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

by Alice L. Waters

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780060928681
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	09/06/1997
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	144
Sales rank:	605,501
Product dimensions:	7.50(w) x 10.88(h) x (d)
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

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.

 

Read an Excerpt

1-2-3-4 Cake

This cake is called 1-2-3-4 because it is a very old recipe and people could remember the ingredients by the numbers without having to write it down. This is what we make for birthday cakes. It is very good plain, or with lemon curd and fresh violets.

Two 8- Or 9-Inch Layers

1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks) at room temperature
2 cups sugar
3 cups cake flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup milk

Turn on the oven to 350° F. Measure all the ingredients and get organized before you begin to make the batter. The butter should be soft. Cut it into small pieces, and put in a large bowl. Measure the sugar and set aside.

Sift the cake flour, scoop into a measuring cup, scrape a knife across the top of the cup to level it, and measure 3 cups. Put the flour in a separate bowl. Measure level teaspoons of the baking powder and add to the flour. Measure the salt and add to the flour. Mix together.

Separate the eggs. Put the whites in one bowl and the yolks in another. Have the vanilla ready, and measure the milk and set aside.

Butter the insides of two 8- or 9-inch cake pans. Rub a small amount of butter all over the inside; don't miss the corners. Then put a tablespoon or so of flour in the pan and turn it all around so the pan is completely dusted with flour. Turn the pan upside down, and tap the edge on the table to let the extra flour fall out.

Now everything is ready to make the batter. Beat the butter with a wooden spoon or in a mixer until light and fluffy. Add the sugar and beat again until very fluffy and light yellow. This is what itmeans to cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg yolks and beat them in briefly. Add 1teaspoon vanilla and mix it in well.

Next add the flour and milk in parts. Sift about half of the flour over the butter mixture and lightly stir it in. Exchange the spoon for a large rubber spatula, and pour in about half the milk. Use the spatula to gently mix the milk into the batter. Sift over the rest of the flour and stir it in. Pour in the rest of the milk and gently mix it in.

The last step is to beat the egg whites and fold them into the batter. Put the egg whites into a very clean metal bowl, and beat with a whisk or mixer. They will gradually thicken and get very white as you beat in air bubbles. When the whites are very fluffy and will hold a soft peak shape when you lift up the whisk, they're ready.

Scoop up some of the whites with the spatula, add to the batter, and very gently stir them in. This will lighten the batter and make it easier to fold in the rest of the whites. Then pour the rest of the whites onto the batter and begin to fold them in. Folding is more delicate than stirring. Use the spatula to lift up some of the batter from the bottom of the bowl and fold it over the whites. Turn the bowl a little and fold again. Do that just until the egg whites are mixed in. The air bubbles in the whites will give the cake a light and delicate texture.

Divide the batter between the cake pans, and put in the center of the oven to bake for about 25 minutes. When the cakes are lightly browned, and a toothpick stuck in the center comes out clean, they're done. Remove from the oven and cool on a rack.

You can cut the recipe in half to make a single layer cake. Or a full recipe will make 32 cupcakes—fill the papers half full.

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Roast Chicken with Herbs

One 3- to 4-pound chicken
1 teaspoon rosemary, chopped
1 teaspoon thyme, chopped
1 teaspoon oregano or marjoram, chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 clove garlic

Rinse the chicken inside and out with cold water. Remove the two pockets of fat just inside the cavity, then pat dry with a towel.

Make an herb paste by mixing the chopped herbs, salt, pepper, olive oil, and garlic. Hold the pointy ends of a fork against a plate and rub the peeled garlic against the tips to make a juicy puree. Rub the paste all over the outside of the chicken.

Set the chicken on a rack in a roasting pan, breast side up, and cook in a 375°F oven for 20 minutes. Then turn the chicken over and cook another 20 minutes, breast side down. Then turn it over again, breast side up, for the last 20 minutes of cooking. If the bird is on the large side, 4 pounds or more, it will need an additional 15 minutes.

When it is cooked, remove from the oven, lightly cover with foil, and let it sit for 15 to 20 minutes. This resting time is very important for all cooked meats so that the texture will be tender and juicy. Before cutting and serving, collect the juices from the roasting pan, skim off the layer of clear fat from the top, and moisten the servings with the tasty juices.

We often have a simple supper of roast or grilled chicken with lettuce vinaigrette and garlic croutons. The chicken juices and the vinaigrette are really good together.

Editorial Reviews

Fanny is none other than the seven-year-old daughter of Waters, lending her voice here to tell the story of a child's life--her own--at Chez Panisse, her mother's celebrated restaurant in Berkeley, Calif. This device does not quite work; the writing is arch and flat by turns. It's hard to believe, for example, that even the most ingenuous nymph would let slip, ``Chez Panisse means `Panisse's house' in French. Fanny just means Fanny. My mom got both our names from an old French movie. . . . The movies always make my mom laugh and cry. I can make my mom laugh and cry, too, but it's not quite the same.''4 The book contains 46 recipes, all Fanny's: ``Some of them I learned from my mom and my friends and . . . others I've just made up.'' A few are simplistic, like lettuce salad: ``I like salad with lots of different kinds of lettuce. . . . Choose lettuce carefully. Small lettuces are more tender than large overgrown ones. Fresh lettuce looks like it's still growing.'' Garlic mayonnaise seems too complicated for the skills and attention of young children such as Fanny, who would have to add oil to egg yolk `` drop by drop '' and later thin the mixture with several additions of half-teaspoons of warm water.74 The many line drawings are airy and charming. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly