Joe Carver's meals are just what the doctor ordered

JOE CARVER is leading a double life.

By day, he's a mild-mannered cardiologist and president of his local temple. But by night, he has only one thing on his mind: tying on an apron and heading into the kitchen.

Want homemade gourmet pizza or stuffed phyllo puffs? Stop by Carver's Center City home, where he's pumping out these and other delights, not for company, but just for fun.

After putting in 13-hour days as chief of staff and a practicing cardiologist at University of Pennsylvania's Abramson Cancer Center, cooking is Carver's escape, a peaceful time that's his and his alone. It's also a way for the slim, fit runner to promote healthful eating among family members and friends.

"Cooking is clearly the part of the day I can control the most," said the soft-spoken doc, whom friends describe as the ultimate gentleman and "nourisher." "It's not like somebody calling me for two meetings in an hour, or to a heart patient in the ICU. This is how I'm in charge of the time for a while."

As you might expect, Carver's Center City kitchen is a chef's dream, outfitted with two gas stoves, a convection microwave and three standing mixers, professional-grade baking beauties that he uses every week to make challah for his friends.

Stop by his house and it doesn't matter how recently you've eaten, you'd better make room, you're getting more food.

"It's hard to come into our house and not be attacked by us, putting something in your mouth," Carver said.

Carver's lifelong culinary obsession netted him his first professional win in a national cooking contest late last year, when he managed to oust nearly a dozen contestants from throughout the Northeastern United States in the second annual Manischewitz Kosher Cook-Off at Philadelphia's DoubleTree Hotel. Though he didn't win the national finals in New York, he vows he'll be back for more next year.

"I am a pretty competitive person, but I was pretty surprised when I made the semifinals," said Carver, who is also president of Har Zion Temple in Penn Valley, an 1,100-member congregation. "I was happy because a lot of the judging was on creativity, and I thought this was so out of the box."

"This" was Carver's version of kosher pizza, which he called falafel pizza. Falafel mix serves as the crust, with a topping of hummus, cucumber, olives and pickles for a Mediterranean experience.

Judges were wowed.

"Not only did it taste good, it was unique," said Manischewitz brand manager Ken Janso.

Creating dishes that wow is nothing new for Carver.

Born and raised in Philly, Carver, 61, considers himself the first latchkey kid. In the '50s, at a time when few women worked outside the home, his mom had a full-time job, leaving the grade-schooler to make dinner for himself, his brother and parents.

"This was revolutionary 50 years ago," said Carver, a father of three. "I just used what was there. I don't think we knew from any cookbooks. I just threw together things my family liked."

Carver admits his formative culinary years weren't without disasters. Big disasters. Chocolate asparagus disasters.

"Most of my friends in medical school would eat dirt off the floor, so anything I made was successful and appreciated," recalled Carver. But not asparagus steamed with honey and brown sugar and dipped in milk chocolate.

"It sort of got bad reviews."

Soon Carver graduated to bigger and better things, teaching himself by trial and error with a focus on cooking healthy food while keeping kosher. He even cooked sugar-free dishes to help his daughter eat right throughout her pregnancy after she developed gestational diabetes.

"I think it's relaxing," he said of being in the kitchen. "At heart, I think I'm an old Jewish grandmother. I like to feed people."

And feed them he does. At family gatherings in Margate during the summer, his family and friends look forward to mealtime as much as beach time. Maybe even more.

"He stays up at night thinking of creative things he can make," said longtime friend Paul Lichtman. "Flatbread pizza - there are just so many things. Once he got about 20 Chinese soup spoons and filled them with appetizers."

"He gets so much pleasure out of it, and he's so inventive," said Michele Padersky, whose brother is married to one of Carver's daughters. "He makes everything from scratch."

Carver's wife, Peggy, certainly isn't complaining about his culinary hobby. She cooks occasionally, but, more often than not, Carver crafts their weekly menus, with a different entree every night.

"I love it," she said. "I'm very lucky, I know."

When the Manischewitz contest information crossed his desk at the temple last year, he knew he was ready to take his culinary know-how to the next level.

"I announced it at a board meeting and said I could come up with something," said Carver. "The falafel thing was something I'd tried before."

Carver aced the regional finals in November with the original pizza but was shown up at the nationals by a stay-at-home mother of six from Long Island, N.Y., who earned the $25,000 grand prize with stuffed flounder rolls.

"He was such a gentleman," said winner Joy Devor. "I thought he was the greatest guy. I turned to his family when I won and said, 'I'm so sorry.' "

Carver recovered quickly from the loss, admitting that he's a busy guy and that the duties of a Manischewitz champion might have been tough for him to squeeze into his busy schedule.

Anyway, Passover starts Saturday, and he has his hands full planning the family seder. It's his favorite food holiday, since he can show off all the dishes he can make using unleavened products. Lasagna, gnocchi, pizza - the sky's the limit.

He also experiments with healthy alternatives to some of Passover's fattier favorites, using vegetables and even tofu in stir-frys and various dishes.

"Something that's way out of the box that I was thinking of making this year was gourmet matzoh balls, made with anything your imagination can fill them with - Cajun, Mexican flavors," he said. "I oftentimes joke about opening a restaurant or doing something about a business, but the nice thing is, there's no pressure. I'm just happy just to do my thing and cook for family and friends."

That's how Carver wants to keep it, the heart doctor who's just a cook at heart. *