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 6th 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.
