you're thinking that turkey, and you keep adding sweet elements, sweet
elements and sweet elements to the meal. But that's really something you only
want to do once a year. And in sort of day-to-day cooking, it's better to
play off the sweetness and come up with a foil for it.

GROSS: Let's move on to tomatoes. I think tomatoes are a great cause of
frustration now. It is so difficult to find a tomato with any taste to it.
And I think that's become true, even in the summer, unless you have access to
a really good farmers market. I've just been finding that even--even from the
farmers markets, tomatoes don't taste the way they used to.

Mr. BISHOP: It's really true. I mean, the tomato has really been subjected
to all kinds of indignities, including, you know, trying to produce a decent
tomato for supermarkets in January, which is a fool's errand that no one will
ever succeed at. But I have a couple of strategies, besides the just, you
know, buying a local tomato, which is always going to be your best bet.
Cherry tomatoes I think are actually not so bad. And I like to saute them
with a little bit of heat. Maybe two or three minutes in a hot skillet
releases some of their juices and really makes them much more appealing.

And at other times of the year where you feel like the large tomatoes just are
not going to have any flavor, but you really have a hankering for some
tomatoes, try some of the cherry tomatoes and simply just cut them in half, or
if they're very small, leave them whole, and saute them in a little olive
oil. You can finish with garlic and basil, with a little olives and feta
cheese and it's a really sort of nice alternative, especially if you want to
cook the tomatoes.

GROSS: You use canned tomatoes when you're cooking, too.

Mr. BISHOP: Whenever I'm doing a dish where the tomatoes are an ingredient,
as opposed to making a tomato salad or tomato side dish, I use canned
tomatoes. And I just love the canned tomatoes from California. They're
picked ripe, which you can--not the case with most of the fresh tomatoes you
see in the supermarket, which are picked green and then shipped that way. And
they just have that sweet, summer flavor. I buy the organic tomatoes and I
think they're just wonderful. And I use them in all of my pasta sauces and
any of my cooking where I want the tomatoes to be an ingredient. And they're
incredibly convenient. I buy the diced, canned tomatoes, which are simply
whole tomatoes packed in some juice. And they've got just fabulous flavor and
no preparation time.

GROSS: So how do you use them? Give us a good recipe.

Mr. BISHOP: I make my standard tomato sauce. It starts with the canned
tomatoes. And I will just warm some olive oil and some garlic in a sauce pan,
add--add the tomatoes, let it simmer just about 10 minutes. The longer you
cook the tomatoes, I find that the less flavor they have. You're really
trying to preserve that sort of fresh, sweet flavor. So you just cook it long
enough to thicken the sauce. You can finish with some basil. You can finish
with another herb. And it's the simplest tomato sauce. And I--it makes me
wonder why anyone would open a jar of tomato sauce, which has, you know, been
cooked forever and honestly has almost no tomato flavor, when you can make
your own tomato sauce in 10 minutes.

GROSS: Jack Bishop is my guest. He's a food writer who has a new book called
"Vegetables Every Day."

Portabella mushrooms have really caught on. And, I mean, in restaurants you
can even find portabella mushroom sandwiches on--on many men--menus. What do
you do with portabellas?

Mr. BISHOP: I love to do an open-faced sandwich with portabellas. It's
really, I guess what you would call a bruschetta, as opposed to a sandwich.
But I grill a big, nice, thick piece of country bread. You can do it in the
toaster, under the broiler. It doesn't matter. I then--the first layer, I
take some white beans and mash them up and saute them in a little oil and
garlic with some oregano, put that layer on. Then I put some wilted spinach,
just throw it in the pan, let it just soften up a little bit. And then I put
a grilled portabella mushroom on top. And the juices from the mushrooms soak
down through the spinach, into the beans. And it's, you know, one of these
things you have to eat with a knife and fork. There's no way you're going to
be able to use your hands because it's way too messy. But it's just
absolutely delicious with the contrasting textures and flavors.

GROSS: That sounds really good.

Mr. BISHOP: It is really good.

GROSS: What do you look for when you're buying portabella mushrooms?

Mr. BISHOP: Well, you just want to make sure that they smell right, which I
know sounds like an odd thing when you're buying a mushroom. But you really
want to smell the mushroom. It should smell clean, mildly earthy, no sour or
acrid odors at all. And certainly not, in terms of appearance, any softness.
If you see the underside where those black gills are and you see any
sliminess, it's definitely--means you should, you know, move on and look for
another mushroom.

