It’s unclear whether the organizers of the recent International Vegetarian conference chose Austin because of our educated population or our reputation for lively night life, but whatever their reason, they did me a big favor. Several participants just happened to be authors I wanted to interview because of my admiration for their work, and the conference brought them right to me. In the days immediately before the big meeting, publishers and public relations firms sent a flurry of faxes, press kits, and review copies to help me prepare. Have I mentioned lately that I love my job?
The damp, chilly weather didn’t deter Tenzo owner Betty Holmes. She’d advertised a picnic and booksigning with well-known vegetarian chef/cookbook author Deborah Madison, and they delivered. Guests sipped an herbed juice infusion while observing Madison and the Tenzo staff busily preparing a menu from her newest work, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone (Broadway Books, $40 hard), in the beautiful open kitchen. The dining tables were placed in front of a cozy fire but covered with bright sunflower cloths. Madison’s inviting menu included tangy baked olives, wafer-thin slices of radishes and fennel with a sprinkling of spices, a spinach fritatta, winter greens lightly dressed in truffle oil, savory leek galettes and butternut squash tarts, a moist olive oil cake with a sabayon, and a decadently dense chocolate nut torte. Before the picnic was served, Madison surprised the group by saying that even though she’s best known as the founding chef of the famous Greens vegetarian restaurant in San Francisco and the author of two very successful books on vegetarian cooking, she is not a vegetarian. Her comprehensive new book offers over 1,400 recipes that can be used to enliven a vegetarian diet or complement non-vegetarian meal plans. The mission of the book as well as her cooking classes is to teach the development of flavors, encouraging people to prepare the freshest possible ingredients in simple, delicious ways. Madison told us that the most disheartening question she invariably gets at the end of cooking classes is “Can you freeze that?” She was gratified that no one in her full class at Central Market or Tenzo had asked. Having tasted a very satisfying variety of Deborah Madison’s recipes, I’m convinced that Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone will become an inspiring, useful resource in my cookbook library. (For more information about the cooking school/meditation retreat/event facility Tenzo, contact owner Betty Holmes at 444-1230 or TenzoTx@aol.com)
Later that day, I followed San Francisco food writer Peggy Knickerbocker and food photographer Laurie Smith to Texas French Bread’s Rio Grande location for an event celebrating their new collaboration, Olive Oil, From Tree to Table (Chronicle Books, $19.95 paper). I was familiar with both women’s work from articles in Saveur magazine, particularly Knickerbocker’s cover story about Italian-American cooks in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood. Laurie Smith is a new Austin resident, and we’re lucky to have her photographic talent here. Their lovely new book educates the reader about the history, production, and variety of olive oils while enticing us into the kitchen with simple, delicious Mediterranean recipes. Peggy Knickerbocker returned home to begin work on her next cookbook with former Austinite, now successful San Francisco chef Reed Hearon.
Over a dinner at Jeffrey’s that Monday evening, California restaurateur Jesse Ziff Cool explained how she managed to operate a successful restaurant, raise kids, and write a cookbook. She spends alternating weeks with her kids and has a well-trained, professional restaurant staff with very low turnover. (Something that would probably make her the envy of many Austin restaurateurs.) Her first cookbook, Breakfast in Bed (Harper/ Collins, $19.95 hard), presents 90 recipes for creative indulgences and was obviously written by someone with a volume of experience pampering and nurturing loved ones, be they family or restaurant customers. In her 22 years of restaurant ownership, Cool’s policy has always been to cook with organic, consciously raised products. She’s now seen her chosen methods go from being considered the lunatic fringe to the trendsetting, cutting edge. Talking with Jesse Cool about food made me want to eat at her Flea Street Cafe in Menlo Park and visit the Palo Alto home where she raises chickens. Breakfast in Bed would make a good stocking stuffer for someone you’d like to spoil or perhaps as a hint to someone who should be doing the pampering.
This article appears in November 28 • 1997 and November 28 • 1997 (Cover).