Cookbooks provide me with inspiration, not only for great food but also for life. Cookbooks, if they are good, take you on a tour of the intellect, spirit and philosphy. A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes is one of these. rare beasts. Author David Tanis is also a chef who will entice you with great skill with his simple, seasonal menus and recipes. Tanis’s book is about pleasure. The undeniable pleasure of eating and creating wonderful dishes A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes illustrates how easy it is to maintain a sustainable kitchen simply.
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.
Tanis’s book is accompanied by photographs that will remind you of home which is precisely where he wants you to be. A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes provides 24 simple seasonal menus. This is not haute cuisine but rather home cooking at its best. No restuarant staff to bother you and your guests as you enjoy simply wonderful food. Clean flavors like wonderful olive oil or the crunchy anise flavor of raw fennel leading to a classic Italian spaghetti alio olio. The pure pleasure of a just ripe pear accompanied by Parmigiano Reggiano. How much more perfect can a fall dinner be!
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.
A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes is charming and disarming in its simplicity but don’t be fooled. This is the work of an artist. Don’t be tempted to elaborate but do emulate. Take your time. Learn about the food you cook and eat. Cook with simply charming inspiration. You and those you cook for will be deliciously delighted.
