A Cookbook to Love
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by: DeborahKeegan | Total views: 470 | Word Count: 565
Cookbooks provide me with inspiration, not only for great food but also for life. Cookbooks, if they are good, take you on a tour of the intellect, spirit and philosphy. A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes is one of these. rare beasts. Author David Tanis is also a chef who will entice you with great skill with his simple, seasonal menus and recipes. Tanis's book is about pleasure. The undeniable pleasure of eating and creating wonderful dishes A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes illustrates how easy it is to maintain a sustainable kitchen simply.
David Tanis is a lucky man. For half of the year he is the chef at Chez Panisse, the renowned California restaurant founded by Alice Waters and a group of friends in 1971. For the remainder of the year Tanis can found in Paris. Yes Paris! Here he spends his time cooking at home for a small group of friends dining club known as Aux Chien Lunatiques. In this diminutive centuries old apartment with an ill equipped galley kitchen, David proves that attention to detail and respect for food enables anyone to cook with even the barest essentials.
With twenty four menus divided into four seasons provding you with 6 menus for each season and accompanied by elegant yet homely photographs, Tanis's book has you right where he wants you to be - at home. Within this cookbook you will not find recipes that take days to prepare. Rather imagine simple elegant prepartions that will allow you the luxury of lingering with friends and family over the dinner table without being rushed out or your seats. Enjoy the inherent tastes of each ingredient such as the clean crispness of raw fennel and exquisite olive oil that whets your appetite for authentic spaghetti alio e olio. To finish this simply wonderful autumn menu experience Italy's famous Parmigiano Reggiano and a pear ripened to perfection. What more could you ask for?
Tanis will transport you to the exact moment and location of inspiration. Each of his menus are prefaced with a story about the ingredients, who he ate with or why he was there or how he found it. Menu fourteen: in Catalonia. First time eating anchovy sandwiches alone in a bar in Barcelona after sitting in the rafters for a performance of the Maurice Bejart Ballet. In Menu twenty two Feeling Italian part III tells us how his stylish great Aunt Sally, a sophisticate from Cleveland who "gloried in an elegance many women in our town of Dayton lacked" was renowned for her spaghetti soirees. Aunt Sally would invite hoards of guests who had to wait while she cooked one pound of pasta at a time in one pot. Tanis promised her he would never cook more than one pound of pasta at a time and he proclaims that he never did. "Though Aunt Sally gave me a cooking lesson I never forgot, I cannot remember her cooking for me" concludes Tanis!
A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes is charming and disarming in its simplicity but don't be fooled. This is the work of an artist. Don't be tempted to elaborate but do emulate. Take your time. Learn about the food you cook and eat. Cook with simply charming inspiration. You and those you cook for will be deliciously delighted.
About the Author
Learn more about food. Stop by Deborah Keegan's site where you can find out all about cooking in seasonrecipes
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