HARVEST RICH FOR `WALK IN CLOUDS' DIRECTOR.(LIFE & LEISURE)

Byline: JANE SUMNER Dallas Morning News

One of the richest dishes to emerge from those steaming cooking pots in ``Like Water for Chocolate'' was a big-studio film deal for director Alfonso Arau.

After his $2 million film suffused with food, ill-fated love and revolution earned 10 times that amount, making it the highest-grossing foreign-language film ever, Hollywood beckoned to the former actor.

He agreed to direct the $22 million ``A Walk in the Clouds'' provided he could change the heritage of the film's grape-growing family.

The old-fashioned romance, based on the 1942 neoclassic Italian film ``Four Steps in the Clouds,'' is about a …