[Deathwatch] Sheila Lukins, author, 66

[Deathwatch Central]

August 31, 2009
Sheila Lukins, 66, Dies; Awakened Taste Buds
By JULIA MOSKIN

Sheila Lukins, who, as an owner of the Silver Palate food shop and an
author of four Silver Palate cookbooks, helped usher in the new
American cooking of the 1980s, died on Sunday at age 66, at home in
Manhattan.

The cause was brain cancer, diagnosed three months ago, said her
daughter Annabel Lukins Stelling.

The Silver Palate opened in 1977 on New York’s Upper West Side, when
few Americans had heard of raspberry vinegar or ratatouille.
“Entertaining” was still a wifely responsibility, and cooking as a
hobby was just becoming popular among educated women like Ms. Lukins.
She had graduated from New York University in 1970, moved to London
with her husband, Richard Lukins, from whom she was divorced, and took
classes at the Cordon Bleu cooking school.

On returning to New York, Ms. Lukins, by then the mother of two small
daughters, ran a catering business out of her apartment in the Dakota —
called, in the racy spirit of the time, the Other Woman Catering
Company.

“Back then, New York bachelors would throw dinner parties, but all they
really wanted to do was pick out the wine,” said Julee Rosso, a
marketing executive who became Ms. Lukins’s partner in the Silver
Palate.

Ms. Lukins experimented by serving Greek mezes, Moroccan chicken pies
and gazpacho at a time when only French-style standards like duck à
l’orange were considered elegant enough for entertaining.

The partners spotted a niche that had been created by the emergence of
working women, who were interested in good food but lacked the time to
produce it. “In my neighborhood, the supermarkets closed at 5, because
women were home during the day — and if they weren’t, their maids
were,” Ms. Rosso said.

>From a 156-square-foot shop and kitchen at Columbus Avenue and 73rd
Street, the women and their recipes — Mediterranean chicken salad,
curried butternut squash soup, spicy carrot cake — intrigued, and then
guided, the increasingly adventurous palates of New Yorkers.

In 1979, Patricia Wells, writing in The New York Times, called it a
“tiny food shop with big ideas,” referring to its handmade zucchini
pickles and blueberry preserves, made from local produce whenever
possible. Silver Palate products were the first foods sold at Saks
Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, reflecting an upswing of interest in cooking
by affluent residents. (Dean & DeLuca in SoHo and E.A.T. on the Upper
East Side, both of which opened within two years of the Silver Palate,
were exploring similar cuisine.)

The shop reached a national audience in 1982 with the publication of
“The Silver Palate Cookbook” (Workman), which has sold more than two
and a half million copies. Its recipes, like chicken Marbella (with
olives, prunes and capers) and blackberry mousse (garnished with trendy
kiwi fruit), became dinner-party classics for a generation of modern
cooks.

The book’s big, sophisticated flavors were produced from accessible
ingredients and modest cooking skills, not from French techniques or
canned cream soups. Editors admonished the authors for their exuberant
seasoning style. “No, girls, no,” a copy editor wrote on one recipe.
“No one puts 25 cloves of garlic in ratatouille!” The authors retested
the recipe and changed it, calling instead for two tablespoons of
minced garlic.

Ms. Lukins, who was an artist and collector of photography, drew the
illustrations for that book and ones she later wrote with Ms. Rosso and
alone, including, “The Silver Palate Good Times Cookbook,” “The New
Basics Cookbook” and “All Around the World Cookbook.” In all, her books
have sold more than seven million copies.

The Silver Palate was sold in 1988, and the store closed in 1993, but
the name continues on a line of specialty foods including sauces,
condiments and oatmeal, some of which are still made according to Ms.
Lukins’s recipes.

Since 1986, Ms. Lukins had been food editor of Parade magazine, writing
a monthly column.

Sheila Gail Block Lukins was born in Philadelphia in 1942 and spent her
childhood in Norwalk and Westport, Conn. Besides Ms. Stelling, of
Boulder, Colo., she is survived by another daughter, Molly Burke of New
York City; two grandchildren; a sister, Elaine Yanell of Westport,
Conn., and a brother, Harvey Block of Branchburg, N.J.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: September 2, 2009
An obituary on Monday about Sheila Lukins, a co-author of “The Silver
Palate Cookbook,” which helped introduce many Americans to simple,
highly flavored cooking, referred incorrectly to the book’s recipe for
ratatouille, which a book editor said had too much garlic in an earlier
version. The published recipe calls for two tablespoons of minced
garlic, not the 25 cloves that were in the earlier version.


Many thanks to Deathwatch Central for posting this obituary