Cooks' Books by Lisa Messinger

"40 Years of Chez Panisse: The Power of Gathering" by Alice Waters and Friends (Clarkson Potter, $55)

 

Chef and restaurateur Alice Waters has "watered" her community and the world. From all the accolades, awards and applause she has received, this couldn't be clearer.

The founder of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., is known as both the mother of that state's special, fresh brand of cuisine as well as the virtual mother of modern cuisine in general. Although she herself will eventually leave big shoes to fill, her "carbon footprint" is virtually nil. Saving the environment was her specialty long before any other chef, let alone anyone else, was on board.

If you want her recipes for seasonal, fresh vegetable pizzas, salads, soups and other specialties, you can find them in the cookbooks she's published over the years. However, if you'd like what's essentially a fine art book to add to your collection — or give to one of your lucky holiday gift recipients — chew on "40 Years of Chez Panisse: The Power of Gathering" by Waters and a slew of her colleagues and friends.

It's a memoir that captures the mood in Berkeley and the university there that, as early as 1964, set the stage for then young, activist Waters to form her beliefs about the kind of caring and "outspoken" cooking she would take charge of at the opening of the casual, homey Chez Panisse in 1971.

"Awakening to the kindness of strangers and to a new world of beauty and meaning, educating the senses, beginning to understand my place in the world," writes Waters about the effects the explosive protests of the era had on her.

Also included, is a scrapbook with photos, clippings, invitations and menus from years past.

You'll see a picture of Waters in front of the restaurant the day it opened in her polka dot, rayon dress behind a hand-painted sign.

Then, you'll hear about how Waters and her colleagues "followed their instincts" and unusually, for that time and place, presented a different menu every day.

"For dinner we had decided to serve a single new and different fixed-price menu each night, with no choices, so that we could compose a meal that was a balanced whole. We were experimenting on the public, cooking lots of things none of us had ever made before," Waters remembers.

Even if you decide to first flip through just the gorgeous, color photography in the book, that in itself is a "meal."

Plenty of the restaurant's feasts are on display (including spreads from the equally famed Chez Panisse Cafe, which opened in 1981, in addition to the original restaurant), as well as huge catered events they were asked to create. If you haven't appreciated California fresh produce before, you will after seeing the stunning items shown here.

Waters was also one of the first to rely on nearby, small, organic producers and they, too, get their due here. Included are remembrances of when Waters introduced her diners to them, by throwing public festivals featuring their offerings.

Using local and organic food, of course — like so many of Waters' innovations — soon spread far and wide, and it is now an indelible part of the cutting-edge culinary scene worldwide.

Lisa Messinger is a first-place winner in food writing from the Association of Food Journalists and the author of seven food books, including "Mrs. Cubbison's Best Stuffing Cookbook" and "The Sourdough Bread Bowl Cookbook." She also writes the Creators News Service "After-Work Gourmet" column. To find out more about Lisa Messinger and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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