Product Description

This long-awaited cookbook from the Father of California cooking and one of the nation's greatest chefs presents a selection of his extraordinary yet approachable recipes. Ranging from continental classics made with American ingredients to American regional specialties, the dishes are illustrated with elegant still lifes by a great American painter. 250 recipes, 20 color paintings and drawings.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #276231 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-02
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

Amazon.com
As founding chef at California's famed Chez Panisse, chef at San Francisco's Stars, and author of the award-winning New American Classics, Jeremiah Tower is a forefather of New American cooking. His culinary signature is pristinely flavored food made with the freshest seasonal ingredients. Jeremiah Tower Cooks presents 250 recipes for dishes like Chilled Mushroom Soup with Spiced Crab, Ricotta Dumplings with Fava Beans and Savory, and Spiced Duck Sichuan Style. Though dishes like these can demand a shopping and cooking commitment, there's nothing difficult about putting them together. For cooks interested in simple yet refined cooking that veers to the deluxe (Tower's favorite hamburger is made with truffles), this cookbook is a must.

Organized by courses and food categories, the book begins, provocatively, with "Delights and Prejudices," a compendium of often-wry observations. (Tower favors using a microwave, for example, but only for reheating food--"[so used] it changes the food less than any other method," he says--but is against the pervasive roasted garlic purée, which he finds "indigestible.") Tower is also a culinary reader and dishes like English Autumn Salad (adapted from Robert May's 1685 Accomplisht Cook) and The Anchovy Toasts of Austin de Croze (from his 1931 What to Eat and Drink in Paris), among others, reflect that pursuit. A selection of mostly simple, mostly fruit desserts includes New Summer Pudding, "Burnt" Passion Fruit Curd, and Black Bottom Pie, which Tower says "needs no comment. Or rather, I can't think of any that would do justice to this perfect pie." With many more opinions, and illustrative paintings that are a welcome change from the usual food photography, the book will fill many hours with good reading as well as superior cooking. --Arthur Boehm

From Publishers Weekly
Like a culinary Zelig, Tower seems to have popped up during key moments in modern food history. He was chef at Chez Panisse in the 1970s and is often credited with inventing "California cuisine." This Renaissance man of the culinary world (he's also the author of New American Classics and a columnist for the San Francisco Examiner) has an opinion on everything, from frying eggs to aging game birds. An initial chapter of basic instructions is appropriately titled "Delights and Prejudices." Tower is admirably specific, even when it comes to something as simple as a Chicken Club Sandwich, yet not afraid to suggest shortcuts, as in Spit-Roasted Chinatown Suckling Pig Pizza, where he tells the reader simply to purchase the pre-cooked pig. Occasionally recipes veer into fussiness, as with Rich Mussel Bisque with Shrimpmeat Garlic Toasts and Nasturtiums, and Tower is not immune to the author-chef curse of calling for highly specific ingredients that mere culinary mortals may have trouble laying their hands on, as in Figs with Wild Thyme Honey in Red Wine and Lapsang Souchong Custard. On balance, however, exciting, innovative recipes such as Leatherwood Honey- and Sichuan Pepper-Glazed Rack of Lamb with Eggplant Pasta and Green Goddess Olive Oil and Lemon Sauce dominate. Donald Sultan's vivid still-life paintings are a perfect match to Tower's lively style, and if sometimes recipes get out of hand, well, that's to be expected from this kind of creative mind. (Oct.)Forecast: It has been 16 long years since Tower's New American Classics won a James Beard Award, but he returns with a bang here. Exceptionally attractive art, including an eye-catching cover, is sure to promote sales.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
As the original chef at Alice Waters's Chez Panisse and then the chef/owner of San Francisco's acclaimed Stars restaurant and its offshoots, Tower greatly shaped what came to be known as California/New American cuisine. His first cookbook, New American Classics, was published 15 years ago; his new book is a celebration of "the new American culinary tradition." Tower includes favorite recipes from throughout his career, chosen from both the contemporary dishes he is known for, such as Green Zebra Heirloom Tomato Salad and Sea Urchin Souffl,, and his interpretations of some "enduring classics," like Poached Turbot with Oyster Hollandaise. A witty and erudite writer, Tower is a man of strong opinions; "Delights and Prejudices," the first chapter, presents his philosophy on food and cooking, and recipe headnotes and other reflections throughout the book expand on that introduction. Although he has been less visible since he closed his restaurants (he is currently the host and writer of the PBS series America's Best Chefs), anyone interested in American cooking will want to read this. For most collections.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Rich Field of Culinary Controversy and Technique
If you love to cook or read about cooking, skip to the end of this review, click on the button, which says you were influenced by it, and order a copy of this book. Now??

For those of you who are not swayed by emotional arguments, here goes the real review.

