Scan barcode
A review by pattydsf
Coming to My Senses: The Making of a Counterculture Cook by Alice Waters
4.0
”People want to know how I came to open a restaurant at twenty-seven years old. I never went to culinary school, I never cooked professionally. Why a restaurant? Why this kind of restaurant? Why this kind of cooking? How did I have the courage to open it?”
If I had a bucket list, I suspect that most of the entries would be restaurants that I want to eat it. Or a list of chefs whose food I want to eat. Food is important to all of us, but excellent food is something I would happily pay for. Unfortunately, I can’t afford to travel to and eat at all the places I would like to. So, I read about food as often as possible.
Waters is definitely a chef whose food I would like to try. I have eaten at many restaurants whose food has been influenced by Waters and Chez Panisse. However, for me, I don’t expect to ever eat at this café. The way we eat in this country has been changed by this chef and she didn’t even plan to open a restaurant, let alone to change the way a nation eats.
I found this story fascinating. Waters looks back at her life and tries to answer the questions that I quote above. She knows where she is, but others do not. And many people want to know how Waters invented herself.
The hardest part about reading this memoir is that Waters only writes about her life up to the opening of her famous restaurant. I found her early life fascinating and was more than happy to learn about her growing up, her schooling and how she made her way to California. But then the book stopped. Please, Ms Waters write another book. I want to know more.
If you like to read about food, this book may or may not be for you. Waters doesn’t tell all her secrets of running Chez Panisse for all these years. However, if you like to see the inner workings of another person, I recommend this memoir to you. Waters has really considered how she came to her senses.
If I had a bucket list, I suspect that most of the entries would be restaurants that I want to eat it. Or a list of chefs whose food I want to eat. Food is important to all of us, but excellent food is something I would happily pay for. Unfortunately, I can’t afford to travel to and eat at all the places I would like to. So, I read about food as often as possible.
Waters is definitely a chef whose food I would like to try. I have eaten at many restaurants whose food has been influenced by Waters and Chez Panisse. However, for me, I don’t expect to ever eat at this café. The way we eat in this country has been changed by this chef and she didn’t even plan to open a restaurant, let alone to change the way a nation eats.
I found this story fascinating. Waters looks back at her life and tries to answer the questions that I quote above. She knows where she is, but others do not. And many people want to know how Waters invented herself.
The hardest part about reading this memoir is that Waters only writes about her life up to the opening of her famous restaurant. I found her early life fascinating and was more than happy to learn about her growing up, her schooling and how she made her way to California. But then the book stopped. Please, Ms Waters write another book. I want to know more.
If you like to read about food, this book may or may not be for you. Waters doesn’t tell all her secrets of running Chez Panisse for all these years. However, if you like to see the inner workings of another person, I recommend this memoir to you. Waters has really considered how she came to her senses.