Light, Local, Luxe

Elegant new spa food feeds our hunger to be healthy

"THERE'S NOTHING like being naked in front of strangers to make you more careful about what you eat," said my wife, Betsy. No strangers actually saw us in the buff, but we were between spa treatments and dinner at Salish Lodge & Spa, and I knew she was right. When you have been — or are about to be — exposed to the ministrations of a masseuse, it's easy to become hyperconscious of any extra pound of flesh.

"When my grandmother came here," she said, "she probably didn't have to worry about how she looked without her clothes on." Betsy's maternal grandmother accepted a proposal of marriage inside the lodge looking over Snoqualmie Falls in the early 1920s.

"Probably not," I speculated, but I wasn't sure. By the time Salish opened in 1916, Americans were well on their way to becoming the deeply conflicted, health-obsessed people we are today. That was the year W.K Kellogg, founder of the hospital and spa called the Battle Creek Sanitarium, introduced Kellogg's All-Bran. (Kellogg's Corn Flakes had already established his name as a household word.)

In Betsy's grandmother's day, "healthy" was on one end of the eating continuum and "luxurious" was on the other. Spa food was penance, or at least a respite from calorie-laden tables still under the heavy sway of Victorian standards. Ever since, notions of healthy and fine dining have dangled like baubles from the same mobile, never quite touching. But there are signs that our standards regarding health and luxury are no longer so separate.

"There is a trend in fine dining," says Salish executive chef Roy Breiman. Today it is "lighter, more fragrant, more vital, more connected to the food itself than it used to be."

He and his staff have their own philosophy about what constitutes spa food. Based more on the principles of the Slow Food movement than on nutritional analysis, the Salish philosophy is all about the quality of the product. "Healthy to us involves where the food comes from, how it was raised. What was in the animal's food? How was the soil quality where that tomato was grown?"

Salish food is luxurious, but this is not the luxury of foie gras, butter and cream; instead, it promotes a sense of privilege by drawing on the labor-intensive products that come from artisanal producers. Local products, sustainably raised, are punctuated with exotic items that lend elegance and mystery to the plate. Both baby beets from a local farm and imported truffles garnish the moullard duck appetizer.

Part of the satisfaction of eating Breiman's dishes is in the delight in little surprises that come along the way. Kobe beef short ribs are slow-braised to tender perfection and served on a mound of potatoes fragrant with truffle oil; the surprise comes in the form of huckleberries suspended in a tangy coulis. The "pasture-raised" chicken is served with caramelized Belgian endive, apples and white figs in a sauce spiked with Calvados, the apple brandy of Normandy.

"We try to take the diner on a little adventure, a journey into unexpected places."

As soon as I have had another treatment with hot rocks in the spa, I want to take that little journey again. I'll start with the Prosciutto and Pear Salad.

Greg Atkinson is a culinary consultant. He can be reached at greg@northwestessentials.com. Barry Wong is a Seattle-based freelance photographer. He can be reached at barrywongphoto@earthlink.net.