Are you afraid of your kitchen?...

Are you afraid of your kitchen? If you are, Lisa Heebner wants to know. At 33, she is the founder of Garlic & Sapphires--a business she runs not from her own home, but from yours. A kind of kitchen commando, Heebner will come to your house and throw out those useless appliances you never learned how to operate, take you shopping, and show you how to cook clean, low-calorie healthy food. The result? A “conscious kitchen” and plenty of thank-you notes from grateful spouses, she says. Times staff writer Leslie Wolf interviewed Heebner in her Del Mar home, and Barbara Martin photographed her.

When I was 14, I decided it was time for me to start eating better and taking better care of myself. I was a junk-food addict. I ate an average of 15 candy bars a day. I liked Jack in the Box tacos and frozen bananas and anything that was full of chocolate and grease.

So I quit eating junk food and red meat, but this was 1969 and there wasn’t a whole lot of information available on how to remain healthy and not eat those things. This was at a time when advertising was showing us all these wonderful new convenience foods, and here I was trying to look back the other way, at a way of eating and cooking that was more time-honored.

So I had to begin an ongoing research project. I did a lot of reading and a lot of experimentation and made a lot of mistakes. I tried all the health food fads, and I finally realized that the best way to eat is very simple. Eat a variety of foods and keep it low on fat, sodium and sugar.

For years I was the token vegetarian who people would always ask for advice. I would try to help them, but I just knew that as soon as they got home, they would walk into a kitchen full of Rice-a-Roni and convenience foods and they wouldn’t have a clue how to go about what I was talking about. So I came up with the idea of being able to show people how easy it is to actually eat with good health in mind. I became a food guide, a food coach.

In January I started a business where I go into people’s kitchens and create a structure that will support healthy eating. I’d say 90% of my clients have their kitchens organized exactly how their mothers did, and there’s no reason for it. I’ve always been very organized, and I think that a healthy kitchen also needs to be very efficient and streamlined. It needs to have all of the right equipment.

I don’t believe in having tons and tons of things, and people should know how to use the things they do have. I have pulled more dusty food processors out of boxes. I also provide a shopping list which keeps them on track and on time at the grocery store.

I’m not a nutritionist. I just show people how to put to work the nutritional advice of the experts. The facts are not at issue--people know what they should do to be healthy, but they are having trouble putting all that information to work. There are a lot of misconceptions. For instance, people think pasta’s fattening. Pasta is great food, you just have to use lighter sauces on it, and that doesn’t mean it has to taste terrible. Last night in my Italian cooking class, I made lasagna that is made with--now I know this sounds gross--tofu and soy cheese. I had some real skeptics in class, and they were shocked that it was so delicious and light-tasting. It’s heavenly.

I came up with the name Garlic & Sapphires because they are two of my favorite things, and they also happen to illustrate two aspects of my business. There are many stories about the health benefits of garlic, so that represents the health side of the business. Sapphires are beautiful things, and they represent the organization and presentation that I convey to my clients.

I don’t want them just to take the health food and slap it on a paper plate on the coffee table. Meals are a time when you should be with your loved ones, surround yourself with beautiful things--use nice plates and crystal at least once a week if you can. . . . I really believe that, if you’re not happy with the state of your health, then you should look at the state of your kitchen.