The Chef Who Owns No Measuring Cups
Also, a fantastic new kind of Chili Crisp. And great seasonal recipes.
It’s the 51st anniversary of Chez Panisse, and if you’ve spent the last half decade watching American restaurants grow and change, you can’t help admiring Alice Waters. I’ve probably written a dozen articles about Alice but this one, written soon after her daughter Fanny was born, is the most intimate.
Reading it I’m amazed by how little Alice has changed. Most restaurateurs cash out when they become famous: they expand, make a lot of money, become world-wide brands. Not Alice. She still lives in the same small Berkeley house she lived in when we shot this article. Walk in and. you might well find the friends pictured here sitting at her table. She drives a Prius. And she never stops trying to change the world.
Meanwhile, her own world is changing: Alice is going to be a grandmother. That adorable baby in the photograph below is about to have her first child.
Move over chili crisp! If you’re looking for a different flavor profile, you might want to consider chile crisp (it’s real name is salsa negra). I’m particularly partial to the version made by Costa Mesa’s beloved Taco Maria.
Taco Maria is a modest taqueria with sophisticated food and a Michelin star. In the words of the tire company, vaut le voyage.
The restaurant makes three versions of their salsa, which they serve on almost everything; my favorite is the salsa negra made with ancho chiles. The color is dark, the flavor intense but not spicy; it tastes good on just about every savory dish. For a touch of heat I mix in a bit of Taco Maria’s very spicy salsa de arbol.
The Chef Who Owns No Measuring Cups
Hello Ruth, I hear you're a big fan of condiments! Sending you a recipe of a condiment called "Bhurrka," which is similar in spirit to chili crisp. Bhurrka hails from the western Indian state of Maharashtra (whose capital is Mumbai) and you may very well find a farmer eating heart, coarse sorghum bread with bhurrka and hand-whacked tiny and sweet yet intense white onions. https://food52.com/recipes/80753-bhurrka
I live minutes from Taco Maria. Lucky me! Their food is innovative & always an adventure. Your remembrances about Alice & Fanny are priceless. Keep remembering & writing; just soo good.