A Cookbook to Love

Cookbooks provide me with inspiration, not only for great food but also for life. Cookbooks, if they are good, take you on a tour of the intellect, spirit and philosphy. A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes is one of these. rare beasts. Author David Tanis is also a chef who will entice you with great skill with his simple, seasonal menus and recipes. Tanis’s book is about pleasure. The undeniable pleasure of eating and creating wonderful dishes A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes illustrates how easy it is to maintain a sustainable kitchen simply.

Tanis has an enviable lifestyle. Six months of the year he is head chef of Alice Water’s iconic Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, California. The remaining six months are spent in Paris preparing meals in a tiny galley kitchen in his 17th century apartment. Here Tanis plays host to a private dining club whimsically known as Aux Chiens Lunatiques for a dozen or so guests. His kitchen is ill equipped but proof that if you pay attention to detail, do it slowly and respect the inherent goodness of ingredients you can cook anywhere, anytime with whatever equipment happens to be at hand.

Tanis’s book is accompanied by photographs that will remind you of home which is precisely where he wants you to be. A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes provides 24 simple seasonal menus. This is not haute cuisine but rather home cooking at its best. No restuarant staff to bother you and your guests as you enjoy simply wonderful food. Clean flavors like wonderful olive oil or the crunchy anise flavor of raw fennel leading to a classic Italian spaghetti alio olio. The pure pleasure of a just ripe pear accompanied by Parmigiano Reggiano. How much more perfect can a fall dinner be!

Tanis will transport you to the exact moment and location of inspiration. Each of his menus are prefaced with a story about the ingredients, who he ate with or why he was there or how he found it. Menu fourteen: in Catalonia. First time eating anchovy sandwiches alone in a bar in Barcelona after sitting in the rafters for a performance of the Maurice Bejart Ballet. In Menu twenty two Feeling Italian part III tells us how his stylish great Aunt Sally, a sophisticate from Cleveland who “gloried in an elegance many women in our town of Dayton lacked” was renowned for her spaghetti soirees. Aunt Sally would invite hoards of guests who had to wait while she cooked one pound of pasta at a time in one pot. Tanis promised her he would never cook more than one pound of pasta at a time and he proclaims that he never did. “Though Aunt Sally gave me a cooking lesson I never forgot, I cannot remember her cooking for me” concludes Tanis!

Tanis illustrates in A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes that he is an artist. The book is disarming in its simplicity but do not be tempted to elaborate. Take his vision and match it with your own. To cook this way requires the each reader to teach themselves about the products and to use their characteristics as inspriation. Do it simply. Do it slowly and enjoy the experience. The charm of this style of cooking will make you as famous as Aunt Sally.