Jeremiah Tower has packed more useful, controversial, and scholarly material into this book than any three other celebrity chef cookbooks combined. There is much here with which many respected chefs would take issue, but that just adds to the pleasure of reading the book.

One issue on which I disagree with chef Tower is in replacing some French terms for common cooking items or practices with ?American? translations. As a cook, I will never have a thousandth of the credentials of Monsieur Tower, but I am something of an expert on language, and Tower is simply wrong on this point. For example, he substitutes the phrase ?aromatic vegetable mix? for the French term ?Mirepoix? meaning, 1 part chopped onion, 1 part chopped celery, and one part chopped carrot. Tower adds a bay leaf to the standard definition, with which I have no argument. The mistake is twofold. First, he is substituting his new usage for all vegetable mixes, including soffrito, sofregit, and picada. Well, each of these terms means something different from mirepoix, yet he is subsuming these different meanings under a new word. Second, this new term is unknown to his audience, while mirepoix is learned upon first opening one?s first book on French cooking. On more than one occasion while reading Tower?s recipes I had to scratch my head and think twice when he said ?aromatic vegetable mix?. If he would have used the word, mirepoix, I would have sailed right through that text with no confusion whatsoever. The same argument can be made for the terms ?Au Jus?, ?Bouquet Garni?, Mesclun?, and ?Duxelles?. Tower?s claim has some merit when it comes to using ?blue? in place of ?bleu? and ?cream? in place of ?Cr?me?, depending on context. So Tower is not a linguist, but he is a cook. His following section on the meaning of conventional English cooking terms is entertaining and dead on accurate.

Tower?s recommendations on standard techniques are impeccable, and there are a lot of them. His descriptions of brining, sweating, toasting, parboiling, and pureeing are fussy enough to make Alton Brown turn green with envy. The little essay on brining brings out another rich dimension to this book in that it identifies the source of current enthusiasm for brining to be Jane Grigson?s book ?The Art of Making Sausages, Pates, and other Charcuterie?. Scholarly references like this may not mean much to some, but to me they are positively titillating. The book is packed with references to works going back to the seventeenth century, with a heavy concentration on the French classics by Careme, Escoffier, and Curnonsky. Unlike most other writers, it reminds the reader that there is not a whole lot in cookery which is really that new. My great regret on this theme is that Tower neglects to add a bibliography to this book so that one does not have to page back through the text to find the exact name of a fondly remembered reference. See his book ?California Eats? for an excellent bibliography.

Tower?s great hero among contemporary writers is Richard Olney, famous primarily as the editor of the Time-Life ?Good Cook? series and as the author on some of the most influential books on French cooking in English. Tower praises Olney for his search of quality, simplicity, and proper scholarship. It is clear that Tower has acquired the same values. However, some people, myself included, may be very puzzled by what the author calls simple. I will forego any long discussion of this until I read Olney?s famous interpretation of ?simple? in French cuisine but I will say that cooking is hard work and what is simple to Jeremiah Tower is just not so simple to amateurs like me. This does not, however, lessen the value of this book, it enhances it. Great results require exacting procedures and great respect for ingredients.

Tower?s attitudes about techniques and materials fits exactly into one of my favorite Mario Batali doctrines. If you make small improvements in the quality of your ingredients and your techniques, you will surely end up with dishes superior to those done without attention to these little details. While Mario and Tower have an enormous respect for one another, I am sure they have a lot of differences. One which stands out is Tower?s preference for fresh tomatoes in making tomato sauces. I?m afraid I have to side with Mario on this one and be happy with canned San Marzano tomatoes.

One of the most instructive of Tower?s obsessions is his recommending the mortar and pestle and the food mill over the blender and the food processor. I am certain he is right on these points.

Tower?s selection of recipes is largely from the French. All recipes show the same attention to detail. Some recipes and sidebar discussions give more than usual attention to ingredients like lobster, lettuce, and truffles, among others. Some recipes are truly simple and the novice should not dispair that the book has nothing for them. The instructions on stocks are dead on accurate. This man knows what he is doing. An interesting twist to this is that in more than one place, Tower prefers water to stock in order to bring out the tastes of the primary ingredients of the dish.

The book has no photographs of completed dishes, and I did not miss them. The impressionistic paintings by Donald Sultan add an ample visual quality to the work. The index is flawed. There are two references to Julia Child and I found at least three different references.

This book is a must for people with any interest in cooking.

Best of the Best
I have many cookbooks which are award-winners and this one beats them all by a mile. One can almost be moved by his genius and versatility with food when eating these dishes.

well titled
there are good chefs and good writers. rarely are the two combined in one person. jeremiah towers' recipes are accessible and have the personal touch that distinguishes a culinary artist. the writing has the charm and self awareness of one who knows that food is to be enjoyed, in the preparing, the eating, and the combination of daydreaming and appetite that gives birth to new recipes.