Morning Roundup: Goodbye, Abe Edition
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Photo of the Day: November 25, 2009
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With the revival of classic cookbooks propelled by the releases of The Silver Spoon and Julie and Julia -- the blog-turned-book in which Julie Powell writes on cooking every recipe in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking -- it’s worth noting the death of chef and cookbook writer Edna Lewis, 89. Lewis didn't just compile recipes. Having authored The Taste of Country Cooking, she's largely credited with explaining and showcasing Southern cooking to the nation’s palettes.
The cookbook -- arranged by season and subdivided by breakfast, lunch, and dinner -- reads more like a food history than a collection of recipes. Originally published in 1976, Lewis’ book is cited as having influenced James Beard, Mark Bittman, and Southern food preservationist John Edgerton. As reported in her obituary in Tuesday’s New York Times, food writer Craig Claiborne had once referred to it as “the most entertaining regional cookbook in America.”
Lewis grew up on her family farm 70 miles south of D.C. in Freetown, Va. In cooking for her family, she often improvised measurements and cooking times, but always adhered to what was later embraced as Alice Waters' philosophy of cooking unadultered food in-season to preserve purity of flavor.
Lewis’s most recent cookbook, The Gift of Southern Cooking, won the James Beard award in the “Cooking of the Americas” cookbook category in 2004 -- the same year in which Ann Cashion of Cashion’s Eat Place was named Beard's “Best Mid-Atlantic Chef.” Earlier this month in the Post’s “What’s Cooking” online discussion, Kim O’Donnell referenced Lewis’ most recent book, just as she's done in past chats.
What's more, Lewis is a source of inspiration -- and lavatory art -- for Colorado Kitchen's Gillian Clark. “She most definitely influences my cooking,” said Clark. “I have her recipes wallpapered to the wall of [Colorado Kitchen's] bathroom. I refer to them often.”
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"wallpapered to the wall of [Colorado Kitchen's] bathroom"
Right next to the "Employees Must Wash Hands" sign?
Some people wallpaper a room with New Yorker Cartoons. She's done it with recipes.
I don't think it's the fact that Clark has wallpapered the bathoom with recipes that seems odd. It's the fact that she follows that statement up by immediately saying, "I refer to them often," which brings unintended images of the chef running back and forth between the kitchen and the bathroom while in the midst of preparing some complicated dish . . . While I'm sure that's not the case, it's hardly the sort of picture you want to paint as a restaurateur, even accidentally.
I hear you. I spoke to her on the phone. When I did, I got the sense that either she was being cheeky and/or that they're nonsequiturs.
The good thing is that Clark, like any other top notch chef, doesn't need to rely on recipes while she's cooking. Perhaps in planning, brainstorming for a menu, or whatever, but not while she's working wonders in the kitchen.