THE GRAND AMERICA HOTEL

Chelsea Clinton is the inspiration for one of my signature dishes: Red Curried Sweet Potato Soup. When I served the Clinton family at the White House, I created the soup for Chelsea when she became a vegetarian. I took her love for the humble sweet potato and combined it with some distinct Southeast Asian flavors. The result is a divinely aromatic soup that seems to satisfy just about every guest I serve it to. Curiously enough, the Red Curried Sweet Potato Soup does seem to bring about a recurring question of what the difference is between sweet potatoes and yams.

While the orange-fleshed sweet potatoes are often called "yams", they are in fact simply a variety of what we know as sweet potatoes and are actually a member of the morning glory family. Sweet potato flesh can range in colors from white, to yellow, to a rich reddish orange. The confusion of the yam-sweet potato mystery started when the producers of sweet potatoes wanted to differentiate between the white and orange coloring of the sweet potatoes. During this era, the orange sweet potatoes were being called "yams" after the African word nyami. They carried a strong resemblance to the true yams grown in Africa. Although true "yams" can be found in some latin markets, they are rarely seen in the US marketplace today. The size of a true yam can be as small as a few inches and as long as 7 feet.

Executive Chef Eric Finney and his Sous Chef Patrick of the Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City helped me to produce a cooking demo and a beautiful intimate lunch for several guests attending a partner retreat for the international law firm, McDermott Will & Emery. We served the Red Curried Sweet Potato Soup with Grilled Shrimp for lunch. It turned out to be a beautiful way to spend the afternoon in a beautiful setting. This time of year the Grand America Hotel is quietly framed within the Salt Lake City Valley by the snow-capped Wasatch Mountain Range. Built prior to the 2002 Winter Olympic games, the stately Grand America Hotel evokes a time period when wealthy socialites traveled far and abroad to romantic and exotic destinations. The hotel truly exhibits the utmost in quality of workmanship and style, complete with Italian marble baths, French cherrywood furnishings, English wool carpets and Murano chandeliers. You can find more information on this grand dame hotel at the Grand America.

Photography by Kiyomi