GROSS: When you're cooking regular mushrooms--you know, when you're doing
whatever it is you're going to do with them, do you peel them first?

Mr. BISHOP: I never peel them. I can't be bothered. And I--I don't take the
damp paper towel either. I sometimes, if they're really dirty, just wash
them, which I know is a bit of a heresy. People say, `Oh, you can't ever wash
a mushroom. You need to use a brush and clean each one. But I find that as
long as you wash them and then immediately cook them, it's fine.

GROSS: You've survived.

Mr. BISHOP: I have survived. The mushrooms have not become horribly soggy.
It's true that if you wash mushrooms and let them sit around for a while,
they'll sort of almost disintegrate before your eyes and become this sort of
soft mass. But as long as you wash them and cook them immediately, it's fine.

GROSS: Do you have any really easy-to-make vegetable sauces that are truly
quick and easy?

Mr. BISHOP: Well, in terms of sauces, I think most vegetables will do better
with an oil-based vinaigrette than those heavy egg-based, cream-based sauces
of yesteryear. You know, hollandaise that was also popular when I was a kid.
And I think just really simple vinaigrettes--a little olive oil, an acid
ingredient--whether that's lemon juice, orange juice, vinegar--a fresh
herb--not a dried herb, a fresh herb--and you've got enough to sort of give a
flavor boost. And you can sort of take it from there and you can add a little
bit of shallot, you can add a little bit of garlic, you can go get more
complex and start adding spices to it. But at its base, that's where I would
start.

GROSS: Do you ever use salad dressings, like prepared salad dressing?

Mr. BISHOP: I never do.

GROSS: Well, you probably don't.

Mr. BISHOP: I ne--you know what? I lived in Italy and I often don't even
make salad dressing. What I do with my salad probably three nights out of
four is I get the bottle of vinegar out and just lightly drizzle it over the
salad bowl. I lightly drizzle the extra virgin olive oil over the salad. I
take a teeny, teeny pinch of coarse salt, kosher salt, a couple grindings of
black pepper, two forks and I toss it, and I've dressed my salad. Haven't
made salad dressing, but the salad's absolutely wonderful. And when you do
that method as opposed to combining the vinegar and oil in a separate bowl and
then drizzling that mixture over the salad, you actually taste the vinegar and
you taste the oil more clearly. So if you've got a really nice balsamic
vinegar, a really nice sherry vinegar, it's a great way to dress your salad.

GROSS: Jack Bishop is the author of the new cookbook "Vegetables Every Day."
He'll be back in the second half of the show.

I'm Terry Gross and this is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

Unidentified Group: (Singing) Brown potato, yeah. Hey, brown potato, yeah.

(Announcements)

GROSS: Coming up, more on preparing vegetables with Jack Bishop. Marie
Simmons, author of "The Good Egg," has some advice on fried eggs, omelets and
frittatas. And Ken Tucker reviews the new CD by the R&B group Public
Announcement.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross back with Jack Bishop, author of
the new book "Vegetables Every Day: A Guide to Buying, Storing and Preparing
Vegetables." Bishop also writes about food for The New York Times, Cooks
Illustrated and Natural Health magazine.

What do you like to do with collard greens?

Mr. BISHOP: I'm not a Southerner, I'm a Northerner, so I come from the school
of I'd rather not cook collards an hour which seems to be all the sort of
classic Southern recipes. But on the other hand, I don't want the collards to
be crunchy. I mean, collards are pretty tough and you want to cook them long
enough so that they're no longer tough.

One of my sort of adaptation of the Southerner-style recipe is to wash the
greens real well and leave them a little bit damp. Throw them in a big
casserole or Dutch oven with some salt and let them cook down maybe 15 or 20
minutes so that they're soft and tender but they haven't completely dissolved.
And then in another skillet, I'm just sauteing a little bit of onion. If you
want to add some bacon, you can add some bacon. Stir that into the greens,
finish it with some vinegar. I like to use red wine vinegar. I think the
greens really need to be offset with some acidity and a little black pepper.
And it's a really nice way to serve the collards.

GROSS: Bitter greens like radicchio and endive have become very popular in a
lot of restaurants now. You suggest that we think of those greens not only as
salad ingredients but as vegetables to cook. Would you recommend a recipe?

