A Platter Of Figs And Other Recipes

Forget about getting back to the land, David Tanis just wants you to get back to the kitchen For six months a year, David Tanis is the head chef at Chez Panisse, the Berkeley, California, restaurant where he has worked alongside Alice Waters since the 1980s in creating a revolution in sustainable American cuisine. The other six months, Tanis lives in Paris in a seventeenth-century apartment, where he hosts intimate dinners for friends and paying guests, and prepares the food in a small kitchen equipped with nothing more than an old stove, a little counter space, and a handful of wellused pots and pans. This is the book for anyone who wants to gather and feed friends around a table and nurture their conversation. It’s not about showing off with complicated techniques and obscure ingredients. Worlds away from the showy Food Network personalities, Tanis believes that the most satisfying meals—for both the cook and the guest—are invariably the simplest. Home cooks can easily re-create any of his 24 seasonal, market-driven menus, from spring’s Supper of the Lamb (Warm Asparagus Vinaigrette; Shoulder of Spring Lamb with Flageolet Beans and Olive Relish; Rum Baba with Cardamom) to winter’s North African Comfort Food (Carrot and Coriander Salad; Chicken Tagine with Pumpkin and Chickpeas). Best of all, Tanis is an engaging guide with a genuine gift for words, whose soulful approach to food will make any kitchen, big or small, a warm and compelling place to spend time.

Recipes from a very small kitchen by a man with a very large talent. Nobody better embodies the present-day mantra "Eat real food in season" than David Tanis, one of the most original voices in American cooking. For more than a quarter-century, Tanis has been the chef at the groundbreaking Chez Panisse, in Berkeley, California, where the menu consists solely of a single perfect meal that changes each evening. Tanis’s recipes are down-to-earth yet sophisticated, simple to prepare but impressive on the plate. Tanis opens this soulful, fun-to-read cookbook with his own private food rituals, those treats—jalapeño pancakes, beans on toast, pasta for one—for when you are on your own in the kitchen with no one else to satisfy. Then he follows with twenty incomparable menus (five per season) that serve four to six. Each transports the reader to places far and wide. And for grand occasions, a time for the whole tribe to gather around the table, Tanis delivers festive menus for holiday feasts. So in one book, three kinds of cooking: small, medium, and large.

In this, his first non-menu cookbook, the New York Times food columnist offers 100 utterly delicious recipes that epitomize comfort food, Tanis-style. Individually or in combination, they make perfect little meals that are elemental and accessible, yet totally surprising—and there’s something to learn on every page. Among the chapter titles there’s “Bread Makes a Meal,” which includes such alluring recipes as a ham and Gruyère bread pudding, spaghetti and bread crumbs, breaded eggplant cutlets, and David’s version of egg-in-a-hole. A chapter called “My Kind of Snack” includes quail eggs with flavored salt; speckled sushi rice with toasted nori; polenta pizza with crumbled sage; raw beet tartare; and mackerel rillettes. The recipes in “Vegetables to Envy” range from a South Indian dish of cabbage with black mustard seeds to French grandmother–style vegetables. “Strike While the Iron Is Hot” is all about searing and quick cooking in a cast-iron skillet. Another chapter highlights dishes you can eat from a bowl with a spoon. And so it goes, with one irrepressible chapter after another, one perfect food moment after another: this is a book with recipes to crave.

