currently contemplating which ones to get rid of. There are are very many that I will keep even though I don't use them too much. There are ones that I just like to look at, and series of books that I like to retain as a set. One such set is the Chez Panisse books, the only one of which I use consistently is the masterful, Chez Panisse Desserts, by Lindsey Remolif Shere. The Chez Panisse books are gorgeous, and the recipes are great whenever I do dip into them and make something. It helps that I had dinner at the restaurant a few years ago, thanks to my dear friend Jean, who surprised me with a visit there after I consulted with her about pamphlet cataloging in her library at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford for a week. I will always have fond memories of chick peas with cardoons and old vine zin upstairs in the Chez Panisse Café. But, do I grab a Chez Panisse cookbook when I am rooting around trying to decide what to make for dinner all week? Not so much.Even
the perfectly-bound The Art of Simple Food, which I thought I might use more than the others, I do not use. Aspects of it miss the mark for me, with my idiosyncratic tastes. Take the "Four Essential Sauces," for example: Vinaigrette, Salsa Verde, Aïoli and Herb Butter. OK: vinaigrette. I'm on board with that one. But do I need a new recipe for it? Mm, no. Salsa verde? Sounds good = "green sauce." It has parsley, lemon zest, garlic, capers, salt, pepper and olive oil. I use a version of this flavoring when I cook off the cuff, and it's great. Will I use this particular recipe? Probably not. Now aïoli and herb butter, I'm not on board with these. Butter and mayonnaise just hanging out there, not incorporated into something, ruin a dish for me. I am not a bread-and-butter fan. I like bread, even butter-rich brioches and coffee cakes, but the oily slick of butter on the surface of something is intensely unappealing to me. Ditto for mayo. Makes me in the minority--and I hang my head for it.
OK, here's another glitch with this one: Fava bean purée. Do I give in to the lure of fresh fava beans each year? Yes, I do. I grab handsful of the puffy pods each spring and I stand at the kitchen counter peeling each pod and then each bean after that to create a small mound of split, stinky beans. Then I wonder what to do with them. Fava bean purée sounds promising, in fact. But then I look at the recipe: "Bring a pot of water to a boil as you shell the beans from: 4 pounds fava beans." Whoa! Four POUNDS. I might shuck a pound or so, and it takes up all my spare time for the week. OK, so: cut the recipe into fourths, right? Fourths? OK, so: cut it down to: 2 tablespoons of olive oil, one garlic clove, 1/4 branch of rosemary, salt, 2 tablespoons of water and 1 more tablespoon of olive oil. It's doable, but it doesn't seem worth the effort to make a purée from so few beans, so I skip blanching them and I just braise the small mound with some olive oil, garlic, salt and a handful of herbs and skip a recipe altogether. Dang. The Art of Simple Food goes unused yet again.
Unused, yes, but not unloved. I love what Alice Waters and the Chez Panisse people have done for our food culture. Their books are beautiful. Of course, I will keep them, and cherish them. Though I'll have to wait to have fava bean purée until next time I visit the restaurant.
