Sailing Light

It’s sunset along the Mediterranean, and the heavenly white masts of Windstar Cruises’ Windsurf are sailing us away from the Spanish seaside port of Valencia, toward Costa del Sol’s Marbella. Jeanne Jones is raving about a fabulous paella she discovered at a waterfront cafe. Clearly, inspiration has struck. “I’m always in a learning mode,” she says. “Wherever I am, I’m looking for something I can develop for light menus.

“Normally paella has a clam base to it—but this one was different. So I’m thinking I’m going to do a vegetarian paella with a vegetable stock with all of the other classic things: peppers, peas, pimientos. Also, theirs was done with beans as well as peas. And you know, whenever you combine any legume with any grain, you have a complete protein. I could do a really healthy paella based on having had that one!”

The author of 32 cookbooks, Jones writes two weekly syndicated columns reaching 30 million readers and is a longtime San Diego Magazine contributor. To her, it’s all about eating well in order to live well—and longer.

Jones has lent her talent for creating healthy and edible foods as consultant to the likes of The Canyon Ranch, The Berkshires, The Phoenician and the Westgate Hotel’s Le Fontainebleau restaurant. Not only does she design and supervise the Sail Light menu for Windstar Cruises, she also comes aboard and offers cooking demonstrations.

In a packed house, one cruiser asks the undisputed pioneer of light cooking the question we were all pondering: “When everybody else was dousing meals in butter and sour cream, and trying to cook like Julia Child, how did you know that wasn’t the way to eat healthy? Even my doctor ate like that!”

As she adds finishing touches to a luscious cream-of-mushroom soup, Jones explains, “I was married to a doctor who died very, very young. He had a coronary at 40. Both of us were very thin, very athletic. After he died, I realized you can look healthy on the outside but have problems on the inside. The way you eat really does affect you.”

She was the first author to put a nutritional profile after her recipes. Now, of course, makers of food products are required by the FDA to include this information. “It amuses me that I’m called the pioneer in my field,” says Jones. “I just cared so desperately that people got the message.”

So what’s the cruising life like for Jones when she’s not in the Windstar kitchen? “I really love traveling,” she says. “The Windstar ships are very casual, but elegant. The days at sea are so relaxing. And it’s a fabulous way to see exotic ports like Tangier, Gibraltar and Lisbon.”

Jones’ passions for travel and food are, well, indivisible. Anchoring in Barcelona means an opportunity to visit one of her all-time favorite restaurants, Los Carenjoles. She comments, “I love the ambience—it’s truly an old Catalon restaurant, and it’s been here for 100 years.” A call at the port of Malaga means renting a car and driving to the jet-set town of Puerto Banus, where “all the restaurants are absolutely incredible.

“The whole goal on every cruise is for every single passenger to leave feeling good about the cruise and wanting to come back,” says Jones. And her talent for reinventing recipes for the health-conscious as well as the food connoisseur contributes to Windstar’s high passenger return rate.

But when it comes to food, it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that zing. My husband the food barometer rendered his verdict after a week of dining on Jones’ creative, low-fat cuisine: “This is way too good to be healthy.”

IF YOU GO:
Jeanne Jones will be sailing aboard Windstar’s Wind Song from Istanbul to Athens, and then Athens to Rome, starting October 14. Call 800-327-2601 or log on at www.WINDSTARCRUISES.com. Rates for a seven-day cruise start at $1,379, not including airfare.

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