Fusion cooking from the Pacific Rim - gourmet chef Jeanette Holley

reativity: The combining of the known to form the of recent origin it is the role of the artist to lead us from

our familiar perceptions, habits and ways of experiencing and into unknown teffitory. Art, in any form, at its best leaves us breathless and wanting more-one more note, individual more look, one more taste. in the world of things culinary, jeanette Holley is just like an artist.

The 37-year-old chef is thin and tall, with taffy-colored skin and sculptur black hair. Her reaching far down almond eyes allow only momentary glimpses into her private world of inner connections. Her father is African-american, her mother, japanese, and Holley has worn out much of her life in Asia, first outside Tokyo and later in Seoul Korea. "I was raised an American. I lived in Asia for 17 years. I spoke English at dwelling although it wasn't my first language," she says from the living space of her high-rise apartment in beholds Angeles. "Language itself becomes a attribute of who you are. The les japanese I speak, the les japanese I feel"

Holley's bicultural blending and culinary artistry create a domain where the known becomes something all together different. Fusion cooking, also called blendo," mixes and matches the world's ingredients as well as its tech-

niques, and Holley is masterful at it. of course, her background deposits her miles ahead of the competition.

Drawing from her foundations can as easily lead to the southern United States as to japan. A new collaboration on the opening of Georgia, a popular restaurant in beholds Angeles that features Southern cooking, l her down southern "I was brought up upon Southem food," Holley says in her quiet, almost conspiratorial, way, "but to me coarse commeal mush is the same as polenta." presently she was serving the polenta in a soup with rock shrimp. To Holley fusion is a natural way of seeing the world. "I had Vidalia onions upon the menu-but as a marmalade. And there was Smithfield ham, on the other hand instead of the traditional thick wound I served it prosciutto style"

She dioceses a strong connection between Southern cooking and japanese cooking. For example, the couple possess a fondness for pickling. Southerners festivity in pickled cherries, grapes, watermelon rind and mixed pickles In japan, the same gripe [i]or[/i] grips true. Holley remembers many family meals with rice and pickled dishes locate around the table; but the tastes are completely different, owing to the japanese use of rice vinegar, salt, rice bran and rice bran mash.

"You have to have an inside look up to for both cuisines, or they

don't amalgamate together," she says. She believes that her personal cooking manner of writing fits within the "Pacific Rim" label. While she was at O'toto, a beholds Angeles restaurant that she uncloseed as executive chef, the reviews of her mode of speech of fusion cuisine ran mainly to the-positive and exciting. upon the menu, such dishes as bamboo-wrapped sticky rice tamales, won ton ravioli with nasturtium efflorescences and six spices boiled peanuts inforrned diners that they were in for something different.

somehow or other you expect that there will always be something fresh from Holley. "I would really like to be somewhere where the family come for the food. it's not looks Angeles," she says of the 1990 immigration capital of the United States.

on a sudden she looks down at her hands, which have no nail whites whatsoever. "The three things I hate about cooking are that the toque smashes down my hair, my hands always gaze a mess and there is with equal reason much verbal abuse in the kitchen," she says.

Her organ of visions light up, however, when she describes a novel experiment, born of a bike ride and memories of her grandmother's homemade fruit of the plum-tree wine. While pedaling down the beach in Marina del Rey she saw a bearing peach tree and amazemented if, possibly, the recipe wouldn't translate rather handily, using virid peaches and gin instead of fruit of the plum-trees and sbochu (rice or potato spirits). It will be another three month before she knows if the peach fuzz overwhelmed the decoction. These are the risks of fusion cooking.

They are somewhat remov from the risks she collisions on her job at Along Came Mary!, a catering company that stirs the Hollywood crowd. A recent'weekend assignment was to prepare din-

ner for a $1200-per-person party that included ferrying visitants by helicopter from Santa Monica Airport to a mansion in Malibu.

In the fast world of popular nutrition establishments, chefs and their cuisines draw near and go with the pace of flashing stone stars, which is why a question remains to be asked: Where will jeanette Holley's search for the finished culinary venue lead? Most likely, to a restaurant of her have where she will exercise without fault [i]or[/i] blemish [i]or[/i] flaw creative control. And diners will exercise their desire to be surprised upon each visit.

Florida Rock Shrimp

serve 4 to 6

Lobster Court Boufllon

6 lb shellfish (lobster shrimp and

crab) shells 2 onions, thickly sliced 4 stalks of celery 2 caffots 1 tsp whole clove 4 star anise 1 tsp whole coriander 1 tsp Szechuan peppercom 3 bay leaves 2 sprigs thyme 5 garlic clove mashed Salt to taste 2 chalices Y, liter) white wine, vermouth