Born into a Jewish family in Morocco she brings a welcome breath of Mediterranean life to the food

Born into a Jewish family in Morocco, she brings a welcome breath of Mediterranean life to the food. Gone is the word vegetarian, and the bruisingly solid wooden furniture In are fragile plywood tables and light metal framed stools. Out is the knobbly ceramic pottery, in favour of plastic, and the sedate lighting has been replaced by burger-joint glare. Restrained autumnal browns have been junked in favour of all the poster colours of the spectrum.But what about the food? It’s okay, thanks to Nadine Abansur, the star of the show, who runs the company’s test kitchens. Posters in the cafe exhort you to eat for a healthy heart (the low fat Middle Eastern potato casserole should do the trick).Old Cranks it isn’t. “We call it the vitality cafe,” enthuses managing director Gavin Heys, “because the idea is for people to leave here uplifted, having done some good for themselves.” He claims this is a bold new concept in eating.

If you haven’t been near one for some time (there are six in London, and one in Dartington) you may be surprised. They have been given bright and breezy makeovers, far removing them from the original stripped-pine image.The breeziest of them, near Charing Cross Station in London, has been converted into a Cranks Express – a template for the planned expansion of the group. Quite brilliant, except that profit did not match turnover, and Cranks went belly-up. The company survived through a management buy-out.Since 1992 Cranks has completely re-invented itself and now, owned by the Piper Trust, is looking to expand. Cranks bread, a franchise operation, is a big seller in supermarkets And the restaurants are keeping their end up too. Cranks started a catering operation, producing cooked meals for restaurants and canteens. In one year, says sales director Chris Elder, they had a turnover over of pounds 3.5m.

The founders sold it on and among the various buyers were Guinness (under the hand of one Ernest Saunders, who planned to expand the chain, franchising Cranks around the country). Wholemeal flour pastries weighed as heavily on the spirit as the stomach.Young people grew out of Cranks when the new vegetarians crossed from California, spreading the macrobiotic word, opening their own wholefood stores and restaurants Then somewhere along the line, Cranks lost the plot. Certainly Cranks customers adopted the moral high ground, identifying themselves with organic flour and organically- grown vegetables.
The food, though wholesome, was frankly no more memorable than that of an enlightened canteen or school Without the meat The diet was one of bean soups and bean salads. You ordered thick vegetable soup and supped it from even thicker hand-thrown ceramic bowls. Your fellow customers were probably wearing hand-knitted Fair Isle pullovers and open-toed sandals and reading Fabian tracts (or has mem-ory played its tricks?). The name was self-mocking, acknowledging that vegetarians were a minority whose tenets were considered absurd. It is hard to credit today that such notable public figures as Sir Stafford Cripps, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and playwright Sir George Bernard Shaw were the butt of Music Hall jokes, held up to ridicule for choosing not to eat meat.

But Cranks was a success from the start, largely by creating a city-dweller’s notion of rural simplicity. You sat at a stout, plain wooden table, reading from menus pain- stakingly penned in a comforting calligraphic hand. It was way back in the Sixties when David and Kay Canter, with a friend Daphne Swann, opened their first vegetarian restaurant, called Cranks, in London’s Carnaby Street. Those who live with us should be suspicious but not dismiss it out of hand.. This page: white cotton Lycra vest, pounds 23, and white sea-island cotton knickers, pounds 23, both by John Smedley, from Sogo, Piccadilly, W1 (enq: 0171 580 5075; or mail order on 01629 534331); cream linen pillow- cases, part of a queen-size bed-set, pounds 359, and queen-size white linen sheet with natural border, pounds 65, both by the Monogrammed Linen Shop at Harvey Nichols, Knightsbridge, SW1 (enq: 0171 235 5000); cashmere/silk- mix cream shawl, pounds 445, by TSE Cashmere, from Harvey Nichols, as before, and Liberty, 214-220 Regent Street, W1 (enq: 0171 263 4433)

Facing page, top: pillow- case, as before; white cotton drawstring pyjamas, pounds 155, and grey rug, pounds 75, both by Margaret Howell, 29 Beauchamp Place, London, SW3 (enq: 0171 584 2462)
Facing page, bottom: ready wrapped pure vegetable soaps, pounds 7.95 each, by Helitrope, and stone vase, pounds 32, both from The Conran Shop, 81 Fulham Rd, SW3 (enq: 0171 589 7401); white Lycra vest, pounds 23, as before; nine- hole cement candlestick holder, pounds 22.95, from Judy Greens Garden Store, 11 Flask Walk, NW3 (enq: 0171 435 3832); drawstring shoe bag, pounds 18, from Margaret Howell, as before.

The idea is that light reduces the amount of melatonin the brain produces, and high melatonin is associated with depression. There is also the suggestion that there is a reduction in serotonin levels. Serotonin is a chemical that acts as a signal between nerves and low levels are implicated in depression – Prozac is supposed to work by raising serotonin levels.So as winter progresses we hypochondriacs can plead SAD as the cause of our inability to rise in the morning as well as our irritability. What causes the winter blues? One hypothesis links the condition to melatonin which, as jet-setters know all too well, is high at night and can control our daily rhythms.