Chez Panisse has always been dedicated to using fresh, lovingly grown, organic ingredients and preparing them to enhance their natural flavors. Scads of other restaurants now share that philosophy, but Fanny’s observations make it clear that at Chez Panisse this mission is both fetish and inspiration. “I like to be around on Wednesdays because that’s the one day the vegetables come in from the Chinos’ farm way down in Rancho Santa Fe,” she writes. “Sometimes there are striped tomatoes or yellow ones with orange veins or little tiny mini-red tomatoes that are littler than peas. . . . The cooks always stop whatever they’re doing when the Chino boxes arrive and dive into them, smelling and sniffing and saying ‘Taste these peas! They’re so sweet!’ or, ‘What is this, a turnip?’”
The same delight in basic ingredients-the garlic, the basmati rice, the fresh plums for plum ice cream-is evident in the wonderfully simple recipes. Add some big garlic croutons to the salad, Fanny advises, so you can soak up all the juices. Toss fresh bread crumbs with a little olive oil and mix them into pasta with tomatoes; they’re delicious. Here are biscuits and apricot jam, quesadillas, corn bread, chocolate kisses and birthday cake. With supervision, any kid old enough to use a knife can make all the dishes on Fanny’s favorite summer menu: tomato salad, baked halibut and peach crisp. And you don’t have to grow up in a stockpot to enjoy them.
title: “Alice S Wonderland” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-14” author: “Jeffrey Mullins”
WATERS: [Long pause] No, I just knew I wanted to change the way my little community was eating. I felt like somehow in that restaurant, I could connect with my friends in a way that was more like what I found in France. It was a sensual awakening that I had had on my trip. I never imagined what path I would follow. And, of course, you know where I ended up.
It’s all-important. When you don’t have something that’s beautiful in and of itself, it’s very difficult to make anything worthwhile. You end up putting in a lot of salt and a lot of sugar in an attempt to bring out some kind of flavor that it should have naturally. The more beautiful and bright and varied the food is to start with, the easier it is to cook well… It seems so simple, and it is so simple.
There’s a lot they can do. I will go to a farmers market on a Saturday and buy things that I’ll cook later in the week. Maybe I’ll buy tomatoes. So I’ll eat the really ripe ones today and then make a tomato sauce with them on the third day. The same with fruit. The same with salad and greens. I may make a soup with the greens several days later as they start to wilt. You have to think a little bit ahead and plan your meals.
I didn’t do it. This is the way people have eaten since the beginning of time. Farmers ate what was local and fresh with their families and friends. The rest of their crop they brought to market.
The farmers market is the greatest place to see the seasons wash over you, to have the smells of fresh fruits everywhere. And it connects you to the cycle of the planet. You don’t expect to see tomatoes there in the middle of the winter. And there’s always something inexpensive because it’s so plentiful. It’s a great movement that’s happening across the country. Its roots were there, but just like everything else, they got transformed and distorted in the ’50s and ’60s.
I don’t want to call it that. But it’s because we don’t understand what values are associated with eating. We somehow think of food as fuel. When you buy fast food, you get fast-food values. You may think you’re only getting off with a halfway-toxic hamburger, but it’s a whole lot more than that. Maybe you know that it’s destroying the land, but you’re also getting unconscious messages: labor is cheap, food is cheap, people should eat in a hurry, children should be entertained while they’re eating, that everything should be the same all the time.
We ran out of time–I think he would have planted one if he had a little more time.
[Laughing] I have a letter addressed; I haven’t put it in the mail yet.
I’ve got a letter to prove that they put some organic food on one of their flights once, and that it came from the farmers market in Dallas. So we know it happened at least once, because this man in food service got indoctrinated in the farmers-market mentality. But he’s left American Airlines. Now he’s putting organic food on Swissair. I love it.
That’s the question of the hour. We’re serving lamb that’s been organically fed. We’re going to spit-roast it over fig wood, which lends a most sweet aroma. For dessert, we’ll have mulberry-ice-cream cones.
[Big burst of laughter] Every year, when the restaurant’s birthday comes up, I think, “Can we keep on going? I know we should, but can we?” This is the end of a generation. We had a retreat this year, because I wanted to be convinced that there are young people who really wanted to run this restaurant. Fortunately, I see that there are.
At some point, when I lose that juice for it, when it becomes routine, when it’s not a challenging proposition, then I’ll rethink whether it should go on.
This is a pilot program for a curriculum for public schools. Most families in this country don’t even eat one meal a day with each other. So how are we going to pass on our values to them if we don’t eat with them?
