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STAR TREK COOKBOOK
Resistance Is Futile By Gail Appleson
          NEW YORK (Reuters) - Eat your hearts out, ``Star Trek'' fans. There is now a cookbook to tell you how to make anything from Klingon blood wine and worm-like gagh to Ferengi slug liver.
The official ``Star Trek Cookbook'' is a must for those seeking new food frontiers and the secrets of interstellar haute cuisine. Readers will go where no chef has gone before.
The book is written by Neelix, alias Ethan Phillips, the peppy orange-blond chef of the U.S.S. Voyager, along with co-author William Birnes. Published by the Pocket Books division of Simon & Schuster, it goes on sale Jan. 9 and, as the Borg say, ``resistance is futile.''
The volume, which follows last month's release of the latest ``Star Trek'' movie ``Insurrection,'' is filled with camp and inside humor about key characters from the original ``Star Trek'' series, ``The Next Generation,'' ``Deep Space Nine'' and ''Voyager.''
It includes recipes for some of the out-of-this-world and almost unpronounceable foods that appear on the shows, along with some real ones offered by many of the humanoid stars of the series.
There is even a complete guide for whipping up the drinks served at Quark's bar on Deep Space Nine with descriptions of such favorites as Andorian ale and Gamzian wine.
Put it this way: If hyperaggressive Klingon warrior Worf (actor Michael Dorn) is your cup of tea, you will definitely want to read the recipes for his prune juice cocktail and his mother's Rokeg Blood Pie.

PRUNE JUICE – KLINGON 'WARRIOR'S DRINK'

``The harsh taste and equally harsh reaction to prune juice prompted Worf to declare it a 'warrior's drink' that readies the body for battle. I wouldn't dispute Worf on this, because I can see why, after a night of blood pies and blood wine, he'd want his prune juice the next day,'' Neelix writes.
Alan Sims, the Star Trek prop guru, writes that meals on the show are basically madeup of ``monster food,'' but it is different monster food depending on the alien consuming it.
For example, food for gentle, vegetarian Talaxians such as Neelix is quite different from what would satisfy battle-hungry Klingons – who like to yell things like ``Today is a good day to die'' – or the big-eared, bug-eating Ferengi.
``Talaxian concoctions are a little bit more adorable,'' Sims said. As for Klingon food, ``my interpretation is this is stuff that, when you look at it, you want to just retch ... it's living worms, serpents and even organs that monsters eat.''
There is the popular blood wine, for example, that can be made to look like it contains ``nice floating red corpuscles'' by running frozen cranberries through a blender. Sims says he uses raw liver to make ``heart of targ,'' another Klingon favorite.
``It's true what they say,'' writes Neelix. ``'If you want to be a Klingon warrior, you gotta have heart.'''
If eating Klingon fare does not seem like a good way to live long and prosper, a more genteel diet can be found in the chapter on ``Afternoon Tea with Captain Picard,'' with recipes for watercress sandwiches, Madeleines and a cocktail of Earl Grey tea leaves and Grand Marnier. The intellectual Jean-Luc Picard is played by Shakespearean actor Patrick Stewart.
A totally different challenge is presented in the feeding of Seven of Nine, the Barbie doll-shaped Borg who is now part of the Voyager crew. The Borg are cybernetic humanoids who are half human and half machine and named by their number in the small units to which they belong. Famous for their ``resistance is futile'' warning, they are feared throughout the galaxy because they conquer other races by assimilating them.

GEL PACK CASING AND PLASMA OIL – STIR VIGOROUSLY

Neelix says he had trouble finding nourishment to please Seven but came up with something called a tricorder (hand-held sensor instrument) pie made up of chopped bio-neural gel pack casing, plasma oil and minced nacelle discharge socket.
He said she also has learned to like certain humanoid food, such as Seven-Up and anything from a 7-Eleven store.
``Although she fought me when it came time to eat, my cooking was so wonderful her resistance was futile,'' he writes.
Neelix/Phillips told Reuters in a telephone interview from his Los Angeles home that the inspiration for the book actually came from Birnes, co-author of the bestseller ``The Day After Roswell,'' who approached him with the idea.
``We hashed some ideas about it,'' he said. ``Instead of live worms, we tried to take everything down to Earth level.''
Neelix said he solicited recipes from all the key ``Star Trek'' actors and received quite a few family favorites, such as Kasha Varnishkas a la Vulcan from Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock) and Bashir's Spam-and-Beans Bolognese from Alexander Siddig (Dr. Julian Bashir). Jeri Ryan, who plays shapely Seven of Nine, says her contribution, a recipe for wild mushroom soup, is low in fat – ``my costume's No. 1 priority.''
Neelix said most of the recipes submitted by the actors were vegetarian. ``Then, of course, Talaxians and Vulcans are vegetarians.''
In real life Phillips is not a vegetarian, but he does not really cook that often either. And even on ``Star Trek,'' the Voyager crew is often pretty critical of his creations.
``I can count on one hand with two fingers left over the times I've been complimented on the show on my cooking,'' he said. In fact the cookbook includes the top 10 reasons the crew hates his cooking, including ``kidney is not a breakfast food,'' ''Tuesday is fungus night'' and ``the fruitcake leaks.''