Paul Bertolli & Alice Waters 5 out of 5
Alice Waters pretty much kick-started the “California cuisine” revolution. When I working as a chef in “Californian restaurants” in both London and Paris in the early nineties, this book was our major reference to what we were supposed to be doing…along with Coyote café that is….not that we were copying the recipes inside but we were trying to recreate her style, flavour combining, fusion ideas and her philosophy of organic, local and high quality produce although we of course had difficulty sourcing produce readily found in California!
I can’t tell you much about the history of Chez Panisse but I can tell you about the book, just reading through the recipe titles in this book makes your mouth water as you imagine the recipes that might follow and nod in appreciation of the combinations Alice and Paul use…..yet the layout of this book is very plain, hardly any graphics or photos and simple text with no diagrams and all recipe titles are just a few words in English simply describing the dish (tomato, green garlic and herb soup or ravioli of pancetta, browned garlic and rosemary oil) and no fancy foreign titles except where the dish is a particular classic like “ratatouille”. The method descriptions are just as simple and easy to follow, making you believe it really is easy to create delicious food if you love what you’re doing…..that’s what you get from this book a real feeling of love and appreciation of food.
So many recipes in this book inspired me in those days and encouraged me to use ingredients, methods and techniques new to me, “grilled asparagus with Parmesan and olive oil” became a standard and taught me to use a potato peeler to shave Parmesan! “Confit of ceps” became a favourite, a recipe I adapted by cooking the ceps straight in the olive oil rather than steaming them first as Paul suggests. Green garlic was seasonally plentiful in Paris markets and “Green garlic soup” was one of my favourites too. Yet this book is not just a recipe book there is plenty of discussion of the ingredients used, techniques, ripeness, seasons, equipment and nearly every recipe has a description of the dish, how they create it and how it should feel and taste.
The vegetable section alone is worth the cost of this book and an inspiration for vegetarians and meat eaters alike. Other favourite sections are those on making your own sauerkraut (yes I tried that too because of this book) pasta and breads (sourdough again!).
Alice Waters is considered to have been a major influence on chefs and food culture world-wide and she was way ahead of her time with many of today’s modern trends of traceabilty, organics and freshness, even way ahead of Jamie Oliver with her “Edible Schoolyard” and “edible education” programs. In 2004 Alice Waters was invited by Raymond Blanc’s “Le Manoir aux Quatre Saisons” restaurant for a three day demonstration / seminar along with Thomas Keller and Daniel Boulud, high praise indeed from a UK perspective, wish I could’ve afforded to go!
I have only one small criticism of this fantastic book…the copy that I picked up from Dean and Deluca in New York many years ago had a novel “corrugated” effect on the paper edge, making it difficult to flick or browse through the recipes as I like to do…You always come across the same ones! Don’t know if it’s still bound like this though.
Buy now from Amazon UK
