Food: When Women Man the Stockpots

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Many women chefs have discovered exquisitely simple solutions to problems that arise because of their lack of the male's physical strength. Culinary Institute graduate Woodhull's is possibly the most obvious. "It's more stupid to do something dangerous in the kitchen than to ask for help. And asking for help doesn't mean you're not a good cook," she points out. On the other hand, advises Lynn Sheehan, a student at San Francisco's California Culinary Academy, where nearly half the 400 students are women, "if you feel you need more upper-body strength, go work out." Elizabeth Terry, the chef-owner of Elizabeth on 37th in Savannah, advises the women in her kitchen: "If you can't handle the garbage can when it's full, empty it when it's half full."

If physical weakness has not prevented women from becoming bona fide chefs, what about their alleged lack of creativity? Judging by the menus of prominent women chefs around the U.S., pure tradition has gone the way of hand-rolled dough. For though most draw upon certain ethnic and regional influences, all feature the new American cooking, with its free association of international dishes and ingredients and its basically French cooking techniques. Whether such food is prepared by men or women, it is most successful when the surprise of novelty is tempered by a sense of familiarity, a feeling that though the dish is recognizably new, it evokes past flavor associations.

Few chefs have shown more culinary flair than Rosenzweig. Among her classic dishes: chimney-smoked lobster glossed with tarragon butter and buttressed against a crisp cake of threadlike Chinese noodles; roast quail with rhubarb bedded down on dandelion greens; and homespun corn cakes topped with caviar and creme fraiche. Similarly, Joyce Goldstein, chef-owner of the stylish Square One in San Francisco, creates an aura of flavor unity on a menu that may offer crusty Italian bread, Russian mushroom soup, pungent Korean steak and a very American spiced persimmon pudding.

Beginning with Alice Waters, the first female chef to gain national renown -- in 1971 after opening Chez Panisse in Berkeley, where she gives a light, decorative California interpretation to the dishes of Provence and Italy -- the best women chefs have stayed away from traditional mamma fare. Newcomer Caprial Pence combines Oriental condiments with European dishes and local products at Fullers in the Seattle Sheraton Hotel; Hong Kong-born Jackie Shen, chef-owner of Jackie's in Chicago, decks out fillet of fish sauteed with papaya, avocado and orchids.

In nearby Evanston, Ill., Leslee Reis at her enchanting Cafe Provencal underlines sauteed foie gras with mango puree and cushions roast pheasant on mushroom ravioli. The menu at Lydia Shire's Boston restaurant, Biba, which is due to open this month, will feature dishes as stylistically diverse as Thai green-curry lobster soup, salad of rock crab and sashimi, and lambs' tongues with fava beans and cilantro. Even in New Orleans, where locals still favor their own Creole-Cajun kitchen, Susan Spicer, of the Bistro at Maison de Ville, has won converts with her Provencal improvisations.