PASSIONATE RATIONS

Don’t ask me where the hell he found it, but my spouse got the retro-looking cookbook for Christmas: “Leon, Ingredients and Recipes.”

Ever since, to my boundless delight, he’s been busy in the kitchen making things like sweet potato felafel, chili pumpkin and wild mushroom soup, Leon Gobi, and chicken-asparagus-lemon cassoulet. All simple, all fast, all delicious.

Turns out Leon is a restaurant on London’s Carnaby Street. It opened in 2004 with the goal of changing the face of fast food by focusing on bold flavor and simple, fresh, local, natural ingredients. Pretty radical, eh?

It was named the Best New Restaurant in Great Britain only six months after it opened by a judging panel that included the inimitable and intimidating Gordon Ramsay. Now the cookbook is influencing my travel plans.

If only the U.S. fast-food folks could get it right….