Mr. BISHOP: With endive, I love to braze it which means that I will cut it
in half lengthwise through that little core end. And then I will heat a
little butter or oil in a saute pan that's large enough to hold all the endive
in a single layer. Then I'll add the endive to the hot pan with the cut side
down and let it cook just till it's nicely browned. I'll flip it over, brown
the other side and then I'll add a liquid to the pan. You can use stock. You
can use juice. One of my favorite things to do is to use apple cider--maybe a
half a cup or two-thirds of a cup of apple cider, throw in a little fresh
thyme, cover the pan, reduce the heat and let it cook about 15 minutes just
until the endive is tender and it's absolutely delicious. And the reason why
I like the cider there is again that sweet and bitter works really well
together and it's a great side dish.

GROSS: How about radicchio?

Mr. BISHOP: Radicchio, what I do is I cut through the core end again. You
want the pieces, the wedges to stay intact. And I cut depending on the size
into six or eight wedges through the core end, lightly oil them and they're
wonderful on the grill. The outside kind of chars a little bit and you get a
little bit of that grill flavor which works real nicely with the bitterness of
the radicchio and just a little salt and pepper and that's all I do to the
radicchio and it's wonderful.

GROSS: Do you usually use radicchio and endive in your salads?

Mr. BISHOP: I use them in salads all the time. But as I say, I think it's
really nice to think of them as vegetables because they really are vegetables.

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

Mr. BISHOP: And in salads, you can only use small amounts. I think that
their favors are pretty potent and I always want to balance them with a tender
soft lettuce that's milder in flavor so that it's not so overpowering. But
when you cook them, whether your cooking the endive with some cider or you're
grilling the radicchio, you take a little bit of that sharpness off and you
really could eat the vegetable. You could have a whole held of radicchio or a
whole spear of endive and not feel like you've had this incredible bitter
flavor.

GROSS: In a lot of neighborhoods, we're lucky we get vegetables that are
from other regions or even from other countries. What are some of the things
you've been finding in markets near you that you didn't see in earlier decades
that you've enjoyed using?

Mr. BISHOP: Well, I think that's one of the most exciting things about
vegetable preparation is all of these once exotic things which have become
almost commonplace in supermarkets, all the Latin-root vegetables, the
uka(ph), the molonga(ph), the terro(ph), Asian ingredients, bok choy which is
almost a staple in my house. Bok choy is a leafy cabbage, green cabbage
that's used in Chinese cooking and it just has a wonderful flavor. I think
it's a little sweeter than most of the cabbages we're used to. And I just
love it.

GROSS: You have some nice things to say about plantains which are kind of
like bananas but they're not. Where do they come from, what do they taste

like?

Mr. BISHOP: Plantains look like a banana except that if you peer real
closely, you'll notice that instead of sort of being perfect cylindrical,
they've got ridges on them, usually three ridges. And they vary in color from
green all the way to black. And in fact, the black plantains in terms of the
stem color are the sweetest and the best, although none of them are really
sweet in the way you would consider a regular banana. They're starchy almost
like a potato, but they can have a floral fruity flavor that's subtle but
present. And the flesh, instead of that whitish, creamish color of a banana,
often has a tinge of orange and it's just absolutely beautiful.

And I think plantains are wonderful on the grill. They're wonderful in the
oven. I sometimes, instead of a baked potato, will take a plantain, one
that's either yellowish-black or black on the outside. I will prick it just
like I prick a potato, to let some steam escape, and put it in a hot oven,
425, for maybe 20 minutes until it's tender. And then I will slit the
plantain in half and then instead of the mashed potato, sort of sour cream and
butter route, I'll do something a little more tropical and I'll do lime
wedges, maybe a little bit of Tabasco sauce, a little salt. And it's a really
lovely change of pace from a baked potato.

GROSS: What should you look for when you're buying a plantain?

Mr. BISHOP: Well, it depends on how you want to cook the plantain. If you
want to fry the plantain or make plantain chips, you want a plantain that's
green and rock hard. If you're going to bake the plantain, if you're gonna
saute the plantain, if you're gonna grill it, you want that outside skin to be
yellowish-black or completely black which will indicate that the plantain is
not overly starchy and has a little bit of sweetness.

GROSS: How do you store vegetables in your refrigerator so that they don't
get soggy?

Mr. BISHOP: The problem that I think a lot of people have is they take those
bags from the supermarket and then they knot them or they seal them.

