Chef Akasha, the rage of Hollywood in preparing original dishes for celebrities, says: ‘I try to make my cooking exciting and tasty. . . . It should be delicious and not like medicine.’ : Meatless Magic

What do Michael Jackson, Rick Springfield, Richard Simmons, Dick Clark and Carrie Fisher have in common? They’ve all eaten from the kitchen of Akasha. But before you comb the streets of West Hollywood looking for this secret cafe where you hope to dine on the latest trend in California cuisine, forget it. Akasha isn’t a restaurant, she’s a person. And you don’t go to her. She comes to you. Akasha is a Hollywood gourmet vegetarian chef.

Hollywood has always been waistline conscious. But many of today’s stellar performers are throwing over the old style of binge and fast for a more sensible way of eating that becomes a way of life. However, since stardom is synonymous with enjoying the better things in life, Hollywood’s finest could never settle for a steady diet of heaping platters of steamed vegetables. So if Akasha hadn’t come along with her creative way of making light food taste marvelous, Hollywood would have created her. She was an idea whose time had come.

With Akasha, you not only eat sensibly, you can eat superbly. Imagine you’ve walked into Spago or Michael’s and found they had become vegetarian restaurants. Same exciting cuisine, same zinging flavors and colorful presentations, but with the conspicuous absence of meat, fish, fowl and eggs. Akasha’s cooking has achieved that level.

To be sure, eschewing meat and eggs with their high fat and calorie content helps measurably in keeping trim. But can the remaining food groups--vegetables, grains, dairy products, nuts and fruits--really be made exciting enough to eat as a steady diet? A piece of meat takes up a lot of space on the plate. What do you replace it with?

Try fresh vegetable pie with mashed potatoes and country gravy. Or how about roasted eggplant-red pepper lasagna. Another stick-to-your-ribs dish is Akasha’s fresh artichoke-mushroom-Fontina-mozzarella tart topped with Reggiano Parmesan cheese.

Akasha is a tall, striking woman set off by all white attire, including a turban as is the custom for a Sikh woman. An American, born in Miami, she adopted her faith six years ago. During the interview she steered the conversation away from my interest in who she cooked for toward her interest in what she cooked. However, Akasha confessed that she has cooked for some of the biggest names from the Golden Age of Hollywood. While she’s certainly in awe of these personalities, it is her cooking that is the center of her life.

Akasha became a vegetarian 10 years ago as an extension of a lifelong commitment to eating light, low-calorie food. But she experienced most vegetarian cooking as heavy, greasy or tasteless. There was nothing wrong with the raw materials. There was everything wrong with the preparation. She realized that it took a great chef, not necessarily a vegetarian chef, to make great vegetarian meals. So she set about the task of becoming a great vegetarian chef.

Since cooking had been Akasha’s hobby for 18 years, she began her experiment by making her old favorites meatless. When she exhausted those possibilities she turned to reading and travel. She devoured cookbooks and traveled through Italy, France and India, and a sense of her unique cuisine began to develop. Back home she took cooking classes at Montana Mercantile and from Pino Pasqualato of La Bruschetta, who then cooked at Valentino. And she delved into American regional cooking of the Deep South, Southwest and Midwest.

But the real breakthrough came when Akasha got to know some of the great chefs of California, notably Wolfgang Puck, whom she describes as “my inspiration.”

The result is a cuisine Akasha can truly call her own. She never uses anyone else’s recipes, preferring to develop her own from scratch. Her concept is quite simple: Create dishes made to order from the best possible ingredients--dishes that you will thoroughly enjoy and that will make you feel good after you eat.

Akasha learned from Puck to start with the freshest, youngest produce and herbs from small farms in Southern California (like Puck’s personal favorite Chino’s Ranch in North San Diego County). She cooks with little oil or salt, preferring to season with sauces of intensely flavored vegetable reductions punched up by the use of herbs and spices. She bakes with whole-grain and unbleached flours instead of all-purpose, maple syrup instead of granulated sugar, sour cream or yogurt instead of eggs, and about half the normal amount of butter. The results are lighter, less saccharine, but in some ways more satisfying renditions of familiar desserts.

“I use ingredients that taste good and are good for you--like garlic, ginger and onions. They help the digestion,” she said. Her food, which can be spicy, is not incendiary. Just reassuringly warm on the tongue and in the stomach.

