How to Cook Like a Spa Chef
Learn to Cook Spa-style Cuisine for Your Health & Your Family's
Spa resorts hire the world's top chefs to create exciting nutritious menus. Spa cooking course and cooking schools show the way, complete with recipes.
Spa resorts and destinations generally offer a wide selection of healthy cuisine. In addition, many destination spas offer cooking classes. This makes it easier for guests to follow a healthy lifestyle when they return home. Deborah Szekely, who, with her late husband, founded North America’s first fitness spa Rancho la Puerta in Tecate, Mexico 66 years ago, reports that the demand for cooking classes has been high for decades. Frequently, guests to the ranch have mentioned that they rarely feel fulfilled by their meals and feel inadequate as cooks.
Spa Cuisine
Spa resorts seek out chefs who specialize in healthy cuisine. In addition, many spas have their own gardens and farms to ensure fresh, organic produce. Spa chefs know how to balance whole grains, fresh produce and lean protein to create luscious meals that are low in calories, fat, sugar and sodium, and high in fiber and nutrients. The menus vary (from vegan to a smorgasbord of meat), but the principle is the same: satisfying food, rife with flavor, texture and nutrients. Spa chefs also emphasize variety. See resource section for a sampling of favorite spa recipes.
Many spa chefs specialize in ethnic fares. For instance, the cuisine of Rancho la Puerta tends to emphasize spices and southwestern foods. Belgian-born Michael Stroot, Executive Chef at California’s Golden Door finds inspiration using dishes Asia, North Africa, India, and Mexico. Chef Kim Madsen of Echo Valley Ranch & Spa in British Columbia, Canada, follows the blood type diet in creating hearty meals and barbecue. Madsen adapted her favorite recipes adapted from Peter D’Adamo’s Blood type Diet to Echo Valley’s menu. D’Adamo’s secret is to “substitute ingredients that are good for the different blood types.” Examples include using olive oil instead of canola oil or butter and spelt flour instead of wheat for pasta.
Cooking Classes
Many spa resorts offer cooking courses and classes where guests can learn to duplicate their favorite spa dishes. At the Miramonte Resort and Spa in southern California, individual or group cooking classes are taught by the resident chef, Darren McCabe. McCabe makes cooking Italian dishes fun and constructive for taking home and implementing into one’s daily life. Each participant is given a chef’s coat and works in a chef’s station where they prepare their meal under McCabe’s guidance.
A Spa Cooking School
At age 84, in 2007 Szekely realized a long-term dream by opening the spa world’s first free-standing spa cooking school, La Cocina Que Canta, meaning “The Kitchen That Sings.” The cooking school is located in the middle of the spa’s Tres Estrella organic farm. Recipes courtesy of Rancho la Puerto include orange saffron pine-nut bread and cucumber soup. Daily classes and special cooking workshops are led by the Ranch’s executive chef, Jesus Gonzalez, as well as visiting experts. Guests visit the Ranch’s organic garden so they learn the basics of culinary independence and holistic living.
The Aspen Cooking School
The success of Rancho La Puerta’s cooking school has started a trend. At the Aspen Cooking School in Colorado, celebrated spa chefs such as Bill Wavrin, formerly the Executive Chef at both the Miraval Resort and Rancho La Puerta, and his colleagues host special events in which they conduct cooking classes specializing in spa cuisine.
Resources:
- (Includes 10 Spa Recipes) Linda Lau Anusasananan, Spa chefs' secrets: Learn how the pros make light, tantalizing meals, available online at Sunset.
- Kyle Roderic, Deborah Szekely, Founder of the Fitness Spa Movement, Life Extension, July 2008, 81-86.
