26 July 2010
A BOOK TO CHERISH
In the Green Kitchen By Alice Waters
Many years ago I was a teacher for a very brief period of my life. I discovered that to get kids to read, there’s always a book somewhere that will be the key to getting them hooked. Just as I found the right book for those kids, I am now sure that this new book will hook the reluctant cook and send them running to the kitchen. In fact my husband grabbed my copy when I returned with it from San Francisco recently and has begun to cook! With enthusiasm. He’s already begging to cook the dinner.
‘In the Green Kitchen’ grew out of a food celebration and gathering, Slow Food Nation. It’s a book filled with techniques cooks should master, simple recipes and lovely shared stories and food of the chefs that Alice Waters admires. Alice of course, is the revered guardian of everything that’s fresh, organic and wholesome about Californian food, and the owner of that temple of dining in Berkeley, Chez Panisse. Alice also has been one of the prime movers and shakers behind Michelle Obama’s initiative to get the school children of America gardening, cooking and making the connection between these two activities. She’s also the voice of Slow Food for USA.
Her friends in the book are the passionate cooks, gardeners and suppliers who move in these circles. There are lovely portraits and ideas from luminaries like Dan Barber, Darina Allen, David Chang, Deborah Madison, Lidia Bastianich, Charlie Trotter and many more. But best of all, the recipes are simple and delicious. There’s nothing ambitious about roast leg of lamb, leek and potato soup, fresh green salad, or even a poached egg. But what the recipes do make is make all these things and many more possible, in the most wonderfully explanatory way.
Just as it has got my husband interested in cooking, it’s made me look afresh at the way I write recipes. There’s a need for more explanation I believe, than is currently the trend. Very highly recommended.
Published in the USA by Clarkson Potter, available on order at bookstores through Random House NZ $69.95