Annie's review
The Art of Simple Food: Notes and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution by Alice Waters
I'm being biased in my star rating because this isn't really a great cookbook by any means. I just love Alice Waters and appreciate her purpose in writing this.
This isn't so much a "cookbook" as it is a book that tries to educate on how to approach food differently, to get our minds out of the increasingly fast-food mentality.
If someone who didn't know Alice Waters' goals were to pick it up, they might be disappointed with the cursory, almost random-seeming and too-simple recipes. They read like conversations with Waters, who uses them as vehicles to illustrate her approach to fine ingredients and techniques. They also provide a good base for ideas that you can tweak and be creative with.
Recently, I read an interview with a former chef of Chez Panisse. He said in their early days of fame, people would make a pilgrimage out to Berkley and be disappointed or surprised to see the food was nothing spectacular, nothing fancy. Just simple, good food - special in its sim...more
This isn't so much a "cookbook" as it is a book that tries to educate on how to approach food differently, to get our minds out of the increasingly fast-food mentality.
If someone who didn't know Alice Waters' goals were to pick it up, they might be disappointed with the cursory, almost random-seeming and too-simple recipes. They read like conversations with Waters, who uses them as vehicles to illustrate her approach to fine ingredients and techniques. They also provide a good base for ideas that you can tweak and be creative with.
Recently, I read an interview with a former chef of Chez Panisse. He said in their early days of fame, people would make a pilgrimage out to Berkley and be disappointed or surprised to see the food was nothing spectacular, nothing fancy. Just simple, good food - special in its sim...more
