Spicy Reading : You Look <i> Maaarvelous</i> ! James McNair and His Gorgeous Food

You know James McNair, even if you think you don’t. He’s the writer who’s claimed the lowly potato, the neglected squash, the trendy pizza and plain old rice as his own, dressing them up for starring roles in his distinctive single-subject cookbooks. “James McNair’s Cheese Cookbook,” “James McNair’s Pasta Cookbook,” “James McNair’s Corn Cookbook,” “James McNair’s Soups”--there are 21 in all, counting his latest, “James McNair’s Stews and Casseroles.”

He’s sold nearly as many cookbooks as the ubiquitous Martha Stewart. McNair, with close to two million cookbooks sold, concedes that his is an unlikely success story. Ten years ago, his dream gourmet food shop in San Francisco had failed, and several lean years ensued as magazines and publishers across the country rejected McNair’s ideas for articles and cookbooks. Then in 1985, Chronicle Books in San Francisco and McNair clicked: “Cold Pasta” was published and a series was born.

Since then, McNair, 50, has produced the glossy paperback books at a rate of three or four a year, with “James McNair’s Salads,” published this past summer, and “James McNair’s Fish Cookbook,” beating “Stews” by a mere month. The books are also published in hardcover, but mainly for libraries and a few select bookstores.

McNair, who spoke on the telephone recently from his San Francisco home, believes “Cold Pasta” was the beneficiary of good timing when it was published in the mid-’80s, the height of yuppie food mania. And, he points out, the book had a new look.

“People hadn’t seen a book like this--here’s the recipe and here’s the photo right across from it,” he says in a gentle, down-to-earth manner that belies the occasional fastidiousness of his food.

Of course the recipes, with their California and East-Meets-West inspirations, didn’t hurt either. Nor did the photography, which treated each impeccably chosen plate and the often exotic combination on it with as much reverence and attention as Horst lavishes on the European aristocracy.

The “beautiful plate” or food-as-fashion look, with its obvious nouvelle-cuisine influence, is a McNair trademark. It’s no accident. Each book is conceived with a particular look and theme in mind--”Corn” is contrasted against black-and-white dishes on black-and-white backgrounds; “Grill” sizzles on Tiffany china; “Pasta” was shot using neon lighting to highlight the brightly glazed plates.

Although in his first 18 books McNair developed the recipes, cooked the food and plated it, he did not take the photographs. Patricia Brabant did most of the photography. But beginning with “Salads,” McNair is now behind the camera as well. He hired Jim Hildreth to teach him how to use a 4x5 camera, and both Hildreth and McNair are credited for the photography on “Salads.” Since “Fish,” McNair the photographer has gone solo.

“I had set up the shots for a thousand photos in the rest of the series, and it just seemed that I would like to do the technical end also,” McNair explains. “At first I was a little hesitant, thinking I wouldn’t have the time or patience, but it’s freed me creatively. I don’t have to rent a studio. . . . I can shoot when I want to, when the ingredients are fresh. When I get an inspiration, the camera’s always there right next to the kitchen.”

Plunging ahead into new ventures without formal training is nothing new for McNair. He never went to cooking school, but rather grew up learning to cook Southern in his mother’s and grandmother’s Louisiana kitchens. Following, as he says, “in my Daddy’s footsteps,” McNair was ordained a Southern Baptist minister and spent a couple years in public relations for the Louisiana Baptist convention.

“I quickly learned that organized religion wasn’t right for me,” McNair says. “I always had sort of natural artistic talent and I wanted to do something with that.”

So he traveled to New York, where he managed a plant-and-flower boutique on Fifth Avenue and did table settings and flower displays for Tiffany and Bloomingdale’s. In 1974, McNair moved to California and began writing and editing gardening manuals and cookbooks for Ortho. Although millions of his Ortho books were sold, he was credited only on the title page and remained virtually anonymous.

Next was a catering business in the Bay Area with partner Lin Cotton; a few years later they purchased a corner grocery store in San Francisco and called it Twin Peaks Gourmet (a prescient name that didn’t rescue the store from its financial woes). The shop got great press but suffered from a bad location, McNair says, and it closed after a year and a half in 1981.

Although the store’s failure was heartbreaking, McNair acknowledged that he wouldn’t be selling millions of cookbooks today if it had succeeded.

He seems to have no fear of running out of ideas for his single-subject books, noting that his publishing calendar is filled in through 1995. Next year, books on puddings (“my favorite dessert”) and burgers are due; scheduled for 1993 is a large-format cookbook featuring a variety of recipes, some from previous books but many new ones as well, that will be organized by courses.

Just hitting stores is a line of 64 greeting cards called Gourmet Greetings, featuring splashy photos from McNair’s books and a recipe inside. He is also designing a series of tabletop dishes, of four different patterns, to be called McNair Ware.

And he’s been talking with producers about the possibility of doing either a television show or home video series that would present his tips on cooking and entertaining.

Is he is threatening to become the next Martha Stewart? He laughs at this suggestion and says he’s more comfortable with Lee Bailey as an analogy, thank you. (“Although I like Martha,” he’s quick to say. “I think she gets maligned.”)

McNair entertains frequently on the weekends at his Lake Tahoe retreat, but when he’s in San Francisco he tends to eat out, keeping his eyes open for new ideas and trends.

He says he doesn’t want his food to be “trendy,” although, he points out, “I like to be aware of what’s happening. I hope that the recipes will be classics. I also like to take classic recipes and update them a little bit--reintroduce something old and show it in a new way.”

He likes to entertain simply. “I like one-dish meals. I like things that can be done ahead of time.” People make mistakes, he says, when they “try to make it too fancy. They try too many courses, too many dishes; they try something they haven’t mastered before. (A dinner party is) not really the best time to experiment.”

And what of the home cook who may be intimidated by the painterly, perfectionist manner in which McNair presents his food?

“I try to keep the food real (in the photographs). It’s all edible. I don’t do a lot of tricks. The food actually can come out looking that way if you take a little effort.”

And if you’re really stuck?

“There’s a photo to copy,” he says simply. “That’s the best way I know how to show people.”