GROSS: The plastic bags.

Mr. BISHOP: Those plastic bags. And basically you're creating a little
greenhouse with--you know, they're spraying all of the vegetables with those
automatic sprayers which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but if you then put
that sort of damp vegetable in a sealed bag, you've created a greenhouse and
it's going to soften much, much more quickly.

The plastic bags are fine, just don't seal them. And you can even sort of
poke a couple of holes in them if you want to. If you notice when you get
home, if you've bought spinach or another leafy green and it's really wet, you
might want to take it out of that damp plastic bag and sometimes even water
will collect in the bottom of the bag and just put it in a dry bag. You can
even towel off a little extra moisture because that moisture is really what's
going to cause the vegetable to go downhill.

GROSS: You have children. You know, the old joke is, `I can't get my kids
to eat their vegetables. Do your kids like vegetables?

Mr. BISHOP: The vegetables they really like and the rest of the vegetables,
it's like I'm trying to feed them poison, so we stick with the broccoli, the
green beans, asparagus. Both of my kids seems like to like vegetables that
they can sort of pick up, and the asparagus particularly is an absolute
favorite. They just think I think as much as because of the shape as the
flavor that asparagus is the most fun thing to eat.

And, you know, occasionally, they'll see a vegetable that my wife and I are
eating and one of them will say, you know, they want to taste. They get a
taste sometimes they like, like it and they've discovered a new vegetable.
But, you know, you really can't push it. The important thing is you want your
kids to try to develop a couple of vegetables they'll reliably eat. And if
they want to have broccoli three nights a week, that's fine by me.

GROSS: Well, one thing I think I learned is I think I should go over to your
house for dinner. Hey, do you cook a lot? It sure sounds like you do.

Mr. BISHOP: I'm cooking all the time, probably half of the day I'm cooking
and then, of course, I'm cooking always dinner. Whether or not I'm sort of
developing recipes. I've got two kids, and my wife usually relies upon me to
do the cooking, so it's my job to sort of get the dinner on the table every
night. And it's, you know, one of the sort of real joys in my sort of daily
routine. I mean, I think, people always say to me, `Oh, the frozen vegetables
or the bagged vegetables, they're always so easy. At the end of the day, I
find nothing more relaxing than to turn on the radio and to get out a knife or
vegetable peeler and just start preparing some vegetables. It's a way to sort
of unwind, to sort of collect your thoughts. You're preparing the rest of the
meal and I sort of look forward with pleasure whether it's I'm peeling carrots
or I'm washing some spinach. It's a task that I derive a lot of pleasure from
as to look at it as a chore.

GROSS: A lot of what you've described to us in today's interview sound like
vegetable side dishes. But you often eat vegetarian meals. What's a good
vegetarian main dish that you can suggest for us?

Mr. BISHOP: Well, I think in terms of vegetarian main dishes, the easiest
way I think for most Americans to think about it is to team up with a starch.
And pasta is sort of an obvious alternative. So a lot of dishes that you
might think of as a vegetable side dish, wilted spinach that's got garlic and
ginger in it, can quickly become a sauce that's really just more than a--you
know, it's not a tomato sauce. It's sort of taking pasta to a whole new
level. If I've got some wilted spinach that I've cooked in a pan with some
ginger and garlic and I cook up some soba noodles or maybe some Chinese
noodles and it's a great, really simple vegetarian entree. And I think that's
sort of the easiest way to get into it. I mean, you can start talking about
beans, vegetable casseroles and things that are a little more elaborate, but
that's really a simple way to start.

GROSS: You talk about teaming up vegetables with a starch. What about with
protein?

Mr. BISHOP: You know, this protein issue I feel like--protein has gotten the
biggest boost in the last couple of years from various diets books. I eat
protein during the course of my day, but I don't think that you need to have
protein at every meal in every morsel that you're eating. Every plate does
not need to have protein on it, and you will be completely fine. And I'm
pretty sure most of the nutritionists out there agree with me. So that if you
want to have a vegetarian meal--I mean, first of all, there's protein in
pasta, not a whole lot but certainly enough. You know, you're going to have a
tuna salad, a turkey sandwich for lunch. You're going to get your protein in
other places and certainly to mix it up so that you do get proteins for beans
one night, if you're going to have vegetarian, the soy foods, the tofus, and
tempehs, but there's no reason to think, `Oh, my God, there's no protein on
the plate. I going to suddenly start my body to fall apart.'

