Alice Waters and The Art of Simple Food, Frontmatter

It’s August of 1971 and a 28 year-old Alice Waters is just opening her first restaurant, Chez Panisse, in Berkeley California. Fiddler on the Roof and Billy Jack are leading at the box office, along with French Connection, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, Carnal Knowledge, Dirty Harry and The Last Picture Show, but this is also the year of Harold and Maude, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Klute, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Shaft, The Andromeda Strain, Bananas, The Panic in Needle Park, Duel, Black Beauty, Brian’s Song, A Clockwork Orange—my GOD, 1971 was a good year for movies—Bedknobs and Broomsticks, The Hospital, Straw Dogs, oh and George Lucas’ premiere, THX 1138, which I hear is technically also a movie (prove me wrong).

Image from https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2021/visuals/photos-chez-panisse-50/

Earlier in the year, Gil Scott-Heron has just recorded “The Revolution will not be Televised,” Carol King has played her first live concert, Grand Funk Railroad has sold out Shea Stadium, Santana, The Grateful Dead, and Credence perform the final show at the Filmore West in San Francisco before it closes. And Jim Morrison is found dead in a hotel room in Paris in early July. In August, The Who release Who’s Next. On the same day, August 1, George Harrison, Ravi Shankar, Ringo Starr and Bob Dylan play A Concert for Bangladesh at Madison Square Garden, and The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour premieres on CBS. It’s the Summer of “Maggie Mae,” “Imagine,” “Brown Sugar,” “Rose Garden,” and “Ain’t No Sunshine.”

Ok, but you can read Wikipedia too, ok, fine.

Back to Alice Waters.

In 1971 we’re still very much living in the world of Better Homes and Gardens and Betty Crocker, canned goods and mixes. Fresh ingredient availability is something a lot of Americans will still be dealing with, but a movement towards relying more heavily on local farmers and farmers markets is on the rise. Waters is one of the first major voices of what will come to be known as the farm-to-table movement, and Chez Panisse is at its heart. Local foods, farmer’s markets, community-supported agriculture, and forming and joining community around foods and food production are all central tenets of farm-to-table, slow food, and ­The Art of Simple Food.

Chez Panisse offered a set menu every night, changing daily, and always made with the finest quality fresh and local ingredients. No out-of-season waxed cucumbers and tomatoes to make a signature Greek salad you can order any time of year. Chez Panisse was training its diners to think about their food differently.

From the beginning, central to Waters and Chez Panisse was ingredient sourcing and seasonal cooking: local dairies, farmers, and ranchers were the restaurant’s vendors. And they still are. Early menus were largely French and Mediterranean, influenced by the likes of Richard Olney and Elizabeth David. We’re talking more about French country cooking and provincial cooking here, French home-cooking, cuisine bourgeoise. Waters was especially influenced by La bonne cuisine de Madame E. Saint-Ange, the 1927 book which was translated into English by Paul Aratow, one of her co-founders of Chez Panisse, sometimes referred to as the French Joy of Cooking.

But in later years Chez Panisse menus would become quintessentially California, or what we now associate with California. As Smithsonian Magazine explains, by the early Eighties “Beef bourguignon and duck with olives were out; spicy crab pizza and warm goat cheese salad were in.”

The Art of Simple Food is not published until 2007, so the recipes here are that classic California farm-to-table cooking that Waters helped create, not so much the earlier French cuisine. Chez Panisse is still there, and Alice Waters is still the owner. But Chez Panisse and The Art of Simple Food still very much feel like a movement with one foot in the Seventies, and still adhere to their dedication to locally-sourced, seasonal ingredients, supporting local farmers, foragers, market gardeners, dairies, fishmongers, and ranchers. This coming Wednesday, March 13, for $175/person, they’ll be serving

Pennyroyal Farm goat cheese pudding soufflé with black trumpet mushrooms and herb salad
Dungeness crab and leek soup with aïoli croûton
Grilled breast and braised leg of Sonoma County duck; with glazed turnips, fried spring onions, and asparagus
Crêpes Suzette

Waters published a sequel cookbook, The Art of Simple Food II, in 2013. Chez Panisse opened a less-formal eatery in the upstairs of the restaurant in 1980, the Chez Panisse Café, and Alice Waters published the Chez Panisse Café Cookbook in 1999, which I also have, so I should dive into that a bit soon, too.

It’s hard to see it in retrospect now, because the farm-to-table and slow-food revolutions were largely successful. Farmer’s markets are more accessible than ever, or at least they are physically more accessible, and specialty or high-end grocery stores feature cheeses from local creameries and cottage-kitchen foods, and you can’t swing a dead cat in a blue downtown without hitting a new restaurant priding itself on sustainability. But geography, food deserts, and socioeconomic limitations are, 40 years later, sadly still barriers to many being able to live, shop, and cook the Alice Waters way. Also I just watched someone on TikTok wrap ground beef around raw spaghetti and sprinkle some Nerds on top, so I guess we aren’t all living adherents to the movement.

So treating The Art of Simple Food like it’s a cookbook in a vacuum would be missing out on the whole vibe. For this one, I’m going to try to live by those tenets whenever possible. The recipes themselves are highly adaptable, so I’ll include them when it makes sense to, otherwise I’m more cooking with Alice Waters.

But I’m still stupid poor, and it’s just March now, and I have almost nothing growing in the garden. Farmer’s markets, and shopping local are still, in 2024, cost prohibitive. And the farmer’s markets aren’t even open yet. Sorry, but local meat and dairy are out of my price range at the moment. But I do have access to an awesome place out in Maltby, in the Snohomish Valley, called Flower World that has a year-long market of locally grown produce that I can actually afford. Also they have goats that like head scratches. It’s a trek for us though, so part of the project will be making this all last the week, and mixing in the bounty from the garden last year, improvising, and avoiding waste.

So here’s what we’re working with:

Fresh Produce from farmer’s market (week 1):

greens
beets
leeks
radicchio
brussels sprouts
celery              
cilantro
parsley
radishes

What I have in the garden:

kale
oregano
thyme
rosemary
Oof, that’s it I think

What I’m still just gonna get from a regular-ass grocery store

onions
potatoes
meat
cheese
bread
citrus
wine/beer/liquor

From last years garden:

root cellar:

unknown pumpkin variety (lost my labels!)
garlic

freezer:

pesto (also with oil cap in fridge)
chard
kale
salsa
tomato sauce
roasted peppers
roasted beets

canned:

pickled peppers (shishito, banana, and jalapeno)
pickled cucumbers (bread and butter, garlic, and relish)
cherries (in syrup and in wine)
jams (gifts from a gifted jam maker)

dry (some from garden, some from local markets):

citrus (Grapefruit, Oranges, limes)
chile powder (anaheim, shishito, jalapeno)
chiles (birds eye, jalapeno)
peppers (baby bell)
celery
carrots
onions
garlic
beans
tomatoes (also preserved in oil in fridge)

And I have a really well stocked pantry for rice, pasta, beans, sauces, oils, vinegars, nuts, dried fruits, grains, and all sorts of other stuff because, since I moved into a house and got a label maker, I’ve become a bit of a food hoarder.

So that’s the challenge for March, a poor-person’s farm-to table pantry challenge with Alice Waters. And Luke has some favorite books he wants me to read that should slot into this well. I may revisit Wendell Barry, and do a 1971 music playlist, too, and throw in some San Francisco and Bay Area early 70s history and photos to smooth out those vibes, too.

See you back in a couple days with some food.

As always, this blog is written by human for human.