Lean or Lavish: Two Tempting Versions of Each Dish

Pacht, a freelance food writer, has devised a cookbook guaranteed to keep peace on the home front for Jack Sprat and his wife. Every recipe appears twice: once in a flavorful yet nutritionally prudent form to be enjoyed with nary a shiver of guilt, and again in a version that aims for pure, luxurious enjoyment. Consider the cold steamed chicken breasts with herbal sauce. In the ``lavish'' version (weighing in at 587 calories and 48wow!maybe hi, but it's right. sg grams of fat per serving) the sauce is mayonnaise based; the ``lean'' version (at 317 calories and 11 grams of fat) relies on cooking broth, rice vinegar and olive oil. Likewise there's fresh artichoke soup that can be prepared with either whipping cream and creme fraiche or nonfat milk and nonfat yogurt, and a side dish of carrots with tarragon and ginger, whose lean version suggests substituting fruit juices for sugar. And so Pacht proceeds, offering pairs of appetizers, soups, salads, main courses, side dishes and even desserts. It seems just the ticket for people who like to behave--but not all the time. Haas is a dietician; Rubin is wine critic of Bon Appetit. Illustrations not seen by PW. (May)