It's, again, everything's sort in moderation. And as long as you just sort of
don't get into one single rut and work in as many foods as possible during the
course of a week, which is really the way to think about your diet, not meal
to meal or even day to day, but what you eat over the course of the week,
you'll be fine.

GROSS: Well, Jack Bishop, thank you very much for talking with us.

Mr. BISHOP: Thank you, Terry. It's been a pleasure.

GROSS: Jack Bishop is the author of the new cookbook "Vegetables Every Day."

Coming up, advice on how to improve your omelets and fried eggs from Marie
Simmons, author of "The Good Egg." This is FRESH AIR.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Interview: Marie Simmons discusses her new cookbook, "The Good
Egg," and some recipes within it
TERRY GROSS, host:

Many Americans who were afraid to eat eggs because of the cholesterol have
returned to them now that most nutritionists approve of eggs in moderation.
My guest Marie Simmons says that because of the egg phobia that gripped
America for the past couple of decades, she figures that one or two
generations grew up learning little or nothing about cooking, eating and
enjoying eggs. That's one of the reasons she wrote her cookbook, "The Good
Egg." Simmons is a winner of the James Beard Award and Julia Child Award.

Let's start off with something really basic, the omelet. What's your approach
to making a good omelet?

Ms. MARIE SIMMONS ("The Good Egg"): Well, I think one of the most important
thing is to have a really good pan which means a heavy pan. When it's well
seasoned or non-stick, it has low sloping sides so you can get in there with
your spatula and turn the omelet out. The actual cooking--I think the single
most important thing about omelet making is to use the very low temperature. I
know it's deceiving because recipes say, `Quickly do this and quickly to
that,' and you think, `Well, quickly must mean high heat.' But eggs really
shouldn't be subjected to high heat. They should be cooked very gently. And
an omelet should never be browned. It should just be just set.

GROSS: Do you usually cook the ingredients before folding them in?

Ms. SIMMONS: Yeah, they're cooked, they're sauted, they're heated, they're
warmed because they don't really have time to cook in the omelet. By the time
you put the ingredients that you want to fill the omelet in with it and you
start turning it, it's ready to, you know, be turned out of the pan.

GROSS: Now different cultures have their own versions of omelets. Like, in
Italy, there's fritatta. How do you prepare fritatta?

Ms. SIMMONS: Fritattas are really easy. And actually I grew up on fritatta
because my background's Italian and I probably knew more about fritatta before
I had even had heard of an omelet. But it's like an omelet in that an egg is
scrabbled, beaten slightly, but the ingredients go right into the eggs in the
very beginning. And you cook it like a pancake so it's one flat disc. And
like so many Italian dishes, it's very unfussy and you just turn it out and
cut in wedges and that's the way you eat it. So there's no--you know, you
don't have to be nervous about flipping it or turning it or doing anything.

GROSS: How does the top cook if you don't flip it? 'Cause like a pancake,
you would flip.

Ms. SIMMONS: Well, yeah, you do. Well, that's true. Actually I have three
ways to finish off a fritatta. One, you can turn it out which my grandmother
used to do very, very skillfully by putting a plate on top of the skillet,
turning it over and then sliding the uncooked top back into the hot skillet.
That requires a little coordination.

The lazy man's way, which is the way I opt to do it very often, is I turn on
the broiler and just pass the pan under the broiler so the top of the fritatta
sets under the broiler heat. And that's just with a little grated cheese or
something. And that's a great way to do it.

And the other thing you can do, if you don't have your broiler on and you
happen to have the oven on, you can just turn it up really high to about 500
degrees and then stick the fritatta in there just for a couple of minutes,
just for that top to set a little bit.

GROSS: You recommend with fried eggs that you keep the egg as in an omelet on
a moderate or a low heat. If you cook them on a low heat, how long do you
have to cook a sunny side egg for?

Ms. SIMMONS: Well, several minutes but it depends on the kind of pan you're
using and how the heat's conducted through that pan. And, of course, the
intensity of the heat of your burner, I say, you know, low to medium low,
it'll take maybe three, four, five minutes, maybe a little longer. But the
white should be set, and if you want to have the yolk just look a little more
done, just put the cover on for even just 30 seconds but as long as a minute
or two and you'll get it a little more done without making the bottom get too
brown and tough.

