Culinary Muse

A PIG IN PROVENCE

Enchanting. That is the word to describe dinner at Chez Panisse on Tuesday night. If you don’t believe me, take a look at this picture of Georgeanne Brennan and me taken by Frankie Frankeny. Do I not look like I am under a spell? And it wasn’t because of the bottle of Domain Tempier Bandol Rose either. We were invited by Chronicle Books to celebrate the release of James Beard Award winning cookbook author Georgeanne Brennan's memoir A Pig in Provence  described as a story about ‘good food and simple pleasures in the south of France’. Which pretty much describes our evening in North Berkeley.

The Chez Panisse menu was inspired by the book and read as follows:

Hors d’oeuvre (which included cubes of head cheese that Mr. Muse devoured)

Goat Cheese with Cannard farm salads and herbs (with garlic fried slices of bread)

Bouillabaisse: fish and shellfish soup with fennel and garlic crouton (which was tucked into the soup and spread with a thick layer of rouille)

Spit-roasted Laughing Stock pork loin and braised shoulder with mustard and capers, Chino Ranch vegetables and creamed greens. (We love that the kitchen left a lovely layer of fat on the pork loin and garnished the top with a crispy cube of pork skin)

Page mandarin, Meyer lemon, and blood orange sherbet in citrus cups (meringue was swirled beautifully on to the top of each and then torched ever so slightly)

The food was divine, the service friendly and efficient, the conversation between tables fun and lively. A feeling of bon temps embraced the evening as old friends and colleagues greeted each other with hugs. Even complete strangers began talking to each other as though they had known each other for years. Something was in the air.

We have enjoyed many meals at Chez Panisse. We have celebrated birthdays, anniversaries and graduations in this dining room. They have all been wonderful evenings but this one was perfect. We floated home. The trick with perfect evenings like these is to see how long the spell lasts. And what was it about the evening that was so mesmerizing? Would the book hold the answer? In a word, yes.

I gave myself the gift of uninterrupted time yesterday to enjoy the book from cover to cover. First things first: the book feels great in the hand. It is the perfect size to toss in a beach bag or hand bag or carry-on. The smooth paper cover with an illustration of the iconic Provencal fields of lavender is lovely. The inside white end papers are embossed with bouquets of rosettes reminiscent of wallpaper in 6^th arr. Paris hotel rooms or the inside of an antique bon bon box. Charming.

The story is organized into a series of chapters that each have a theme. Whether it be about goats or pigs or long summer meals, Ms. Brennan is able to convey how that theme has played itself out in her life in Provence. Goats and the making of goat cheese brought her to Provence. Pigs initiated her into the region’s longtime ‘subsistence rituals’. Long summer meals became the ritual of sharing food and connecting with family, old friends and new neighbors.

The stories transported me to Provence. The Provence of both my real experience and the mystical Provence that lives in my imagination. It was the perfect book to read after just finishing the The Omnivore's Dilemma. The rural life of Province is seductive. It is life played out on a human scale. It is a place where daily life is consciously dependant on the farmer and everyone knows who baked their baguette. Isn’t it this tradition of sharing at the table that we are trying to regain in our own lives? Which gets us back to Ms. Brennan’s book and our dinner together. It wasn’t a mysterious spell that was cast across the dining room on Tuesday night. That’s just what it feels like to enjoy well prepared food fresh from the farm, a glass of wine and the company of new and old friends. Sheer magic.

EPICURIOUS.COM AND CULINARY MUSE

Thanks to Tanya Wenman Steel, Editor-in-Chief of EPICURIOUS.COM, for mentioning both this website and THE ART OF TASTING CHOCOLATE in her Epi-Log! Read it here.

Pollan and Mackey in Berkeley

A brand new discussion about what we eat and our willingness to understand everything about how that food gets to our table began Tuesday night in Berkeley. How appropriate. It is to the credit of John Mackey, CEO and co-founder of WHOLE FOODS, that he was willing to engage in a conversation with Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma (see Amazon listing at left), in front of a sold out audience of over 2,000 and talk about his vision for the future of food. A vision that demands that the failings of the industrial era be corrected.

I have to say that I was wondering what would happen as he began to speak to the Berkeley audience. This can be a tough crowd. It is no accident that the FREE SPEECH MOVEMENT started here. But it is an intelligent audience as well. I am sure that Mr. Mackey knew what he was up against. As soon as he began speaking it was clear that he was well prepared to take the discussion beyond the usual corporate double speak that we have come to expect from most American CEOs defending their company’s practices.

I think that most people were probably surprised to see that he was showing a five minute film about how farm animals (chickens, pigs, dairy cattle) are treated. It was graphic and disturbing. But, hey, if you are going to eat protein in this form you should be willing to see how it is treated. The government has no laws to prevent cruelty to farm animals. Mr. Mackey was willing to talk to an audience about probably the most disturbing part of our food chain and admitted that while Whole Foods still sells animal products that are processed in this manner they are doing what they can to fund humanely raised animals. This theme played out for the rest of the evening. While they can’t solve all the problems inherent in our food system they are willing to put money behind supporting solutions which include loans to farmers and grants to authentic food artisans - think SLOW FOOD.

Given the discussion on this site about why I didn't buy the $8.00 eggs I was most interested to hear what Mr. Mackey had to say about the issue of elitisim and the accusation that it is expensive to eat well. His response? "If you are willing to cook, food is not that expensive". How to spend less at Whole Foods? Shop their house brands, called the ‘365' line and buy seasonally which "requires intelligence and discipline". They also plan to match Trader Joe's prices on items that they both carry.  Bravo.  Now I can buy my King Arthur flour and Dundee marmalade at Whole Foods. Watch the webcast here.