|
Red Mountain, the adventure spaA Place to Pleasure your PalateBy Madelyn Miller
But Red Mountain, the adventure spa is also one of the best places in the world to pleasure your palate without expanding your waistline. The food completely debunks any myths of rabbit food and starvation size portions. Here you choose from multiple scrumptious offerings and enjoy white tablecloth service. In fact, the food is so good it is hard to believe that it is low calorie. But chef Jim Gallivan, who recently joined the spa, is creating a culinary revolution at this Utah adventure spa. Each morning starts with a breakfast buffet. Yummy offerings include vanilla dipped French toast with syrup, soy pancakes, fruit compote, three grain medleys and other warm dishes. But you can also choose hard-boiled eggs, yogurt, bagels, and muffins and banana bread made with canola oil to cut fats and fructose to cut sugars. They taste scrumptious. If you want to count calories, or fats or sugar grams, everything is carefully and completely labeled. Here is a typical weeks breakfast menu:Every day Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday LUNCHLunch has an elaborate salad bar, with slightly varying ingredients each day. Sometimes spinach leaves, or romaine, or mixed greens are the basis for the salad. Then you add feta cheese (25 calories per tablespoon), artichoke hearts, black olives, peppers, garbanzos, hardboiled eggs, onions, Tofu (only 12 calories per cube), cucumbers, carrots and more. What makes these salads so special is not just the garden fresh ingredients. The secret ingredient is the skinny salad dressings. Chef Jim creates a fresh herb, a honey Dijon, and a Green Goddess dressing using cornstarch to replace some of the oil. His dressings are given body with cornstarch thickened veggie stock. It can replace is to 90% of the standard amount of oil and still emulsify The result has all the flavor and the creamy mouth feel we expect from salad dressings. Everyone asks for the salad dressing recipes. And Chef Jim is happy to hand it out to people who can’t wait for the cookbook coming out in 2003. In fact, many of the recipes are posted in magazine racks just outside the buffet room. There is also a choice of soups every day at lunch. My favorites were the roasted eggplant and the tomato basil. There were also wonderful mushroom soups, fruit soups such as mango and orange and some hearty vegetable soups. The creamy soups were all full of healthy vegetables and fibers and thickened with fruit and veggie purees. I learned this trick in one of the cooking classes that Chef Jim offers each day at noon. If you join the cooking class, you can enjoy a soup and salad while you watch his magic preparing recipes. If you weren’t one of the dozen or so smart enough to sign up for the cooking class, you will still enjoy all the entrees on the hot buffet. But do try to attend at least one cooking class. The dishes vary daily and attendees always get to taste and sample everything, and are given the recipes to recreate at home. DINING IN STYLEEvery night at Red Mountain, the adventure spa, you feel like you are in a fine restaurant. A three-course menu is presented with at least four choices of vegetable course, main entrees and dessert. After you order, you go to the Soup and Salad bar to choose your starter course. There are usually two vegetarian offerings (vegetable stir-fry with Moroccan BBQ sauce is one of the most popular choices (249 calories and one fat gram). But there are also hearty choices like Braised Beef with Potato Gnocchi (807 calories and 30 grams of fat) and there is usually a fish like grilled Redfish with sweet potato hash and Banana Rum Sauce (332 calories and 9 fat grams). The culinary team regularly creates and serves over 500 enticing dishes known as “Adventure Cuisine.” Each of the offerings is marked with a special Red Mountain, the adventure spa, code . A mushroom means it is green cuisine, containing only foods of the plant kingdom. A howling coyote symbolizes the Call of the Wild and identifies dishes containing game meats, indigenous plants, or Red Mountain’s organically grown herbs. A petroglyph of a man signifies Power Fuel—calorically denser foods for athletes needing extra energy. SATISFYING THE SUGAR MONSTERI confess I am a sweetaholic. But I did not feel denied at all at Red Mountain, the adventure spa.. At lunch there is a choice of fresh fruits and dinner always has four dessert choices including yummy things like Pumpkin Cheesecake with Caramelized Apples and a Maple Carmel Sauce (204 calories and 11 fat grams, Each night there is a different fruit sorbet. Coconut is the universal favorite, but peach is a close second runner-up. It has to be the best 75 calories you have ever tasted. The last time I was at Red Mountain, the adventure spa, Chef Jim had just created a new signature Dessert, Cactus Cream. Served in a martini glass, this yummy creation is a low fat yogurt based Bavarian cream, flavored and sauced with the fruit of the prickly pear cactus and garnished with edible Marigold confetti and flowering Lavender from their own desert garden. THE SILENT DINNEROnce a week, Psychologist David Tate hosts a Silent Dinner to help participants be more mindful of their eating habits. The workshop titled, “The Inner Game of Food,” challenges participants to recognize and change their relationships with food. You learn to appreciate the smell, taste and mouthfeel of your meal, and to savor these sensations. There is silence so you focus on your food, and the first time you do this, it is really difficult. But the meal is not totally silent. Dr. Tate gets dinners involved in discussing their feelings about this experience. There is no extra charge for this, but you must sign up in advance. WHAT TO DO BETWEEN MEALSI just realize I have written about 1300 words (as many calories as I should probably eat in a day) and not even mentioned what many people think is the most unique part of Red Mountain, the adventure spa—the hikes. Each morning there are four different levels of hikers going to various scenic and challenging sites. Each group has two leaders so you can go at your own pace, or slow down to your own pace, and still be with guides in the wilderness. In the summer, the hikes start as early as 6 am to avoid the heat. Most participants have a light breakfast before, and then come back for more breakfast afterwards. There are also great classes all day long. My favorites were the cardio salsa, the water aerobic classes and the yoga on the ball. MY RATING FOR RED MOUNTAIN SPA
But life is about choices, and Red Mountain, the adventure spa works hard to help you learn to make healthy ones. How does it compare to other spas? All I can say is it is the only place I have gone back to twice in one year. And I hope to keep returning. RED MOUNTAIN RECIPESChef Jim is happy to share his recipes. He likes to use local produce and indigenous ingredients to create special dishes that reflect the philosophy and setting of the spa.
Serves 6 6 pears, Bosc preferred, as symmetrical as possible,
peeled Trim bottom of pears so they stand flat. After 25 minutes, test with a toothpick for tenderness. When tender, cool in the poaching liquid. When cool, slice of f the top ½” and cut an “x” incision in the top. Arrange flowers in the “x.” HONEY AND SAGE BAKED PEACHES WITH HONEY, PISTACHIOS, AND BLUE CHEESE SERVES 6 2 T CANOLA OIL Heat the canola oil and sage and sautee peaches to
warm through. WHAT TO BRING
RED MOUNTAIN, the adventure spa |
|
TM
Most people go to a spa to relax and unwind. To be
massaged and pampered. Or to tone up and firm up. Others want to learn new
skills and exercise routines. And I met many fellow spa-goers at Red
Mountain Spa with these goals.
The only problem with Red Mountain, the adventure spa
is there are too many choices of interesting things to do and too much
delicious food (the only criticism of the spa I have ever heard). At times
it is almost stressful to pick between all the great offerings. No matter
when you are leaving, you wish you could stay longer.
POACHED PEAR WITH EDIBLE FLOWERS