Splendid outlook

The host of the "Splendid Table" radio show has definite expectations for the year to come

GOURMET CHEF Lynne Rosetto Kasper has talked with people about food every week for more than 11 years on her national radio show "The Splendid Table." Approximately 60,000 culinary enthusiasts subscribe to her newsletter about simple work-day cooking, and new devotees are joining her online discussion group daily at www.food.gather.com. She's also written two cookbooks. Her access to the general public -- those committed to cooking and those who just like to eat -- makes her unusally adept at spotting food trends. And she has some very definite ideas about 2007.

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER The host of American Public Media's "The Splendid Table" presents "A Food Lover's Guide to Italy's Dining Capital: Emilia-Romagna Revealed" When: 4 to 6 p.m. Jan. 14 Place: Halekulani resort Call: 931-5040 or visit www.halekulani.com See also: Kasper's plans for her Hawaii appearances.

She predicts that Southeast Asian food will be huge. The recent release of cookbooks focusing on the food and culture of the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia/Singapore/Malaysia leads Kasper to believe that the country will turn its attention to cuisine already familiar to many Hawaii residents.

"I think these books coming out together represent a trend," she said in a telephone interview from her home in Minnesota a couple of weeks before her scheduled visit to Hawaii.

Greek food will also spark even more interest. "It's so familiar to us; it's similar to the Italian, French and Middle Eastern cuisine, but there's something that's so different."

In short, anything with notable flavors and spices is here to stay, including Mexican food.

The coming year will also bring new devices and techniques into the kitchen to create novel ways of presenting food. "I'm utterly fascinated about what technology can bring to high-end food," said Kasper. "The kitchen is catching up with the things we carry in our pockets."

Induction stove tops, steam ovens and devices that transform food into foams and gels, for instance, are going to become more commonplace. "It's about deconstruction, about making you aware of possible texture and flavor combinations that never dawned on you before," she said. "It's about turning it inside out and seeing where we can go with it."

The final trend Kasper noted involves a holistic approach to health. This translates into a greater awareness of how our food is grown, how it gets to us and what it means in our lives.

"We're looking for anchors, a relatively understandable way of explaining the confusion that we live in, something that's connected to something greater than ourselves," she said. Looking for better nutrition and health? Honoring a religious or family tradition? Making a political statement? It's likely food will play a major role.

Kasper grew up outside New York City, and first started working with food in Brooklyn in 1968, when she became the gourmet consultant in the kitchen department of a department store. One of her earliest guests was Julia Child. They became close colleagues later on, but having this "goddess" in her kitchen was the moment Kasper realized the scope of what she was beginning.

"Every time I had two pennies, I got on a plane to France, and then eventually Italy," she said of those early years. Along the way, she also taught Chinese cooking, wrote about food and ran the largest cooking school in Colorado. Through it all, she learned by "making mistakes," she said.

"She knows a lot about food, and her (radio) show demonstrates that," said Hawaii food writer and Star-Bulletin contributor Joan Namkoong, who will be a guest on a "Splendid Table" show Kasper will record in Hawaii. "She can answer questions and talk about food in such a knowledgeable way. She's just a wealth of information."

Her Midwestern authenticity probably helps her succeed in delivering a successful food show on the radio, without the aid of visuals and savory finished products.

"You have to be able to put into words what it's all about, and describe how it tastes and feels in your mouth," Namkoong said. "If you listen to her show, you get amazingly hungry."

Kasper agreed. "We're having more fun now than we did at the beginning," she said. "We can't exhaust the subject; there's so much material and not enough time to explore it."

Unlike typical cooking shows, " 'The Splendid Table' explores how food contributes to our lives in every way imaginable," said Kasper. "It's about all the things that intrigue us, and how food plays a role in that."