Fanny at Chez Panisse: A Child's Restaurant Adventures with 46 Recipes - Softcover

Waters, Alice L.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060928689 ISBN 13: 9780060928681

Publisher: William Morrow Cookbooks, 1997

Synopsis

Chez Panisse is a restaurant in Berkeley, California, run by Alice Waters and her large group of friends. Her daughter Fanny's stories of this busy place are a friendly and funny introduction to the delights of real restaurant life, and her recipes show how easy and inexpensive it is to make good food with basic ingredients and simple techniques.

Opening up the magic world of cooking to children, Alice Waters describes, in the words of seven-year-old Fanny, the path food travels from the garden to the kitchen to the table. Teaching kids where food really comes from not just from the market but from farms and people who care about the earth, Fanny at Chez Panisse has lessons on the importance of eating with your hands, of garlic and of composting and recycling. It is also a delightful beginner's cookbook with 46 recipes that will tempt children into the desire to cook and eat with whole hearts, alert minds and all the senses. From banana milkshakes and green apple sherbet to cherry tomato pasta and black beans and sour cream, as well as spaghetti and meatballs, french fries and pizza, there is something here for every child to prepare and enjoy.

About this title

Review

Chez Panisse, a restaurant in Berkeley, is the brainchild of renowned chef Alice Waters. Fanny is Alice Waters's daughter and Fanny at Chez Panisse is a collection of 46 recipes that are simple, delicious, and fun to make. The first third of the book tells the story of Fanny's adventures at Chez Panisse and introduces many of the people who work and dine there. There is Bumps, a family friend who lives on a boat and makes special bread; Carrie, the florist who supplies Chez Panisse with its bouquets; and Jean, a customer who prefers to eat in the kitchen rather than the restaurant because "That's where the food and my favorite people are." Through Fanny's eyes, the reader glimpses the inner workings of a quirky, wonderful restaurant and the people who run it. (Fanny says she's not sure who runs Chez Panisse--"I think Chez Panisse runs Chez Panisse.")

The rest of the book is taken up with Fanny's favorite recipes divided into sections such as "Carrots, Cucumbers, and Bell Peppers," "Corn," "Garlic," "Fruit," and more. Recipes range from raita to Peach Crisp and Roast Chicken with Herbs, and are easy to follow with some adult supervision. Though Fanny at Chez Panisse is primarily aimed at children, the recipes in it are delicious enough for adults to enjoy as well. And remember, the family that cooks together has a really great meal to show for all that togetherness!

About the Author

Alice Waters is the visionary chef and owner of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California. She is the author of four cookbooks, including Chez Panisse Vegetables and Fanny at Chez Panisse. In 1994 she founded the Edible schoolyard at Berkeley's Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, a model curriculum that integrates organic gardening into academic classes and into the life of the school; it will soon incorporate a school lunch program in which students will prepare, serve, and share food they grow themselves, augmented by organic dairy products, grains, fruits, vegetables, meat, and fish--all locally and sustainably produced.

David Lance Goines is a Berkeley printer and designer whose friendship with Alice Waters goes back more than thirty years. His famous posters, including his annual Chez Panisse birthday posters, are in the permanent Collections of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., the Musée des Arts Décoratifs at the Louvre in Paris, the Achenbach Foundation at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco.

 

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow Cookbooks
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0060928689
• ISBN 13: 9780060928681
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 144