I Love Cookbooks

Cookbooks inspire me. The inspiration they provide me with is not just to cook but almost more importantly inspiration for life. A good cookbook has the ability to take the reader on a voyage that affects you intellectually, spiritually and philosophically. A platter of figs and other recipes is one of these and is one of my favourites. Chef and author David Tanis artfully illustrates seasonal, simple and skillful cooking. The book is about the pure pleasure of eating, supporting local producers and maintaining a sustainable kitchen.

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.

With twenty four menus divided into four seasons provding you with 6 menus for each season and accompanied by elegant yet homely photographs, Tanis’s book has you right where he wants you to be – at home. Within this cookbook you will not find recipes that take days to prepare. Rather imagine simple elegant prepartions that will allow you the luxury of lingering with friends and family over the dinner table without being rushed out or your seats. Enjoy the inherent tastes of each ingredient such as the clean crispness of raw fennel and exquisite olive oil that whets your appetite for authentic spaghetti alio e olio. To finish this simply wonderful autumn menu experience Italy’s famous Parmigiano Reggiano and a pear ripened to perfection. What more could you ask for?

Tanis’s book will take you to lock stock and barrel to place and time of inspiration. He accompanies each menu with a tale of the ingredients, who he shared each meal with and how or where he found his inspiration. Menu number 14 tells where Tanis experienced eating anchovy sandwiches alone in a Barcelona bar after a performance of the Belgium’s Bejart Ballet. Feeling Italian part three is Menu 22 where he recounts a memory of his Aunt Sally, a stylish sophisticate from Cleveland who gloried in her elegance and was renowned for her spaghetti evenings. Aunt Sally’s many guests would have to wait while she prepared 1 pound of pasta in one pot of water at a time. She made him promise always to follow her pasta cooking instructions and he did. But despite the never forgotten lesson Tanis tells us Aunt Sally was remiss in cooking for him.

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.