A Delicious Revolution
Mark K January 23rd, 2008
Since I’ve now become a baker and am finally kindling an interest in learning to cook more than somethat that can be warmed in a microwave or stuffed inside a folded tortilla, my wife decided to give me a cookbook for Christmas. It’s the perfect cookbook for someone like me who is always looking at ways to slow down, notice and appreciate life – Alice Waters’ “The Art of Simple Food”.
Around 1970, Ms. Waters had returned from cooking school in Europe and wanted to open a restaurant serving dishes made from fresh, seasonal, delicious ingredients like the ones she had enjoyed in France. She soon discovered that the best way to find these products was to buy directly from farmers and so she started shopping at local farmer’s markets. She found that at her restaurant, Chez Panisse in Berkeley, she could prepare simple dishes but that the flavors would be extraordinary because the food would taste like what it was – you could distinguish and taste the incredible ingredients that she had used.
When people asked where they could get these items, she would tell them that they, too could find the same ingredients at their local farmer’s market. This is one of the principals of what she calls a “delicious revolution”. Here are her nine principals:
1. Eat locally and sustainably
2. Eat seasonally – choose food that is at its best during that season
3. Shop at farmer’s markets
4. Plant a garden
5. Conserve, compost, recycle
6. Cook simply, engaging all your senses
7. Cook together
8. Eat together
9. Remember food is precious
As I start to read the book, it resonates with me because my intuition has long told me that slowing down, eating consciously rather than “fueling”, spending quality time with family and friends at mealtimes, growing a garden – are all things that I should have in my life but somehow never find the time to fully implement. Alice Waters uses the term “sustainable” and it occured to me that this year might be the time to make some sustainable resolutions – not to go on a crash diet or workout frenzy, but rather to change my lifestyle to one that is simpler and more satisfying.
I think that I’ll work my way through this book and try out Alice Water’s principals. Maybe in some future posting, I’ll write about my own revolutionary principals.
