Fork It Over The Intrepid Adventures of a Professional Eater-Mantesh by Unknown (rm book recommendations .TXT) 📕

my table was the favorite of Academy Award–winning actor Red Buttons, the fourth-funniest man named Red (behind Skel-ton, Foxx, and Auerbach). I can only surmise that Red enjoys reliving the misery of the dining room scene from The Poseidon Adventure, one of his more memorable movies. I asked to be moved and was immediately seated among my betters, at a table near the open kitchen, where I could watch cooks in white doo-rags bustling about. I didn’t see Puck, but I noticed executive chef Lee Hefter and executive pastry chef Sherry Yard, well-known culinary figures in their own right.

Hefter was supervising the kitchen staff, while Yard was doing the rounds of the dining room, greeting regulars, at the moment seated in a booth with friends. When a plate of steamed mussels arrived, she clapped her hands gleefully and waved the aroma their way. For my friends and me, no applauding chefs. Still, the standard complimentary amuse-gueules, spicy tuna tartare in a miso-infused cone followed by foie gras over chopped figs, were remarkable.

Then Yard recognized me, or at least suspected she did. She utilized a very clever find-the-food-critic maneuver. She stood in front of me, stuck out her hand, and introduced herself. What else could I do except confess? That’s when I got the kind of treatment Red Buttons could only dream about: out came enough food to satisfy the midnight buffet line on a cruise ship. Our waiter asked if we had enough room, and offered to expand our table if we felt cramped. I could have had it all.

F O R K I T O V E R

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I was tempted to demand the removal of the lowlifes at the table adjoining ours—their clinking silverware was annoying me—but I took pity on them. I could have insisted on Sinatra instead of the grating techno-rock, but then I came to my senses. I had become a celebrity food writer for a moment, giving me a glimpse of the corruption inherent in fame.

Between courses, I asked Yard why Puck wasn’t in the restaurant.

She said he was usually around. Actually, it hardly mattered. Hefter, a Jersey guy, is such a masterful chef that to me Spago doesn’t suffer when Puck takes a night off. I can’t think of another celebrity-chef restaurant with a deputy as talented as Hefter.

I asked Yard what influence Puck has on her desserts, and she went into mimicry mode. She puffed up her cheeks, and said in a very inept Austrian accent, “Make it bigger. Bigger!” Her reply to him? “Wolf, this isn’t a diner.” For dessert, I had Persian mulberries that Yard found at a farmer’s market. I didn’t know there were mulberries in Persia. I didn’t even know there was a Persia. I always thought mulberries were underachieving blackberries, but these were explosively sweet. With perfect mulberries, who needs a celebrity chef? Who even needs a chef?

Up north, just outside San Francisco, is the long-running restaurant of Alice Waters, a celebrity chef against her will. She has done little to exploit her reputation as one of the pioneers of new American cuisine except put out cookbooks. She has one restaurant, one vision. What Puck did for pizza, she did for produce. She is a consecrated figure, a hearty helping of Julia Child with a pinch of Mahatma Gandhi.

Obtaining a reservation downstairs at Chez Panisse is nearly impossible. I did it by accepting a table upstairs (where more casual food is offered) and asking to be placed on the downstairs waiting list. The menu there is straightforward: one set meal at one set price is served each evening. What I’d heard is that people with downstairs reservations check the Chez Panisse website to learn if they like what’s being served the night they’ve booked. If it’s Tunisian night, or something like that, they cancel. The night I went, it wasn’t something like that. It was Tunisian night.

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A L A N R I C H M A N

That has to be how I got my table. Everybody read that they had to pay fifty dollars for Tunisian short ribs plus salad and pie and decided pizza at home sounded great. I got a 9:15 p.m. slot, late for California but probably very chic for Tunisia.

I was thrilled. Finally I was to eat at a restaurant I’d admired from afar for decades. I admit that I wasn’t entirely open to the idea of eating food from a country that doesn’t have any good restaurants. And I’m pretty sure the last time Tunisian short ribs appeared on a menu was during the Second Punic War. Short ribs are profoundly heavy fare, a cut of beef favored by folks who enter pie-eating contests at state fairs.

Chez Panisse—the word chez, with its snazzy French connotations, is misleading—looked nothing like what I expected. The exterior is cluttered with vines on overhead trestles, making the restaurant resemble some cheesy Italian red-sauce spot. There was also a peace sign fabricated from garlic bulbs left over from a Bastille Day celebration.

My first impression after walking inside was that the place needed some serious livening up, the sort that could be provided by the presence of a spirited celebrity chef. I asked the sommelier when Waters would be arriving, and he said, matter-of-factly, “She has a lot of projects going on.” I glanced into the open kitchen. The cook doing most of the work had a funny beard and could well have been Amish. I told the waitress I was hoping for Waters, not some dour-looking guy specializing in funnel cake. She told me that Waters “never cooks here.

She’s hired chefs who she trusts. She might come in and taste, but the restaurant runs itself.”

Chez Panisse is not a conventional restaurant. It’s an ideology, a way of life. It’s not about idle pleasure. It is about proper nourishment.

It teaches you what is good for you. Do Americans need such lessons?

Sure. Do we appreciate such lessons? Not