Platter of Figs & Other Recipes

David Tanis might cook in the most famous restaurant in America, but here he is all about keeping meals simple at home.

In this eloquent appeal for good sense in cooking great food, Davis Tanis serves up twenty-four seasonal menus that are simply conceived and simply served--on platters, family style. His food bursts with invention and flavor, such as wild salmon with spicy Vietnamese cucumbers to celebrate spring and braised duck with fried ginger for a cool-weather dinner.

Tanis has an elemental, unpretentious finesse with ingredients and a genuine gift for words. Deliciously down-to-earth, his intuitive menus make cooking a pleasure, not a stress--whether you're "Feeling Italian" (Steamed Fennel with Red Pepper Oil; Roasted Quail with Grilled Radicchio and Creamy Polenta; Italian Plum Cake), "Slightly All-American" (Sliced Tomatoes with Sea Salt; Grilled Chicken Breasts; Corn, Squash, and Beans with Jalapeño Butter; Blueberry-Blackberry Crumble), or "Too Darned Hot, Alors!" (Provençal Toasts; Melon and Figs with Prosciutto and Mint; Deconstructed Salade Niçoise; Lavender Honey Ice Cream).

"David's recipes are simple and marvelous," says cookbook author Paula Wolfert. "What more can a food lover want?" Tanis shows you how to slow down, pay attention, give ingredients their due, and provide meals that will delight friends and family.

Here, at last, is a cookbook that has nothing to do with celebrity chefdom and everything to do with real life. Cancel the dinner reservations and pick up this book--and rediscover the pleasure of cooking at home.

"A book of great beauty and, much more rare, real wisdom about food, one that manages to instruct and delight in equal measure." --Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food

"Davis has that rare and admirable talent of making food taste as it should. He can coax a tomato to taste more like a tomato, a fig to taste more like a fig."--Nancy Silverton, author of A Twist of the Wrist

"David's book is a distillation of timeless culinary wisdom and warm, wise invention--smart, funny, beautiful, practical, and irresistible."--Judy Rodgers, author of the Zuni Café Cookbook

"Davis is a cook, but an artist, and there are so few of them in the world. I can count them on one hand."--Alice Waters, author of The Art of Simple Food

"This is a book to cook from. I absolutely love it."--Madhur Jaffrey, author of Climbing the Mango Trees

Forget about getting back to the land, David Tanis just wants you to get back to the kitchen

For six months a year, David Tanis is the head chef at Chez Panisse, the Berkeley, California, restaurant where he has worked alongside Alice Waters since the 1980s in creating a revolution in sustainable American cuisine. The other six months, Tanis lives in Paris in a seventeenth-century apartment, where he hosts intimate dinners for friends and paying guests, and prepares the food in a small kitchen equipped with nothing more than an old stove, a little counter space, and a handful of wellused pots and pans.

This is the book for anyone who wants to gather and feed friends around a table and nurture their conversation. Its not about showing off with complicated techniques and obscure ingredients. Worlds away from the showy Food Network personalities, Tanis believes that the most satisfying meals—for both the cook and the guest—are invariably the simplest.

Home cooks can easily re-create any of his 24 seasonal, market-driven menus, from springs Supper of the Lamb (Warm Asparagus Vinaigrette; Shoulder of Spring Lamb with Flageolet Beans and Olive Relish; Rum Baba with Cardamom) to winters North African Comfort Food (Carrot and Coriander Salad; Chicken Tagine with Pumpkin and Chickpeas). Best of all, Tanis is an engaging guide with a genuine gift for words, whose soulful approach to food will make any kitchen, big or small, a warm and compelling place to spend time.

Tanis shows readers how to slow down, pay attention, and give ingredients their due, in this work that serves up charming, unassuming meals.

Six months a year, David Tanis is head chef at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California, where he's been since the 1980s, helping to define the restaurant's wildly influential style. He spends the other half of the year in Paris, where he hosts dinners of international renown. David's French kitchen is a six-by-ten-foot galley with a rickety stove, a small sink, little counter space, and a half-dozen well-used pots and pans. Tanis has been featured in The New York Times, Gourmet, and Saveur.