Renowned French chef Jacques Pepin recalls celebrating a birthday years ago with his daughter Claudine, who had turned 6 or 7.

As a treat, father and daughter had a date for a night on the town, just the two of them. Pepin planned a special outing including a lavish dinner followed by an evening at the theater.

"Where do you want to eat?" Pepin asked, offering up such irresistible options as Lutece and New York City's other fabulous French restaurants.

"Can we go to Wendy's?" the child asked.

So Pepin took Claudine to Wendy's and then to the theater. "For her, that was a treat," Pepin says, smiling.

Just because you're an accomplished chef, author of innumerable cookbooks and a highly respected TV cooking personality doesn't mean you have to be a food snob. That's not Pepin's way.

This chef, who has cooked for French presidents and other heads of state, as well as the creme de la creme of the culinary world, is first and foremost a realist.

Pepin always is looking for the best way to educate an audience about food at their level of interest and comfort. It's one reason for the success of the TV series, "Jacques Pepin's Kitchen: Cooking With Claudine," which is being followed up this fall by "Encore With Claudine."

The other reason is Claudine.

"I wanted to do a series where I could play against someone and use that person as a vehicle to teach," says Pepin, a veteran TV cooking star. He found the perfect candidate under his own roof.

"Claudine has brought another level of viewers to the show, young adults her own age who relate to her," Pepin says. "Claudine is the vox populi (the voice of the people)," he says.

"She asks the questions people wish they could ask themselves."

Pepin then shows Claudine how to master each situation. As Pepin's assistant, Claudine makes her limited cooking skills apparent. According to Pepin, audiences say: "Your father is a known chef, and you're playing the klutz. I'm sure you know more than that."

"She doesn't," Pepin says honestly. "I think she knows how to eat because she's been exposed to a lot of good food. But the practice of cooking itself -- when you were a teen-ager, would you want to do what your father is doing?

"What I did in cooking, it was part of life. That's the whole point. It was not very special or unusual," he says.

UNREHEARSED COOKING

The "Cooking With Claudine" series, produced by KQED/San Francisco, has a notable spontaneity because nothing is faked or rehearsed, Pepin says.

"We are not actors. The producers don't know what we are going to say. We don't know ourselves. We know we're going to talk about tomato petal flowers and fish. But we don't know exactly what we're going to say. It's kind of scary for the producers. They are much less in control."

However, the content of each show is well-blocked out before the performance. Pepin creates the recipes far in advance and Claudine comes to the set having reviewed them.

"In this series, she grew up a fair amount," Pepin says. "Last time there was a restriction that she should not look at the camera. Just look at me. They wanted me to keep rapport with the camera. Now they realize she's actually comfortable. They tell her she can do what she wants."

The show works on several levels, Pepin says, in addition to being a teaching program for the audience.

Pepin takes personal pleasure in working with his daughter and teaching her some of the skills that made him famous. He sees that the show is more than about cooking, but touches on family values, structure and lifestyle. The audience is manifestly aware of the love and respect father and daughter share and the easy relationship that comes from a close-knit family.

Pepin considers that the first barrier to overcome in cooking is probably the fear of cooking.

"There is that hurdle to go through. For young people, they go into the kitchen and see all the stuff on the table, and they think it's some type of incredible mystery," Pepin says.

NO-FUSS FOOD

In both the TV series and the companion cookbook, he makes the food look as simple and natural as possible.

"Show someone that you can take a chicken, put a bit of salt and pepper on top, put it in the oven, turn it once, baste it. Serve it at the table with a nice vinaigrette, with a little bit of the fat from the chicken. Use the basting to make a natural sauce to serve with that. People who don't know how to cook will be amazed to see how easy it is. The biggest mistake is to fuss around with the food," he says.

"Equipment is very important," Pepin says. "People cook with a handicap. They have a lousy piece of equipment or a knife that can't cut. They don't have a bowl. It makes it so difficult, you know? So you should invest in good equipment.

"The biggest problem in cooking is timing," Pepin says. "And it's a `Catch-22' situation. When people ask you about timing, it's because they don't really understand. By the time they understand the timing, then they don't ask you."

The trick is to think through the entire cooking process and start the time-consuming parts first, such as boiling water to cook pasta or preheating the oven.

For example, Pepin points out that when people who don't understand timing make pasta, they make the sauce then bring water to boil, then cook the pasta. The experienced cook puts the pot of water for the pasta on the stove first, then goes about making the sauce while the water is heating.

THE FUTURE OF COOKING

Pepin knows there is a large audience of unskilled cooks today, but he is not discouraged. He says he sees many positive signs that cooking is not dying out.

When he immigrated to the United States years ago, vegetables meant celery, romaine and iceberg lettuce, Pepin recalls. Today, a supermarket might have 15 types of greens, leeks, Oriental vegetables, and a wide variety of vinegars, oils and mustards.

"If no one is cooking, a dump truck would be coming to throw it all away," Pepin says. "Who's buying all of this? Someone must be cooking."

He points to the sophistication of American diners and their exposure to food through cookbooks, dining out and international vacations. He talks about people installing wine cellars in their homes and embracing new architecture that makes the kitchen the center of the house.

And for aspiring cooks, TV shows like "Encore With Claudine" encourage home cooking and demystify techniques for their faithful followers.

PETITS FILETS MIGNONS OF PORK IN PORT WINE

1 large pork fillet, trimmed of all surrounding fat (about 1 pound 6 ounces)

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1 tablespoon virgin olive oil

1/3 cup port wine

½ cup chicken stock

1 ½ tablespoons ketchup

1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Cut trimmed fillet crosswise, from one end to the other, into 8 small pork steaks or petits filets mignons, each about 1 ¼-inch thick.

Sprinkle steaks with salt and pepper while heating butter and oil in a large saucepan. When hot, arrange steaks in one layer in the pan, and cook over high heat for 2 ½ minutes on each side. Transfer steaks from saucepan to a gratin dish, and place in the oven to keep warm.

Add port wine to the drippings in the saucepan, bring to a boil and cook over high heat for about 1 minute. Add chicken stock and ketchup, and cook on high heat for another 2 to 3 minutes. It should not be too thick. Add thyme and mix well. Place 2 small pork steaks on each plate, and spoon some sauce around them. Serve immediately. 4 servings.

Nutrition information per serving: 297 calories, 10.5 grams fat, 97 milligrams cholesterol, 266 milligrams sodium.

CARROTS WITH ORANGE AND DILL

1 pound carrots, peeled and cut into 1 inch dice (3 cups)

¾ cup freshly squeezed orange juice

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

¼ cup loose dill leaves

Place ingredients except dill in a stainless steel saucepan. Bring to a boil. Boil, uncovered, over medium to high heat for 15 to 20 minutes, until all liquid has evaporated, and carrots are tender, and beginning to glaze in the butter. Sprinkle on dill and serve immediately. 4 servings.

Nutrition information per serving: 97 calories, 3.4 grams fat, 8 milligrams cholesterol, 332 milligrams sodium.

Published 9/23/1998