A CONVERSATION WITH ARIANA BUNDY – AUTHOR OF SWEET ALTERNATIVE:
Interview by
Tara Lee
Ariana Bundy has spent over a year and a half researching and writing her cookbook
,
Sweet Alternative, in order to offer dessert salvation to those individuals who have a sweet tooth, but also suffer from allergies to gluten, dairy or soy.
Ms. Bundy's professional career includes training at
Le Cordon Bleu Paris and
Ecole Le Notre, and work at
Schrager & Starck’s trendy
Mondrian Hotel in West Hollywood, as well as
Asia de Cuba in the
Morgan Hotel in New York City. She has also catered for health-minded celebrities such as
Madonna,
Nicole Kidman, and
Tom Hanks, and has showcased her culinary artistry at parties for
MTV, the
Oscars, and
Vanity Fair.
In her new book, Ariana has combined this impressive background and her zest for experimentation to produce over one hundred recipes that recreate such dessert favourites as oatmeal cookies, classic genoise cake, and baklava.
CityFood had the chance to chat with Ariana about the book in a telephone conversation from her home in London.
CityFood: Sweet Alternative is your first cookbook, but you have worked with very high profile people in the restaurant industry. How did you get your start?
Ariana Bundy: Well, in the beginning I didn’t have much of a food background, other than the fact that I loved food. I studied art but then I also went to business school because art wasn’t a way to make money and I didn’t want to be a starving artist. I went into business and I worked in international marketing. But food was what I was really interested in and my relatives were telling me, “You know, you love it so much. Why don’t you go to cooking school?� It had never dawned on me. I went to
Cordon Bleu in 1998 and I just fell in love with cooking, and that is how it started. I worked in a lot of different places and I was basically hoping to start my own business at some point, but I was so busy I never got around to doing that. Eventually, I decided to write a cookbook instead and I am working on my second one now.
CF: Why did you decide to write a gluten, soy, and dairy free cookbook? Why these three food allergies?
AB: I am dairy intolerant myself. I love ice cream, cream, and all of the dairy products. Cheese? I mean, I used to go on cheese tours! But I just can’t eat them anymore. I was feeling really uncomfortable and I finally got a test done and I found out, to my great disappointment, that I am dairy intolerant. I can have a bit of butter but I can’t have milk or cream or anything like that. And I did a bit of research and discovered that up to seventy percent of the world’s population is dairy intolerant in one way or another. And then I found out that my mother and brother were gluten intolerant. All of us realized that we can’t eat a lot of things. And I thought, “How am I going to have my ice cream fix? What am I going to do?� So I started experimenting and it became more and more like the real thing to focus on. My agent also really liked the idea and we took it from there.
CF: You say in the cookbook that being dairy-intolerant was, in a funny way, one of the best things that ever happened to you. Why? Did it raise your level of social consciousness?
AB: Yes, I think so. I was just kicking and screaming, saying, “Why did this have to happen to me?� I knew that it wasn't the worst thing that could happen to me in this world, but I just felt cheated. Why is it that someone else can eat a slice of cheesecake next to me and I can’t? I was really quite pissed off and upset. But once I started to calm down, I started meeting people who were passionate about the state of our food and were making things happen for the better. Also, globally, you learn what the milk industry is all about, what the wheat companies are doing and what is happening in the world. Why is it that people having so many intolerances and allergies these days? Everyone has some sort of digestive problem from a diet that is merely mainstream. And so, it did initiate a lot of thoughts and new ideas.
CF: Has your French pastry training helped you in creating this book?
AB: A lot of the techniques I use are basically French techniques, like the folding and the mixing. Some of the recipes I have are traditionally gluten and dairy free as well. The macaroons and the flourless chocolate cake are things that have always been dairy and gluten free.
CF: Has baking for people with restricted diets required a significant shift in the way that you approach dessert making?
AB: You realize how easy baking is when you stick to regular ingredients. It becomes almost scientific. For example, in the ice cream recipe that I have, I put gelatine in there to bulk it up. I use rice milk which has almost zero fat in it. I have to think of ways of putting fat back into the recipe to create the texture and the mouth feel. Like coconut whipped cream, how do you make that fluffy and airy? You put it in a canister. There are a certain ways of figuring out how to put gluten back into your baked goods. For example, Xanthan gum is a very sticky powder that mimics gluten. So we go through many trials and errors to try and create a believable duplicate. My kitchen was like a laboratory. I was going through cartons of eggs and rice milk and all of that. I would wake up in the middle of night thinking, “Oh my God. If I reduce this, maybe it will work this time.� You keep working at it, hoping it will come out right, and often it doesn’t. It doesn’t have the caramelization of milk solid, it doesn’t have the consistency of gluten, you don’t get any of the results that you are used to getting. You have to find a way to recreate them.
CF: Were there certain desserts that you love that you weren’t able to recreate?
AB: I didn’t attempt the éclair and I was confident I could have done it, but I just didn’t have enough time. And it really bothered me because I was sure that if it was filled with that dairy free pastry cream and had a lovely glaze on top, it would taste just like the real thing. I knew it and it is one of my favourite desserts. I wish I had done that. The cheesecake was very difficult. That really gave me nightmares and I just couldn’t recreate the texture of New York style cheesecake. It was just impossible but I really attempted it and came up with something that was "interesting". It had an interesting texture, but I just couldn’t do the cheesecake.
CF: These recipes are the product of significant research and testing. Is there still room for your readers to experiment with these recipes to make them their own?