Named a Best Cookbook to Give and Get by Food & Wine, Martha Stewart Living, the Boston Globe, the Chicago Tribune, the Houston Chronicle, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and Eater David Tanis Market Cooking is about seeking out the best ingredients, learning the qualities of each, and the methods and recipes that showcase what makes them special—pulling from all the world’s great cuisines. Sections on universal ingredients—such as alliums (garlic, onion, shallots, leeks, etc.)—offer some of the simplest yet most satisfying recipes in the world. Consider the onion in these three marvelous incarnations: Lebanese Caramelized Onions, American Buttermilk Fried Onion Rings, and French Onion and Bacon Tart. And the chile section encourages readers to use real chiles (rather than reach for bottled hot sauce) on an everyday basis in recipes from Morocco to India, from Mexico to China, with wonderful results. A masterwork of recipes, approach, technique, and philosophy, David Tanis Market Cooking is as inspiring as it is essential. This is how to become a more intuitive and spontaneous cook. This is how to be more discerning in the market and freer in the kitchen. This is how to transform the freshest ingredients into one perfectly delicious dish after another, guided by the core beliefs that have shaped David Tanis’s incomparable career: Food doesn’t have to be fussy to be satisfying. Seasonal vegetables should be central to a meal. Working with food is a joy, not a chore.

Known for his modern take on classic Austrian cuisine, Chef Kurt Gutenbrunner shares his favorite contemporary and traditional recipes, and the cultural heritage that has inspired him. Internationally acclaimed Austrian chef Kurt Gutenbrunner, whose New York City restaurants include Cafe Sabarsky, Wallse, and Blaue Gans, brings to the home kitchen the fascinating Viennese cafe and restaurant traditions from the fin de siecle to today. Neue Cuisine is one of the first publications to feature not only Austrian cooking but also art and design. More than 100 recipes cover Viennese specialties, such as apple strudel and Wiener Schnitzel, as well as modern dishes using fresh-from-the-market ingredients, such as pea soup with pineapple mint; spatzle with white corn, Brussels sprouts, mushrooms, and tarragon; and lobster with cherries, fava beans, and Bearnaise sauce. Photographed with period tabletop accessories and art from the Neue Galerie to capture the elegance of Vienna in 1900, these easy-to-prepare dishes are perfect for a variety of occasions.

Recipes from a very small kitchen by a man with a very large talent. Nobody better embodies the present-day mantra "Eat real food in season" than David Tanis, one of the most original voices in American cooking. For more than a quarter-century, Tanis has been the chef at the groundbreaking Chez Panisse, in Berkeley, California, where the menu consists solely of a single perfect meal that changes each evening. Tanis’s recipes are down-to-earth yet sophisticated, simple to prepare but impressive on the plate. Tanis opens this soulful, fun-to-read cookbook with his own private food rituals, those treats—jalapeño pancakes, beans on toast, pasta for one—for when you are on your own in the kitchen with no one else to satisfy. Then he follows with twenty incomparable menus (five per season) that serve four to six. Each transports the reader to places far and wide. And for grand occasions, a time for the whole tribe to gather around the table, Tanis delivers festive menus for holiday feasts. So in one book, three kinds of cooking: small, medium, and large.

Named a Best Cookbook to Give and Get by Food & Wine, Martha Stewart Living, the Boston Globe, the Chicago Tribune, the Houston Chronicle, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and Eater David Tanis Market Cooking is about seeking out the best ingredients, learning the qualities of each, and the methods and recipes that showcase what makes them special—pulling from all the world’s great cuisines. Sections on universal ingredients—such as alliums (garlic, onion, shallots, leeks, etc.)—offer some of the simplest yet most satisfying recipes in the world. Consider the onion in these three marvelous incarnations: Lebanese Caramelized Onions, American Buttermilk Fried Onion Rings, and French Onion and Bacon Tart. And the chile section encourages readers to use real chiles (rather than reach for bottled hot sauce) on an everyday basis in recipes from Morocco to India, from Mexico to China, with wonderful results. A masterwork of recipes, approach, technique, and philosophy, David Tanis Market Cooking is as inspiring as it is essential. This is how to become a more intuitive and spontaneous cook. This is how to be more discerning in the market and freer in the kitchen. This is how to transform the freshest ingredients into one perfectly delicious dish after another, guided by the core beliefs that have shaped David Tanis’s incomparable career: Food doesn’t have to be fussy to be satisfying. Seasonal vegetables should be central to a meal. Working with food is a joy, not a chore.

From the kitchen of acclaimed chef David Tanis, an irresistible collection of home-cooked dishes