GROSS: When do you throw out an egg and decide that it's not fit for cooking?

Ms. SIMMONS: Well, I think it would have to be around my house for a pretty
long time. Eggs, if they're kept very cold, meaning in the refrigerator in
the carton, not on the door but in the carton in the coldest part of the
refrigerator, where it is, you know, under 40 degrees, will keep for a really,
really long time and they won't get bad.

The rule of thumb is that an egg kept refrigerated will be fresher after one
week than an egg kept at room temperature for one day. Room temperature eggs
really do deteriorate quickly. And one of the reasons is that, you know, the
shell is filled with tiny little holes. At one point I think I remembered
reading there could be as many as 17,000 pores in an eggshell. And these
pours will cause the egg to lose moisture and the white will thin. The
membrane around the yolk will become thin. So if you ever break an egg into a
bowl, let's say to scramble it, and the yolk immediately splits open, and you
know that it didn't catch on the shell or anything, that means that the egg is
fairly old. It doesn't mean the egg's going to be bad; it's not going to
taste as fresh.

What I try to do is I--when I know I'm having--if I'm just going to be having
soft cooked eggs or make special scrambled egg dish, I'll make sure to the get
the most tastiest, freshest eggs I can find. If I have an older egg in the
refrigerator, maybe a half a carton that was forgotten there, I just hadn't
been eating eggs lately, I will use those more easily in batters, in cake
batters and things like that. But eggs--they even say that you can keep eggs
for sure, you know, five weeks in the refrigerator and I can't imagine keeping
an egg around that long because I do so much cooking. But, perhaps, you know,
some people do who don't eat eggs that often.

GROSS: What about if you have an egg that has a dirty shell or it's cracked?
Do you eat it anyways?

Ms. SIMMONS: No. No, you really should not. You should not. Never, never
use an egg in anything that's been cracked. That's why people are always
checking their eggs in the supermarket before, you know, they open the carton
and they make sure none of them are cracked because that shell and that
membrane inside the egg really has--there's a reason and that's to protect the
egg inside the shell and to keep it free of exterior bacteria. And so it's
really important, you know, not to use those.

GROSS: What do you do when you crack open an egg and there's a blood spot in
it?

Ms. SIMMONS: Well, what I do is what my mother did. I take the tip of a
knife and I take it out and I discard it and I use the egg. That is nothing.
That is simply--although it looks a little strange, it's a rupture. It takes
24 to 26 hours for a hen to form and then finally lay an egg. And she rests
for about 20, 30 minutes and starts all over again. And sometimes things will
happen. I mean, this is nature. I mean, things will happen. There's a
double yolk or there'll be a little rupture or, you know, a blood vessel in
the canal where the egg is being formed. But it's really harmless.

GROSS: You've traveled around the world studying the eating and studying
different preparation styles. Do you have a favorite egg dish from another
country, another culture?

Ms. SIMMONS: Oh, yes. The one that comes to mind immediately is something
called a brick(ph), which I ate for the very, very first time when I was in
Morocco, although I think it's probably Tunisian in origin, and I do have a
recipe for it. And I do make it occasionally just for fun, and I have to
substitute because I don't have all the ingredients that are needed to make
it. But I use phyllo dough and I break the egg into the phyllo dough. What I
do is I take the phyllo dough and I put it in a little cup so that there's a
little indentation when I break the egg into that and I fold the dough over,
make this little sort of envelop package and then I fry it in olive oil.
Sometimes I put a little seasoning in there, a little spices.

I can buy some hersia(ph) which is very popular. It's a very hot seasoning
and maybe some cilantro leaves and I'll fry it. And then you just fry it
enough so that the pastry gets a little golden brown, just a few minutes on
each side. And when you eat it, what you have inside is an egg where the
white has been cooked but the yolk is still slightly runny. And when you bite
into it, it's wonderful. It's just explodes in your mouth, it kind of runs
down your chin but it's really, really wonderful. That's just one of many,
many dishes.

GROSS: Well, we want to thank you very much for talking with us.

Ms. SIMMONS: Thank you.

GROSS: Marie Simmons is the author of the cookbook "The Good Egg."

