Contra Costa Times
By Deborah Byrd

I met Sam Gugino when we were both newspaper food editors; me here and him at the Mercury News in San Jose. I remember being at a conference in Atlanta with Sam, where someone gave a talk on baking in the South. The reason Southern baked goods were so light and tender, we were told, was that the flour in the South is lower in gluten, made from different wheat and better for baking light pies, pastries and biscuits than Northern flour.
Within hours, Sam had left the hotel and gone into town, returning with a bag of White Lily flour to use when he got back home. You could almost see him already planning the recipes he was going to try.
That insatiable curiosity and passion for cooking is on full display in Sam's new book, "Cooking to Beat the Clock" (Chronicle Books, $16.95), subtitled, "Delicious, Inspired Meals in 15 Minutes."
Now writing free-lance in New York City, where he has a regular column in the Wine Spectator as well as cookbooks and pieces for magazines and newspapers, he was back in the Bay Area last week to promote the book. You might have seen him on KTVU's "Mornings on 2" show, cooking one of the recipes in his new book -- in a high school parking lot.
Talking to him again -- just trying to arrange a time to talk again -- was a good illustration of the kind of lives we all live that make it crucial to know how to get dinner on the table fast. Voice-mail from Sam came in from New York, from his hotel, from the car and finally, the hotel again.
We finally made contact by phone, and I was reminded quickly that Sam not only cooks fast, but he talks fast, too.
Reading the book made me want to try cooking everything in it, I told him, from the San Diego fish tacos to the flank steak salad to the Dr. Seuss-sounding Chicks and Bricks. Would they really work in 15 minutes?
Sam outlined how he tested the recipes: He would set the timer at 15 minutes, and his wife would go into her office and close the door. He'd cook, the timer would go off, he'd open the door and say, "Time to eat."
"I also gave the recipes to volunteer people to see if normal people can do it," he said.
Not everyone might be able to follow the quick recipes in 15 minutes the first time, he allowed. But, he countered, "It's like getting into shape. People ask me, 'What if I can't do it in 15 minutes the first time?' And I say, 'If you got a Jane Fonda workout tape, would you expect to look like Jane Fonda that first time you did it?' Sometimes it'll take 20 minutes instead of 15 minutes. And then, once you get into a rhythm, sometimes you'll cook the dish faster than you ever cooked it before. And that's OK, too."
A former restaurant chef in Philadelphia, he includes some chef techniques, such as high-heat cooking in heavy pans (so the food doesn't burn) to cook food quickly. And he emphasizes a well-stocked pantry.
"One of the keys is the pantry for two reasons: One is you want to have it well-stocked so you're not running out of things all the time. And two, each ingredient has to have as much flavor as possible. The reason for having ingredients with lots of flavor is that you use fewer of them. Fewer ingredients take less time to cook."