One of the books I picked up during our visit to Chez Panisse was The Art of Simple Food, by Alice Waters. It’s a lovely book. Alice’s writing is so genuine and readable. It’s directed to the home cook, and cooking for the people we love, much in the same vein as Bread and Wine. It’s refreshing compared to our Portland cooking adventure, where the recipes are decidedly aimed at professionals, or at least the gourmet sect. Both are fun, but home cooking is a lot simpler, and for a weeknight, far more enjoyable.
The first section of The Art of Simple Food covers the basics of sustainable and healthful home-cooking, from stocking the pantry to creating a meal plan. The next section covers basic techniques that we should all master and have ready in our repertoire. After that, on to recipes!
I have so much to learn from Alice — both in the “sustainable and seasonal” department, as well as how to cook healthfully and simple for my family throughout the week without breaking out a complicated recipe every night. I’ve decided to work my way through this book on Monday nights (THE weeknight of all weeknights, if you know what I mean). I’ll post any recipes related to that week on Saturday of the week before. It won’t be the same as actually having Alice Waters in the kitchen with us, but hopefully it will be enjoyable and fun. I hope you’ll join me. 🙂
I’ll post the recipes I use from the book here, as well as snippets from the text, but if you’d like your own copy of The Art of Simple Food, you can order one from Chez Panisse, Amazon, and other online retailers.
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