Coming up, Ken Tucker reviews the new CD by Public Announcement. This is
FRESH AIR.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Review: New CD by Public Announcement
TERRY GROSS, host:

Just as Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes a generation ago served as a launching
pad for a solo star Teddy Pendergrass, so did the R&B group Public
Announcement yield the solo career of the crooner R. Kelly. These days, Kelly
isn't coming up with too many hits, but Public Announcement, after some
personnel changes, is back making hits such as it's current "Mamacita." Rock
critic Ken Tucker thinks the group's new CD is the first to show its full
range.

(Soundbite of music)

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT: Mamacita, where ya at, been trying to reach ya? All
alone ya know I need ya. Got me fiending, can I meet ya? I need to see ya.
Hesitating, can't do that. Don't keep me waitin on the floor. It's getting
late and got me fiending, tryin to reach ya, mamacita.

Hey, there shorty, I've been feeling...

KEN TUCKER reporting:

The black music market is increasingly open to all sorts of styles commingling
on a single CD. Diverse artists such as Outkast, Macy Gray or Shaggy go
through everything from hop-hop to reggae to soul to pop over the course of an
album. Similarly, Public Announcement, a Chicago-based quartet, bases its
music in traditional R&B harmonizing but it experiments in a number of
different genres.

"Mamacita," for examples, earns its fashionable use of a Latin melodic hook
coursing beneath its supple melody. Compare that a more traditional ballad,
"Man Ain't Supposed To Cry," produced and sung by the group's sole remaining
founding member, Earl Robinson.

(Soundbite of music)

Backup Singers: Please say a man is supposed to cry. Why?

Mr. EARL ROBINSON: (Singing) Do you believe it, baby? They say...

Backup Singers: They say a man ain't supposed to cry. Why?

Mr. ROBINSON: (Singing) Reaching out with all my might 'cause I feel all the
pain that you're going through, baby. You need a man with sympathy. One like
me, don't mine crying when you're feeling blue lately. I've got your problems
when times are good and you're back when the bad, girl, you don't have to
worry. Let me work this out with you, don't have to boo-hoo 'cause I'm the
type of man that'll cry for you. Yes, I will.

Backup Singers: They say a man ain't supposed to cry. But through my eyes,
I'll cry your tears.

Mr. ROBINSON: (Singing) I'll cry your tears.

TUCKER: The way I read the credits on the current CD, the most valuable
addition Earl Robinson brought into Public Announcement since the departure of
R. Kelly, is Felony Davis, who writes complex vocal arrangements and manages
to nail hop-hop chattiness with the group's more traditional vocalizing on an
up-tempo tune like "Don't Hold Back."

(Soundbite of music)

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT: All the time watching you strutting good, walking by,
can I get hey or a hi. Baby, I want to know your name, second, your pain, and
third, your independence. And you're always doing your thing.

Backup Singer: Oh, rock on with your bad self, you the business with your
bad self.

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT: I want to let you know that if you are going to go, let
me know so we can, ah, take this thing to the next level. Yeah. Keep up with
me, the VIP, sexy baby. Take you out, show you what the hell I'm all about.

Backup Singer: Baby, don't hold back. Can a body move like that? I like the
way your body's stacked. Moving it front to back. Baby, don't hold back.

TUCKER: I also like the way Public Announcement plays around with the
vocabulary and the rhyme schemes of rapping. There's a song here called
"Rithickulous" that showcases just that kind of adroit whip.

(Soundbite of music)

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT: What the deal baby? Let the deck rise, is that all yo
body right? No support to keep you tight with them banging ass hips and
thighs, oh my, got the fellas on 10 especially, especially me, the way you
poking them thangs at me is getting the best of me. Don't stop now cause you
peep me checking you. I'm checkin to try to see what hotel to checkin to with
you. Got the tightest body seen bounce that thang. It's working me. I know
you doin it purposely. Come on.

Backup Singers: Let me holla, girl, how...

TUCKER: At their best, Public Announcement harks back to classic '70s R&B
acts like the Isley Brothers, the Spinners and Frankie Beverly and Maze while
gently, insistently pushing out into a new previously unexplored territory.
Their basic style of he-man harmonizing fades in and out of popularity. But
with its adult themes with romantic obsession, devotion and devastation, heady
stuff that strikes a listener at gut level, this material remains the stuff of
deeply committed pop music.

GROSS: Ken Tucker is critic at large for Entertainment Weekly.

(Credits)

GROSS: I'm Terry Gross.

(Soundbite of music)

Unidentified Singer: After so long and being with you, say I can't explain,
no, no, how much I need you. Say, you're always there...

(Credits)
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