“I know that when people get old their doctors tell them ‘cut this out, restrict that,’ and eating’s no fun anymore. I try to make my cooking exciting and tasty, yet something you can eat till the day you die,” she said.

And that’s why Akasha is all the rage in Hollywood these days. Her guests rave about her fresh spinach ravioli, her fresh artichoke pizza and her toothsome maple-pecan-butter cookies. People say they feel light and healthy on a diet of her meatless victuals.

She’s not out to convert anybody to vegetarianism. “Everybody should eat this way a few nights a week,” she said. “I believe vegetarian food is better for you. But if you’re going to eat it, it should be delicious and not like medicine. Maybe more people would eat better if it tasted good.”

A recent dinner party for a Hollywood legend began with marinated paper-thin slices of grilled eggplant wrapped around Italian goat cheese, warmed just enough for the caprini to be soft and flavorful.

Next came Akasha’s Oriental salad of shredded lettuce and Napa cabbage topped with shiitake and chanterelle mushrooms sauteed in soy sauce. The whole was lightly coated with her original honey-white miso (soy paste) dressing. The main course featured individual Maui onion tarts flavored with a wonderfully complex blend of herbs. The pastry of unbleached all-purpose flour was as flaky as Lenotre’s of Paris. The tart was squired by two splendid companions: poached asparagus and aromatic Indian basmati rice pilaf redolent of spices from the subcontinent.

Dessert, not overly sweet, was a succulent tangy Babcock peach, red raspberry tart with a dollop of homemade vanilla bean-flecked ice cream. The lightness of the first three courses made the dessert a well-earned treat after a satisfying meal.

Says Akasha: “Too often dessert is like a duty. You’re stuffed, but you’re at a great restaurant and you don’t want to miss fabulous desserts. So you eat one out of duty. You can’t digest it, and you feel terrible. In my cooking I concentrate on what tastes good but will digest. It’s not what you eat that counts. It’s what you digest. When you eat better, you actually enjoy life more. The people I cook for get more fun out of life because they feel better eating more sensibly. Good digestion means a good disposition. You act better because you feel better.”

What’s in the future for Akasha? More rock and roll cooking tours like her just completed two-week stint with Rick Springfield in Japan. She’s also teaching other cooks how to cook her way. And she’s putting people on tasty low-fat, low-salt spa-style cuisine diets that fool the tastebuds into thinking they’re not being deprived. Most recently, Akasha has added a Roman chef who cooks broccoli 14 ways and whose secret marjoram-basil pesto recipe and Italian marinara sauce may soon become the rage among her clientele.

It’s not hard to cook like Akasha. The recipes aren’t complicated, and the presentations are stylized but abstract. Akasha wants her food to look “artistic yet wild.” Here are a few easy-to-prepare dishes that keep the greats of Hollywood slim and happy. MAUI ONION TART

2 thinly sliced shallots

5 cups thinly sliced Maui onions

1 teaspoon fresh, minced thyme

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 (1-pound) can Italian unsalted plum tomatoes, well-drained

2 tablespoons fresh basil

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Pie Crust

3 tablespoons bread crumbs

1/4 cup grated Reggiano Parmesan cheese

1 sweet red pepper, cored, seeded and cut in strips

1 yellow pepper, cored, seeded and cut in strips

Canned black Nicoise olives

Saute shallots, onions and thyme in olive oil in heavy skillet. Cover and cook over low heat 30 minutes. Break up drained tomatoes and add to skillet with basil, salt and pepper. Cook 45 minutes longer or until onions are tender, clear and caramelized. Remove from heat and set aside.

Sprinkle bottom of Pie Crust with bread crumbs and spoon in onion mixture. Sprinkle with Parmesan. Bake at 425 degrees 25 minutes. Garnish with pepper strips and olives. Serve warm or at room temperature. Makes 6 servings. Pie Crust

1/2 cup unbleached flour

1/2 cup whole-wheat flour

1/3 cup unsalted butter

2 tablespoons ice water, about

Combine unbleached and whole-wheat flours in bowl. Cut butter into flour in thin slices. Rub butter into flour until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add ice water and mix lightly until just blended and smooth. Add additional water, if needed. Roll out crust and fit into 8-inch round or 9-inch square tart pan with false bottom. Refrigerate until ready to use. BLUE CORN MUFFINS

1 cup blue cornmeal

1 cup whole-wheat flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

Dash salt

1 cup buttermilk

1/4 cup corn oil

3 tablespoons maple syrup

Mix blue cornmeal, whole-wheat flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside. Combine buttermilk, oil and maple syrup. Mix cornmeal mixture with buttermilk mixture until just blended.

