Things are a little out of the ordinary at the firehouse of Engine Company 229/Ladder Company 152, in Fresh Meadows, N.Y. First of all, you won't find a dalmatian guarding the door: Here it's Hondo, a cat the size of a small fighter plane. And thanks to 15-year veteran Joseph T. Bonanno Jr., author of The Healthy Firehouse Cookbook, you won't ever see the company sitting around eating Dinty Moore stew from a can. These manly men feast upon chicken breasts stuffed with goat cheese, and salad drizzled with balsamic vinegar and fine Italian olive oil.
''I'm a total target of abuse,'' Bonanno admits as he cooks up lunch with ingredients gathered by the fully uniformed ladder company (yes, they drive the fire truck to the supermarket). ''One guy said that my food could choke a maggot -- that kind of hurt my feelings.''
Bonanno, who's also certified as a fitness instructor, got the idea for a cookbook while he was taking a class at Manhattan's New School for Social Research. When a publisher latched on to the plan, Bonanno solicited recipes from firefighters around the country, offering them an apron and a free book in return. The results range from scallop-and-asparagus pasta to fat-free tapioca; and as readers will appreciate, all recipes are easy, reheatable, and inexpensive, since the firemen pay for the ingredients themselves.
So far, the company members have embraced Bonanno's culinary inventiveness, although, he admits, there are limits. ''Once I made a beautiful grilled tuna with a mango sauce,'' he says mournfully. ''And the guys said, 'What the hell is a mango doing on my fish? It looks like monkey s -- -.''' But as Bonanno might shrug, if you can't stand the heat...
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