AB: It depends on which altitude, which country, which kind of climate you live in. For example, I have made the cupcake recipe in England, and I have also made it in Dubai. If it is a bit dry, just add a bit more liquid to it. If you are a good baker, you just feel what the recipe needs. Some of my recipes don’t have that much sugar. If you like it a bit sweeter, you can always add a third more sugar to the mix without altering it too much. And you are free to experiment as well.
CF: You have grown up and studied in New York, London, San Francisco, Austria, Rome, Switzerland, and Paris. Has your multicultural background and your travels affected your approach to this book?
AB: Definitely. I love the way people eat desserts all over the world no matter whether they are -- Europe, the Americas, Asia or the Middle East. Everywhere I go, I eat dessert. I never miss out on it. For example, I really like the Japanese and the Persian influence on pastries. Their desserts are so fragrant and yummy. I love American baking as well. I think it is brilliant and I think it is the way to go. It is so easy and convenient.
CF: The Japanese use the ingredient
konnyaku, something that would be particularly good for those on restricted diets, yet we in the West are not even aware of it.
AB:. Japanese women have been eating
konnyaku for centuries. It cleanses your digestive system. Another healthy ingredient is the sweet tasting
yacon potato from Peru. These are new products that are going to come out on the market. I go to the natural food expos -- I just came back from one in California -- where they bring out the latest stuff that they have discovered. And from the
yacon potato they are deriving a sugar that even diabetics can consume. There are other ingredients that seem futuristic but are really ancient. We all know about the quinoa now, but the quinoa has been used by Africans for centuries.
CF: You don’t use dairy products but you use a lot of nut flours.
AB: I realized recently that this dessert book is probably low in cholesterol because I am not using any dairy and there is not much fat in my recipes. I thought about that and realized that we should have mentioned that the book is low in cholesterol as well. I have this cashew nut butter recipe. Amazing! In the raw food movement, they use it a lot. And it is so tasty and so good for you. It is very creamy and you can make ice cream out of it and spread it around on your cake.
CF: Your cookbook is highly informative in terms of its listing of top websites and addresses, of hidden ingredients, etc. Are there a lot of resources for people on restricted diets?
AB: Yes, there are a load of information sites and organizations like the Coeliac Organization that has meetings and e-zines and magazines that inform people. I think it is becoming more and more prevalent. In England, the supermarkets have a big aisle of gluten free products so people here are increasingly aware of what gluten does to your system. A few years ago, they didn’t even know what the word meant. I think it is easier now to find information if you need it.
CF: Are the ingredients that you suggest readily available?
AB: I think so. You really can start baking from this book with five ingredients: coconut milk, xanthan gum, gluten-free flour, coconut butter, trans-fat-free margarine or ghee. You can basically bake anything you want. And you find a lot of the ingredients at places like Capers and even some regular supermarkets carry a lot of these things. Ethnic markets are another source. And I provide a list of the best online sites that can send you the ingredients as well.
CF: Is it more expensive to bake this way?
AB: It isn’t. I haven’t found it to be more expensive at all. Coconut milk is really inexpensive and gluten-free flours don’t cost much either. I do promote good chocolate and that tends to be more expensive -- in particular, fair trade chocolate and organic chocolate -- but overall, I don’t see it as being more expensive.
CF: There is this belief that restricted diet cooking is an imperfect substitute for the real thing. Does your cookbook prove that you can have your cake and eat it too?
AB: I used to be such a food snob. I used to say, “What is this gluten, dairy free baking?� Until it actually happened to me. What really happens to your taste buds is that they start losing the memory of what you used to have. You are never going to get fluffy, perfect crunchy baguettes out of a gluten-free recipe, and the cakes are not exactly the same. They are a bit more crumbly. You use certain ingredients like xanthan gum, nut flours, coconut butter, and ghee, which is ninety eighty percent lactose free and two percent water. Ghee is clarified butter that gives you the buttery flavour without the lactose. If you are lactose intolerant, not dairy intolerant, you can actually eat that and it gives you the texture and the feel of regular baking. And I think if you use really good quality chocolate, you really can get very similar results. Like for example, the sundae, if you mix the chocolate sauce and the ice cream and top it off with the coconut whipped cream or the dulce de leche, you really can’t tell the difference. You are really getting that satisfaction even if you are not able to eat so many things.
CF: A lot of people have these allergies but are baking for family members or friends who are not on restricted diets. Would these other people still enjoy the desserts?
AB: I think there are lot of varied recipes in this book, and it is rare to find that one book. For example, the coconut and lemon grass sorbet, you really can serve that to anybody. Or the chocolate chip cookies even. I think people have eaten them and not known that they were dairy free and gluten free. Or the pumpkin flan. The dulce de leche is exactly the same as a typical dulce de leche.
CF: How much did presentation and the visual matter in recreating your favourite desserts?
AB: That was very important to me, and the publisher also understood that the book really had to look like a regular cookbook and not a cookbook that is restricted. If you look through it, the desserts look like the real thing and they taste pretty much like the real thing. In French baking also, presentation is really paramount.
CF: What is your next cookbook? Any plans to expand to appetizers and entrées?
AB: I am thinking about doing either a savoury alternative, pizzas and breads, and main dishes like béchamel sauces and all those different things that you don’t make on a regular basis. I am also working on a “fast food for everyday� but quite varied, with alternate ingredients for those with allergies, that extends all the way to global food as well. Fast healthy alternate everyday cooking.
CF: How does your cookbook focus on pleasure, on what people can eat, as opposed to restriction, on what people cannot eat?
AB: Initially I just wanted to beat my own dairy intolerance and enjoy what I liked to eat. But I saw how much pleasue my recipes gave to other people, my Mom and my friends, who can’t eat these things. I wanted to share that. And I get letters from people who seem to be so happy to have discovered this book.