Pour mixture into 12-muffin tin or 8-inch square pan. Bake at 375 degrees 25 minutes. Makes 12 muffins. CREAM OF VEGETABLE SOUP

3 cups water

1 tablespoon onion powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon celery seeds

Freshly ground pepper

1 1/2 cups finely chopped leeks

1 1/2 cups finely chopped asparagus

2 cups chopped zucchini

2 1/2 cups finely chopped broccoli

1/4 cup white miso

Bring water to boil in large pot. Add onion powder, salt, celery seeds and season to taste with pepper. Add leeks and cook 5 minutes. Add asparagus and cook 1 minute. Add zucchini and cook 5 minutes. Add broccoli and cook 2 minutes.

Remove from heat and fold in white miso. Place mixture in blender, one cup at a time and blend until smooth and creamy. Stir in additional boiling water if soup seems too thick. Makes 6 to 8 servings. STUFFED ARTICHOKES

4 large artichokes

1 slice lemon

2 cups finely chopped leeks

1 1/2 tablespoons clarified butter

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon fresh oregano

2 tablespoons fresh basil

1 cup chopped sweet red pepper

1 cup chopped yellow pepper

1 1/2 cups finely diced celery

1 cup plain bread crumbs

1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Trim top quarter of each leaf of artichoke with scissor. Remove stem and tough lower leaves. Hold artichoke firmly on table and press down hard to spread leaves for stuffing.

Place artichokes in large covered pot in 2 to 3 inches water with lemon slice. Cover and simmer 45 to 50 minutes or until artichokes are tender. Set artichokes aside upside down to drain and cool.

Saute leeks in clarified butter and salt until tender. Add oregano, basil, red and yellow peppers and celery. Cook 5 minutes over medium heat, stirring frequently. Add bread crumbs and saute 1 minute more. Mix well and remove from heat. Fold in Parmesan cheese.

Remove fuzzy centers from artichokes with spoon. Spoon stuffing into middle of artichoke and between leaves.

Serve at room temperature, or serve warm by wrapping in foil and heating at 375 degrees 20 to 30 minutes or until hot through. Makes 4 servings. FRESH SPINACH TARTS

1 (12-ounce) package tofu

2 pounds fresh spinach

1 bunch green onions

1 tablespoon finely minced fresh dill

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/2 cup shredded part skim mozzarella cheese

Puree tofu in food processor or mash with fork in bowl. Wash spinach thoroughly and drain. Place in saucepan and cook over low heat only in water that clings to leaves until just wilted. Drain well and set aside.

Finely chop green onions and cook in small amount of water 2 to 3 minutes. Finely chop spinach and mix with tofu, dill, salt, pepper and drained green onions.

Place mixture in small tart pans or 8-inch pie pan and bake at 375 degrees 30 minutes. Before serving, sprinkle top with Parmesan and mozzarella cheeses. Makes 6 to 9 servings. CURRIED POTATO PATTIES

11 small white potatoes

1 1/2 tablespoons clarified butter

1 tablespoon very finely minced ginger root

1 teaspoon very finely minced onion

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon turmeric

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground coriander seeds

1 crushed red chile, optional

Freshly ground pepper

Raita

Peel potatoes, if desired. Cover with water and bring to boil. Cook until soft but not mushy. Drain and mash with fork or potato masher.

In heavy skillet, saute clarified butter with ginger until golden brown. Add onion and salt. Cook until onion is tender and clear. Add turmeric, coriander, chile and season to taste with pepper. Cook 2 minutes.

Fold onion mixture into potatoes. Make 20 balls of mixture and flatten into small patties. Place on buttered baking sheet. Bake at 375 to 400 degrees 15 minutes on each side. Serve hot, topping each patty with a dollop of Raita. Makes 10 servings. Raita

2 cups low-fat yogurt

1 cucumber, peeled and cut into small cubes

1/2 teaspoon cumin powder

2 tablespoons finely minced cilantro

Freshly ground pepper

Mix yogurt, cucumber, cumin, cilantro and season to taste with pepper. Let stand 1 to 2 hours before serving. Makes 1 cup.