In the Green Kitchen: Techniques to Learn by Heart

In the Green Kitchen: Techniques to Learn by Heart

by Alice Waters
Clarkson Potter, 160 pp., $28

Alice Waters is arguably the biggest name in all of foodie land. Often credited with originating the entire farm-to-table movement, her influential Chez Panisse cookbooks, her involvement with the slow food movement, and her tireless work to improve nutrition in our public schools have made her a household name. I had to ask myself: "Does she really need any more publicity? Perhaps I should review a cookbook by a less well-known author."

But after reading and cooking through a stack of recent cookbooks, the fact remains that In the Green Kitchen is simply one of the best published so far this year, and the one that I am most eager to shout from the rooftops about. It's not just a collection of recipes: It provides, in its unique structure, something that has been missing up until now in the American food reawakening. It is a manual of cooking techniques – not elaborate ones but the everyday techniques that most recipes breeze over, assuming that the cook has simply absorbed these techniques along with other general knowledge.

But in reality, most people follow cooking directions the best way they can figure how, often guessing at what technical terms mean, with predictably less-than-stellar results. In the Green Kitchen takes all the basic techniques – such as simmering, braising, poaching, grilling, blanching, roasting, filleting, and wilting – and has an expert in that technique (usually a renowned chef) explain it by walking the reader through a simple, signature recipe. Waters also takes techniques that we all think we know how to do, such as boiling pasta, making rice, toasting bread crumbs, washing lettuce, kneading bread, and roasting a chicken, and gives them the same treatment. The result is a collection of really useful, delicious, signature recipes that at the same time functions as a substitute for the hands-on cooking instruction most of us did not get as young people.

It is always a cause for rejoicing when a book can function on more than one level this way; for the experienced cook, the recipes are the payoff, and for the beginner, the technical instruction makes this a great buy. Add in the gorgeous full-color photos and the defining principles of freshness and simplicity in cooking, and Waters has hit another ball out of the park.