Product Description

For twenty-five years, Alice Waters and her friends at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California have dedicated themselves to the ideal of serving the finest, freshest foods with simplicity and style. From tender baby asparagus in early spring, to the colorful spectrum of peppers at the height of summer; crisp, leafy chicories in autumn, to sweet butternut squash in the dark of winter, much of the inspiration about what to put on the menu comes from the high quality produce Waters and her chefs seek out year-round.

Using the treasures from the earth, Chez Panisse Vegetables offers endless possibilities for any occasion. Try Grilled Radicchio Risotto with Balsamic Vinegar at your next dinner party, or Pizza with Red and Yellow Peppers for a summer evening at home. Why not forgo green-leaf lettuce, and opt for Artichoke and Grapefruit Salad drizzled with extra-virgin olive oil? Or serve Corn Cakes with fresh berries for breakfast instead of cereal?

Throughout Vegetables, Waters shares her energy and enthusiasm for what she describes as "living foods." When she first began in the restaurant business, the selection of good-quality vegetables was so limited that she found herself searching out farmers with whom she might do business. Luckily, today's explosion of markets and organic farms across the country ensures that any home cook can find freshly harvested produce to put on the table. And with the increased popularity of home gardening, more and more people are taking their vegetables straight from the earth and into the kitchen.

Cooks, gardeners, vegetarians and everyone who appreciates good food will find Chez Panisse Vegetables to be not only a cookbook, but a valuable resource for selecting and serving fine produce. From popular vegetables like corn, tomatoes and carrots, to more unusual selections like chard, amaranth greens and sorrel, Vegetables offers detailed information about the seasonal availability, proper look, flavor and preparation of each selection. Arranged alphabetically by vegetable, and filled with colorful linocut images, Chez Panisse Vegetables makes it easy for a cook to find a tempting recipe for whatever he or she has brought home from the market.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #21261 in Books
• Published on: 1996-05-08
• Released on: 1996-03-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 368 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780060171476
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
By now just about everybody whose interest in eating runs deeper than fast food knows about Alice Waters. The creator of Chez Panisse, the legendary restaurant in Berkeley, California, that helped create a modern American cuisine based on fresh ingredients, she is also equally well-known as a teacher and cookbook author. Chez Panisse Vegetables is one of the best new cookbooks of the season; it's as useful for its information about vegetables and how to use and handle them as it is for its irresistible recipes, which lead to complex and interesting dishes built from simple ingredients and simple techniques.

From Publishers Weekly
The same deep regard for ingredients and their flavors that first drew national attention to Waters's Berkeley, Calif., restaurant in the mid-1970s informs this comprehensive disquisition on vegetables. From Amaranth Greens through Zucchini, Waters (Chez Panisse Cooking) examines the qualities and characteristics that distinguish vegetables at their best and offers recipes that show them off. The 250-plus recipes highlight the main ingredient of each dish, sometimes conferring star status (Mediterranean Lentil Soup; Spicy Broccoli Vegetable Saute) and sometimes orchestrating a felicitous concert (Whole-wheat Pasta with Cauliflower, Walnuts, and Ricotta Salata; Braised Cabbage with Halibut). While the majority of recipes are presented in standard form, some of the most valuable bypass details of quantity and sequence to focus on method (Oven-braised Leeks with Cream; Spinach Roman Style with Raisins and Pine Nuts; Aigo Bouido, a garlic broth; Parsley Salad). Waters promotes a collaborative culinary process, not just among the cooks she credits as fellow authors but between the individual cook and the ingredients of the dish being prepared. Her generous, authoritative approach to vegetables commands the same respect she offers to her subject matter and is exemplified in the concluding bibliography of cookbooks. 60,000 first printing; major ad/promp; author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Waters is in large part responsible for the tremendous improvement in the quality and range of the produce available to us today, so it's only fitting that the latest cookbook from her well-known restaurant in Berkeley, California, is about vegetables. Since she opened Chez Panisse more than two decades ago, her emphasis has always been on using the best and the freshest ingredients local growers can provide. She includes more than 40 vegetables in this beautifully illustrated book, describing them and how to prepare them in detail, and offering more than 250 recipes. Not everyone will be able to find white asparagus or cardoons, but mostly these are our familiar, everyday vegetables, treated exquisitely: French Cream of Cauliflower Soup, Artichoke Ragout with New Potatoes. Some of the recipes, what Waters compares to "out-of-focus snapshots," are guidelines more than conventional recipes (e.g., Polentina Soup, "Stew some diced white onion in duck fat or butter") and assume some culinary background, but they should also inspire even beginning cooks. An invaluable resource, this is an essential purchase.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

A keeper for your cookbook shelf if you are NOT vegetarian
This book is a comprehensive resource that tells you how to select, store, and prep your vegetables. So just to demystify your farmers market, this book is an essential. However, in terms of recipes, it does fall short, treating vegetables only as soups or sides for the most part. Also if you *are* vegetarian, many recipes call for anchovies, bacon, chicken stock etc. If I had to pick between this and Deborah Madison's "Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating from America's Farmers' Markets" I would pick the latter since that offers more main dish recipes, and covers all farm market produce, fruits, vegetables, and non-vegetarian stuff too, while keeping recipes involving vegetables vegetarian. And Deborah Madison also instructs you on how to prepare more exotic veg.
Despite the cons it is a fascinating read, and its nice that it does not assume you are already a "cook"

farmers market confidence!
Do you find yourself gazing at kale while filling your basket with broccoli and carrots? Then this is the book for you! Be bold in a farmers market, buy the kale or any other unfamiliar vegetable and cook it with confidence! This book tells you all about a vegetable, when it is in season, what to do with it in general and in various stages of "ripeness" and gives you recipies to try it in. A wonderful cooking encyclopedia of vegetables.

A Bonus for the Home Gardener
The title -"Vegetables"- says it all. This book is a wonderful choice to learn how to store, select and prepare individual vegetables in a variety of recipes which enhance that vegetable. Beautifully illustrated, it is organized alphabetically by vegetable. If you looking for more complete meals or information about vegetarian eating you will be disappointed -- the recipes are best used as side dishes for seasonal produce. For the money, I recommend Deborah Madison's "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone", I use it all the time, and I'm not a strict vegetarian.