| Title | : | Chez Panisse Cafe Cookbook |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0060175834 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780060175832 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 288 |
| Publication | : | First published September 1, 1999 |
So writes Alice Waters of the opening of Berkeley's Chez Panisse Café on April Fool's Day, 1980. Located above the more formal Chez Panisse Restaurant, the Café is a bustling neighborhood bistro where guests needn't reserve far in advance and can choose from the ever-changing à la carte menu. It's the place where Alice Waters's inventive chefs cook in a more impromptu and earthy vein, drawing on the healthful, low-tech traditions of the cuisines of such Mediterranean regions as Catalonia, Campania, and Provence, while improvising and experimenting with the best products of Chez Panisse's own regional network of small farms and producers.
In the Chez Panisse Café Cookbook, the follow-up to the award-winning Chez Panisse Vegetables, Alice Waters and her team of talented cooks offer more than 140 of the café's best-recipes--some that have been on the menu since the day café opened and others freshly reinvented with the honesty and ingenuity that have made Chez Panisse so famous. In addition to irresistible recipes, the Chez Panisse Café Cookbook is filled with chapter-opening essays on the relationships Alice has cultivated with the farmers, foragers and purveyors--most of them within an hour's drive of Berkeley--who make it possible for Chez Panisse to boast that nearly all food is locally grown, certifiably organic, and sustainably grown and harvested.
Alice encourages her chefs and cookbook readers alike to decide what to cook only after visiting the farmer's market or produce stand. Then we can all fully appreciate the advantages of eating according to season--fresh spring lamb in late March, ripe tomato salads in late summer, Comice pear crisps in autumn.
This book begins with a chapter of inspired vegetable recipes, from a vivid salad of avocados and beets to elegant Morel Mushroom Toasts to straightforward side dishes of Spicy Broccoli Raab and Garlicky Kale. The Chapter on eggs and cheese includes two of the café's most famous dishes, a garden lettuce salad with baked goat cheese and the Crostata di Perrella, the café's version of a calzone. Later chapters focus on fish and shellfish, beef, pork, lamb, and poultry, each offering its share of delightful dishes. You'll find recipes for curing your own pancetta, for simple grills and succulent braises, and for the definitive simple roast chicken--as well as sumptuous truffed chicken breasts. Finally the pastry cooks of Chez Panisse serve forth a chapter of uncomplicated sweets, including Apricot Bread Pudding, Chocolate Almond Cookies, and Wood Oven-baked Figs with Raspberries.
Gorgeously designed and illustrated throughout with colored block prints by David Lance Goines, who has eaten at the café since the day it opened, Chez Panisse Café Cookbook is destined to become an indispensable classic. Fans of Alice Waters's restaurant and café will be thrilled to discover the recipes that keep them coming back for more. Loyal readers of her earlier cookbooks will delight in this latest collection of time-tested, deceptively simple recipes. And anyone who loves pure, vibrant, delicious fare made from the finest ingredients will be honored to add these new recipes to his or her repertoire.
Chez Panisse Cafe Cookbook Reviews
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Alice Walters is well known for her "philosophy" of cooking, as exemplified in her restaurant "Chez Panisse." She emphasizes top quality ingredients and fresh foods. For example, she developed a network of local producers of vegetables to provide the best quality and freshest raw materials for her restaurant's menu items. She speaks of how (page 3) "central the quality of produce is to our cooking. Because the food we cook is simple and straightforward, every ingredient must be the best of its kind." Since most of the growers that she has worked with sell at local farmers' markets, she suggests that readers of this cookbook use local farmers' markets as a source of vegetables--not your average supermarket.
The cookbook illustrates her ideas pretty well. There are simple recipes; there are others that (despite her words above) aren't. The very first recipe, on page 7, is a simple garden lettuce salad. And she notes that (page 6) "a restaurant is only as good as its simplest green salad." On page 55 is another salad recipe, one of only two recipes that have been continuously on her menu since the day her place opened--Baked goat cheese with garden lettuces.
There are nice hints for cooking, such as her description on page 44 about how to make a perfect hard-cooked egg.
Other recipes that strike me as interesting--Crostata de perrella (the other item that has been on the menu since Day One), a calzone; Yellowfin Tuna with coriander and fennel seed; Salted Atlantic cod baked with tomatoes; Roast pork loin with rosemary and fennel; Red-wine braised bacon; Grilled chicken breasts au poivre. And so on.
This represents, first, a good cookbook, with quite a few interesting recipes. It also represents a view of how to get the best quality out of one's cooking. For both reasons, this is a good buy for those interested in acquiring worthwhile cookbooks. -
NOTES FOR ME: Part memoir, part cookbook (like the best of them) I realized adding this to GoodReads that I don't have any Alice Waters showing on my list, so I may at some point go back and re-read all that I have read. Waters can come across as a bit rigid in her beliefs. She has her passions for organic and seasonal and locally grown. She also has huge sections on foods I wouldn't be cooking like duck or lamb. I put aside a few vegetable and dessert recipes to try out. Waters isn't someone I would go to on a regular basis for things to become part of my regular cooking repertoire.
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Alice Waters' cookbooks always spark my imagination: The colorplates are beautiful. They're the kind of prints that deserve to be framed and hung. The recipes are simple, overall.
The only downside to many of the recipes is the need for specific ingredients that, even in season, can be difficult to get here in Ohio. :) -
I think I was expecting a lot more from this book. While initially some of the recipes looked intriguing, I had some doubts about the availability of some of the ingredients. And while I'm not opposed to sussing these things out or using substitutions, I just wasn't certain the end result would be worth the effort.
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I respect Waters for making people aware of local and sustainable food practices. The woman is a marketing maven, and she knows how to hire talented people. I've never been too impressed with her cookbooks, though, and this one is more of the same. Cooking simple food shouldn't be this convoluted.
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I love Alice Waters! Though, its usually not the best idea to read a cookbook while you are feeling nauseous and vomit-y. Saw several good ideas, and now that I am feeling better, I think I will cook a potato gratin for Tal tonight. Mmmm, tasty potatoes + fat.
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More from Alice Waters here. Some of the recipes seem entirely overwhelming to the casual home cook. While a few of the methods look intriguing, the dessert section is the only one that appears to be entirely doable.
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Favorite recipe in the book is the Meyer Lemon relish... I've made it a million times served with salmon, and other fishes.. not just scallops... I have to figure out how to save it when the meyer season is at it's peak!
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Another cookbook I haven't used but have read with great pleasure
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I love Alice Waters' restaurants, books, and her philosophy!
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Great foodie cookbook, with great, simple recipes and interesting introductions to each section.
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the original--still a classic
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vegetables section was inspiring!
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Great book.
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The notes are much better than the recipes.
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not for everyday cooking or even i'm feeling ambitious on a sunday afternoon cooking, but great to read for menu and technique.
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Every single recipes that I have tried from this cookbook was delicious.
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This book is a little too precious for me. I will never ever cook like this. It also reads a little preachy. Meh.
